WHY I WROTE LITTLE PINK SLIPS
In “Legally Blonde,” Elle Woods wakes up one day and says, “I think I’ll go to Harvard Law School.” The same thing happened to me. No, not Harvard. But suddenly, in 2004, I became determined to write a novel that would capture the craziness of women’s magazines as I know them from the top of the masthead.
For three decades, I enjoyed editorial jobs on American women’s magazines, starting with my first lucky break, joining Mademoiselle after college. Magazine publishing is a field I adore, but like most industries reputed to be glamorous it is profoundly insecure. Magazines often have short lives (Mirabella, YM, Premiere, Child, New Woman? all good, all gone) and editors can be abruptly replaced.
Case #1. After being McCall’s’ editor-in-chief for eight years, I was booted upstairs to make way for Rosie O’Donnell to turn McCall’s into a magazine called Rosie. The TV star even moved into my office. While I worked on other projects, I watched Rosie closely as it quickly imploded in a well-publicized lawsuit and trial.
Case #2. While Rosie was crashing, Lifetime Television for Women hired me to create a magazine based on the network. Lifetime had a promising start, but after two years my superiors decided to “go in a different direction.” Translation: axed—again!
I received this news while sitting in the office of the Human Resources director, who happens to be a dear friend. She asked me what I thought I’d like to do next. Some small part of me that wasn’t quaking with shock piped up and said “I’d like to join a writing workshop.”
Writing is what drew me to magazines. Over the years, I’d crafted hundreds of articles, essays and profiles, but when I took on the responsibility of editor-in-chief, little time remained for lavishing the attention that writing requires. Most editors only dream about writing books. They’re too busy making public appearances on television and to advertisers, managing large staffs and even larger budgets, planning issues in nit-picky detail, looking at every piece of art that may appear in the magazine and writing catchy cover blurbs and headlines. It’s a 24/7 job.
Sitting in the HR office, I recalled an article I‘d once written about resiliency. One of the doctors I interviewed suggested that when someone hopes to bounce back from a disappointment, she should start by trying to behave like a person she can respect. I attempted to follow that advice. Research and serendipity led me to a writing workshop taught by Charles Salzburg, a wise, gentle friend I hadn’t seen in years. His group gave me structure—I always say “everyone needs deadlines”—and brought me into regular contact with a diverse group of writers. This helped me, too, because after the frantic buzz of leading a magazine, being at home felt deeply isolating.
When I considered what I might write about, I thought back to traditional advice: write about what you know. A fictional account of what happened to an editor when a celebrity took over her magazine struck me as a topic about which others might be curious. It appealed to me to try and write something with a quick, page-turning tone. In short, writing fiction became my therapy.
After I’d finished a hundred pages of the manuscript a top-notch agent offered to sign me. When Little Pink Slips was finished a year later, Putnam made a pre-emptive bid which we were thrilled to accept. Since then, Little Pink Slips has been sold in countries as far away as Russia, The Netherlands and Taiwan (I can't wait to frame those covers) and has been turned into an audiotape.
In Little Pink Slips I feel as if I've written my own happy ending. I have discovered that I adore writing fiction. Little Pink Slips is my first book. I hope there will be many more.
-- Sally Koslow, April 2007
