By now, people who follow publishing news are familiar with the headlines from last week’s Fridayreads brouhaha: popular hashtag revealed as a business, too! Proprietors apologize for not properly labeling promotional tweets! “We may have made mistakes, but we’ve got ethics!” they claim.

When it began, #Fridayreads was a popular hashtag that was billed by its founder Bethanne Patrick, who tweets as @thebookmaven, as a “global community of people who come together each week to share whatever they’re reading.” Last week, Patrick admitted that Fridayreads is a hashtag and a business both, a business that charges publishers fees from $750 to $2,000 to host giveaways, author Q and A’s, “twitter tours,” and post positive tweets about their books.

Now that the business aspect is out in the open, there’s another question to consider, one that’s bigger than the issue of why Patrick and her colleagues chose to disclose the moneymaking component of a Twitter hashtag on a website few would have occasion to see, and whether they really believed that disclosure was sufficient: namely, why does any of this matter to readers and writers?

My own full disclosure: I found out that Fridayreads was selling services after a new online literary magazine called Book Riot ran a story that criticized me and Jodi Picoult for the crime of being insufficiently pissed about the coverage novelist Jeffrey Eugenides received (yes, this is the life I lead). A few of the Riot’s employees were kind enough to tweet the link at me, just to be sure that I saw.

I read the story. Then I went to the masthead to figure out who was in charge of this new magazine, and was surprised to learn that Patrick, who I’ve met once and who has always been friendly to me on Twitter, was the Riot’s new executive editor.

I went to Patrick’s Twitter page, to see whether her new job was mentioned. It wasn’t, but her Twitter page led me to the Fridayreads home page (which also failed to mention Patrick’s new affiliation). The home page led me to a link to the FAQ page, and, deep on the FAQ page was the news that the Fridayreads services were for sale (the page also revealed that two of Fridayreads’ three employees also have positions at Book Riot).

How many casual readers and tweeters would follow such a serpentine path, figure out how Fridayreads worked, and make an informed decision about whether they wanted to participate and be counted not just as a reader but as a potential consumer of the books Patrick was selling? My guess: not many.

In addition to posting their disclosure on a website, while most of #fridayreads happens on Twitter and Facebook, the people running the hashtag failed to clearly label promoted tweets as promoted. This is a problem, too. As others have noted, the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection has rules spelling out how bloggers and Twitter users must disclose when they’re paid to endorse or mention a product.

The rules make it clear that “a single disclosure doesn’t really do it because people visiting your site might read individual reviews or watch individual videos without seeing the disclosure on your home page," and that promoted tweets have to labeled as such, with an #ad or #sponsored or #promoted hashtag.

I won’t speculate about whether the disclosure-on-a-website and subsequent failure to label promotional tweets correctly was deliberately deceptive or merely clueless.

But I do want to talk about why disclosure and transparency matter.

On Monday, Patrick issued an explanation/apology on her website. In the com

The number-one, hands-down question writers get is, “where do you get your ideas?”

Usually we mutter something jokey and self-effacing about Target or the Idea Elves, because the truth, at least for me, is, we don’t know where ideas come from. They just come…and whether they arrive as an image, or a scrap of dialogue, or a what-if question, it’s hard to say where they’re born.

At least, that’s true most of the time.

But, on Tuesday, I had an idea, that turned into a story (my first-ever horror story!), and I can chart exactly how it happened.

I spoke at an event Tuesday night, out in the suburbs, and I was driving home, letting my trusty GPS be my guide. As I tooled through the darkness, along a deserted road I’d never been on, I thought, What if this thing doesn’t want me to get home?

What if it sends me somewhere else entirely?

On Wednesday morning, I sent out a tweet asking if anyone had ever written a story about a possessed GPS.

A few people mentioned the great Stephen King story, “Big Driver,” (it’s in his latest collection, FULL DARK NO STARS). But in that story, the GPS is a benevolent presence, almost a friend to the beleagured heroine.

I was thinking of a darker kind of GPS. And then, I started asking the big writers’ question: why? Why would a GPS want to do bad, bad thing?

Just like that, I had a story. An abused wife. A dead husband who doesn’t want to stay dead. A gift-wrapped box in the attic…and a GPS that starts telling its new owner to make some seriously wrong turns.

This was Wednesday morning. I emailed my brilliant agent and asked, if I write this thing, like, today, is there any chance we can get it up for sale on Halloween?

She talked to my editor. My publishing house swung into action. I wrote the story…and it came really, really fast. Thirty-five pages in five hours fast.

My agent and my editor both gave me notes. I revised it late Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

On Thursday afternoon, my copy-editor, Nancy Inglis took a pass. By Thursday night, we had a cover, designed by the amazing Anna Dorfman. Everyone there hustled to get this thing formatted, spruced up, and ready for your enjoyment.

The story goes live on Monday – Halloween – and will be available for your Kindle, your Nook and on iTunes (I’ll add links as they go live) for a mere 99 cents -- such a bargain!

Technology is amazing. And my publisher’s great. I hope you have as much fun reading “Recalculating” as I did writing it.

Happy Halloween. And if your GPS starts sounding like it’s angry with you the next time you take a trip, you might want to pack a map…

Greetings from Bungalow 5, on my last day in Los Angeles.

Tonight, I’ll pack up my office and go out to dinner with the writers for “State of Georgia.” Which, by the way, got an amazing review in The New York Times.

Tomorrow, I’m on a plane to New York. Tomorrow night, I’ll be live-tweeting “Georgia,” which airs at 8:30 on ABC Family. Tomorrow’s episode introduces a few of the show’s semi-regulars, Jo’s physics classmates Lewis, Leo and Seth, played by the very funny Kevin Covais (remember him from “Idol?”), Jason Rogel and Hasan Minhaj, all of whom are on Twitter…just put an “@” sign in front of their names, and you can’t miss them.

On Thursday morning during the eight o’clock hour I’ll be on “The Today Show,” along with Harlan Coben, who writes some of my favorite thrillers. We’ll be giving our summer reading recommendations, so please tune in!

Then, on Tuesday, July 12, THEN CAME YOU hits the shelves, and the e-reading devices, and I’ll hit the road, with stops in New York, Princeton, Philadelphia, the Chicago suburbs, and Kansas City. THEN CAME YOU has gotten some lovely early reviews, including the coveted four beach umbrella award from the New York Post, which said, “Weiner makes the unsympathetic women compelling, and chronicles the hard-luck ladies sans melodrama. We come to care about each one."

