Judy Blume knew us intimately, better than we knew ourselves

For decades, Judy Blume was the ‘confidante’ of teenage girls, writing frankly about their feelings. She will visit Ireland next month to talk about her uncanny empathy, her career and her new novel for adults, says Susan Dominus.

I read Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, when I was 10, hidden, as usual, in a big upholstered chair in a back corner of the house. In one of my favourite scenes, a sixth-grader named Nancy is mad at her friend, Gretchen, who has had her first period.

Nancy thinks Gretchen is not sharing the details, despite a predetermined pact that whoever got hers first would tell the others “absolutely everything”.