Frequently Asked Questions

When it is your next book coming out?

Any Place I Hang My Hat was released in Hardcover in October, 2004. The trade paperback will be out in Spring, 2006.

Where do you get your ideas?

I don't think there's been a time since I've been answering questions that I haven't been asked this. Although some authors dismiss this with a remark or a lame joke about Kmart, I think this is a perfectly legitimate inquiry. I hope my answer is enlightening, although I don't know if it will be helpful. That's because each writer's inspiration is as unique as his or her fingerprints.

My "ideas" come to me as characters. Before I wrote my first novel, Compromising Positions, I was reading a dangerous number of mysteries a week: three or four. Suddenly, a character popped into my head. Like me, she was a housewife on Long Island with two young children and a husband who commuted into Manhattan. Unlike me, she wanted to find out who killed... Well, I had no idea who was murdered, but since she seemed to be hanging around my head, I decided to figure out a mystery for her to solve.

The same holds true with my novels that aren't mysteries. In Shining Through, a legal secretary came into my head, wanted me to tell her story — about being in love with one of the law firm's partners, even though social class differences supposedly put him out of her league. I wanted to give her some way to prove the worth, to herself if not to him. But it wasn't until World War II popped into my head, a time in which ordinary people often displayed extraordinary courage.

Other writers use the big What If. Something arouses their curiosity and they ask themselves: What if a savvy businesswoman turned stay-at-home mother starts to believe her house is haunted? What if a couple in the midst of a bitter divorce find themselves snowed in for a week?

Some authors may get intrigued by a story or situation they hear about on the news, or just in casual conversation. Henry James is said to have gotten the idea for Washington Square from a story he overheard at a dinner party. Just a phrase or a word might get the creative juices flowing. "Seduced and abandoned." "Poor little rich girl." "Won the lottery." There are writers who give a new spin to old works; fairy tales like Cinderella or the biblical story of Job.

Finally, a would-be writer or an old pro can wonder "What's the book I most want to read that hasn't yet been written?"

Where were you born?

In Brooklyn, New York.

You look familiar. Where did you go to school?

PS 197, Cunningham Junior High (both in Brooklyn), Woodward High School (during a three-year sojourn in Cincinnati), Forest Hills High School (in Queens), and, finally, Queens College.

Did you always want to be a writer?

No. As a child, I wanted to be a cowgirl. Perhaps that seems odd for a kid growing up in Brooklyn, but even then I had the ability to be anyone I wanted to be — in my head, if not in reality. Writing was always something I did reasonably well, but it didn't occur to me that I could make a living from it. After college, I worked at Seventeen magazine simply because it was the only job available at that time. I began by writing advice to the lovelorn, and after a few years went up as a senior editor. After I left Seventeen to raise my children, I worked as a freelance political speechwriter. But it wasn't until my second, Elizabeth, was two that it occurred to me that I wanted to write fiction.

Of all the books you've written, which is your favorite?

There's a writers cliché about books being like children. Well, it's true. You love all your children, even the goofy ones.

Do you write longhand or use a computer?

A computer and, more recently, speech-recognition. I sit there with my headset and dictate. To me, it's a boon because I speak faster than I type. Also, for some reason, I focus better using this method. Naturally, there's a downside. The program I use doesn't seem too comfortable with a New York accent, even with the extra training I gave it. So when I had the protagonist of my new novel say "I opened the door," what I saw on my monitor was "I opened the Torah." Ultimately, I don't think it matters what method a writer uses. Longhand, typewriter, quill and ink: They're simply tools.

Do you know the whole story before you start writing? Do you make an outline?

For me, making an outline is a way to work out the plot, since with me, the characters come first. Also, it's easier to see the structure of the novel that way, and I have the security of knowing where I'm going. Sometimes the outline is a snap. I guess that's when my subconscious has already done the heavy lifting. However, on a couple of books, including Lily White, I took almost a year to work out what was going to happen. Naturally, I was petrified the whole time that I was losing my marbles and/or having the world's most unconquerable writer's block. However, I know many authors who don't bother with an outline, who feel it's too constraining. There is no one right way to write.

Are any of your characters based on people you know?

No. At least I never consciously try and pick someone I know and put him or her into a book. The fun of writing, as well as the agony, is in creating a new universe and populating it. Also, I don't want to get a lot of grief from Uncle Joe or my down-the-street neighbor that I didn't portray them in flattering light. (Often though, people get convinced that their friendly, local novelist has put them into a book. I say "No, it's not based on you." Sometimes they believe it, more often they don't seem too. After all these years of being a novelist, I have learned that for some people a novel is a book to be read and, for others, a kind of Rorschach test onto which they read whatever is going on in their minds.)

How do I find an agent?

First, finish the novel. Three chapters and an outline may do for nonfiction, but no publisher is going to buy a first novel that is not complete. Anyway, if you want to be a novelist, you have to write a complete work; if you don't, you're merely a chapterist. There are some books on finding an agent that you might try. You can also look in The Practical Writer, a handbook based on articles from Poets & Writers magazine. [Full disclosure: I am chairman of the board of the literary organization Poets & Writers. Their web site is www.pw.org ] If you have a name, check to see if that person is a member of American Authors Representatives — often a good sign — and see that group's web site, www.aar-online.org.

Now, think to yourself: I spent a year or two writing this book. Now I have to put in a lot of effort and creativity into finding someone to sell it. For example, if there is an author whose sensibility is somewhat similar to yours, find out who his or her agents is. You can look to see if there is an Acknowledgments page in a book; often an agent will be thanked. Or see if you can get that information out of the publisher. Work on a splendid, one-page-only query letter. Remember, it is this letter that will represent you and your book. Finally, I've made it a policy not to recommend agents to people. The reasons for this are many, but to name two: I have no idea what a particular agents is looking for at any one time, and also, I have no way of knowing the style and quality of a writer's work.

Do you personally answer every e-mail sent to your web site?

Yes. I love to hear from readers! However, speed is not one of my virtues.