You can check out the first chapter of THEN CAME YOU right here and look at my tour dates here. Please note: all readings will feature whoopie pies. Not because there are whoopie pies in the book (although now that I think about it, there should be), but because I like whoopie pies, and I don't trust anyone who doesn't.

Thanks to everyone who checked out "Georgia," and I hope to see lots of you on the road.

Greetings from Studio City, where I've got of exciting news to report. First up: "State of Georgia" premieres tomorrow night (that's Wednesday, June 29) on ABC Family (which is NOT ABC -- it's on basic cable; check your channel guide) at 8:30 p.m.. The show stars Raven-Symone and Majandra Delfino as two best friends from a small town down South who are trying to make it big in New York City, under the benign neglect of Georgia's Aunt Honey, played by Loretta Devine.


I hope you'll tune in for the premiere....and I hope you'll stick with the show. It's been an amazing experience, shooting a pilot and then working on nine new episodes, watching the show find its feet and find its voice as the weeks went on. I think that Georgia ended up in a great place -- a funny show with lovable characters and a lot to say about what it's like to take those first steps toward adulthood. You can read more about my book-to-TV transition in the Philadelphia Daily News and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Also, if you "like" "State of Georgia" on Facebook or follow me on Twitter, I'll be live-tweeting the premiere and posting pictures from our premiere party, as well as pictures of real-life BFFs watching the show on Wednesday night.

On July 12, THEN CAME YOU comes out. THEN CAME YOU tells the story of four women and a baby. There's brittle, wealthy newlywed India who will pay any price to have a child. There's Jules, a college senior with a few big secrets, who becomes the egg donor, and Annie, who's struggling with financial constraints, an unhappy marriage and her own ambitions, who become the gestational surrogate. Finally, there's Bettina, India's skeptical stepdaughter, who thinks the whole thing is a mistake.

The book's gotten some great early reviews, and I think readers will enjoy meeting each one of these women as they make their way toward becoming a family. I talked to Cosmo.com about how the book came into being, and you can, of course, read the first chapter here.

Last but not least, the tour! I'll be doing readings, and handing out delicious whoopie pies, in New York City, Princeton, Philadelphia, Chicago and Kansas City, beginning on July 12. All the details are here, and I hope to see you there!

Hard to believe, but GOOD IN BED is ten years old this week!

I remember like it was yesterday seeing the book in bookstores for the first time (and then trying to sneak it onto the 'New Release' octagon at a New York City bookstore, and having the clerk promptly put it back).

If you haven't heard, we're celebrating with a "Win Cannie's Weekend" contest, where the lucky winner and a friend will get to experience Los Angeles Cannie Shapiro style. Two airline tickets, three nights at the Regent Beverly Wilshire (made famous in "Pretty Woman,") dinner at Asia de Cuba and a chance to watch a taping of "State of Georgia."

Sadly, I cannot guarantee a makeout session with a movie star, but it could happen, right?

To enter, click here, and tell me about the most remarkable thing that's happened to you in the last ten years. I've already read some wonderful essays -- hilarious and heartbreaking and everywhere in between. (PS: you have to enter through a Facebook app. If you're not comfortable with that, you can do it via my website right here).

In other news, FLY AWAY HOME is out in paperback, and in bookstores now, as is the anniversary re-release of GOOD IN BED, that comes with a new introduction and a candle on Cannie's bed-cake.

On June 29th, I hope you'll all tune in for the premiere of "State of Georgia," the sitcom I co-wrote and am executive producing, on ABC Family. Then, on July 12, THEN CAME YOU hits bookstores. It's a funny, moving, timely story of a surrogate pregnancy and how four very different women come together to form a family. I'll be posting the first chapter soon, and I hope you'll all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

It's been an exciting few weeks out here in Los Angeles.

My books appeared on "The Office" a few weeks ago, in an episode called "Garage Sale."

If you didn't see it, check it out here. Without giving anything away, it was one of the sweetest half-hours of TV I've seen in a long, long time. I only hope "The Great State of Georgia" can do as well some day.

Time Magazine named me one of its top 140 Twitter users (Tweeters? Twits? Never mind). They enjoyed my "Bachelor" tweets -- God help me, I miss that show -- and write, "the author of Good in Bed and Fly Away Home's smart tweets on writing — particularly the ongoing feud between chick-lit authors and quote-unquote real women novelists — make for entertaining, indispensable reading."

Entertaining and indispensable. Like a funny diaper for a not-quite-toilet-trained two-year-old!

If you agree, you can vote for me here...and, of course, you are always more than welcome to follow me on Twitter.

In non-Twitter news, I am having way too much fun in the writers' room, working on the first nine episodes for "The Great State of Georgia," which may be renamed "The State of Georgia." Or just "Georgia!" Stay tuned...and tune in to ABC Family for the premiere at 8:30 on June 29th.

I'm also doing a teeny tiny tour for the paperback release of FLY AWAY HOME.

On Saturday, April 30 I will be at the Warrington Country Club at noon, doing an event in support of the Doylestown Library. Tickets go on sale on April 10. Learn more here.

That night, I'll be at the library in Horsham at 5:30. Tickets for that event are $20, and you can learn all about it here.

On Sunday, May 1 at 3:30 I'll be in Los Angeles, appearing at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on the USC Campus.

I've spent years reading about the famed LAT FOB from the opposite side of the country, admiring the line-up and wishing I could attend. Finally, my wish has come true, and I'll be hanging out listening to Patti Smith, Aimee Bender, T.C. Boyle and as many other authors as I can see (the full list of participants is here -- and it's amazing).

Then it's back east, for an event at the Soho Apple Store at 103 Prince Street on Wednesday, May 4 at 6:30. On Thursday, I'm reading at the Gershman Y in Philadelphia at 7 p.m., and my beloved Headhouse Books will be on hand to sell books.

Finally, on Friday, May 6 I'll be in Chicago, doing a 6 p.m. event at the Apple store on North Michigan Avenue.

