When's your next book coming out?

February, 2009. It’s called Confessions of a She-Fan: The Course of True Love with the New York Yankees, and it’s my first venture into the world of narrative nonfiction. Part baseball diary, part memoir, it’s about the months I spent following the Yankees to every game in every city in 2007. It’s for women who love their baseball team as passionately as they would love a romantic partner. It’s also for readers who can’t stand baseball but enjoy stories about the highs and lows of marriage.

So your husband is in the book?

Michael’s the hero of the book. Well, sort of. The Yankees may be my fantasy men, but he comes off like a Zen master, always making these wise, incredibly sensible pronouncements. He’s the one who’ll probably get fan mail. He’s an architectural photographer, and people can check out his online portfolio here.

Why do you love baseball so much?

I grew up in New York with two grandfathers who worshipped the Yankees, and they taught me about the game when I was a child. As a teenager I had posters on my bedroom wall of the Beatles, but mostly my room was a shrine to Mickey Mantle.

Were you a tomboy?

God, no. I hated getting my clothes dirty. I did play a lot of tennis over the years, and was pretty good at it. But tennis was my hobby; baseball is my obsession. As I say in the book, if there were a 12-step program for people who are hooked on the Yankees, I would be chairing the meetings. I would raise my hand and say, “I’m Jane, and I’m a Yankeeholic.”

Does this nonfiction book mean you’ve stopped writing novels?

No. But after writing 13 novels in 13 years, I was feeling pretty burned out on fiction. I was ready for a new challenge. And writing narrative nonfiction is a lot like writing fiction. I’m still telling a funny story with a beginning, a middle and an end. The only difference is that it’s a true story and I’m my own heroine and I didn’t have to make anything up!

Why haven’t any of your novels been made into movies?

Beats me. Eight of them have been optioned for feature films and TV movies, but I’m still waiting for Hollywood to make it happen. I came close with Lucky Stars. The producers were in talks with Bette Midler to play the part of the mother, but no deal materialized. I get so much mail from readers who are fed up with the male-dominated comedies on screen today. For every “Devil Wears Prada,” there are ten “Knocked Up”s. Women keep asking me, “Where are the ‘First Wives Club’-type movies these days?” I wish I knew, but the phenomenal success of the "Sex and the City" movie should send a loud message to the studios that the female audience has been underserved for a long time.

How do you get the ideas for your novels?

Like most writers, I eavesdrop. Sometimes a book will come to me just from overhearing a juicy conversation. That’s what happened with Female Intelligence; I overheard a conversation in a movie theater. Name Dropping came about after my agent told me she had the same name as another prominent woman in publishing and recounted how their identities often got mixed up. An Ex to Grind was the result of a friend telling me about her torturous attempt to divorce her husband. Princess Charming popped into my head after bestselling author John Jakes, whose novels I promoted when I worked in publishing, said to me, “Write about a cruise ship!” For more about how I came up with the ideas for my novels, click on a specific novel and go to “Inspiration.” It’s all there.

Are your novels autobiographical?

No. Well, all the heroines do sound like me. That’s what my friends tell me. “Reading your books is exactly like talking to you,” they say. So I guess my heroines have some of my smart-ass attitude in them. Mostly, they’re ordinary women who are forced to solve a problem and, in doing so, discover an inner bravery they didn’t know they had. They may start out as bumbling and clueless, but they always become stronger and more self-confident by the end of the story. I like to think I tap into my inner bravery just by pulling them through their struggles. Of all my novels I would say that my first, Cha Cha Cha, is the most autographical. The heroine is living in a big house in Connecticut when the stock market crashes and rocks her world. The same thing happened to me. I was stuck with a house I couldn’t sell and trying to cope with a divorce on top of it. But unlike the heroine, I didn’t become a murder suspect! For those who haven’t read Cha Cha Cha, which was originally published back in 1994 and went out of print, it’s available again in a new trade paperback edition, thanks to iUniverse, the print-on-demand publisher.

Did you always want to be a writer?

Not at all. I wanted to do TV play-by-play for the Yankees. It never occurred to me that I could write a book – not even during the ten years I was working in publishing in New York and promoting authors. I was happy being behind the scenes handling their publicity campaigns. I saw up close what a hard job writing is, and I didn’t want any part of it. But then came the proverbial thunderbolt: I got the idea for Cha Cha Cha. I started with a paragraph that grew into a page, then a chapter, then several chapters, and before I knew it I’d written 200 pages. I didn’t tell anyone what I was up to – I was afraid people would laugh at me – until one night at a friend’s dinner party. She was trying to fix me up with my now-husband Michael. He sidled up to me and said, “So what do you do?” I swallowed hard and said, “I’m writing a novel.” He rolled his eyes, laughed and said, “Isn’t everyone?” After 13 novels, he isn’t laughing any more.

