When is your next book coming out?
CERTAIN GIRLS, the sequel to GOOD IN BED, will be published on April 8, 2008. It picks up Cannie's story 12 years after GOOD IN BED ended, and deals with mothers and daughters, online dating, bat mitzvah planning, bad press, big decisions, and all the stuff that happens after happily ever after.

Where do you get your ideas?
Target. They have everything at Target.
Seriously, many of my ideas spring from my day-to-day life, and then get exaggerated, embellished, sharpened and made funnier or more tragic or more true. GOOD IN BED began in the wake of a bad break-up, where I wanted to tell the story of a girl who was a lot like me; a guy who was a lot like Satan, and give the girl a happy ending. IN HER SHOES came from my lifelong curiosity about the sibling relationship, and how people can come, quite literally, from the exact same place, eat the same things for dinner and go on the same vacations, and wind up very different. LITTLE EARTHQUAKES was written in the months following my daughter’s birth because there was so much about new motherhood – the good, the bad, and the ridiculous, the feelings of ineptitude and exhilaration and exhaustion – that I wanted to explore.

GOODNIGHT NOBODY was the least autobiographical of my books. I don’t live in Connecticut, don’t have three kids, don’t have the issues in my marriage that Kate has in hers…but I did want to use the framework of a whodunit to talk about the suburbs, the nature of being a mother in America today, and the choices and sacrifices women make.

THE GUY NOT TAKEN encompasses eighteen years’ worth of stories, from pieces I wrote in college (extensively revised, which is good news for all of us) to stories that were published as recently as 2005. Some of them have their roots in real life, and others just answer the “what if?” question.

And CERTAIN GIRLS was born out of a desire to pick up Cannie’s story at a different, but equally momentous point in her life, to look at one character I’d created through the eyes of another, and to satirize over-the-top bar and bat mitzvahs (that last part didn’t work so well. In the book, there’s a scene where the parents of the bat mitzvah girl have hired people to pretend to be paparazzi and photograph the guests as they enter the bash. I thought that was clearly satiric and utterly over-the-top…I mean, what reasonable person would even think to do that? Then, the month before the book came out, I got an email from a friend who’s sister is getting her MFA in photography, who’d received an invitation to make some extra money by doing just that).

Where do you get your titles?
For my first three books, the titles just came. They were gifts from God, or my subconscious, or the Title Fairy, and they always came very early on in the process. But the first three were my ideas – I get asked a lot whether it was my publisher’s idea to call my first book GOOD IN BED and I can tell you, very proudly, that I thought that up all by myself.

GOODNIGHT NOBODY was originally going to be called – wait for it – MOMICIDE. I loved the title. My agent and editor, not so much (every time I said “Momicide” to my agent, she’d say, “I have another call.”) So GOODNIGHT NOBODY was named after a line from GOODNIGHT MOON that most parents can quote by heart (“Goodnight comb and goodnight brush/Goodnight nobody, goodnight, mush.”) It’s also a fitting description of Kate’s persistent feelings of invisibility.

THE GUY NOT TAKEN was the title that Glamour gave to a short story they published about a young mother who becomes unhealthily obsessed with her ex-boyfriend’s online wedding registry and can’t stop thinking about what her life might have been like with him. I originally called the piece “Door Number Two,” as in, if you pick what’s behind Door Number One you can’t peek at what’s behind Door Number Two, but the editors thought that was confusing (can’t imagine why). They renamed the story, and, unwittingly, the book.

CERTAIN GIRLS was originally called HESITATION WALTZ, which is an actual dance, and which described, to me, the way various characters in the story hovered on the brink of big changes. I can’t remember exactly when I changed it, but “certain girls” is from a Dan Bern song called “Tiger Woods,” in which he writes “If certain girls don’t look at you/it means that they like you a lot/if other girls don’t look at you/it just means they’re ignoring you/how can you know, how can you know?/which is which, who’s doing what/I guess that you can ask them/which one are you, baby/do you like me or are you ignoring me?/Do you like me or are you ignoring me?”

Did you always want to be a writer?
After I got over my dream of being a ballerina, yes. Reading and writing were always the things that gave me the most pleasure. I read constantly as a child, majored in English literature in college, found a way to get paid for my writing as a newspaper journalist in the 1990’s, and then was lucky enough to be able to devote myself to fiction full-time after GOOD IN BED was published in 2001.