I hope to see lots of you out there...and check back for news about the GOOD IN BED !0th-anniversary contest, and some fun THEN CAME YOU giveaways, as I continue to count the days until "The Bachelorette."

Which Dunder-Mifflin employee reads my books? Watch "The Office" this Thursday night and find out!

Greetings from Los Angeles!

I’m spending my days on the CBS lot in Studio City, where a bunch of absurdly funny writers and I are coming up with the first nine episodes of “The Great State of Georgia,” which will premiere on ABC Family on June 29, and finishing up the edits on THEN CAME YOU, out the second week of July.

Here is the cover! I love it, especially the green, which feels so fresh and spring-y.




THEN CAME YOU concerns four women and a baby. There’s India, the older, wealthy, married lady who wants to get pregnant, and can’t. There’s Jules, the college student who donates an egg, and Annie, the Pennsylvania housewife who serves as a surrogate, and Bettina, India’s twenty-three-year-old stepdaughter, who’s deeply skeptical of the whole endeavor. It’s an exploration into the issues that surrogacy raises…and also, the story of how these women end up forming a very modern family. It's been a lot of fun to write, and I hope lots of you will enjoy it this summer.

As for Georgia, I am loving my first stint in a writers’ room. In fact, I’m not sure how I’m going to keep writing without one. Novel-writing is so lonely, and writers’ rooms are hilarious. You spend the day sitting around swapping stories, pitching jokes, telling tales of Hollywood stars’ bad behavior (except because I don’t know any, I mostly just listen to those) and making up adventures for your girls. And then every afternoon: food trucks!

I think Georgia’s going to be a fresh, funny take on a time we all remember: right out of college and/or our parents’ houses, in a big city, taking those first jobs, navigating those first romances, finding your favorite bar and gym and yogurt shop, figuring out who you’re going to be. It’s a little “Laverne and Shirley,” a little “Sex and the City," and very girl-centric, which I'm thrilled about, because there's still so many comedies where the women are second bananas or romantic appendages or punchlines.

You can keep up with all things Georgia on the ABC Family website, right here.

Finally, the last piece of news, from the department of Wow Am I Old: GOOD IN BED turns ten this May! My publisher's releasing a special edition with a new cover (Cannie's bed-cake has a birthday candle), a new afterward, where I talk about what it was like to write my first novel and how the world has changed, or failed to change since then, and a new e-book price ($4.99). Best of all, I'm throwing a Win Cannie's Weekend contest to celebrate.

If you read GOOD IN BED, you probably know what the lucky winner and her BFF could get: a trip to Los Angeles, a stay in a fancy hotel, an afternoon of spa treatments, a delicious dinner, and an invitation to come watch us tape "The Great State of Georgia." (Introduction to movie stars who will subsequently become your friends or engage you in makeout sessions, alas, are not included).

Check back for the details. Better yet, follow me on Twitter, where I am @jenniferweiner, and I talk about what I'm reading, what I'm writing, and what I'm watching on reality TV.

Hey!

More details forthcoming, but I wanted to share three pieces of big news.

Piece one: I turned in a draft of THEN CAME YOU to my editor today!

Piece two: I'll be on "The Nate Berkus Show" tomorrow, talking about life as a working mother.

Piece three: I learned that the most beautiful words in the English language are "I love you," and "ordered to series." "The Great State of Georgia" is a go!

So: I'll be relocating (temporarily!) to LA for the next few months, sharing executive producer duties, which means I will be writing scripts and overseeing casting and approving costumes and sets and doing a zillion other things to put a great, funny show with a big heart on TV.

Seriously, I heart Georgia. I loved writing the show, I loved watching Raven-Symone and Majandra Delfino bring the thing to life, and I think that, come springtime, you're going to dig it, too.

The TV show will premiere in late May or early June. The novel will be out the second week in July. And I'm assuming I'll spend August lying flat on my back, moaning softly to myself.

One of the heartbreaking things about writing novels is, there’s no opening night.

Yes, you’ve got pub day, which, as any author will tell you, is pretty anticlimactic. Your book shows up in stores with no fanfare or flourish. Maybe you do a reading that night, and maybe there’s a review or two. Your publisher sends you flowers, your loved ones offer congratulations, and your mother tells you she reserved her copy at the library. After that, nothing. It’s a whimper, not a bang.

TV? That’s different.

You spend months laboring over a script, thinking about the characters and their motivations, where they come from, what drives them, how they look, what they say. You hold your breath until the network gives you the go-ahead. You find your casting director, then your cast. A crew builds a set, constructing the workplaces and houses that have only ever existed in your dreams. There’s costumes and makeup and lighting and music. And then, you go onstage, in front of a live studio audience, and you put on a show.

We shot “The Great State of Georgia,” the half-hour sitcom I wrote with Jeff Greenstein last week at Hollywood Center Studios, where, once upon a time, “I Love Lucy” was filmed. About twenty of my friends and relations came to L.A. to watch the fun. Everyone from my seven-year-old daughter to my ninety-five-year-old Nanna was there…and my sister nabbed a small role, so they got to watch both of us work.

The whole thing was kind of magical. The sets looked so rich and so real – “just like a TV show!” I kept saying, which I’m sure wasn’t too charming after the hundredth time I’d said it. The characters, on stage, were funnier and more poignant than they ever sounded in my head. Raven-Symone as Georgia is all grown up, hilarious and heartbreaking when she has to be. Majandra Delfino, as her BFF Jo, is, in a word, adorable. Meagan Faye as Aunt Honey, their eccentric fairy godmother, is brilliant and droll, and should strike a chord with anyone who ever loved “The Golden Girls.” And I still love the story of the curvy, confident girl who’s going to change the world, instead of letting the world change her.

“So which do you like better?” a Facebook friend asked. “Books or TV?”

The truth is, they’ve both got their strong points. Nothing rivals the control you get from writing a novel: how it’s just you and your story and that great intangible, the reader’s imagination to see the world you're building on the page.

Television, as many anti-TV types point out, does a lot of that work for you: instead of imagining how a character looks and sounds, the viewer gets them served up in high-def.

But television also gives you a much broader canvas, a chance to tell a story over seasons, over years.

There’s also the question of audience.

If you write a hardcover that sells 100,000 copies in its first month of release, trust me, your publisher will be ecstatic.

