When I was a kid, I wrote Nancy Drew fan fiction in my bedroom, which my Dad had inexplicably decorated like a colonial bed and breakfast with dark, antique furniture and Mark Twain inspired toile wallpaper that featured a sepia-ed Huck and Jim rafting across the Mississippi. That really should tell you all you need to know about what kind of kid I was, but here’s even more about that. I spent most of my time reading Sweet Valley High, watching TGIF, and devouring classic movies from the 80s and 90s that formed my worldview about life and love. My sexual awakening was watching Brad Pitt ride a horse in Legends of the Fall. To this day, true love is best encapsulated for me by When Harry Met Sally, Bridget Jones, and The Cutting Edge. And, honestly, I adore the tight structure of a great John Hughes film and nothing makes me fall more in love with the idea of family than National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

After college, when I was in my first real job planning alumni events and communications, I quickly realized I was gonna need more creative outlets. But before I could find my calling writing about pop culture, I took a detour through literary fiction. Listen, I love literature! I read literature with a capital L and romance and book club fiction and memoir and nonfiction and always have. But I spent a lot of time in my MFA writing bleak short stories and trying desperately to get my professors to like me. But no matter what I did, they always complained that my work was too “voice-y,” which I think meant I had too much personality. It’s a bummer because basically they were telling me that what made my writing specific to me, like, I should tone that down. I wish they’d said, do you, but harness it better.

I was super depressed about writing after my MFA. I moved back to Chicago and started taking comedy classes and writing screenplays and performing in storytelling shows and in these worlds, voice was essential. And fun! And once I stopped trying to be Joyce Carol Oates, I could just be myself and write about the things I was interested in. You know, like Brad Pitt.

During all of this I was getting divorced and raising a little kid and finally starting to realize, oh, shit, movies, TV, books, they really are just….stories??? None of this is real!?!?!? Or attainable??? I’m not kidding, I was like forty years old when I finally accepted that a Cosby Show family is not something I could have. Or anyone could have!

Eventually that realization inspired a podcast that I co-host with my bestie, the hilarious comedian Elizabeth Gomez, called DON’T RUIN THIS FOR ME where we talk about the pop culture that formed the way we see the world, which is great because we are very different people, like she made me watch True Romance and was like, THIS IS WHAT LOVE IS, and I was like GAH OMG NO. (To be fair, I refuse to watch Harry & Sally with her because I cannot have it ruined.)

I also started a Substack called WHERE THE F*CK’S MY HAPPY ENDING?! where I write about the pop culture Elizabeth doesn’t care about like Vanderpump Rules and Sex and the CIty. I also write about what I’m reading, and frequently, I complain about how hard writing is and occasionally offer tips from my arsenal.

And because I watch too much reality TV, when I started thinking about a longer writing project, I pursued this idea I’d had for a while, which was about this sort of messy, every day sort of gal whose high school boyfriend becomes the lead of a Bachelor style reality show and she’s gotta get into a hot tub with a bunch of Instagram models to try and win him back. That idea eventually became FAN FAVORITE. And now I’m writing another pop culture inspired romcom, but this time there’s a washed up pop star who’s going on a Y2K reunion tour to capture the heart of the boy bander of her dreams. (Grand Central Publishing, Summer 2026).

It took me over twenty years to publish my first novel and I am SO EXCITED to be here right now, writing what I want to write., and making myself (and hopefully others!!!) laugh. And, yes, of course, I might be trying to control the chaotic world we live in just a little bit through happy endings, but I dunno, I think it’s important for me to believe that no matter what happens, we’re all gonna be okay in the end. But just in case you’re in the mood for bleak—I’ve linked my MFA short stories below. But really what I’m trying to say through this long story about how I got to this moment is—DO YOU. We all have something specific to offer and not caring if people thought I was just some dumb blonde (very Legally Blonde of me) is the freedom I truly needed.