Catching Up with Claire Zulkey
R A Miller

Girls! Girls! Girls!
Claire Zulkey
So New Media Books, 2004
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A_P: Girls! Girls! Girls! is a fun, fast, flight of fancy. How long did it take for you to write the stories?

CZ: Except for one or two of them, they were all written before the book was even a twinkle in my eye. Many of them were written for literary websites, and some I put together for my own website, so I'd say that it took about two years for them all to come out of me.

A_P: Which authors have inspired you so far during your career? What do you think of the whole "chick lit" genre that exploded with Sex and the City and seems to be taking a beating in the critical and popular press nowadays?

CZ: I love David Sedaris; he's the only author who I compulsively re-read. I don't write that much fiction right now, so he's great because he writes such wonderful nonfiction and essays. As a kid, I really liked Beverly Cleary, the author of the Ramona books, because she really captured how awkward and hard it can be to be a preteen, and then a teen, without making it all mushy, so I think I carry some of that into adulthood.

Publicly, I mock "chick lit". If the cover of your book is pink and it features a drawing a of thin woman in sunglasses or shopping bags or poodles or martinis or whatever, you're crap! But secretly I love it. You don't want to know how fast I tore through The Devil Wore Prada and The Nanny Diaries. Although those are both semi nonfiction, so I can hold onto a scrap of my dignity there.

I think a lot of us, no matter how educated, self confident or independent we are, just have that taste for the female crap--Glamour, chick lit, "Sex and the City," whatever. It's very soothing in a way.

A_P: How did you get hooked up with Ben Brown and So New Media?

CZ: Ben emailed me out of the blue one day a few years ago, telling me that he loved my writing and would I do a book for SNM. Which is pretty much the only way I'd like to publish from now on--for editors to email me professing their love for me and asking me to submit. It's so much easier than pitching!

A_P: Now that the book is in print, do you feel any writer's remorse? Do you read it and say, "Damn that sounded funnier when it was just a Word document." or are you generally pleased with the outcome?

CZ: I'm extremely pleased. Since the book has been put together, I've been working on a lot more straight freelance writing, so when I looked back at the book I thought "Wow, I'm really funny!" So that makes me happy. I know that doesn't make me sound very writery and humble but I'm not getting rich off this book, so I'm allowed to have an extra handful of pride. I've heard so much feedback that people wish it were longer and that would have been great but that was out of the capabilities of SNM, so it's much better to leave them wanting more.

A_P: Are you worried about peoples' impressions of the stories? Did you ever think, "What if people don't follow the whole 'This is my fantasy world; it's meant to be funny' conceit?"

I get that more from people who read my writing online. I think that mostly people who buy the book are people who are already in the 'zone' of where I'm coming from. But so often somebody will come across, randomly, some thing I wrote online and obviously not get it. For instance, I wrote this review of the Hollywood Diet on Flak Magazine, obviously talking about what a crock it is and how miserable it is and I get at least a few emails a week asking for advice on the diet. But back to the book. The only thing I worry about is whether occasionally some stuff is too inappropriate, because my parents call me up and yell at me if it is. This is not exaggeration.

A_P: So, seriously, what's sex with Hef like? Can he please a woman, or at his age and stature, is it all about him?

CZ: My parents are reading, so I can't say much other than that he's got a great sense of humor.

A_P: What's next for Claire Zulkey?

CZ: Very good question. I'm still trying to figure that out. I pretty much have two careers at this moment - my really unglamorous day job, and my writing career. It's very funny because when I'm working on stuff, say a story for a website or an article for a newspaper, I get really mad at myself for overburdening myself with work. When everything's all finished, then life is sooo boring.

But anyway. I'd like to do something longer form next. I'd be interested in compiling the interviews from my website into a book, although I hear that anthologies can be hard to sell, and I also have a few novel type things that are half finished, but it can be scary working on longer stuff because you have a lot more room to go wrong.

A_P: What questions do you wish I had asked you that I haven't?

Q: Is it true that you check the Chicago Craig's List Missed Connections looking for references to yourself?

A: I'm not answering that.

Q: How do you think the White Sox are going to do this year?

A: Don't get me started.

Q: Can I buy you drinks next time I'm in town.

A: I'd be delighted, thank you!