In TV-land, a show just got cancelled for only bringing in 500,000 viewers on its debut night…and the show was on cable. Bottom line: if you’ve got something to say, a story to tell, and you want to reach people -- a lot of people -- there’s worse places to do it than on TV.

TV writing's refreshingly collaborative – instead of writing alone, spending a year by yourself with the characters in your head, you’re in a room, with other writers, pitching jokes and bits of dialogue, which the actors then bring to life.

I also love the chance to fix things that aren’t working. Joke’s not landing? Exposition’s feeling wordy? You rewrite on the spot, give the actor a new line or a new bit of direction, and it’s fixed. How many novelists would give blood or money for a chance to start tinkering with their words once they’re in print and out in the world?

Then there’s been the adventure of going from Philadelphia to West Hollywood. I’ve had

It’s been a week since I came to Los Angeles and started working on “The Great State of Georgia,” the sitcom I wrote with Jeff Greenstein that ABC Family picked up, and things are flying along. In a week’s time, we’ve hired a bunch of key personnel, including a great casting director and started auditioning actors for the lead roles.

Auditions are great fun…and a little dangerous. Actors come in. They read the lines, and then you say, “Could you try it a little faster? A little slower? With more of Southern accent? Hopping on one foot?” Georgia, our lead, is a singer, so we asked a few of the actors, if they could sing for us. One of them just finished a run as the lead on a Broadway show, so having her singing in a room was just amazing.

The thing is, once you realize that the actors will basically do anything you tell them, as long as they think it’ll help them get the part, it’s tempting – at least, for me – to take it too far, in a dance, meat puppet! kind of way. I see on your resume you can do a Cockney accent. Can I hear it? It says you can belt an E above high C. I’d like to hear that, too. In Polish. On one foot.

Georgia, our big, confident, curvy girl is probably going to be the biggest challenge to cast. Big, curvy, confident girls are not easy to find in LA as, say, tall, skinny, gorgeous girls. But our Georgia is out there, and we will find her.

Aunt Honey, our Southern grande dame of a certain age, is a challenge for another reason – we've got an embarrassment of riches. It seems like every actress of a certain age with comedy chops and a Southern accent in her repertoire wants to read for the part. I can’t name names, but it’s been kind of a Who’s Who of 1980’s/1990’s sitcom stars and big-screen actresses, and I’m having a hard time not behaving like Chris Farley meeting Paul McCartney when I see them. Remember when you were in the Beatles? That was cool!

In between all the TV fun, I'm working on my new book and getting my November and December in order, figuring out when I can fly home to see my family, or when they can come out here and visit me. Bicoastal living is rough. I miss my friends, and my routines, and Philadelphia in the fall…but I love this show, and I love these characters, and I’m having a lot of fun. And in less than six weeks we'll be shooting the thing!

Stay tuned...

Hey! Remember that development deal I had with ABC?

I had a great time. Met amazing people. Learned a lot. Wrote a few pilots and had them get close…and then, nothing.

Hollywood breaks your heart like that, and I figured, I loved the experience, and learned so much, and made great contacts, so I couldn’t be too disappointed. Especially not when I hadn’t quit my day job – I signed a new deal with my publisher last spring – and got to keep a hand in the world of TV, working on other ideas for shows.

So there I was, a few weeks back, on a beautiful September afternoon, hopping into a cab to meet my friend Elizabeth for lunch when my cell phone rang. It was a comedy executive at ABC Studios calling. Remember “The Great State of Georgia?” he asked.

Do I remember Georgia? I remember Georgia like you remember your first love, the guy who gave you your first great kiss, and then broke your heart and took your best friend to the prom.

“The Great State of Georgia” is a half-hour sit-com that I wrote with Jeff Greenstein, who is a genius, and much funnier (and taller) than I am. It’s about a big, gorgeous girl with a big, gorgeous voice from a tiny town down South who wants to be a star, and moves to New York City to make it happen, with her geeky, stunning-but-doesn’t-know-it science-nerd BFF in tow. Hilarity ensues – much of it stemming from the times when our heroine who is not, as they say, challenged in the self-esteem department, comes up against the unpleasant realization that she’s not what the snooty tastemakers of NYC have in mind.

I loved writing Georgia. It was a chance to do a funny, modern gloss on “Laverne & Shirley,” with rich, well-rounded female characters; to write about friendship and family and love and new beginnings; about making it in spite of the world telling you that you can’t.

It was also a lot of fun to do a big girl who’s not stuck in self-deprecation-land: Georgia knows she’s fabulous – the fabulous descendant of a long line of fabulous, beauty-pageant-winning babes who turn men into drooling piles of mush -- and is mostly confused when the world doesn’t agree. It broke my heart when ABC didn't bite. I figured Georgia and Jo, and Luke, Georgia’s loyal but dim-bulb hometown honey, would be forever consigned to that unhappy land where imaginary characters go to die.

But! Hold the phone! Turns out, ABC Family (home of “Melissa and Joey, “and “The Secret Life of the American Teenage,” and the late, lamented “Huge”) liked the script and wants to shoot a pilot.

Which means I’m packing up to head west this weekend for eight weeks of casting, hiring, rewrites, and, eventually, shooting the show. If ABC Family likes what it sees, they’ll order a bunch of episodes, which I will executive produce. So if you like my books, my blog, or even my tweets about “The Bachelor,” I think you’ll like “Georgia.”

It’s all very exciting. And scary. This will be, by far, the longest I’ll have been away from my family…but I’m thrilled to be starting a new adventure. And hiring a line producer. And figuring out what a line producer does.

So! Keep reading the blog -- and follow me on Twitter -- for what I hope will be frequent and funny updates from TV Land. (And if you're a gorgeous young plus-size actress who can sing and dance and wants to star in a sit-com, please keep your ear to the ground for news about casting calls, which will be happening soon).

As they say, stay tuned…

When I first heard the premise of Emma Donoghue's ROOM, I think my reaction was probably something along the lines of, "Oh, hell no."

A novel about an abducted woman, living in a lead-lined garden shed with her rapist's child? Thanks, but no thanks. Life's hard enough, and I've got little kids. Bad enough to pick up the newspaper or People magazine and read about the real-life cases of women snatched and stolen, turned into sex slaves by random monsters or their own fathers, living in lightless dungeons, being raped and tortured and isolated from the world. I'll pass.

