"By day she worked on Harry Potter but by night ... " runs the headline in yesterday's Sunday Times, which unmasked a 33-year-old film assistant as the hitherto anonymous author of a risqué blog which has become a book.
The author of Girl with a One Track Mind reports in a posting on her blog that she has been "outed" and says it has meant she has had to tell her family and friends about the book and her explicit writings.
Her blog has won many admirers for its honesty in writing about sex - it claims to be the "diary of a sex fiend" - and many fans fear that the Sunday Times story could destroy her ability to write so candidly. She says she felt she would keep her identity secret because of the success of Belle de Jour in staying anonymous.
Fellow blogger Tom Reynolds, whose own book about life working for the London Ambulance Service is coming out shortly, is angry at the Sunday Times:
There is no "public interest" in discovering the true identity of an anonymous blogger who happens to write about sex. Yet the press seem to feel that it is their "right" in order to sell more newspapers to the important female 18-30 demographic to invade someone's privacy in this manner.
At the time of writing, there were more than 120 comments on her "outed" post, many of them castigating the media for the intrusion. Did Girl with a One Track Mind have a right to keep her identity secret?
