Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

Let's start off by finding out - do you share Ann's love for Hollywood and all that glitters?

I love movies and always have, so in that sense I'm a Hollywood junkie.

As a little girl I watched everything from James Cagney gangster films to "weepers" with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford to "The Wizard of Oz." Romantic comedies are my favorite genre, so it's not surprising that I ended up writing novels with humor and romance. "An Affair to Remember," "The Way We Were," "Working Girl," "When Harry Met Sally" and "Something's Gotta Give" are movies I watch over and over and never get tired of them. I also watch the Oscars every year, because I love seeing the actresses in their pretty gowns. But I'm not as interested in their personal lives as Ann is by any means. I'm interested in the work they do.

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

Ann's personality does not seem consistent with that of a "killer journalist." How did she make it so long at Famous without "picking through people's garbage?"

The back story is that her previous boss was not as demanding as Harvey, and the magazine didn't have such a tabloid-y tone. She wasn't a killer journalist then and didn't have to be. She simply conducted her interviews like a pro and wrote well, and she wasn't asked to compromise her ethics. But the climate of celebrity magazines changed, and management brought in Harvey to "trash up" Ann's magazine. Suddenly, she was being asked to do her job in ways that were foreign - and abhorrent - to her.

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

Ann and Tuscany's friendship is strange and unique. They are so totally different that they end up complimenting each other. Why did you find it necessary to have Tuscany so promiscuous? Is it simply to be Ann's polar opposite?

Tuscany is definitely the polar opposite of Ann, the good girl. She's promiscuous and ditsy and makes bad judgments regarding men, but she doesn't hurt anybody; she has a kind heart. She just wasn't raised with the sound moral compass that Ann was. What I hoped to achieve with their friendship was to show that Ann doesn't judge people and that even two women who have seemingly nothing in common can forge a close bond.

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

Between Harvey's ability to fire Ann with ease and Malcolm's obsession to keep the media "parasites" away from his front door, this novel speaks volumes about the cut-throat atmosphere of Hollywood. Is it really like this? How do regular people survive it? How do the celebrities?

Yes, the atmosphere in Hollywood is cut-throat. But it's equally cut-throat in New York in the television world. Everybody is after "the big get," as I say in the book. The morning talk shows compete for the same guests and often use underhanded tactics to beat the competition. The magazines engage in bidding wars for the "exclusive" photos of a celebrity's new baby. The whole celebrity thing is insane now. I remember when Julia Roberts burst on the scene as the next big get, and yet there wasn't this hysteria surrounding her. She was allowed to walk down the street like a semi-normal person. Or so it seemed. One of the great things about being an author is that nobody recognizes you, nobody chases you with a camera and nobody cares if you step out the door without wearing makeup. We're totally under the radar. Well, most of us are. Jackie Collins probably wears makeup everywhere.

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

I thought Ann's greatest personality flaw was the fact that she didn't ever "dig deeper" to find answers to a perplexing situation whether personal or professional. Maybe this is why Harvey didn't think she had the killer journalist gene. For example, she figures out that something strange is going on at the hospital surrounding hysterectomies and even thinks to ask around a little. But she doesn't pursue it. Similarly, when her best friend decides to start a real relationship, Ann is surprised but doesn't ever bring it up again. No wondering what is different about this guy, if Tuscany thinks he's the "one" - nothing. Why doesn't she seem to get to the heart of a matter before dismissing it?

(Laughing) Sounds like you think Ann is one shallow lady! Truthfully, I never thought of Ann living in a bubble, not pursuing perplexing situations. But maybe you're right. Maybe she doesn't dig deeper into circumstances that puzzle her because she's too concerned with being a pleaser and being liked by everybody and not rocking the boat. Maybe Harvey was right to call her on it.

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

Keeping with the theme of my last question, Ann was really intuitive and sharp when it came to putting together a beautiful piece about Malcolm's life as an actor and a person. Is she only capable of digging deeper if it serves her personal interests? Does this make her selfish?

I don't think she's selfish. I think we all put more energy into the projects and people we truly care about. Yes, getting an interview with Malcolm suited her purpose in the beginning. She was desperate to do a good job for the magazine and to resurrect her career and to return to LA in a blaze of glory. But then - and I don't want to give the ENTIRE plot away - she came to care about Malcolm, and the result of that affection was a beautiful piece about his life.

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

A huge issue surrounding this novel is panic disorder and phobia. All the women in Ann's family suffer, from mild fear of flying to the serious agoraphobic behavior of never leaving the house. Do you believe these problems are hereditary? Or are they situational? If a person spends enough direct time with another person, especially someone influential in their life like a mother or sister, that suffer from panic and fear, will they eventually become the same way?