How much of GOOD IN BED is true?
Well, Cannie Shapiro does have certain similarities to me – or at least to the twenty-eight-year-old version of me. She was a journalist, a Princeton graduate, survivor of a dysfunctional family with a snarky sense of humor and body-image issues. Unlike Cannie, I never had a boyfriend write about me (thank God). When I wrote the book, I’d never been pregnant, and I’d never met any movie stars.
And, in the question I seem to always get at readings where my husband’s present, I am not, nor have I ever been, married to a doctor. The only thing that made the translation from my real life to Cannie’s fictional one is my rat terrier, Wendell, who goes by the nom de plume Nifkin, much to his dismay.

Is GOOD IN BED going to be on HBO?
GOOD IN BED was optioned by HBO in 2002, in development for two years, and now…not so much. It continues to make the rounds in Hollywood, where they are all big huge fans of telling the story of a plus-size woman. The only obstacle is that, in order to come up with someone even remotely the right size, they’d have to staple both Olsen twins to Nicole Richie.
Seriously, if there’s any news on the GOOD IN BED on TV front, you’ll read it here.

In GOOD IN BED, when Cannie meets Bruce, she's doing an imitation of Tanya eating a crab leg. But she hasn't even met Tanya yet!
Um, yes, well, about that. Few people realize that GOOD IN BED is actually a science-fiction novel! With a time-space continuum....wormhole...thing. And Cannie...ah, fuck it. It's a mistake. A mistake! Yes, a mistake in my book! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW, YOU BASTARDS!?!?!

So you probably know that the Six Day war wasn't seven days long, and how long you wait between a baby boy's birth and his bris.
Yep. Those errors have been pointed out as well, and corrected in subsequent printings. The only explanation I have for the screw-ups: I'm a bad, bad Jew.

If I find a mistake in your book, do you want to hear about it?
Chances are, at this point, I probably already have (hi, Mom!) But yes, I cringe every time I come across an error, and I do try to get them fixed in reprints. Send your reports along to jen@jenniferweiner.com.

My book is missing pages! Can you help?
Ugh. The only thing I hate worse than making mistakes is hearing that the printer made one. Yes, please email me at jen@jenniferweiner.com, and we will get you a copy of the book with all pages intact.

Are the places in Philadelphia you write about real?
For the most part, they are, and they’re in the neighborhoods I write about. If you’ve got a question about how to find a specific place, email me and ask…but, for starters, the Reading Terminal Market is at 11th and Filbert, the Pink Rose Pastry Shop is on the corner of Fourth and Bainbridge, the Morning Glory Diner is at 10th and Fitzwater (I also love Sabrina’s, at Ninth and Christian).
Was the movie “In Her Shoes” based on your book?
Yes, indeed it was, and I was very, very happy with the way it turned out.
Were you in the movie?
My agent and I got to be extras, and we appeared in the Italian Market scene, walking about five paces behind Toni Collette and Brooke Smith, who plays Amy. You can also see my sister Molly with Toni Collette in one of the scenes in the law offices of Lewis, Dommel and Fenick, and my Nanna’s in the senior prom scene with Shirley MacLaine. I heart nepotism!

Are the places in “In Her Shoes,” the movie, real?
They are. The Italian Market, where Rose and Amy go shopping, is on 9th Street starting at Christian. The Jamaican Jerk Hut, where Rose and Simon spend some time, is near 15th and South.
I think it’s a thrill for any writer when your work gets adapted for the movies, and I was especially thrilled that “In Her Shoes” was shot in Philadelphia, instead of having the film crew high-tail it to Vancouver with a Styrofoam Liberty Bell. So the Philadelphia you seen on screen is very much the city as it was in 2004.

How much of LITTLE EARTHQUAKES is true?
I bet you can guess what I’m going to say – not much. I think that at different points in my first year of motherhood I felt like each one of the women, although I will say that my pregnancy, delivery, and struggle to find plus-size maternity clothes most mirrored Becky’s. And my daughter Lucy, like Becky’s daughter Ava, did sleep on all fours with her tushy in the air, which was just too cute not to use.

Is LITTLE EARTHQUAKES going to be a movie?
LITTLE EARTHQUAKES was optioned in 2004 by Universal Studios, and producers Stacy Sher and Michael Shamberg (“Pulp Fiction,” “Out of Sight,” “Get Shorty.”)

Will any of your other work be made into films?
The title short story in THE GUY NOT TAKEN was optioned by Dreamworks shortly after it was published in Glamour, and Rita Hsaio (“Toy Story 2,”) is doing the adaptation. Of course, “optioned” does not necessarily “will be a movie,” but fingers crossed...

