Caroline O'Donoghue: The euphoric high of awkward situations

I’ve had a person I was interviewing tell me, moments before the event began, that he had complete contempt for what we were doing, that the subject of the discussion was nonsense, and that he would rather be at home

Caroline O'Donoghue.

I write this on a long train from Gloucester to London, having just spent the weekend at Cheltenham Literary Festival. Literary events, of all shapes and sizes, have been a big part of my career even before I had books out. As a journalist, I was often the person interviewing an author on stage, or perhaps being plugged into a random panel event about being a woman in the media, being a young person in the media, being an Irish person in the media.

There’s always been a strong element of embarrassment to these kinds of events. In the past six years, I have been subject to the kind of mortifications that many people tell me is their worst nightmare. Having no one turn up; having an extremely dodgy ex-boyfriend show up; having lots of people show up but not for you, so that afterwards, there is a long queue to speak to the other panellist and no one to speak to you.