Laura Barton (born 1977) is an English journalist and writer. She writes mainly for The Guardian, and wrote a novel, Twenty-One Locks, published in 2010.

Biography

Barton was born in and grew up in the village of Newburgh in Lancashire, and was educated at Winstanley College^[1] and read for an English degree at Worcester College, Oxford^{[citation needed]}. Following graduation^{[citation needed]}, she began writing for The Guardian from 2000 specialising in writing features. She has also written for Q magazine, The Word, and Intelligent Life, and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Much of her writing relates to rock and pop music, and until late 2011 she wrote a fortnightly column about music for The Guardian's Film and Music supplement, called "Hail, Hail, Rock and Roll", as well as a weekly column on women's issues for the newspaper's G2 supplement, called "The View from a Broad".^[2]

Her novel, Twenty-One Locks (2010), recounts the story of "a young small-town girl facing the biggest decision of her life." Barton has said she is working on a second novel and a non-fiction book about music. A series of short stories about Northern soul was broadcast on Radio 4 in 2011. Her favourite writers include Gerard Manley Hopkins, Richard Yates, Bruce Chatwin, William Carlos Williams, e e cummings, Raymond Carver, Lorrie Moore, and Joyce Johnson.^[2]

Barton married in 2004.^[3] She subsequently divorced.^[4]