In LITTLE EARTHQUAKES, when Becky’s having that huge fight with Mimi, why does she say, “I don’t have to do anything but be black and die?” She isn’t black, is she?
No, she's not black, she's just quoting Morgan Freeman in what, judging from my email, is a joke that's only funny to me and my husband. In the movie "Lean on Me," (probably playing on one of your basic cable channels even as we speak), there's a scene where bat-brandishing rebel principal Joe Clark (played by Freeman) is informed that he has to do something. "I don't have to do anything but stay black and die!" he snaps. It's sort of the ultimate screw-you non-sequitur (at least it is in my household). Either way, it's guaranteed to give a character like Mimi pause.

What’s up with the ending of GOODNIGHT NOBODY? I need to know more!
Without giving too much away, I wanted to resolve some of the questions in Kate’s life, and leave other doors open. I loved writing the characters in that book, and I’m pretty sure I’ll come back to them some day, when all will be revealed.

Didn’t I read that you were writing a book about a female superhero called JEZEBEL BRIGHT?
Yes. I wrote it, read it, decided that I wasn’t in love with it, and set it aside for the time being. I hope to get back to it some day.

When do you do your writing?
When I wrote GOOD IN BED, I was single with no kids and working full-time at a newspaper. I wrote every night of the week, except for Thursdays, when my programs were on, and did one long hitch on either Saturday or Sunday afternoons.

When I wrote IN HER SHOES, I was engaged, then married, still with no kids, writing full-time. I’d sleep in, go to the gym, answer email, read People, shop online, watch a little Lifetime, wander to the local coffee shop at around one or two every afternoon, and write until I felt like stopping.

Now that I’m a mother, I work for twenty jam-packed hours a week, when my daughter’s either with a sitter or in nursery school. I take my laptop to the same coffee shop and write like a fiend. Sometimes I’m asked whether it’s hard to find the discipline to sit down and make myself write. My answer? After a night and morning with a toddler, writing feels like a vacation.
I’ve always loved writing, ever since I learned how, so I feel like I’m lucky to have such a nice balance in my life. Most of the time, it works out really well. And everyone at the coffee shop’s really nice to me, and they don’t seem to mind that I take up space and bogart their electricity. For a while, they were even giving me free coffees once in a while. “I think they know I’m a writer!” I told my husband, in great excitement, the first time it happened. He raised his eyebrows and said, “Or maybe they just feel sorry for you.” Which, now that I think about it (and about the way I usually dress when I’m writing), seems more likely.
I will also tell you – because this question seems to come up a lot, for reasons I’ve never completely understood – that I have two laptops, a Dell and a Vaio, and I use them both.

Who are your favorite writers?
Susan Isaacs is my hero and my role model. I love all of her books, love her spunky, smart heroines, her wonderful dialogue, her brilliant plots, and also, I love the balance she’s been able to achieve in her own life, balancing best-sellers with motherhood and a family.

After that, in no particular, you’ve got Nora Ephron and Fran Lebowitz, John Irving, Anne Tyler, Anne Lamott, Peter Straub, Andrew Vachss, Stephen King, Tom Perotta, Kelly Link, Margaret Atwood, Meg Wolitzer, Marge Piercey, Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Erica Jong, Caroline Leavitt, Jodi Picoult, Laura Lippman, Lionel Shriver, Michael Chabon, Calvin Trillin, Michael Cunningham, Gail Godwin, Elizabeth Strout, Carol Shields, Roald Dahl, Russell Banks, Donna Tartt, Suzanne Finnamore, all of my quote-unquote “chick lit” contemporaries – Jane Green, Johanna Edwards, Liza Palmer, Marian Keyes, Emily Giffen, Melissa Bank, Caren Lissner, Sarah Mlynowski, Lolly Winston and Helen Fielding. One of my favorite underappreciated books of all time is Tabitha King’s PEARL…and if you want to read GOOD IN BED’s fictional forerunner, check out Gail Parent’s SHEILA LEVINE IS DEAD AND LIVING IN NEW YORK.

