Books by and for independent women

Five-Minute Friday: Katie Antoniou

Name: Katie Antoniou

Day job: Depends which day! I’m editor of London arts and culture site Run-Riot and a freelance journalist and stylist. I also do PR, copywriting, social media, branding and event production.

Extra-curricular: Blogging, reading, watching movies. I spend a lot of my ‘leisure’ time going to events for Run-Riot so it’s semi-work, but usually wonderful.

Discovering the best stuff to do in London before anyone else is a huge privilege- I’m a huge fan of interactive theatre experiences like You Me Bum Bum Train, Punchdrunk Theatre, Secret Cinema and Tony Hornecker‘s hidden restaurant, Behind the Pale Blue Door.

I’ve also got really into taking photos using lomography cameras- I got a Diana F camera and the lomokino for Christmas!

Favourite book of all time: Just one?!I honestly can’t do that. Here are a few, I hope that’s allowed!

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, Philip Pullman‘s His Dark Materials trilogy, The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie, and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Magical realism is totally my cup of tea.

Literary pet peeve: Over-use of supernatural beings-  it’s such lazy writing. If you can’t come up with enough material for a decent book with just one supernatural character, then you shouldn’t be writing at all.

Cases in point include Twilight and True Blood – why in God’s name are vampires not enough? Good writers create incredible literature about regular, mortal humans; if you’ve already decided to use vampires, that should be all you need. Introducing shapeshifters, werewolves and so forth just makes you look desperate.

Guilty pleasure: I’m currently working my way through the Game of Thrones books. I also own several Xena, Warrior Princess DVDs, I guess that probably counts?

Three favourite authors: Angela Carter, Jeanette Winterson, A.S. Byatt – ruddy legends, all of them.

Favourite fictional characters: Currently Daenarys from Game of Thrones, but usually any female characters that kick ass, preferably set in the past or the future.

Other recommended reading: Anything by Salley Vickers, Tracey Chevalier, Sarah Dunant or Rose Tremain (historical novels are my other weakness).

I’m also a huge fan of Marina Warner‘s work – both her fictional tales and her factual books like From the Beast to the Blonde, examining the role of women in literature, from the Virgin Mary to Joan of Arc, to the archetypal fairytale damsel in distress.

She’s just finished a retelling of some of the stories from The Arabian Nights as well as a study of the collection as a whole – you can read my interview with her here.

And finally books that might genuinely change the way you view your life and the world: The Celestine Prophecy by James Refield, Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock and The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Richard Leigh, Michael Baigent and Henry Lincoln – the book that Dan Brown‘s The Da Vinci Code was based on – and the one actually worth reading.

Want more from Katie? Check out her website and her blog. Want to be one of our five-minute Fridays? Send us an email.