1963–I luck out and score the most amazing family any infant could ask for. I’m born in the same Bronx hospital that I will one day find out my husband was born the same year.
1964–We move to the suburbs onto a small block, where three other houses are inhabited by my mother’s three siblings. We are fourteen kids all together. Grandma and Grandpa play musical grandchildren every weekend.
1968–I am forced to let go of my mother’s apron strings and enroll in public school where kids are mean and teachers call on you when you least expect it. I manage to contract chicken pocks and get a two week vacation from it all.
1972–I am bored stiff by all the Watergate coverage and angry when it preempts my favorite show, Bewitched.
1974–I am saved from public school and enter a private Jewish day school where I quickly gather a small posse of mischievous adolescents who assist me in torturing unsuspecting teachers.
1976–I celebrate the bicentennial when my class is taken on a five day trip to Washington D.C. My interest in politics is born. Charlie’s Angels becomes a major hit and my interest in feathered hair is born too.
1977–I attempt to organize a boycott of my private school graduation because the principal dared to plan it during the final episode of Rich Man, Poor Man Book II. This is pre-VCR and DVR days for you young’ens. I am forced by my mother to attend and go begrudgingly.
1981–I am set free from high school a half year early and go right to SUNY Binghamton where I am one of about five cinema majors.
1983–Having transferred to NYU to study film and television, I score a rent control apartment on the Upper East Side. Although the apartment is slanted and my roommates are cockroaches and a mouse named Fred, everybody is still jealous of me.
1985–I meet an honest to God Hollywood stuntman and visit him on the set of a television show in Los Angeles. He gets called to do a James Bond movie in San Francisco called A View to a Kill and takes me. There, I’m offered and accept a job as stunt extra, which sounds exciting, but has me attempting to kill 12 hours a night in abject boredom, only to find myself on the cutting room floor.
1987–I move to Los Angeles for fun and adventure and begin to undertake a series of jobs ranging from unappealing to horrific, while I write screenplays. I soon find out earthquakes are freaking scary!
1989–A movie producer takes an interest in my screenplay and attempts to get it produced. I find out that getting a screenplay produced in Hollywood is tantamount to winning the Powerball jackpot.
1990–I have a brief mental lapse and try out for the FBI. After being waitlisted, I come to my senses and finally accept the fact that I am destined to be a writer. To prove this, I get my first article published in a national magazine!
1993–I attempt to escape from Los Angeles by moving home to my parents’ house in New York during a snow storm with no job and no friends. Needless to say, after about a month I move back to LA and onto my friend’s couch where I live out of my suitcases for a year. I dine on coupons, lose my job, my cat, and my boyfriend, and to top it all off, get second degree burns while frying perogies for Christmas dinner. My roommate rushes me to the hospital as I realize the true meaning of Murphy’s Law. The worst year of my life is almost over.
1994–I escape from Los Angeles again, but this time I am smart. I move to Phoenix and quickly secure a job with a local newspaper as staff writer. It is the second best job I ever held, but I am a social outcast in town because I’m 30 and single. Bored and lonely, I am easily convinced by my ex-boyfriend to move back to Los Angeles. I sublet his condo while he lives in an FBI undercover apartment and decides whether or not he wants to marry me. I release him from his quandary by breaking up with him again.
1997–I finally escape from Los Angeles for the last time and move home to New York where I attempt a personal and professional rebirth, in spite of the fact I’m living with my parents again. I write a humorous gift book called The Fine Art of Delusional Thinking but don’t know what to do with it. I also begin dating all sorts of New York characters who can be differentiated from LA characters by their thick accents and penchant for hyperbole.
1999–I briefly marry into a disastrous marriage which lasts about five minutes, but leaves a huge impression on me. I am inspired to begin my first novel.
2001–I inadvertently end up writing content for the Chippendales website. I get to meet the men, do interviews, and receive lap dances during their shows, all under the guise of “work”.
2002–I land my dream job writing book reviews for Book-of-the-Month Club. I work with amazing, talented people and have the career “blast” of my life. I eke out some time to work on my own book once in a while.
2003–I get reacquainted with my high school buddy, Mitchell, and we become friends again. After six months, he kisses me and we finally realize what everyone else around us already knows. We belong together.
2006–Mitchell and I marry on the beach in Miami and it doesn’t even rain!
2007–My company gets bought out and I, along with 500 others, lose my perfect job. I decide to finish my novel and within a year it is actually done. I call it Wedlocked.
2008–My fabulous Book-of-the-Month Club Editor in Chief, Victoria Skurnick, is now an agent for Levine Greenberg Literary Agency and decides to take on my book despite the bad economy and industry problems.
2010–I write my second novel with hopes the industry will improve and I might be able to sell it more quickly.
2011–I publish Wedlocked in June. It becomes an award-winning finalist in USA Book News’ “BEST BOOKS OF 2011” as well as a Kindle bestseller.
2012–I publish my second romantic comedy, Neurotically Yours, in April. It becomes a bestseller. Wedlocked becomes the WINNER of the GOLD Readers Favorite Award, the Beach Book Festival Award AND the Indie Excellence Book Award, as well as an Award-Winning Finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards.
2013–Neurotically Yours wins the GOLD Reader’s Favorite Award, becomes a DOUBLE winner of the Indie Excellence Book Award, and a DOUBLE award-winning finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards.