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BBC News [ link ] Tracey Moberly Writer's life story told in text messages 12:42 GMT, Tuesday, 9 February 2010

An artist has saved almost every text message she's received and is publishing them as her autobiography. Tracey Moberly, from Gilfach near Bargoed, is basing Text Me Up on 10 years of mobile phone messages. The first she received was a message of support from a friend during a divorce. "My phone made this really weird noise - I didn't know what it was," she says. "That was in 1999 and the only one I've ever lost so from then on I've started saving all my text messages." Tracey says she's had to transcribe the messages to journals as her phone would initially only store a maximum of 10 messages. The book will only feature messages she's received, not those she has sent, and they won't be attributed directly to the people who sent them. "Part of the beauty of the book is that people read between the lines," she says. Tracey has also been releasing thousands of balloons containing texts and received a reply from Amsterdam. The book is due out next year and as well as recording a decade in Tracey's life it is designed to chart the text revolution and explore how we communicate. Tracey has always been interested in art and communication, including graffiti when she was growing up in the south Wales valleys. Now based in London, her art projects include "sonograms" of famous quotes by politician Tony Benn and broadcasting on artists' radio station Resonance FM. Tracey has also been a pub landlady running The Foundry in Shoreditch, London, which has become popular with artists including author Irvine Welsh and graffiti artist Banksy. A campaign is currently under way to save the pub from demolition by a hotel chain which wants to redevelop the area. Tracey was also in Haiti exploring the country's ghettos two weeks before the earthquake struck and has now set up a relief fund. Caption: Tracey has saved every message she's ever received apart from the very first