Author featured in national magazine with puppy peeing by her side
January 23, 2009
Dear Friends,
I’m in More Magazine this month! If you live in the U.S., pick up a copy of the February issue of More Magazine with Emma Thompson on the cover (not Cynthia Nixon – that’s just an example). In it, there is a story about six women who reinvented themselves (including yours truly) and a full-page photo of moi standing on our balcony. Here’s the best part. During the shoot, we tried to get our adorable puppy, Olive, to pose. Instead, she daintily turned and relieved herself right in front of the camera. So for my full-page debut in a national magazine, there is a photo of me with Olive PEEING by my side!!! I tried to scan the photo and include it in this email but I’m technologically limited so instead I included an equally off-color photo of Olive’s boyfriend, Hugo, sniffing her butt. Meanwhile, if you pass a newsstand selling More, take a look at page 109. It’s a really great article for anyone who wants to make a life change. I was so inspired by my own story that I’m thinking about reinventing myself all over again.
Our belated 2008 holiday update (in headlines this year) As you may or may not have noticed given the world-wide financial meltdown, presidential inauguration, and jets landing willy nilly in the Hudson, I failed in my duty as your annual-holiday-letter-writing-friend to get the 2008 Quinn missive out to you this year. Please forgive me but I was completely sidetracked (brag-disguised-as-an-excuse alert) finishing up my latest novel, The Sister Diaries. Whoo hoo!!! Impressive, I know.
Quinn Holiday Letter
* Mark quit his job. Yep, he just up and walked out one day. It was all very take this job and shove it.
* Without his trusty salary, we left our costly NY life behind, and sold our apartment on the very last day before they rang the bell and declared a cease-sell on Manhattan real estate for the foreseeable future.
* We moved to Miami Beach, ditching our chic black Manhattan wardrobes for colorful shorts and tee shirts.
* The children wanted to kill us.
* Six months later, they still do.
* Don’t tell anyone, but Mark is starting a chain of tattoo and piercing parlors for infants.
* Schuyler’s bribe for moving to Miami was Olive, our adorable Pomeranian puppy, for which she promptly abdicated responsibility, so Olive became mine. Shockingly, I did not see this coming.
* Mark went to the Olympics in Beijing while I got the children situated in their new school. While he was gone, we had a hurricane.
* We sold all our stock in September before the market crashed.
* No, sadly, we didn’t.
* Schuyler is going back to NYC for college next year. She doesn’t care which college, as long as it’s in Manhattan.
* Sam prefers to remain sequestered in his room.
* Mark is studying for the Florida Bar Exam in case the toddler tattoo concept doesn’t work out.
* The weather here is magnificent. The beach is beautiful. What’s not to love? Just ask Sam.
* I had a new book come out last summer – Holly Would Dream. If you haven’t read it yet, go directly to your nearest bookstore and pick up a copy!! They’re still working on The Ivy Chronicles movie. Sarah Jessica Parker is to star. As a devoted Sex and the City fan, I couldn’t be more excited about that. My newest book is The Sister Diaries. It will be released in July in the U.K. and after that, in the U.S. (I have to sell it here first).
* Most of the men who live in our building are retired. Mark likes to pretend that he is, too. They play a lot of golf together.
* Schuyler has the lead in her school play – A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Schuyler doing Shakespeare? This I have to see! And you can too if you’re in Miami March 6-7.
* Sam remains sequestered in his room. If anyone has any ideas to entice him out, we’re all ears.
This pretty much sums up our year. Lots of challenges, changes and Cheesecake Factory (our kids’ favorite restaurant in Miami). For a chain restaurant, it’s a chain restaurant.
The view from my window.
We’ve now lived in Miami for six months. Our building is right next to a development by Donald Trump, which is right next to a nude beach. Everyday as I write, I gaze out the window at the ocean, watching the nudists frolicking about in the water or on shore. But they pale in comparison to the vultures that have taken over the Trump buildings. I’m not talking real estate brokers sniffing for cheap deals. No, for some reason, every afternoon, hundreds upon hundreds of vultures fly around the Trump development, with gaggles of them perching on the balconies like crows on telephone wires. It’s as if the Alfred Hitchcock movie, The Birds, has come to roost right next door.
For safety sake, we won’t let Olive on our balcony when the vultures are circling, lest she become an appetizer for a hungry scavenger. Needless to say, the Trump development remains practically empty. Just a slice of life in Miami Beach I thought you’d appreciate.
How about that darn economy, eh?! Ooooh, let’s not go there.
