Turning Your Obsession Into A Book

By L.L. Kirchner

As you may’ve guessed from the title, Maria Teresa Hart’s DOLL (Bloomsbury, November 2022) is about dolls. How did Hart—whom I knew to be a writer of sharp, witty essays about life and travel—come to write such a thing? And get it published?

Hart’s book was part of Bloomsbury’s series Object Lessons, online essays and books that delve deeply into the stories behind everyday objects. Hart describes the union as “a dream come true.”

“I went in un-agented,” she says. “A...