But the reviews were so good, and there were so many of them (which shows, better than anything, the power that book reviews still have), that I bought a copy, and found myself not only completely engrossed but charmed and, ultimately, completely blown away by Donoghue's accomplishment.

ROOM tells one of those familiar, terrible stories, but turns it on its head by telling it from five-year-old Jack's point of view. Jack, who speaks in a patois familiar to anyone who's had a little kid in the house, thinks Room is pretty much a paradise. Ma, creative and resourceful, is never out of sight, and she fills his days with games and exercise, with singing and reading and activities he doesn't always understand -- there's a Daily Scream, where the two of them lie underneath the skylight and make as much noise as they can. She feeds him, nurses him, and tells him that the only things that are real are the things he can see...that everything on television is made up, and that there's nothing at all beyond Room's walls. When Jack asks for a telephone -- "Bob the Builder has one," Ma replies, "Jack. He'd never give us a phone, or a window." Ma takes my thumbs and squeezes them. "We're like people in a book, and he won't let anybody else read it."

Eventually, in spite of Jack's reluctance, Ma conceives a plan to set them free. "Let's just stay," Jack protests, but Ma tells him, "It's getting too small."

There's a nail-biting section where Jack gets his first taste of the outside...and then Ma and Jack's world cracks open. The rest of the story deals with the way the two of them cope with their new circumstances -- as tragic as they are triumphant -- and are, in a sense, born again.

ROOM also comes with an amazing website. You can read an excerpt here, explore ROOM here, and read about the author here.

Emma Donoghue was kind enough to answer my questions. Our Q and A is below...and don't forget, if you order the book before tomorrow morning and send your receipt to [email protected], I'll do a drawing and send ten winners a signed copy of whichever one of my books they choose.


Where did this story come from? Have you always been interested in
the topic of abducted women and imprisoned children, or was there a specific case in the news that piqued your interest?

Although I've often written about real incidents from history, I've never looked to today's headlines for material: my contemporary work tends to be inspired more by my own experiences. And I'd never taken any particular interest in kidnapping-and-confinement cases before, in fact I'm not sure I'd ever more than glanced at such headlines before hearing about the Fritzl case in Austria in April 2008. I think because my children were four and one at the time, I was primed: a couple of days after first hearing about it, I was seized all at once with the idea of a novel narrated by a five-year-old who's never been outside.


I know you did a lot of research on the Internet to understand Jack and Ma's circumstances. Did you also read novels? Were you interested in exploring the abductor's point of view (

Back in August, when Jodi Picoult tweeted about the New York Times’ predilection for reviewing the fiction of white men, people wondered: is this true?

A few weeks after the #franzenfreude conversation began, the bloggers at Slate’s DoubleX.com ran the numbers…and found that they’re even worse than regular readers of the paper might have guessed.

Of all of the fiction the New York Times reviewed last year, only 38 percent was written by women.

Of all the novels that got the coveted double reviews, 72 percent were written by men.

When you consider popular fiction, the numbers get even worse.

According to blogger Scott Lemieux, in the time period Slate considered, eleven best-selling male authors, including Stephen King, John Grisham and Dan Brown, got the double whammy of the daily and the Sunday review. Only one woman writing what’s considered commercial fiction – NYC’s own Candace Bushnell -- was reviewed twice in the Times.

Where, wondered Ruth Franklin of The New Republic, is the outrage? Where’s the letter from the public editor? When is this going to change?

While it’s certainly fun to imagine the Times’ public editor harrumphing through the halls, banging his cane against the radiator and demanding justice, or to picture book review editor Sam Tanenhaus pawing through stacks of galleys, desperately searching for a debut rom-com by a lesbian of color to review tomorrow if not sooner, I strongly suspect that the answer’s probably never (I imagine this in my best David Spade voice – how’s never? Is never good for you?)

I say this because, the day after Franklin’s blog post ran, the Grey Lady, which had already published two reviews and a half-dozen news stories and columns about FREEDOM, gave us her answer.

It sent a reporter to cover Jonathan Franzen’s book party.

It was, by Liesl Schillinger’s account, a magical night, what with the glittering literati all gussied up for the coronation and having themselves a good old Manhattan laugh at the “detractors” who dared to “grouse” at their golden boy’s good fortune.

"After Time magazine put Mr. Franzen on its Aug. 23 cover, with the tagline “Great American Novelist,” the author Jennifer Weiner created the Twitter hashtag @Franzenfreude (sic), defining the word as “taking pain in the multiple and copious reviews being showered on Jonathan Franzen.”

Emerging from a conversation with Lorin Stein, the new editor of The Paris Review, Jonathan Galassi, the president of Farrar Straus Giroux, publisher of “Freedom,” rejected Ms. Weiner’s word, as defined. In German, he pointed out, “freude” means “joy.” “This,” he said extending his arm to indicate the revelers —“is Franzenfreude” — Joy in Franzen.

Had Schillinger asked me for a quote, I would have told her that “your made-up German compound noun is incorrect” is not a satisfactory response to “your paper does not cover women’s work fairly.”

I would have explained how hashtags work. Then I would have said that of course it’s “joy of Franzen.” When you’ve got the nation’s most important paper acting as your personal PR firm, what could possibly cause you pain? The schaden part – the pain of the writers whose work goes unreviewed and unreported-on, the pain of readers who watch in frustration as the Times devotes thousands of words to its boy of the hour while ignoring the books that they read and enjoy and talk about – that’s as silent, as invisible as

I can remember – I bet lots of fans can – the day I discovered Jenny Crusie.

I was a single girl at the time, a working reporter and wannabe novelist with a manuscript languishing under my bed. One night, I was browsing in the bookstore, when a candy-colored cover caught my eye, along with the title TELL ME LIES.

I think it took me about a page and a half of reading about Maddie Faraday’s perfect life fall apart (she finds strange panties underneath her husband’s driver’s seat, and things go downhill from there) before deciding that this was a book for me. I added it to my stack and brought it back to my single-girl lair in Philadelphia.

Let me tell you: that book was Hot with a capital H. It was steamy. It was sexy. It was funny! It was feminist. It was, in a word, wonderful…but, beyond just keeping me entertained and laughing, that book made me believe that there might be a place in the world for the kind of story I’d started thinking about telling.

