Jennifer Weiner's Blog, page 4

Greetings from Studio City, where I've got of exciting ne...

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 we...

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.M...

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 ...

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 CB...

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...

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, ...

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 a bunch of fun star sightings (Kelsey Grammar! Sarah Silverman! Cameron Diaz, who I think may actually live at my gym)! And I've learned lots of fun lingo. A "one-percenter," for those wondering, is a joke that only one percent of your audience is going to get ("Like that joke you pitched about Sally Hemmings," one of my new friends explained. "Or everything on '30 Rock.'") "Beat the blow" only sounds dirty – it means working on the joke or moment that ends a scene.

I've learned the joys of audience testing and network notes calls, gone through casting and blocking and post-production, a process in which you can sample a dozen different burps to put in your character's mouth…and oh, did I mention that Liz Phair (Liz! Phair!) and her producing partners are doing the music? And that I had a breakfast meeting with Liz Phair during which I was too awestruck to speak? So now Liz Phair probably thinks of me (fondly, I hope) as that mute lady who ate some of her fruit plate. Which is cool. Could be worse, right?

So when can you see "The Great State of Georgia?" If ABC Family buys what we're selling, I'll be back out here in the spring to write and shoot more episodes, and the program will be coming to a TV set near you sometime this summer.

Stay tuned…

It's been a week since I came to Los Angeles and started ...

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 ...

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
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...

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 lightle...