Jennifer Weiner, author of Good in Bed and In Her Shoes, will be appearing at Saks Fifth Avenue on July 14 between 4 and 7 p.m. to discuss and sign copies of her newest novel, The Next Best Thing. The event will benefit Connections to Success, a nonprofit organization committed to reducing poverty. Ten percent of sales at Saks between 4 and 7 p.m., as well as 10% of sales from Weiner’s novel at Left Bank Books, will go to benefit Connections to Success.
“I believe, as Connections to Success does, that getting women off welfare and back into the workforce requires much more than just saying ‘get a job,’” Weiner wrote in an e-mail. “When the opportunity to have a charitable component to my St. Louis event came along, I jumped at the chance to work with Connections to Success.”
Weiner, a graduate of Princeton University, worked in journalism for several years before her first novel, Good in Bed, was published in 2001. Since then, Weiner has switched to writing fiction full time, completing ten more novels and one collection of short stories. Her 2002 novel, In Her Shoes, was made into a movie starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette, and Shirley MacLaine.
Her latest book, The Next Best Thing, was released on July 3. Based on Weiner’s experiences co-writing the short-lived television show “State of Georgia,” the novel tells the story of a woman struggling to succeed as a writer in Hollywood.
“I spent a year as a show-runner, learning a brand-new job, auditioning actors, hiring writers, working in an editing bay, getting a firsthand look at how the sausage of television gets made,” Weiner recalled. “I saw so much that was strange or funny that I thought, ‘This has to be a novel.’”
In addition to writing fiction, Weiner maintains an active online presence via social media. The author of a blog called “A Moment of Jen,” she also posts regularly on Facebook and Twitter. As prolific a novelist as she is, Weiner still finds it important to make herself available to readers in real time.
“I think, these days, that readers have come to expect an unprecedented level of access to the authors they love,” she said. “Used to be, a photo on the book jacket and a paragraph of biography was enough. Now, it’s websites and Twitter and Facebook, and pictures of houses and spouses and kids.”
Weiner uses the Internet to comment on a wide variety of subjects—from book tour dates to advice for other writers to reality television.
“The ‘Jen’ online is a friendlier, funnier version of me in real life,” she said. “I try not to be crabby, or complain-y on the Internet, but instead be as entertaining as I can. Hence, the live-tweets of ‘The Bachelor’ on Monday nights.”
Weiner has also been outspoken about what she perceives as a gender bias in the book reviewing industry.
“When a man writes a book about love and romance and families, it’s seen as much ‘bigger’ than when a woman does the same thing,” she said. “Because my books deal with body image and insecurity and—gah!—shoe shopping, it’s easy for critics to call them fluff.”
While her books deal primarily with issues related to women, families, and romance, Weiner resists critics’ attempts to pigeonhole her writing.
“Chick lit is not my favorite term in the world, but I understand, from a bookseller and a book-buyer’s point of view, the necessity,” she said. “Do I write chick lit? I tell people that I write novels; that the central characters are women, that they’re funny…and that, if they can get past the covers, men will like them, too.”
