1. 

2. 1. What inspired your latest novel Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes?

   Window washer was one of the part-time jobs I had during the years I was trying to get published. Combine that with the fact that I used to love to play blackjack and the fact that I still love chick lit, and it was inevitable that one day all three would find their way into a book.

3. 2. Why did you make Delilah have obsessive-compulsive disorder?

   I've been known to be a little OCD, although not to the extremes Delilah takes it. I thought it would be interesting to explore the idea of what happens when a person's obsessions start taking them down roads they'd probably be best off not traveling.

4. 3. Do you share her infatuation with shoes?

   I like shoes - don't get me wrong! - but I can't imagine paying so much money for a single pair, not when so many people are starving in the world, and I'd certainly never go to the lengths she does just for some shoes. But OK, yes, I probably have too many pairs.

5. 4. What's the most money you've even won/lost at a casino?

   This is not going to sound like much but one time I threw $100 down on a single hand of blackjack . . . and won with a two-card blackjack! But you need to realize that this was the '80s, I was in college, I lived on about $20 a week, so that $100 was more like a thousand or so would be to me now.

6. 5. Any more books on the horizon?

   The most exciting thing right now is the release in December of the first two volumes in The Sisters Eight series for young readers, which I've co-written with my novelist husband Greg Logsted and our eight-year-old daughter Jackie. After that it's Crazy Beautiful, due out in 2009, a contemporary Beauty & the Beast YA tale about a boy with hooks for hands and a perfect girl who meet on their first day as new students.

7. 6. What have you been up to since our last interview?

   In January, Secrets of My Suburban Life was released, a YA novel about a teen whose novelist mother is crushed to death by a stack of Harry Potter books, in the aftermath of which the girl moves from New York City to suburban Connecticut and becomes involved in a sort-of mystery surrounding an online predator. And in March, Me, In Between came out, about a precociously well-breasted 12-year-old who feels conflicted about her assets. So I guess I've been busy writing . . . and with my family!

8. October 2007 

9. 1. What book got you hooked on chick lit?

   It's funny but even before people started calling it ' lit,' there were always books characterized by an edgy/humorous voice and primarily written about contemporary women facing contemporary problems. So the first I fell in love with was Susan Isaacs' Compromising Positions all the way back in 1978.

10. 2. What is your favourite chick lit book?

    Emily Giffin's Something Borrowed. I love it that she takes a character doing an unsympathetic thing and yet shifts the mirrors in such a way that you do sympathize with her.



11. 3. Who is your favourite chick lit heroine?

    I'm going with the obvious, Bridget Jones, since she started the massive refocus on humorous women's fiction. If I can go historical, I'll take Elizabeth Bennet: she's so smart and she winds up with Mr Darcy.

12. 4. What does chick lit mean to you?

    Contemporary stories focusing on contemporary women facing contemporary issues: Must. Be. Funny.

13. 5. Describe your latest book.

    In January, I'll have a new book out that I think can be characterized as Young Adult Chick-Lit. Secrets of My Suburban Life is about a high-school girl named Ren D'Arc whose novelist mother is crushed to death by a stack of Harry Potter books. In the wake of this unspeakable tragedy, Ren's father moves the family from New York to Connecticut, where Ren becomes involved in a sort-of mystery centering on an online sex predator.

14. 6. What are you working on now?

    I'm working on a new Victorian suspense novel (my first was Vertigo). The new one is called The Twin's Daughter and is about a 10-year-old girl who learns that her beautiful and wealthy society mother has an identical twin . . . who was raised in the workhouse. I'm also developing, in conjunction with my novelist husband Greg Logsted and our seven-year-old daughter Jackie, a series of books for young readers called The Sisters Eight, the first two of which will come out from Houghton Mifflin in fall 2008. Oh, and my next adult Chick Lit novel will be out at that time too: Baby Needs a New Pair of Choos from RDI.



15. 7. What are you reading now?

    Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes. I didn't start out as a fan but I've come to realize that she is a champion at masterful plotting and making readers think about important issues while being entertained.

16. 8. Tell us about how you created the character of Jane Taylor, from The Thin Pink Line and Crossing the Line.

    I'd been trying to get published since 1994 and had already written five other books. Then, in 1999, after nearly 10 married years of thinking I'd never be pregnant - poof! - I was pregnant. While home sick the first few months, the thought occurred to me: What if there was some slightly sociopathic woman who was making the whole thing up - the pregnancy, the complications, everything? So I sat down and started writing The Thin Pink Line, a novel about a woman who makes the whole thing up.

17. 9. Has Nancy Drew ever saved your life?

    HA! Gosh, wouldn't that be nice?

18. 10. You once had a goal to read 365 books in a year - what's your goal for 2008?

    You mean in terms of reading? The same. Once I started, I couldn't stop. I can be compulsive that way.

19. 11. What is the best lesson you have learnt from another chick lit writer?

    I think it was Jennifer Crusie who I first read talking about something called The Five-Minute Rule: the idea that you can allow yourself just five minutes to wallow in the negative sides of the publishing business as bad things crop up, but then you have to get back to work.

20. 12. What do you know now that you wish you knew when you started writing?

    That I want to be Joyce Carol Oates + occasional comedy.

21. 13. What is the toughest test you've faced as a writer?

    The eight years I spent writing book after book without selling one. Those family Thanksgiving dinners can get very depressing. But since 2003 I've had seven books published, with at least five more due out in 2008 alone, so all is forgiven.

22. 14. What would you be if you weren't a writer?

    A politician.

23. 15. What book do you wish you had written?

    The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

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