If a smart cookie like Jenny Crusie could write brilliantly entertaining books starring sassy, spunky heroines who lived out their girl-power beliefs instead of being cardboard cutouts upon which their creator could scribble her views, maybe there was a place in the world for the characters whose voices had starting filling my head.

Fast-forward to 2001, I was a newbie author, on book tour with the story that had become GOOD IN BED. The tour had been predictably disheartening. There were bookstore visits where nobody showed up, and bookstore visits where the audience consisted of two whey-faced, terrified-looking women who trembled their way to the podium and whispered, “Your mother said she’d kill us if we didn’t come, so can you please tell her we were here?” I lost my luggage, missed deadlines on the columns I was still trying to write for my day job, heard my name mispronounced more times and more ways than I could count. Once, I showed up to a bookstore to sign stock, and was met with blank looks and a twenty-minute wait, after which the too-cool-for-school clerk heaved a weary sigh and handed me a stack of copies of WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE (which, ironically, I could have used at that point, but felt reluctant to sign). I was homesick and road-weary…and I was terrified of teaming up with an established author of Jenny Crusie’s caliber.

What if she’s awful? (some authors are). What if she doesn’t want to be bothered with a first-time writer nobody’s heard of (a completely understandable response?) What if…what if…?

Well. Jenny was lovely. Beyond lovely. She was generous, welcoming, full of encouragement and great advice. She showed me how to laugh at the indignities of book tour, told me stories about her own life as a writing and became, for that day, my new BFF (I think she had to actually pry my nails out of her flesh when it was time for us to go).

At one point during the day, we did a radio interview together. The host asked us each to describe our books, then said something to the effect of, “Isn’t it strange to be sitting down with your competition?”

Jenny and I said almost the exact same thing at the exact same time: we aren’t each other’s competition. Women writers are never each other’s competition. If someone loves my books, she’ll probably love Jenny’s, and vice versa…and probably each of us would happily tell you about ten other women whose work we love.

Along those lines, I am so excited to be spreading the word about Jenny’s first solo effort in six years, the brilliant, warm, funny, completely engrossing MAYBE THIS TIME.

The epic battle between the scribbling women and Emperor Franzen has been immortalized in comic-book form! Check it out here.

I came up from the beach to find my mother glaring at me. In the same tone she uses to ask if I’ve left my flatiron plugged in and turned on again, she inquired, “Did you start a movement?”

“Um…”

She waved her Times at me accusingly “It says right here you started a movement. And the New York Times doesn’t lie.”

Well! I thought that what I started was a hashtag on Twitter, to take bemused note of the way the literary establishment overcovers its darling du jour.

I know I did an interview with Jason Pinter over on the Huffington Post. Now, it seems, #franzenfreude has become a movement, to which the Times has already devoted a pair of stories. Which means I’ve been mentioned twice in the Times! Legitimacy at last!

Ahem. Of course, the irony here is that stories about overcoverage still count as coverage. Four days before FREEDOM’s even available and the Times has already devoted two reviews, two news stories and two TBR columns to the opus.

That’s six stories four days before the book goes on sale…and everyone’s weighing in on whether it’s too much or not enough or if it matters at all, and who’s got a right to say so.

There was the Tweeter who sneered that my “desperate tweets” were the only way I’d ever be mentioned in the same sentences as an author of Franzen’s caliber (psst…it’s totally working!)

There was the affronted literary lady who says that if critics cover popular writers – you know, the ones who “churn out” books like butter and sell them in spots like Target -- then the less predictable, more refined authors won’t sell any of their books.

But wait – Chauncey Mabe of the Sun-Sentinel says book reviews aren’t even supposed to sell books! Literary fiction has never sold – yet book reviews must cover literary fiction as opposed to commercial fiction because it’s more important – "it just is.” (The fact that Mabe made his case on the Facebook page of Laura Lippman – a commecial writer – is either an act of astonishing bravery or of breathtaking cluelessness. I bet you can guess which way I’d vote).

I don’t want to talk about #franzenfreude forever – Jenny Crusie’s got a new book out next week, and I'm dying to talk about that -- but there are a few points I hope won’t get lost in the shuffle.

1. This isn’t about Franzen, or FREEDOM. I haven’t read the book, so I've got nothing to say about it (yet), and as for the author, he’s managed to keep his mouth shut – so far – about whether he’s conflicted, as he was in ’01, about ending up with a vast, middlebrow and female readership, so at present, I got no quarrel with him or with his book. My quarrel is with the coverage. As I said on Twitter, if was Jonathan Safran Foer on the cover of Time, I’d have gone with #schadensafranfoer. I work with what they give me

2. This isn’t just about the Times not covering my books (although, of course, that was the quote of mine today’s Times cherry-picked from the Huffington Post – because it’s so much easier to dismiss two disgruntled bestselling chicks whining than it is to look at your institutional practices and admit that maybe there’s something rotten in Denmark).

It’s about the way the Times overcovers its boy of the moment, denigrates or ignores entire genres, and their readers, and the way these actions taint the coverage women writers manage to receive.

Yesterday, I did an interview with NPR (it should air on “All Things Consider” on Monday) in which the quest

Here's the Huffington Post interview with me and Jodi Picoult about gender, genre, and what the Times won't cover. Enjoy! And I hope everyone finds something great to read this weekend. I'm flying to LA, locked and loaded with Laura Lippman's latest, I'D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE, and MOCKINGJAY, the third book in The Hunger Games trilogy, which I'm holding off on until we're airborn.

I’m back!

I survived my book tour. I met a lot of wonderful readers, ate a lot of delicious cupcakes, have been thrilled with the way FLY AWAY HOME’s been received in the world (and BEST FRIENDS FOREVER, too, which has been having a wonderful run in paperback this summer). Thanks so much to everyone who bought a book, came to a reading, sent me a funny tweet or Facebook message and has made me feel like It’s All Worth Something.

Meanwhile! Maybe you’ve heard that Jonathan Franzen has a new book out?

Franzen, you’ll recall, is the author of the 2001 critically beloved blockbuster THE CORRECTIONS. Around my house, he’s perhaps even better known for being the Man Who Turned Down Oprah, and pissed off a great many other writers with his public hand-wringing over what her imprimatur and down-market, daytime-TV watching (largely female) audience would mean for his reputation.

