Last night I braved the cold and the rain and made it to the town hall to attend a talk on Gothic publishing put on by the Society for Young Publishers (SYP). It was cold and it was dark and that made the beautiful but deserted old building seem just that bit spookier...but then there were friendly faces offering sweets so everything was fine.

We heard from four speakers: Prof William Hughes, Dr Marie Mulvery-Roberts, Anthony Mandel and Dr Sam George. All of these guys are literary academics obsessed with all things Gothic. From Dracula to Twilight they covered the history of the gothic genre and how it has faced tough prejudices from the press.

Right from the start Gothic was seen as sensationalist and despite being a bestselling genre it was never really taken seriously. And this can still be seen now when you look at things like Twilight and the new emergence of American vampire dramas on TV. They're popular but very few people take them seriously.

So it was interesting to hear from people who do take Gothic seriously, or at least seriously enough to teach it, publish books on it or start journals about it.

But I think what I took away from the evening was a realisation of just how big a deal the Twilight books are. They paved the way for a new found interest in vampires and all things Gothic with the classics enjoying a revival thanks to recovering in the Twilight style. It also encouraged fan fiction style titles to appear such as the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies  style titles and the infamous 50 Shades of Grey, which has made its own mark on the publishing industry.

So you might not like it, you may not have even read it, but Twilight has had a massive impact on the publishing world- scary stuff indeed.

So today was my second day interning at Wiley-Blackwell. The day got off to a good start when my coursemate and fellow Wiley-er asked if she would be ok bringing her stuff in a Blackwell bag seeing as they are one of Wiley's competitors...

But once we got there things looked a little brighter, even if the weather stayed rough. It being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Wiley-Blackwell had arranged a fundraising day with everyone coming in wearing pink (which I forgot) and the canteen putting on a special charity breakfast with all funds going to Breast Cancer Awareness. So we all felt justified tucking into our second breakfast of the day, although I couldn't bring myself to have a third when my colleagues invited me down with them.

So once the excitement of breakfast was over we got to work. Again I started my day working through new submissions to the Journal of Small Animal Practice. Today's article to remember was on testicular torsion in cats,

So this week has been an especially busy one for me as I have attended two talks promoted by the university as well as attending the university. Firstly there was a talk on Monday on publishing in South Africa and the research possibilities available in the field. Then on Thursday I attended a talk on open access put on by the Oxford Publishing Society (details here).

So the South African publishing talk was organised by the publishing department at Brookes as part of their growing links with Pretoria University. The two speakers were Prof Archie Dick, who specialises in research into the reading habits of slaves, freed slaves and the working classes in South Africa from the 18th century onwards, and Elizabeth le Roux who focuses on university presses in South Africa and how they were affected by apartheid.

Both of these research areas were really interesting to learn about, especially from people who are so passionately involved in the field, but I couldn't help but

Today I started my work placement at Wiley Blackwell with the Health Sciences journals team.

We began the day with a health and safety talk and then we were collected by our respective supervisors. I was led upstairs and introduced and the people were so friendly I calmed down immediately and got straight into it.

Once I had a desk, a computer and an email account I was ready to go. I began the day by working on recent submissions to the Journal of Small Animal Practice. So from damaged dog cervices to cross-sections of goat stomachs - I have checked them all for suitability for inclusion. Sounds dull but I

So it's official. This year saw Hilary Mantel has won the Booker Prize for Bring Up the Bodies and in doing so has become the first woman to win it twice, the first British author to win it twice and the first author to win the prize for two books in the same series. So history has been made.

I should probably go out and get a copy then, I'll put it on my to-read list just under 50 Shades of Gray.

So I can officially say I have been to my first Frankfurt Book Fair and I have lots to share about my experience. 

We arrived at the massive conference centre and made our way to hall 8 - the international hall. Once there we were surrounded by stands for all the publishing houses we recognised from the spines on our bookshelves. We were starstruck and spent the first half hour taking photos next to the big-name stalls. But once this initial groupie-style gush was out of our systems we got to work.

We went with Oxford Brookes as part of our course and one benefit of this was that the department had set up a string of appointments for us. I began the day 

The site lives! It's still a bit patchy and the 1001 section needs finishing but welcome to my book-based site. It will get better I promise, but for now...

So I just thought I'd say hello and tell you to watch out for new things soon. That's all for now as I am off to Frankfurt tomorrow for the world famous Frankfurt Bookfair. I will have loads to tell when I get back but right now I need to pack.

So in conlusion- watch this space.