Coronation Street Blog: Happy 60th anniversary, Corrie

Happy 60th anniversary to Coronation Street, the show that changed life.

I've loved the show as much as I love writing, ever since I was a child. When I first got on the internet back in 1992 the first two words I ever typed into what then passed as a search engine were Coronation Street. I found a bunch of fans, for that's all that was on the web back then, and joined them sending my Corrie weekly updates around the world from the cobbles.

Then ITV invited me in to the press office when I needed a work placement as part of my journalism degree I was studying as a (very) mature student. It remains one of the most surreal times of my life. I worked as an assistant to the writer of a book called Access All Areas: Behind the Scenes at Coronation Street and I wrote many times for the official ITV Corrie magazine and for the official ITV Corrie website too.

This led to ITV asking me to update Coronation Street: The Saga book, and then a few years later, updating it again, this time reprinting it as Coronation Street: The Novel. And still my weekly updates went around the world to thousands of fans - and continue to do so to this day. Would you like to receive them? Sign up here - it's free!

In 2007 I began this Coronation Street Blog and it remains unique, a labour of love for a team of fans. We even published our own book with royalties going to Mood Swings mental health charity, set up by Jennie McAlpine's dad, who plays Fiz in Coronation Street.

In 2015 I was commissioned by ITV to write the official tribute book to Deirdre Barlow - Deirdre: A Life on Coronation Street. The following year I was asked by ITV to choose all of the images and write all of the text for the show's official colouring book. I've also written fan books too and you can find them all here.

And now? Writing the books for Corrie gave me confidence to start writing my own fiction. I'm now a full-time author with a six book deal with major publisher Headline. My website is at glendayoungbooks.com please come and say hello.

My novels are gritty, dramatic stories starring a wonderfully strong heroine, and are inspired by my love of soap. They're fast paced, exciting, and it's the women who shine in each one. They're also set in the village where I was born and bred, a northeast coalmining village. Much like Corrie creator Tony Warren wrote about the women he knew when he was growing up as a boy in Salford, I'm writing about the women in the community from my history and heritage too.

As well as the six book deal from Headline, I've got more exciting news to announce. I'm buzzing with the news but I'm bound to secrecy for now and it's killing me keeping it all locked up and away inside.

And while I'm writing full-time now and have been able to give up the day job of admin I was stuck in for years, I'm also writing my own soap opera too! My soap is called Riverside and it appears in The People's Friend magazine weekly since 2016. It's a lot of fun to write and you can find out all about it here.

But more than any of this, is that I met my husband Barry because of our mutual love of the show too. He even proposed to me as I was sitting on Maxine's bench while on a private set tour. I had no idea what he was doing kneeling on the ground and could only think 'He's going to get his jeans really dirty!' - but he popped the question and I said yes. You can see us both here on Corrie's 60 for 60 videos they've been running in the 60 days to the anniversary.

Our amazing friends over at the @CoroStreetBlog are right at the heart of #Corrie's online community and have written more things about the Street than we've had hot dinners!

Here's Editor @flaming_nora with today's #60for60

👉 https://t.co/4gGn7xSDLy #Corrie60 @itv @WeAreSTV pic.twitter.com/6KOpotFYl3
— Coronation Street (@itvcorrie) October 17, 2020