What’s more fascinating than reading actual books? Well, it’s the weird and bizarre stories behind the stories themselves! At least, that’s what journalist and author Alex Johnson hopes with his latest book, When Books Go Bad – exploring some of the strangest and most infamous stories about book writing and publishing experiences through the years. In this episode, Alex shares his love of writing these kinds of ‘behind the scenes’ industry books and how he ended up with the publishing relationship that has yielded 20 books to date. He also explains how he chooses the stories to go in his books and some of the more surprising entries.
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Links mentioned in this episode
- WIN Diaries of Note by Shaun Usher
- Buy So You Want to be a Writer – the book!
- Facebook group for So You Want to be a Writer
Writer in residence: Alex Johnson
Alex Johnson was born in Shrewsbury, grew up in Wellington, and spent his teens at Bootham, a Quaker school in York. He studied modern history at The Queen's College, Oxford, before training as a print journalist at the Yorkshire Evening Press.
He has worked as a feature writer and magazine editor for national titles in the UK and Madrid, and has been involved in online journalism since its earliest days in the UK, including at The Sunday Times website in 1997 and as part of The Independent‘s online team from 2007 to 2022. He is the founding editor and publisher of the internationally popular blogs Shedworking and Bookshelf, as well as sites about tiny houses and pubworking.
Alex has worked extensively as an independent contractor, editing, writing, and designing for national magazines, newspapers, and charities. He has written 20 books to date, with his 21st due in June 2026, and is currently the online editor of Fine Books & Collections. He writes regular columns for The Idler magazine about sheds, microarchitecture, and idling icons. Alex is married with three children and lives in St Albans, Hertfordshire.
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This podcast is brought to you by the Australian Writers' Centre and our course Travel Writing.
Find out more about your host, Valerie Khoo (@valeriekhoo on Twitter and @valeriekhoo on Instagram).
