My Summer Reading: Writer Louise Wener

Louise Wener rose to prominence as part of the Britpop movement in the mid-Nineties. While Blur and Oasis flew the flag for laddism and Suede flirted with camp glam, Wener was one of the scene’s few high-profile women, inspired by David Bowie, Morrissey and Debbie Harry. Her band Sleeper released eight Top 40 singles, most memorably “Inbetweener”, and three hit albums. They supported Blur and toured America and Japan, but Wener became disillusioned with the sexism and machinations of the music industry, where it was often assumed she was the token woman in the band rather than the co-songwriter. Sleeper split up in 1998 and Wener started to write fiction, publishing four novels. In 2010 she published her colourful account of her journey from suburbia to stardom, Different for Girls. It was recently published in paperback under the title Just for One Day: Adventures in Britpop.

Louise Wener rose to prominence as part of the Britpop movement in the mid-Nineties. While Blur and Oasis flew the flag for laddism and Suede flirted with camp glam, Wener was one of the scene’s few high-profile women, inspired by David Bowie, Morrissey and Debbie Harry. Her band Sleeper released eight Top 40 singles, most memorably “Inbetweener”, and three hit albums. They supported Blur and toured America and Japan, but Wener became disillusioned with the sexism and machinations of the music industry, where it was often assumed she was the token woman in the band rather than the co-songwriter. Sleeper split up in 1998 and Wener started to write fiction, publishing four novels. In 2010 she published her colourful account of her journey from suburbia to stardom, Different for Girls. It was recently published in paperback under the title Just for One Day: Adventures in Britpop.