This is Chick-Lit.

We've received our first review for This is Chick-Lit from Bust Magazine (August/September issue). Bust Magazine is a publication I know nothing about, but a quick Google search tells me it's "a pop culture feminist publication from New York, NY."

Like a lot of snotty literary types, I have often sneered at chick lit …
I’m here to tell you: I was wrong.

That's how the review opens. And then the reviewer discusses This is Not Chick Lit and This is Chick Lit. The review is called Girl Fight.

I used to be a snotty literary type. Until I published my first novel. The only people who didn't ask why I was writing that kind of fiction were genre authors (romance, mystery, thriller, sci-fi), commercial authors, self-published authors and chick-lit authors. They just gave me much-needed support and I gained a new respect for them. Now I strive to be the same way.

There's a lot to be said for people who don't judge others by the covers of the books they choose to read. Or write.

And that's the key, isn't it? Choice.

My contribution to the anthology is called Nice Jewish Boy. It's about the only black woman at a bris searching for Mr. Right.

Does Anyone Else Miss John Tesh?

I wasn't even that wild about him when he hosted Entertaiment Tonight in the 80s and early 90s, but I miss him.

The other day I was channel surfing and stopped to watch a bit of the 1991 movie Soapdish (Sally Field, Kevin Kline, Elisabeth Shue, Whoopie Goldberg). There was a clip of John Tesh reporting entertainment news (in the movie) at his ET desk and he looked like an actual evening news anchor.

Remember that? That period in history when entertainment news programs tried to mirror news programs instead of the other way around?

I actually wrote a little bit about this in 2005, after catching the CBS Evening News:

Several evenings ago I was vaguely watching the CBS Evening News when this sign off to a story caught my full attention: "It's unclear if any new CSI evidence is available, but it's clear this Cold Case is warming up." Jeez, I thought. Not only has the media become the new paparazzi, they're managing to push network television programs, too?

I love entertainment reporting as much as the next guy. Jimi, the heroine in Whiskey Road: A Love Story, is a paparazza and I support some of her views. But I turn to Comedy Central to watch The Daily Show every evening, not only to see news clips I know the regular news stations won't show, but because it's painful to watch reporters try to make serious news entertaining. They didn't sign up for that and it shows.

So, John Tesh, come back. Maybe news anchors will start trying to imitate you.

How Whiskey Road Came About.

My third novel, Whiskey Road: A Love Story, has been finished for quite some time, but won't be published until next year. Possibly summer 2007. Meanwhile, I might as well write a little bit about it.

In Whiskey, the relationship between a black city girl and a white small town boy takes a dark turn in rural New York post 9/11.

For a long time, I've wanted to write about a girl on a motorcycle who turns up in a small town after getting into some trouble somewhere else. I didn't know what would happen to her once she got there, but I always knew she'd meet a boy. A Tough Boy. A boy about to be in a bit of trouble himself. But she wouldn't be afraid.

The title comes from the name of an actual road I've never been to. Some of my husband's cousins are bikers. One day they were telling us about Whiskey Road, a place they go to ride. I fell in love with the name and decided to use it. (In the novel, Caleb lives on Whiskey Road.) But I didn't call the book Whiskey Road only because I like the name. It also had to do with the kind of people my husband's cousins are. Caleb and Jimi would get along with them, and they'd be completely welcomed by them as a couple. They'd absolutely ride the real Whiskey Road together, drink many shots of Jack and laugh.

(Recently, our 12 year old niece and 14 year old nephew were in New York for a visit. They live in Denmark. They went for a ride on the back of their cousin's motorcycle. When they came back, I heard them speaking excitedly about Whiskey Road. "You were on Whiskey Road?!" I asked and they nodded and told me all about it. I admit, I opted not to take the ride, but promised I'd go next time.)

I think my husband's cousins think it's cool my next book is called Whiskey Road, but I always leave out the "A Love Story" part when we talk about it.

The full idea for the book came after the 2001 terrorist attacks. After the attacks, I was a defiant New Yorker. I traveled into Manhattan every day to meet my friends and walk around the city we were born and raised in, and comment on how strange and foreign it felt. Showing ID to police officers stationed on streets we used to walk down without a second thought. Bus stations and building walls covered with photos and pleas for any information on missing loved ones. Soldiers with machine guns standing on every corner, smiling at us and saying hello as we passed them. It was weird but it made us feel even more strongly about never leaving New York City.

But there was a moment when I became afraid of the possibility of another attack. I think that fear was triggered by the government's color coded alert system. You know how some things just freak you out? And you can't explain it? That happened to me. And that fear became exhausting. I became desperate to leave New York.

I spent a lot of time trying to come up with a city/town I wouldn't mind moving to. Someplace different. I thought: How cool would it be to pack up and move to Montana. Montana. Or Colorado. (If you take a look at my Things To Do List, you'll see one of the things I want to do is "ride a bike through Colorado.") So I started thinking about all the pros and cons of living in places like Montana, Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming...

One big con is Work. I can write anywhere. But my husband has to work in a big city. When I suggested he become a farmer or rancher, he said "Sure. Where do you suggest we begin, considering we don't know anything about either profession?" Well, it was just a thought.

Another big con is Race. I know there are Black Cowboys. Gordon Parks was a man I admired immensely. Still do. I know black people live in small towns in Middle America. But I couldn't help wondering about things like my hair. Who the hell would do my hair when it was time for my touch up? I doubt there are many black hair stylists in Montana. And white hair stylists don't know anything about black hair. (I knew a black woman who went to a white hair stylist years ago. The hair stylist put a chemical into the woman's hair and a couple hours later the woman walked out of the hair salon bald. I kid you not. Bald is beautiful, but I believe you have to work up to that when it comes to your head. I imagine losing all of your hair in a crowded salon after a bad perm job is...difficult.)

So I decided I wanted to write about a black girl who leaves New York because of this inexplicable fear of another terrorist attack, but realizes black girls can't just pick up and move anywhere in America. And not just because we'll have trouble getting our hair done.