For our upcoming Secrets issue, we’re calling upon readers to submit extracts from their joyously embarrassing teen diaries by Monday 26th October. Spilling your heart out to a national publication is a brave feat, but Emma Wright of Oh Dear Diary takes things to a higher level through her dizzyingly cringeworthy comedy nights.

Would you read out an excerpt from your teenage diary to a room full of people eagerly awaiting a good laugh? Emma organises live diary-reading events in Manchester and Birmingham, with the help of If Destroyed Still True blogger, Tess Simpson. Locals come together to relive their teenage years and to listen to volunteers recite entries from their own past diaries. The result is stand-up with a nostalgic twist. Audiences can expect large doses of teen angst and strops aplenty.

We caught up with Emma to find out more.

Why teenage diaries, Emma? Why unearth the most embarrassing years of our lives?

I think you've answered your own question there! Childhood diaries are generally funny and cute. Adult diaries are more serious. But teenage diaries ... they're written at a time when you're really torn between two worlds. The bizarre juxtapositions this creates are what makes Oh Dear Diary so funny, like when one of our readers said she loved a boy 'more than school holidays!’.

Do you ever read out excerpts from your own teenage diary at events?

I do. I'm trying to wean myself off it but, as the organiser, it sort of feels rude not to. Often the other readers are nervous, so seeing me go up there and be the first to bare my soul is helpful.

How do you select readers? Do you read through their diaries prior to inviting them to speak?

It's an open invitation, but it's not an open mic. People have to register before the show. 

I make sure to talk to the readers as much as possible beforehand, and I do ask people to send me scans of their diary, or at least an idea of what they'll be reading about. I think it's important to make sure the readings are genuine, that they're actually from people's teenage years, and that they're going to be funny. 

That last bit sounds harsh - humour is terribly subjective, after all - but we are essentially a comedy event, so I have to be careful. Of course introspection is natural in a teenage diary, and we have had readers cover some very serious subjects, but I want to make sure there's a balance and that people will come away happy, not perturbed!

Can you remember any particularly funny stories that have surfaced at your events? 

The humour comes from the mundane details and innocuous comments, and often it's not so much the anecdotes themselves that are funny but the way they're expressed. As teens we treated everything with equal importance... or lack of it. For example, one of our volunteers read an extract about a History lesson at the second Birmingham show. It read, "learned about the holocaust in history today. Not nice. Well, that’s all. Bye!”.

Another reader, Sarah, wrote: ‘The prowler came back last night, so it can’t be Linda because she was in Blackpool…’. I don’t know what makes that so funny - I love the lack of context!

Did you ever read anyone's diary that you shouldn't have when you were younger? (Or, did anyone sneak a peek at yours?)

No! Actually, I'm not sure I knew anyone else who kept diaries at the time. I didn't go looking.

My mum only read mine once (that I know of). On holiday I'd been using a notepad in lieu of my regular diary to moan about how miserable and bored I was, and she found it. From what I remember, she ignored the fact I was going through an existential crisis and just told me off for swearing!

All images: Emma Wright of Oh Dear Diary. Oh Dear Diary / If Destroyed Still True