Soon there will be a new me! Did I mention that I’m on a big diet? It’s my 2009 New Year’s resolution. With the stress of moving, writing a new book, watching my husband blow, er, invest our entire savings on a chain of toddler tattoo parlors, I put on a few extra pounds, so now I’m really cutting down on the eating and working out like a banshee. You won’t recognize me next time we meet. I’ll probably be wearing a bikini just because I can.
Cool things my friends are doing
Stan Zimmerman and Jim Berg are producing and writing Rita Rocks, a show on the Lifetime Channel, Mondays at 8:30 (but check your local listings to be sure).
In “Rita Rocks,” Nicole Sullivan stars as Rita Clemens, an overworked wife and mother in the middle of a full-blown identity crisis — which includes trying to maintain romance with her husband Jay, juggling the demands of her nine-year-old daughter, Shannon, and disciplining her defiant teenage daughter Hallie and her ever-present boyfriend Kip. In search of “youthful” Rita, she dusts off her old guitar and forms a garage band with her nosy postal carrier Patty and unemployed neighbor Owen, in the hopes of putting that spark back in her life.
Schuyler actually tried out for the part of Hallie, but didn’t get it. Personally, I think she should have gotten it because she looks more like the actress playing Rita than the girl they cast does, but I don’t hold a grudge! The show is really funny, smart and entertaining. You should definitely watch it.
Joanne Tombrakos is blogging about her journey in post corporate life. It’s called One Woman’s Eye and can be found at http://onewomanseye.blogspot.com/. The writing is intelligent and thought provoking. One of her latest entries is about why (oh why!) did NBC cancel Lipstick Jungle, one of my favorite shows. Hello????!!!!! HUGE mistake! Anyone who blogs about a topic that important to the women of America is worth a read.
BL Ochman and Caimin Jones have started a web site that allows you to put your pet on a tee-shirt or card and add funny little captions to it. It’s not expensive and would make a great Valentine’s day gift. Check out http://www.pawfun.com/.
Anne Nicholas is private jetting around the country with Conan O’Brien and his production team promoting him as new host of the Tonight Show (beginning in June). Personally, I can’t wait until Conan takes over. He’s so brilliant and funny and right now I can’t stay up late enough to watch him. I’m really proud of Anne for landing such a cool assignment.
If you are my friend and you’re doing something cool, let me know and I might feature you in Cool things my friends are doing. Even if you aren’t my friend or if you’re doing something remarkably lame, I might feature you anyway if it’s a slow news week.
Oh, by the way, I have a facebook page now. So if you do too, look me up and ask me to be your friend. Most likely, I’ll say yes. Just kidding! Actually, it’s more than likely that I’ll say yes. Wishing you a very happy, successful, and much more lucrative year in 2009. I promise to be in touch soon.
Love,
Karen
P.S. Here is the flap copy for The Sister Diaries in case you’re dying to know what it’s about:
Love her or loathe her, you need a sister by your side.
Although they couldn’t be more different, Amanda, Serena and Laura Moon have always been there for one another.
Amanda sizzles in the high stakes arena of New York City real estate – but drags herself home each night to a cold, empty bed. From top executive at Versace, Serena is now an over-the-top, stay-at-home Mum, plunging her marriage into crisis and her four-year-old into therapy. Laura spent the last six years caring for their dying mother. Now she is trying to breathe new life into her abandoned music career.
Emotions explode when the sisters learn that their mother left everything – the multi-million dollar family home and a priceless Daniel Lassiter painting – to Serena. But why? In an effort to make sense of the bequest, the girls journey to glamorous East Hampton to unravel the mystery behind their mother’s past, setting off a chain of events that threatens the very core of their sisterhood.
Note from Karen: Oooo! Doesn’t that sound exciting? Don’t you want to read it? I know I do. Oh, I already have and it’s really a page-turner!
3 Responses to “Author featured in national magazine with puppy peeing by her side”
Hey Karen! How are you? When will your new book, “The Sister Diaries” be out? I cannot wait to read it!
thanks so much! Have a great Friday!!
xoxo
Thanks Tera, it’s out in July in the UK and I’m still not sure when it’ll come out in the US. xoxo karen
Karen Quinn, May 2 2009
Re Donald Trump’s vultures: I spent some time in a house at the Jersey shore once, and for some reason, seagulls were making all kinds of thumping noises on the roof. I was in the only two-story house for blocks. All the rest were one-story houses.
This happened especially in the morning, then again about 4-6PM. In the morning, that meant no more sleeping. So I called the police. (For a man’s practical advice, not to arrest the seagulls.)
The cop climbed up onto the roof for me, and explained that the seagulls were dropping clam shells to break them, so they could consume the morsels inside.
The roof was a virtual clam-shell graveyard, just littered with broken shells.
Do you think this might be what’s going on at Donald’s next door?
Love,
Janet Horton, February 14 2009Janet