I believe that panic and anxiety disorder is hereditary. That's what the research suggests. And I can certainly attest to it. My mother is afraid of flying and I'm afraid of flying. Unlike Ann, I actually get on airplanes and fly all the time, but I'll never love it. Every time there's turbulence, I grab the armrests and pray for survival! What I'm saying is that I don't think you can "catch" a phobia. It's not contagious. I think you either have a predisposition to it or you don't. But then I'm not a shrink! What I do know is that while I played with some of the phobias in Ann's family as tools for humor, anxiety disorder is no laughing matter. That's why I made sure that Ann tried to ease her mother out of the house and was very sympathetic to her condition.

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

Seems that Ann's panic dissipates as she finds a life outside of Hollywood. I like the line in the beginning of the book where Ann states: "It's possible to be chasing the wrong dream and not know it." What does this mean for her future after Middletown?

Again, I hate to give the plot away, but by the end of the book Ann has found her true calling in life - and it's not chasing down celebrities for magazine interviews. She's been there, done that. Through volunteering at the hospital in Middletown, she loses her anxiety by being in service to others - specifically, to the patients who are in medical crisis and need her help. She experiences the rewards of giving instead of getting. Sounds corny, maybe, but as a hospital volunteer myself I can say with conviction that volunteering nourishes me in ways I never imagined. I don't know if you're aware of this, but I became a hospital volunteer as a result of researching Some Nerve. I wanted to be able to write authentically about the hospital setting, so I signed up at my local hospital. Like Ann, I was in it "for material" in the beginning. Gradually, I came to see that being a shoulder to lean on for patients in pain was more satisfying than any book I could write. Currently, I volunteer every Monday at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, and it's my favorite day of the week. I encourage anyone out there with a few free hours to sign up at their local hospital. They won't be sorry.

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

When all is said and done, even with it's serious undertones, this is a feel-good love story. Did you always know the girl would get her man in the end? Will their relationship be able to survive the cruelty of Hollywood?

I mentioned the movie "The Way We Were" before. The only thing that bothers me about it is that Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford don't get together in the end. I need happy endings! I don't like to see people who truly love each other NOT be together! So all my books have happy endings. I like making people feel good when they finish the books. In fact, I once got an email from a therapist, who said she prescribes my books for her depressed patients because they're better than Prozac! One of my earlier novels, An Ex to Grind, has a slightly ambiguous ending; the relationship between the couple is not neatly tied up, because I thought I'd leave something to the reader's imagination. Man, did I hear about that! I got tons of emails from people who demanded to know what happened between Melanie and Evan and was I planning to write a sequel. The answer is: Melanie and Evan live happily ever after because I wouldn't have it any other way.

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

You're an extremely successful author Jane - congratulations! The profile at the end of the book says that you "promoted dozens of bestselling authors before becoming one yourself." What did you do before writing and publishing your work?

I worked as a publicist for several book publishers in New York and spent ten years getting authors on talk shows and making sure their books were reviewed and accompanying them on their cross-country tours. It was a great career and I loved being behind the scenes. Everybody assumes I must have been dying to become a writer myself in those days, but it never occurred to me. Then in the late '80s I was a VP of advertising, promotion and publicity at a publishing house and was burned out. Being a boss wasn't for me. So I quit my job with no idea what I would do next. And then, a year later, I got an idea for a novel. I've been turning out books ever since. It still boggles my mind that I've written 13 novels. Which goes to prove that we can all reinvent ourselves, just like Ann did in Some Nerve.

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

Of all your books, which did you enjoy working on the most and why?

I get asked this all the time - "Do you have a favorite of all your books?" - and I know I'm supposed to say no; that I love them all equally, just the way you love all your children equally. But the truth is, I do have a favorite book and it's called The Secret Ingredient. It's about how women always seem to want to change the men we marry. It's hilarious. We fall in love with the guy and then the minute he's ours we try to "fix" him. In The Secret Ingredient, the heroine wishes her husband would be as attentive and communicative as he was when they were first together, so she goes to this "doctor" in Beverly Hills, buys an herbal potion and slips it in her husband's orange juice hoping to bring him back to the stud she thinks she married - with dire consequences. It's a "be careful what you wish for" story, and I had the best time writing it. Normally, writing is torture for me - sitting alone in my office, trying to make sentence after sentence work, thinking I should have done something else with my life - but this book cracked me up. I laughed so hard writing it. What was even more fun was writing the screenplay. Eight of my novels have been optioned for movies, including The Secret Ingredient. But in this case I was hired to adapt it and wrote the script. So I got to tell the story again.

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller

Do you have any projects you're currently working on that you can share with us?

I just finished writing my first nonfiction book. It's called Confessions of a She-Fan: The Course of True Love with the New York Yankees, and it'll be published by Rodale in March 2009. I'm a passionate baseball fan and since I was born and raised in New York it's the Yankees that are my beloved team. The book is about how my husband and I followed the Yanks to nearly every game last season and what I learned about being a fan and a wife. It's written in a first-person diary style, and it's sort of baseball meets chick lit. I hope that anyone out there who loves a sports team or knows someone who does will keep an eye out for it. There's really nothing like it in bookstores and I'm very excited about it.

Author Study: A Conversation with Jane Heller