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Simon & Schuster authors speak out on the topics that inspire them

A gossip queen dissecting politics? A political pundit musing about sports? A romance novelist waxing poetic on music? You read it here first... see what your favorite literary personalities have to say about life beyond books.

Most Recent Posts

Would You Look at This

By Jon Scieszka - December 2, 2008

Wow. Check this out. Exactly what you were hoping for – another website with blog postings. I was going to post about a piece of toast (just because it rhymes with post). But now I think I won't. Don't. That's the only other word I can think of that rhymes with "won't". I believe that all blogs should have at least one set of rhyming words. Just...

THE UNBEARABLE CROWDEDNESS OF BEING LISA JONES

By Lisa Jones - November 26, 2008

Number of US women named Lisa Jones: 4,262. Number named Ann Smith: 2,991 (source: Whitepages.com) My name is Lisa Jones. Not Lisa Jones the adjunct professor of nutrition at LaSalle University. Not the college basketball player. I run neither a home for the needy in Florida nor a pilates studio in New York City. I’m not a realtor, anchor woman or a porn star. Even among...

Baking tips from BakeWise

By Shirley O. Corriher - November 25, 2008

It's me Shirley Corriher. Below are the chief concerns of bakers everywhere as well as the solutions I give them. Hope this helps with your holiday baking: How to Make Muffins with Peaks For a peak on muffins, the outside of the muffins must set while the inside is still juicy and rising. You need an oven temperature of at least 400°F/ 204°C. Also, an acidic batter (made...

By J.A. Jance - November 25, 2008

As an author, it’s impossible to see in advance the impact my stories may have on my readers. There’s the young man in Texas who, after encountering my books, decided he wanted to become a: a police officer and b: sober. He went on to become a police chief. There’s the oncology nurse in Seattle who discussed my books with a patient who was also a fellow fan, and the...

By Jessica Burkhart - November 21, 2008

Hi! It’s my first post on the new author portal! Isn’t it shiny and pretty? I thought I’d introduce myself in a hopefully not too OMG-you’re-boring-me way. The short story: * I’m 21. * I live in Florida, but not near the beach OR any palm trees. * After accidentally setting the microwave on fire once (one time, people!), I’m rarely allowed in the kitchen. * I...

By Shirley O. Corriher - November 21, 2008

When I come up with a really great recipe, or figure out how or why something happens, I can’t wait to share it with everybody. I just get really excited if I can make something taste better or have a better texture or just be a lot better than it was before. My Chocolate Crinkle Cookies, for example, I roll them in regular table sugar before I roll them in confectioners’...

You probably landed here by mistake ...

By Cornelius Kane - November 21, 2008

... because you've never heard of Cornelius Kane or his book The Unscratcahables (it comes out July 2009). But look on the bright side. Now you'll be able to tell all your friends that you discovered the book well before it became a global phenomenon, outselling that wizard kid and the teen vampire thing and launching Kane into the stratosphere.

The Assyriologist

By Elizabeth Aston - November 20, 2008

Why does one become what one has become? Chance? Fate? Now, if there were a parallel universe where I could have an alternative career, I’d be an Assyriologist. After university, clueless about my future career, and too green to know what I now know, which is that careers are things that happen to you, I went with a couple of friends for vocational guidance. We were set a...

I sit. I sit. I run.

By Chris Evans - November 20, 2008

Most days, I sit. A lot. As an editor and a writer I sit at my desk, or I sit at the library, or I sit in the back of a cab and work. I have tried reading and jotting notes while walking, but that resulted in painful discoveries, discoveries like lampposts are stubborn s.o.b.s that absolutely refuse to get out of the way even when they’re clearly in the wrong. And so, I sit...

Two Questions and a Whore

By Elle Newmark - November 20, 2008

Two questions have been asked about my novel, The Book of Unholy Mischief. First: Isn’t your book, like most novels, just a thinly veiled autobiography? Since The Book of Unholy Mischief is about a chef’s apprentice in Renaissance Venice I naturally reply, “How the heck did you know?” My father is an Italian chef. Beyond that, well, that’s why we call it fiction. ...

