What's your role with the festival?

As digital marketing assistant, I'm in charge of wrestling content onto the MLF website and then tweeting, blogging, Facebooking, and otherwise telling the world about the festival programme. I also run the Blog North Awards and its associated writer development programme through a small literature organisation, Openstories.

What's the part of the job you most enjoy, and what is the most challenging bit?

I love connecting with people’s immense love of reading, writing and talking about books. It is hugely heartening to see how much books mean to all of us, and to watch people find new writing to be excited about every year at the festival. The hardest part is dealing with the fatigue of festival time (kicking in right about now), when the amazing events you’ve been looking forward to all year are happening one after the other all at once, but you’re so tired that going back to bed seems an equally tempting proposition.

What events are you looking forward to this year?

Patrick Ness was just as good as I expected: he was honest, funny and smart, with lots to say about writing. I’m very excited about seeing Neil Gaiman this weekend as he’s one of my favourite writers ever; and am also looking forward to the Audrey Niffenegger/Jeanette Winterson talk. Iain Sinclair is always interesting so I’m well up for hearing his thoughts on The Beats, and will also enjoy taking my daughters to Family Reading Day.

What would be your dream MLF event?

A conversation between Diana Wynne Jones, Alan Garner, Susan Cooper and Joan Aiken about magic and the British Isles.

More realistically, some writers I’d love to see at the festival are China Mieville, Graham Joyce, Ursula LeGuin, Stephen King and Kelly Link.

Read any good books lately?

I just finished the tremendous Waterlog by Roger Deakin, a lyrical and rambling book about wild swimming, and will now be reading anything else by him I can get my hands on. Recently I have also loved Swimming Home by Deborah Levy and The Fault in Our Stars by John Green – two very different but equally jawdroppingly good novels.