How do you feel about your books being called “chick lit?”
It’s a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the chick lit label is sexist, dismissive, and comes with the built-in implication that what you’ve written is a piece of beach-trash fluff with as much heft and heart as a mouthful of pink cotton candy that doesn’t deal with anything other than boys and shoes.
On the other hand, I know that the term gives publishers and, more importantly, booksellers and readers, a quick and easy shorthand with which to refer to books that feature smart, funny, struggling, relatable female protagonists. If slapping a pink cover, naked legs and cheesecake on the cover guarantees that my book will get noticed and picked up, that’s about all I can ask for. My readers know what I’m going for, even if the critics sometimes miss the point, or, more likely, ignore the genre entirely, and I’d rather have loyal readers than respectful reviews in all the smart places.

I wrote a novel, too! Can I send it to you for you to read?
Email me. We’ll talk. Please note: at this point, unless you have extraordinary extenuating circumstances, I'm only going to give you a quote if you're a first-time novelist, and if I've given you a quote already you can use it forever, but I'm unlikely to blurb a second book. (One per customer's fair, right?)

I wrote a novel, too! Can I send it to your agent?
Unfortunately, while my agent is legally allowed to read unpublished material, she isn’t taking on any new clients right now. Again, check out the “For Writers” link on advice for how to find an agent of your own.

I haven’t written a novel, but I have a great idea for one. Want to hear it?
Unfortunately, for legal reasons, I’m going to have to decline.

I haven’t written a novel, and I don’t have an idea for one, but you seem really cool, so maybe we could get together and have coffee!
I am not cool. In person, I am incredibly boring. My conversational topics are almost entirely limited to reality television, and how I don’t like old people. I rarely manage to look even a tenth as good as I do in my author photo. My table manners are iffy. Many days I don’t even comb my hair, and when I’m not writing I’m usually shlepping around a preschooler with applesauce smeared somewhere on my person, so in the interests of not having you be disappointed by the real deal, I am going to respectfully decline. But thanks! And please come to one of my readings, where nine times out of ten my hair is combed.

Will you come do a reading in my city?
I’m not the one who picks the cities I visit on my book tours. That would be my publisher (not coincidentally, the one who pays for the book tours). But it’s certainly worth asking – I’m happy to tell my corporate masters about potential places to visit. If you want to send me an email about a reading, please include the bookstore in your neighborhood, so I can forward that as well.

Will you visit, or call, my bookclub?
Before my daughter’s birth, I did lots of book club visits, phone calls, and online chats. But now that I’m one of the responsible parties for a child, I’m trying to keep my evenings free. At some point in the future, I’m sure I’ll do book club visits again, but for now, I feel as if I said “Yes” to one club I’d have to say “Yes” to everyone, and I wouldn’t have time for the daughter, or my husband, or for the many fine offerings from Mark Burnett et al..
You can find questions for discussion in the back of the paperback editions of GOOD IN BED and IN HER SHOES, or online here for GOOD IN BED, or here for IN HER SHOES, here for LITTLE EARTHQUAKES and here for GOODNIGHT NOBODY

Will you send an autographed book for my school or organization’s auction for charity?
Email me, and please put DONATION REQUEST in the subject line.

Will you sign my copy of your book?
I'm not set up to receive books and mail them back, but I would be happy to sign a book plate. Please send a self-addressed stamped envelope to PO Box 63915, Philadelphia, PA, 19147 with a note telling me how you'd like the inscription to read and I will send you a beautiful signed bookplate to stick in the book of your choice. Provided it's one that I wrote. No fair sticking me in Gary Shteyngart.

Will you come speak to my group?
Contact Jessica Fee at Greater Talent Network, and she'll tell you all about my availability, my rates, and about how I have to have green M&Ms and Evian mist-sprayers back stage, plus a roast chicken to eat during intermission. You can reach her at 212.645.4200, or at jessicaf@greatertalent.com

Do you really read your email? Do you answer it all?
Back in my early days of being published, I would read and respond to every single piece of mail I got.
These days, unless I figure out how to clone myself, it’s either spend my working hours answering email or spend them writing books. Most of the time, I opt for writing books…but I do try to read as much as I can, and answer as often as it’s possible.

Is Jennifer Weiner really your name, or is it a pen name?
This isn’t actually a frequently-asked question – in fact, I’ve only ever been asked it once – but it was too funny not to include.

The answer I gave, when I finally stopped laughing, is that Jennifer Weiner is, actually, my name, and that if I was going to come up with a fake I would choose something that was more alphabetically advantageous (not to mention easier to pronounce!)

So your last name’s not pronounced Weener?
No, it’s the infinitely more attractive and less-mockworthy Wyner.

But people probably say it Weener anyhow.
Yes, I’ve heard that once or twice.

I bet that sucks!
That’s a bet you would win.