The Patience of a Cubs Fan

By Sunny Schwartz - November 20, 2008

Baseball is my lifeline. As a youth, Wrigley Field was my sanctuary. The Cubs -- the losers with heart -- were my saints with dirty faces. As an adult, I moved to San Francisco and adopted the Giants even though they hadn’t won a world series since 1954. I have kept the faith and they have kept me hopeful. During the 2002 World Series we needed heroes more than ever. The last...

What I’m Passionate About

By Robert Draper - November 19, 2008

I have a longtime obsession with the white wines of Friuli-Venezia Giulia in northeastern Italy. They are the country's best but largely unknown to Americans, and it's possible to spend a month in that border region (Austria to the north, Slovenia to the east) and not hear a word of English. The rolling vineyards are spectacular, and the wines they produce have a crisp, aromatic...

By Mark Kriegel - November 19, 2008

I don’t consider myself much of a hobbyist, though I did try boxing relatively late in life. It’s cheaper and less punishing than therapy. What’s more, being completely spent at the conclusion of a workout, I felt something that approximates relaxation. My problems with boxing, however, were several. Not only did I lack youth and talent, my courage was intermittent....

By The Grace of Which We Will Ken What We Need to Ken

By Holly Black - November 18, 2008

I remember my first cup of coffee very clearly. I was about eight and my mother made it for me with instant granules dissolved in hot water and a lot of sugar and milk. I drank a mug of that watered down stuff every morning before school. Be it the bitter dregs of a late-night pot at the diners I frequented in high school or the free trade, shade-grown beans ground and brewed...

By Robert Dugoni - November 18, 2008

When I was a boy, my father took my older brother and me to a baseball game at Candlestick Park. I don’t recall specifically how old I was that day, or if the game was for a special occasion. I don’t even recall who the Giants played. What I do remember is that moment when the players ran from the dugout in their white uniforms with orange and black names and numbers on the...

By Julia Gregson - November 18, 2008

My secret passion lives at the bottom of my garden. He is a Welsh cob, called Bandit, and his sexy and dangerous name is somehow not matched by his eyes, that are liquid and dark and kind. When I feed him he leans his head briefly against my arm and closes his eyes. When I think of what kind of man he might be, I think of someone masculine but a bit soppy, maybe George...

By Paul Malmont - November 18, 2008

“Paul Malmont, You’re a Published Novelist! What are you going to do now?” “I’m going to Disneyworld!” I am considered something of a mythical creature, like Bigfoot, or the Loch Ness monster in that I’m the Advertising Copywriter who is also a Published Novelist. It’s like hitting the creative dreamer’s lottery, so I’m not going to ask you for your pity. ...

Passion for Theater

By Anne Easter Smith - November 18, 2008

Theater has always been part of my life. For the first half, I was a spectator, watching my talented mother go off to perform as leading lady in a company that toured the bases of the British Armed Forces in Germany after World War II, and hearing my father—Port Commandant of the port of Hamburg at the time—sing on the BAF radio. She had trained at London’s Central School...

After a 5-day Workshop at Omega Institute

By Brian L. Weiss - November 18, 2008

I love being a facilitator for personal transformation in my patients and students. There is no greater honor or blessing. Especially in the longer and more intensive workshops I teach, to watch the moment of insight or the realization of physical or psychological healing is both exalting and humbling. At that moment I am as much the student as I am the teacher. This is...

Sleeping Bear Dunes

By Mark Alpert - November 17, 2008

One of my favorite places is the Sleeping Bear Dunes on the shore of Lake Michigan, about 25 miles west of Traverse City. It’s a vast mound of sand that Ice Age glaciers deposited on the lakeshore about 10,000 years ago. The westerly winds have been buffeting the mound ever since, sculpting the sand into mountainous dunes. There’s a parking lot at the foot of the easternmost...

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