'When Katie Met Cassidy' is a romantic comedy about two very different women who find themselves uncontrollably drawn to one another. Issues of gender and sexuality play their part in the novel, but first and foremost, it's a fun, fast-paced love story.
Camille Perri
John Austin, author of 'Cubicle Warfare,' has outdone himself with 'Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction,' a fully illustrated step-by-step guide to constructing thirty-five pocket-sized war machines, including a Clothespin Shooter, a Hanger Slingshot, a Paper-Clip Trebuchet, and Shoelace Darts.
They say you don't want to know how sausage is made. Book coverage is like sausage in that way: better not to know exactly how the gatekeepers of mainstream media choose which books to crown as must-reads each season - just swallow it down with a cold beer and call it a night.
We're forfeiting our power if we succumb to apathy.
As our nation's student debt crisis has reached a breaking point, we've been hearing lots of talk about student loan forgiveness. It's taken me 20 years to forgive myself for my loan - and just as long to pay it off.
When I knew I wanted to write a novel that would be a twist on a conventional romantic comedy, I re-watched 'When Harry Met Sally,' as well as the other two films in the indomitable Ephron trifecta - 'Sleepless in Seattle' and 'You've Got Mail.'
If you ask any adult woman in this country to name an iconic romantic comedy, I bet the answer you'll hear more often than not is going to be 'When Harry Met Sally.' If the question were asked on an episode of 'Family Feud,' for example, it would place number one on the board.
I'm big on coffee shops. Fortunately, I live in Brooklyn where there are many to choose from.
Remember that input is as important as output. Take in something for inspiration, to relight the fire inside you, and ideas on how to fix whatever isn't working in your writing will usually follow.
You know that secret novel you've been working on? The one that's really about you and your friends and your psycho ex-girlfriend? The one that, if discovered, would socially annihilate you for eternity? Yeah, go ahead and burn it.
A lot of queer stories revolve around tragedy.
I wrote 'The Assistants' while I was the Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief of 'Esquire.'
The fact that there are still mainstream print media outlets willing to devote precious pages to book coverage at all is a triumph we should all be celebrating.
Apparently, blaming oneself for debilitating student debt is common.
I loved those movies from the eighties, movies like 'Working Girl,' 'Nine to Five,' 'Outrageous Fortune,' 'The Heat,' 'Bridesmaids,' 'Pitch Perfect,' and others.
People do judge books by their covers, and the magazine editors deciding whether to include your book on their pages are working in a visual medium. So if you're less than thrilled by the cover your publisher proposes, don't be afraid to ask for an alternate version. Odds are that they want you to be happy with the final product, anyway.
'When Harry Met Sally' will endure. It will be the standard rom-com that others will improvise on for years to come.
I wanted to write a book about two women falling in love that wasn't hinged on tragedy or that involved some horrible identity-based misfortune. I wanted to write a pretty standard romantic comedy where nobody dies, nobody gets hurt, nobody gets sick.
Before my mother died, I was supposed to go to the local university, where I'd applied early decision. It was the same school my two older sisters had graduated from, which had been the sole criteria for choosing it.
I like clothes. I like fashion, particularly men's fashion. Both my father and my grandmother on my mother's side were tailors, so I think it's in my blood.
My favorite lesbian romance of all time is the 1999 movie 'But I'm a Cheerleader,' starring Natasha Lyonne and Clea DuVall. RuPaul is also in it; so is the brilliant Melanie Lynskey.
Clothing reveals what a character is trying to project as well as what they're giving away about themselves without even realizing it: their socioeconomic class; their confidence level; their vulnerabilities.
When I was coming to terms with my sexuality, I often felt like I needed to seek out sanctuary outside of my house, and the library was the first place I went. It was a place that I could go and seek out information and look for answers to questions that maybe I was too afraid to ask another person.
I can't tell you how much debt I took on to attend New York University because, at the time, I didn't care to notice. And besides, what teenager has a clue about interest rates? What I can tell you is that by my mid-20s, I owed somewhere around $50,000.
Keeping a journal is the number-one best way to develop your written voice.
Word of mouth will trump media attention every time.
I certainly firsthand know and love people who didn't fall in love with a woman or didn't even realize they were attracted to women until much later in life, and I'm sure that's true for many men who find themselves attracted to men as well. It doesn't always happen in adolescence. And that experience is completely valid and OK.
I'm a big fan of rituals in general because I'm a firm believer in muscle memory.
I've trained myself to write the first two or three hours I'm awake simply by doing it every day. If life stuff interferes with this sacred time, I get very cranky.
My advice to anyone with writerly ambitions and a demanding day job is to set aside a little piece of time, even an hour a week if that's all you can manage, and make it yours. This is your writing hour. Even if you use it up by staring at a blank screen and daydreaming, so what?
When I wrote 'The Assistants,' I knew very much that I wanted to write about income inequality and student loan debt and the gender wage gap, but I wanted to put it in a really slick, fun package. That book ended up being described as a socially conscious novel in chick-lit clothing.
The queer community deserves a happy ending just as much as anybody else.
When I read Alison Bechdel's 'Fun Home,' it was the first time I saw drawings that looked like me.
I'm not sure if it's easier to address tough themes through humor, but I do think it's more fun and makes such themes easier to digest for the reader.
You can get away with making some extremely bold statements by Trojan Horsing them into a narrative via comedy.
I've always been a big fan of political and social satire.
I think the skyrocketing cost of a college education has placed it in the sphere of being a luxury-priced necessity.
One of my favorite things is to first read a novel and then see the movie. I enjoy picturing the characters and then later, seeing them on the screen, comparing how they're different.
I was the assistant to the editor-in-chief of 'Esquire Magazine.' And my experience as an assistant was really best case scenario. My boss was absolutely the greatest boss I could have asked for. But I think there's something universal about being an assistant, regardless of whether or not your boss is the greatest or a complete terror.
Nora Ephron's 'When Harry Met Sally' is a classic.
