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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
Why do you think your book has a broader appeal in other parts of the country?
Because it's about that universal first job experience. Everyone has worked for a tough boss before. No matter what industry you're in, everyone can relate to that feeling of never being prepared, and of being asked to do stuff that you find humiliating.
Do you think you would have gotten published if you hadn't spent a year as Anna Wintour's assistant?
I don't know. I'd like to think so. I'd like to think that it's a fun story, a light story. It's a book you pick up to read on vacation, or on a plane. It's a guilty pleasure. I read a lot of "real books," but I also read a lot of books in this genre and I read Cosmo, and you know, it's another way to relax. It's a diversion; it's entertainment.
How do you think it affects your writing career if, let's say, later on you want to write a serious work of literature? Are you afraid of getting pigeonholed because you did this first?
I have no regrets about writing this book, or this type of book. As long as I'm able to actually maintain a career where I can write full-time, I'll be thrilled.
When you left college, why did you choose to work at Vogue?
I got an offer at Vogue. And I desperately wanted to work in magazines. My interest wasn't in fashion, but when you get an offer right out of college for a magazine that big -- I decided that it was probably better to start at a big name magazine, even if I wasn't necessarily fascinated with the subject.
Did you end up doing any editorial work?
No, I didn't do any editorial work, but I knew that going in.
How would you say Elias-Clark, the large fictional publishing company that owns Runway, is different from Condé Nast, the large publishing company that owns Vogue?
It's not so much a matter of differences and similarities; it's that as an assistant, I had to do a number of things that assistants everywhere do. I had to get coffee. I had to order food. I had to make copies. I had to fax. I had to take phone messages. It just doesn't make for interesting reading. In writing the book I had to take those very basic things that assistants at Condé Nast -- and everywhere else -- are asked to do and try to figure out how to make them more outrageous.
When I was reading the book, I noticed several references to the main character's ambitions to write for the New Yorker. Is that what you'd eventually like to do?
No. I mean, I love the New Yorker. And I think that anyone who likes writing views the New Yorker as the, you know, pinnacle of the publishing world. If you get 50 words published in the New Yorker, it's more important than 50 articles in other places. So, would I love to one day write for them? I guess. But that's not my sole ambition.
Some critics have pointed out that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the main character, Andrea, and her boss, Miranda, because they exhibit some of the same traits. Andrea was a little snobby. Was that your intention?
I wanted her to be sarcastic and irreverent in a way that I think a lot of recent college graduates moving to the city are. She's someone who rolls her eyes at everything. I did set out to make her that way and I did intend for her to change over the course of the book, to become more like Miranda. But she recognizes that in herself. And at the end when Miranda says, "You remind me of me when I was your age," all of a sudden, she's like, "Oh my god! I remind this dreadful woman -- this woman I loathe -- of me!" If people are recognizing that, well, that was my intention.
I don't think of [Andrea] as snobby; I just think of [her] as a character who laughs at herself and everything around her whenever the opportunity arises. I won't go so far as to say I'm like that, but a lot of my friends and a lot of the people I meet just kind of make fun of everything around them and it's not meant to be mean-spirited.
But there's that scene in the book where Andrea makes fun of her brother-in-law for being from Houston. Isn't that snobby?
Say you're sitting in a mall and you're people-watching and when everyone walks by you make comments. It's not meant to be hostile; it's just a way to pass the time.
Are you concerned that people buying the book will misinterpret it?
Hopefully, the vast majority of people who pick it up will read it and enjoy it for what it is. It's a beach read; this is not great literature. We all know that.
