Tiffany Diane, a Texas journalism graduate, started her first ever personal blog in the year 2008.   Soon after, the combination of  great writing skills and entertaining postings, pushed Tiffany to expand her blog and open it to the public. Giving advice and opinions about  interesting things happening around the city, Austin is Burning has become a unique and appreciated blog in the Austin community. 

Honestly, I just remember it being the age of blogging. I had hesitated long enough, since I felt I had enough sites, including Xanga, Facebook, Myspace… I had friends who had personal blogs, and I liked the idea behind it, so I made one. It began as a personal blog, featuring things I did, places I went, whatever, but turned into what it is today due to growing interest from the public.

2) Many people blog for different reasons. What is your ultimate goal as a blogger? 

I don’t have an ultimate goal, really, but as long as people enjoy reading what I have to say and learn about new things around town and abound, I feel I have done a good job.

I didn’t really think about it since it began as a personal blog. I think as a personal blog, I was just satisfying my ego by thinking my life needed to be documented.

I just hope they find things to do around town they didn’t know about originally. I hope they find bands and artists they may not have known about before. I hope that they find something to be inspired by.

Sometimes I become a hermit, stay in, and have a lot less material to write about. There will be week-long lulls in my posting and feel like I may be letting readers down. I always feel apologetic when this happens and end up searching for things on the web to post about.

6) What other blogs do you enjoy reading and why? 

I really only look at fashion blogs, including but not limited to Fashion Toast, Fashion Squad, Style Bubble, Kingdom of Style, etc. I  do also read some around town like Maggie’s Austin, I like to refer to her blog for good eats around town.

I love it’s diversity, it’s ability to be a small town and a big city at the same time. There is always something going on downtown, but you can also stay in, grab drive-thru grub and chill indoors, too.

Because of the blog, I have received a lot of media attention. I also scored some really great opportunities with other publications and companies. I feel like it really fueled my career, honestly. 

I also contribute to Buy Definition’s blog, Mad Gods’ blog, Prototype’s website… I write for Launch 787, edit and contribute to BleachOnline… I am beginning as editor for The Horn, a new online publication as well.

The fact that Austin is kind of a smaller city but is burgeoning socially and technologically has worked advantageously for my blog.

I typically prefer my interviews and features. One that comes to mind is my Alyson Fox interview. I also like the more off-beat, less Austin-related posts like my video inspiration post about summer.

12)  Have you had any interesting reactions from your blog (either on the Internet or in real life) 

I have kind of. I’ve gotten positive and negative reactions. Sometimes people recognize me from it, which I think is insane. A bizarre reaction was when I was walking across a room at a party during SXSW and a guy just yelled “Austin is Burning!” I still don’t know if it was supposed to be mean or nice.