Well, he’s back! On the cover of Time! In the pages of Vogue! Reviewed, glowingly, not once but twice in the New York Times! Which has also devoted a news story and an inside-the-list column to FREEDOM, even though it won’t come out ‘til next week!

Jodi Picoult, number-one bestseller of quote-unquote commercial fiction (full disclosure: she and I attended the same college and are published by the same house), has a problem with that. Last week, she tweeted about all of the attention the Times gives to its white male literary darlings, at the expense of the hundreds of thousands of other writers – some of them literary, some of them quote-unquote genre writers – who get no love at all.

If you know me, you know that I’ve long taken issue with who the Times chooses to endorse and how its coverage unfolds and why, for example, formerly hot women who write memoirs get consigned to the Style section where totally un-hot men who write about their addictions get respectful full-length reviews.

I’ve been tweeting up a storm under the hashtag #franzenfreude, and have, it seems, stirred up a bit of a tempest. What can I say? “Bachelor Pad” is boring, my other programs don’t start for another few weeks, and I can’t talk about my work-in-progress or any of the other exciting developments going on. So I’ve turned a bemused (but not too bitter) eye toward the Franzen frenzy, which has quickly become the hash-tag heard ‘round the reading world.

The Guardian’s blogged about the contretemps. So has Laura Lippman, weighing in with some smart things to say about which writers get covered, and how.

NPR got in on the story. So did The Forward.

Of course, not everyone was pleased at a potential disruption of the status quo, or uppity bestselling lady writers even noticing that the status quo could maybe use some disrupting.

Lorin Stein, of Sidwell Friends, Yale, Johns Hopkins, Farrar Straus Giroux and The Paris Review, took to The Atlantic's blog to accuse Jodi Picoult and I of "false populism." (Want to buy a made-to-measure shirt to wear the next time YOU accuse someone of false populism? Mr. Stein told New York Magazine that he gets his here).

The New York Times crib sheet made note of the "Franzenfreude movement" (sic) and suggested that interested parties could meet "in front of Jennifer's TV during Oprah." Because, you know, silly ladies, with their Oprah. Except the New York Times does not know where I live! So suck it, New York Times!

Meanwhile, the Sun-Sentinel’s Chauncey Mabe said

Greetings from Boston, where the Cupcakes Across America has paused, briefly, for regrouping, laundry, and quality time with my children, the big girl and whatsherface.

Today's big news: if you like my books, and you like free things, you can download the Jennifer Weiner iPhone App for free today (Thursday, July 22) in the App Store. It's got tour dates, reading guides, photos from events, and all kinds of exciting links and videos.

I've had so much fun this last week on tour, meeting you guys, sampling cupcakes, enduring three-hour delays in the Dallas airport (okay, that part wasn't fun), and belatedly watching "The Bachelorette" (oh, Frank! How could you?)

A few highlights: the Fort Lauderdale reading, where my Nanna's friend demanded -- demanded! -- to know how the story I'm writing on Redbook ends. "You really want to know?" I asked. "Of course I do," she said serenely. "That way, I won't have to pay five dollars for the magazine."

The Atlanta reading, which was hilarious, and where I met a few former employees of the now-defunct Chapter 11 bookstore chain, which hosted my first-ever signing for GOOD IN BED, which was attended by precisely one person.

I handed out tiaras in Dallas to some lovely ladies who drove six hours to see me, and told the truth about what I'd be doing with my life if I wasn't a writer...and in Boston, I described my top-secret, never-be-made dream film project.

You can read blogger reports on my readings from Dallas, by What Women Writer, from Miami, by blogger Family of One, from Chick Lit Central, and Year of the Bookwormz and The Long Ride Home in DC and author Trish Ryan (hi, Trish!) in Boston.

Here's a great story from the Miami Herald about Susan Isaacs, one of my favorite writers -- I'm quoted!

An interview with Babble.com, about kids, writing, and that terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad plane ride.

My podcast with the fabulous Reading with Robin...my podcast with the erudite Bat Segundo (we talk about Wonder Woman's Lady Gaga pantlessness)...and a great interview with Skirt, where I talk about finding my agent, being a mom, and why ONE DAY is the chickiest chick lit that ever chicked (I liked the book a lot, I'm just a little perplexed by its reception. Also: boy, do those Brits get a lot of vacation!).

The tour resumes on Sunday in Champaign, IL, then rolls on to the Stevenson High School Performing Arts Center in Lincolnshire. Me and Jen Lancaster -- what could be bad?

After that: Denver, San Francisco and LA. Dates, times and locations are here, and I hope to see lots and lots of you on the road.

Greetings from Day Two of the Cupcakes Across America/FLY AWAY HOME book tour!

Here are some pictures of me reading at the Princeton Public Library!

Here is an interview in which I talk about the challenges of e-book pricing and why I live-tweet "The Bachelorette!"

Speaking of my favorite show, do you know about The Possessionista? She tracks down all the cute things Ali wears and tells you where to buy them? That cute elephant pendant from Monday night? It will be mine! Oh, yes. It will be mine.


USA Today loved FLY AWAY HOME, calling it "an unflappably fun read," and saying "in the end, it's not Sylvie's choices that are important as much as the fact that she chooses to do what's best for her. The message is choosing to live an authentic life. As always, Weiner gives us a woman who stands taller, curvier and happier when she does just that."

I'm off to the Free Library in an hour for the pre-reading reception. Then D.C., Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale and Miami! See you on the road.

In preparation for the Cupcakes Across America/FLY AWAY HOME tour, which kicks off at the Lincoln Center Barnes & Noble in NYC tomorrow night at 7:30, here’s What to Expect When You’re Expecting to Go to a Reading.

WHEN SHOULD I COME? Come early. Not crazy-early, but if you want a good seat, shoot for fifteen minutes before start time.

WHAT HAPPENS? Generally, I talk and tell stories for fifteen to twenty minutes. Possible topics include my mother, reality TV, what Eliot Spitzer’s escort was doing that was worth $5,000 a session and how no good can ever come from a three-hour massage.

I’ll read a brief (two to three page) excerpt from FLY AWAY HOME. Then I’ll take questions for another twenty minutes or so, which is always my favorite part of the night.

Then I sign books.