Do you have a favorite of your novels?

I know I’m supposed to say, “No way! I love them equally, the way you love all your children.” Well, I do have a favorite: The Secret Ingredient. It’s about a woman who slips her husband a magic potion in the hopes of making him more romantic. Usually I really wrestle with a book – the middle parts are especially challenging – but The Secret Ingredient came easily to me and I actually laughed out loud when I’d read what I’d written. I think I hit on a very universal aspect of the male-female relationship: We fall in love with men, only to try to change them. I also enjoyed using elements of magic and fantasy in that book.

Do you have a favorite book written by someone else? How about your favorite movie? Favorite music?

I love to read and there are hundreds of books I could name. But I'll just mention Susan Isaacs’ Compromising Positions. Without it, there would be no Jane Heller novels. It influenced me so much – finally an entertaining story of a smart, wisecracking woman in the suburbs! Subconsciously, I must have thought, Maybe I could write a novel like that. As for movies, I'm a romantic sap. The harder I cry the better I like it, so my picks would be "An Affair to Remember" and "The Way We Were." Music is a tougher call. I'm all over the place – from Madonna and Timbaland to the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin (Robert Plant is a god). And if you've never treated yourself to the harmony of the Everly Brothers, download "Bye Bye Love" or "Wake Up Little Susie."

Do you set out to make your books funny?

I don't set out to tell jokes, but I try to make people laugh through situational humor. Laughter is so crucial to our sense of well-being. It gets us through tough times, distracts us from our struggles, reminds us that we shouldn’t take everything so damn seriously. The most satisfying emails I get are from people who tell me that my books made them laugh during periods in their lives when they didn’t think laughter was possible – medical crises, especially. Those letters are gifts for which I’m very grateful.

Are you very disciplined as a writer?

I am. I get up in the morning, eat breakfast and go to work until late afternoon – usually seven days a week. If I’m in the home stretch of a book I’ll work at night too. I don’t count pages or set limits for myself. I just put in my hours. Sometimes I’m productive. Sometimes I delete every word I’ve written that day. But I don’t sit around waiting for the muse to strike. Writers write.

Do you enjoy doing book signings and TV appearances?

I do now. But remember: I used to promote other authors for a living. I was very comfortable setting up their book signings and TV appearances and staying behind the scenes. Then suddenly it was my turn to step into the spotlight when Cha Cha Cha came out, and I was terrified. I got a negative review for the book (I think they called me “a second-rate Susan Isaacs,” not that they were wrong!) and took to my bed for 24 hours. But I got used to the scrutiny. I even got comfortable going on national television. My grandmother always said I was a ham, and she turned out to be right.

Do you do a lot of research for your novels?

Yes, and that surprises people. They assume that because the books are light and breezy they don’t need much “work.” The truth is, they’re light and breezy precisely because I put so much work into them. Admittedly, some of the research isn’t a hardship. For Princess Charming, which is set on a seven-day Caribbean cruise, I took a seven-day Caribbean cruise. (It was harder than it sounds; I went during hurricane season.) For Crystal Clear, which is set in Sedona and pokes fun at the New Age movement, I spent a week there having my aura cleansed and my chakras balanced. The heroine of Name Dropping is a pre-school teacher at a Manhattan private school, so I spent quite a lot of time in the classroom of my sister, who teaches at the 92nd Street “Y” pre-school. Lucky Stars is about a struggling actress in L.A., and I interviewed several similarly struggling actresses about their lives and careers. But my most exciting research came while I was writing Some Nerve, which is about a celebrity reporter who signs up as a hospital volunteer to get the scoop on a movie star patient. I became a hospital volunteer myself. The experience changed me, just as it changed the book’s heroine, and made me realize how rewarding it is to be in service to others. I continue to volunteer and encourage everyone to join me. Hospitals need us!

Are you working on another book now?

Yes. It’s nonfiction. I’m in the research stage so it’s too early to talk about.

What do you do when you’re not writing?

I live in Santa Barbara, California, which is as close to paradise as it gets. We have beaches, mountains, theaters and lots of great restaurants – plenty of temptations for a writer who should be sitting at her computer.

Any advice for aspiring writers?

Just write. Now. No excuses about how busy you are. I was on a panel once with a widow who had ten children and a full-time job. She woke up at 4 o’clock every morning and wrote until 7 a.m, when she had to get her kids ready for school. If she could find the time to finish a novel, so can you.