Emma, In Love And Squalour

When I first met Emma Forrest, she was a teenage contender in London, writing with rare talent about the popular culture that enthused her. She had decided that Richey from the Manic Street Preachers was the Byron of his age. She was dining with Julie Burchill, Cosmo Landesman and Brett Easton Ellis. Her unfiltered copy in the broadsheets was equally gauche and bold.

So we decided that she should write for the NME. As Assistant Editor, I was trying to manage new talent, and thus myself and Editor Steve Sutherland worked to find her a place in the paper, which was chiefly staffed with orthodox, indie boys. Unfortunately, the incumbents didn't care for Emma, and she was basically snubbed. She didn't spend enough time at the Bull & Gate, watching Bogshed and Swervedriver. She hadn't served her dues on the fanzines. Emma was gradually edged out, something that pained herself, Steve and I.

Which was a shame, because her references were odd and precocious. She saw Britpop in a different way to the others. She had a sharp understanding of Richey Manic, an experience that was later revealed in her debut novel, Namedropper. And she had a pet interest in the Jewish dimension of pop culture, causing her to draw interesting lines from Leonard Cohen, Justine Frischmann and the storylines of Friends.

It was NME's loss of course, and I last saw Emma back here around 1999, when she addressed my journalism class in Belfast Institute. She was younger than most of the students, but was already active in New York's media world, with a fine book and a dozen other projects.

At that stage, I didn't know that she was also self-harming and regularly visiting a therapist. All of this is now common knowledge, thanks to her new book, Your Voice In My Head. The papers are making much of her connection to the actor Colin Farrell, and his similarity to a character in the book. Me, I'm merely pleased that Emma is still writing like a good one.