News

There’s a lot of invisible writing that happens in the world — a fact I know not least because it used to be my primary task, as a lower-echelon publican in the publishing community, to do so much of it. (In fact, it was only after the last of about 9 firings that ended apologetically with, “But we really love your [flap copy/headlines/short reviews/proposals/cover letters/captions/book reports/email subject lines]” that it finally dawned on me that I should perhaps give this WRITING thing a try.)

In any case, I wanted to give credit to two really lovely essays on the book that were written by producers on radio shows on which I have recently appeared. (And let me assure you, my praise here is not at all driven by the fact that I am about to be one’s bridesmaid and the other apparently has a great deck. Well, maybe a little on the deck.) It is famously hard to write your own copy, and I wish I had had them around when I was chewing a pen over my proposal and all other publicity materials, not because they write such great copy but because this copy is so great. PEOPLE: this is how it is done.

The first was written by my friend and bride-to-be Barrie Hardymon of Talk of the Nation:

They are books that girls stuffed in the bottom of their bookbags, the well-handled, much beloved books that chronicled the moral certitude of childhood all the way to the desperate longings and stifled angst of adolescence. [Click for rest]

The second by deck-possessor Cristy Meiner of The Bob Edwards Show:

We re-readers are an often mocked group; I can’t even recall how many times my Mom has said to me, “WHY do you re-read books when there are so many books out there you haven’t read?!” I understand the question, I really do, and trust me, I’m doing my best to get through the hundred million or so that I haven’t read yet. But re-reading a favorite book from my youth is the book equivalent to settling down in a hot bubble bath: I relax and my tired brain sighs happily as I step back into a story I know and love. [Click for rest]

My crowning moment, by the way, was the headline for a piece on Viagra and thinning hair: “Just Say Grow.”