Also, there will be cupcakes, so come hungry (tomorrow night they’re from the Magnolia Bakery; the Philly cupcakes are from Betty’s Speakeasy). Seriously, do NOT leave me alone at the end of the night with dozens of uneaten cupcakes. It won’t be pretty.


DO I HAVE TO BUY THE BOOK AT THE STORE? It’s a nice gesture, and the bookstore strongly prefer it (plus, if they sell a ton of books they’ve got a better shot at getting me, and other authors, to come back). That being said, I’ve never seen anyone pulled out of line or turned away for having purchased a book elsewhere. Use your own judgment.

I’VE GOT ALL YOUR BOOKS. WILL YOU SIGN THEM ALL? I am happy to sign any book you bring (provided it’s one that I wrote). However, if the book store or event organizer has different rules, or needs to keep the line moving, I will defer to their wishes.

CAN I TAKE A PICTURE? But of course!


I’M COMING TO HEAR YOU AT A LIBRARY/AUDITORIUM. CAN I BUY THE BOOK THERE? All of the non-bookstore events I’m doing WILL have books for sale on site. Never fear!

I'm looking forward to seeing lots of you on the road -- you can find all the tour dates here. FLY AWAY HOME comes out tomorrow, and without being annoyingly self-promote-y, I would love it if you'd pick up a copy. I had a great time writing it, and I hope you'll love reading it this summer.

So here we are, three days out from the July 13 release of FLY AWAY HOME, and my editor asks, could I please Facebook and tweet about it more?

I directed her toward this article, which says that authors who incessantly beat the drums of self-promotion get unfollowed.

Then, ignoring the problem of taking Twitter advice from a woman who doesn't have that many followers, I went to the beach.

But seriously, the problem of promotion is a tricky one, especially if you are not the kind of writer who can get the handful of media outlets still covering books to beat the drums for you.

Sadly -- or maybe not! -- we can't all be agent-turned-addict-turned-author Bill Clegg, whose recent memoir has netted three NYT pieces (one profile, two book reviews) and the recent "Today Show" appearance (speaking of TV appearances, I'm taping the Joy Behar Show on Monday, where I might get to talk about my new book, FLY AWAY HOME, which comes out on Tuesday).

The rest of us are left to beat, and tweet, our own drums, to Facebook about the blog q and a's and radio chats and good reviews, to tour the country (all my dates are here) and do whatever we can in service of the book.

In my case, that also includes running contests, asking people to tweet me cute pictures of their copies of BFF, which I will post as soon as I figure out how (there's one of the book on the toilet!)

It also includes buying ads.

If you follow me on Twitter, you might remember my plight in re: the New York Times Book Review.

My agent wanted me to buy an ad there. I didn't want to. The NYTBR never reviews my books, or many books like mine, and when it does, it says such stupid, ignorant things about chick lit (none of it's funny! it's all about moms!) that I'd hurl the stupid thing across the room except it's too flimsy for a good toss.

But, said my agent. Booksellers still read the Times. Which is why you'll find giant ads for the likes of Danielle Steel and Nelson DeMille within -- not because the Times takes commercial fiction seriously, but because it's a way to give booksellers a heads-up that your new book is coming out, say, this Tuesday.

I reluctantly caved. Then my brilliant agent and the whip-smart art department had the genius idea of creating an ad that actually shows the first two pages of the book.

So instead of a book cover, a half-dozen laudatory quotes and a link to my website, Times readers flipping through praise for Jennifer Egan will be able to actually read a piece of the book.

Maybe they'll think it sucks as much as they suspect all chick lit does. Maybe they'll be intrigued enough to buy FLY AWAY HOME, when it goes on sale this Tuesday. Pick up a copy (of the Times, not my book, which does not go on sale until Tuesday), and let me know what you think! There are also nice mentions of FLY AWAY HOME in the August issues of O Magazine -- my first-ever appearance in that illustrious publication -- and in GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, and on the summer reading list in the on-stands-now ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY.

Meanwhile, I hope to see a bunch of you in NYC on Tuesday (when my book FLY AWAY HOME goes on sale), in Princeton for lunch at the library on Wednesday, then at the Free Library of Philadelphia Wednesday night, in DC on Thursday, in Atlanta on Friday, and in Florida over the weekend.

One week from today, FLY AWAY HOME hits the stores, and I hit the road! You can find all my tour dates here. Yes, Virginia, there will be cupcakes.

On Thursday, I'll be doing a live chat from 3 to 5 at Barnes & Nobles' Facebook page. Stop by and ask me anything!

Finally, if you're in need of a beach book right now, Susan Isaacs' mordant and witty AS HUSBANDS GO is out today. Enjoy, and I hope to hear from you Thursday!

Happy almost-Fourth-of-July!

Maybe you'd like to celebrate by watching me on the Rachael Ray show! My segment airs tomorrow.

Or maybe you'd like to watch video of me talking about FLY AWAY HOME (which comes out on July 13) with my small, chic, and slightly terrified-looking editor? (My favorite part of these videos is that half the time I look like I'm planning to eat my editor. Which, honest to God, I was not). Clip one is here, and clip two is here.

I talked about the inspiration behind the book over at Elle.com, and there's a lovely review over on Bookpleasures.com.

You know, of course, that you can find the first chapter here...or find out where you can catch me on my two-week cross-country tour here (just added -- a reading at Vroman's in Pasadena on August 2!)

Finally, a question: what do you like to see on the back of a hardcover book?

These days, readers get two choices: a list of entirely complimentary quotes about the writer's previous works (because, duh, nobody's going to publish a this-writer-sux) quote, or a super-flattering, Easter-Island-size head shot, or full body shot, of the writer (because, duh, nobody's going to publish an ugly picture).

I'm not sold on either one...or, rather, I'm not sold on the idea that either looking at a big picture of the author's giant head, or reading a bunch of quotes about previous work, sells books.

Personally, I like wraparound art work, like on Stephen King's THE DOME. You figure, he's got enough name recognition that you know what you're getting without the quotes on the back, so you can just do a supercool front-and-back cover that's at least as alluring as either the headshot or the quotes would be. But what do you think? Let me know on Facebook or on Twitter.

Have a wonderful weekend, and I hope to see lots of you on my Cupcakes Across America tour!