Pump Up Your Book Chats with Sally Koslow

Life has made Sally Koslow a novelist. With Friends like These is her third book. Koslow began writing fiction after a long run as the editor-in-chief of major American women’s magazines, including the venerable McCall’s. When this iconic publication crashed and burned  (it was turned over to the celebrity, Rosie O’Donnell) Koslow spoofed these truth-is-stranger-than-fiction events in her first novel, Little Pink Slips. Her second novel, The Late, Lamented Molly Marx is currently Target’s Book Pick. Koslow’s work has been translated into ten languages, with Ich, Molly Marx, Kuzrlich Verstoben a bestseller in Germany.

Koslow contributes articles and essays to magazines including Real Simple, More and O, the Oprah Magazine, blogs on The Huffington Post, teaches creative writing privately and at Sarah Lawrence College and practices as an independent writing coach. You can reach her as www.sallykoslow.com as well as Facebook and Twitter. Currently, she is writing her next book, The Wander Years: A mom’s public display of reflection, a non-fiction narrative about “adultescents.” She lives in New York City with her husband and is enormously proud of her two sons, Jed and Rory.

About With Friends Like These

When Quincy, Jules, Talia, and Chloe become New York City roommates in the early nineties, they become fast friends despite their drastically different personalities. Now, nearly twenty years later, their lives have diverged as much as they possibly can within one city: Quincy is mourning a miscarriage and lusting for the perfect Manhattan apartment; Jules, a woman with an outsize personality, is facing forty alone; Talia, married and the mother of a four-year-old, is her family’s reluctant breadwinner; and Chloe faces pressure from her hedge fund manager husband to be more ambitious. As these women grapple with the challenges of marriage, motherhood, careers, and real estate, they can’t help but assess their positions in life in comparison to each other–leading them to envy and disillusionment. Honest and entertaining, and written in Sally Koslow’s trademark wry, vivid prose, With Friends Like These asks serious questions about what makes female friendship endure, and to whom a woman’s loyalty most belongs.

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Thank you for this interview, Sally.  Do you remember writing stories as a child or did the writing bug come later?  Do you remember your first published piece?

A: I was a nose-in-a-book kind of kid that you had to poke before I’d go outside and play. As early as grade school, I was scribbling poetry. My high school literary magazine’s title, Of Toadstools and Russian Olive Trees, was named for a line in one of my poems, which I later used in my novel The Late, Lamented Molly Marx. During college, I interned on my hometown newspaper, The Forum in Fargo, North Dakota, and began to publish articles there, but my first piece in a national magazine was about poetry therapy, when I joined the staff of the late, lamented Mademoiselle Magazine after college.

What do you consider as the most frustrating side of becoming a published author and what has been the most rewarding?

A: It can be frustrating to finish a book  and have to wait for what feels like forever until it comes out—no one ever accused publishing of working fast—but nothing is more rewarding than hearing from readers who let you know that your novel touched them. This has happened a lot with The Late, Lamented Molly Marx and several of my early readers of With Friends like These have shared that the story made them reflect (sometimes with tears) about past friendships.

Are you married or single and how do you combine the writing life with home life?  Do you have support?

A: My husband, Robert, is an incredible support. He checks my Amazon numbers more than I do. We both work at home, pretty much 24/7, and every once and a while cut out late in the afternoon and go to a movie.

What do you like to do for fun when you’re not writing?  Where do you like to vacation?  Can you tell us briefly about this?

A: I love the razzmatazz of living in Manhattan, including Broadway shows and museums, but a few years ago my husband and I bought a rustic cabin in the north woods and that’s our favorite place to unwind. No television! By choice!

If you could be anywhere in the world for one hour right now, where would that place be and why?

A: Right where I am, at home, with my sons visiting. I love my life. But I wouldn’t mind blinking and having my own little family wind up in Paris.

Where’s your favorite place to write at home?

A: At my red desk, in my office.

Do you have any pets?

A: Two, of blessed memory: Maggie and Muzzy, both gone now, but I think about them all the time.

Tell us a secret no one else knows.

A: My role model was Lois Lane. I didn’t know any real journalists and her job sounded pretty terrific.

What’s on your to do list today?

A: Bake a strawberry rhubarb pie. Make French toast for my son when he wakes up. (He’s visiting from California and worked on a movie set all night.) Call a bunch of friends. Run in Central Park. Give myself a manicure. Read some of my students’ work for the writing workshop I’m running at home this summer.

Now I’ve got a couple of fun questions for you.  If Tom Hanks, in the movie Cast Away, unearthed a copy of your book, how would that help him find a way off the island?

A: The story would make him laugh one minute and cry the next. He’d get so distracted that he’d forget that he was marooned on an island and faster than you can say “rescue” his ordeal would be over.

You have a chance to appear on the hit talent show for authors, American Book Idol, with judges Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson, Kara Dioguardi and the newest addition, Ellen DeGeneres, to determine whether your book will make it to Hollywood and become a big screenplay where you’d make millions of dollars.  What would impress them more – your book cover, an excerpt or your author photo – and why?

A: An excerpt (although the With Friends like These does have a gorgeous cover.) This is a story with a lot to chew on about life. Simon, Randy, Kara and Ellen would get into a juicy discussion about which characters in the book were right or wrong, and then the talk would digress to friendships of their own that have been snuffed out by careless behavior and how they learned to forgive and move on.

You just got word that your book has received the 2010 NY Times Bestselling Book Award and you have to attend the ceremony to give an acceptance speech.  Anyone who’s anyone will be there and it’s your shot for stardom.  What would you say and who would you thank?

A: I would try to explain how grateful I am to have seen a dream come true after the age of 50, but there wouldn’t be time to thank all the people who have helped me along the way, because there are far too many. The most important ones are my readers.

I understand that you are touring with Pump Up Your Book Promotion in August via a virtual book tour.  Can you tell us all why you chose a virtual book tour to promote your book online? 

A: Even though, as a former editor-in-chief of a magazine I may sound like a heretic, more readers now get information on books online than anywhere else. I can’t think of a better way to get the word out on With Friends like These than through a virtual book tour.

Thank you for this interview, Sally. Good luck on your virtual book tour!

A: On behalf of With Friends like These, I send you a big thank you. 

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