More About the Author
Laurie Viera Rigler is the best-selling author of the novels CONFESSIONS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT and RUDE AWAKENINGS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT, both published in North America by Dutton / Plume, in the UK by Bloomsbury, and in Italy by Sperling & Kupfer. CONFESSIONS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT has also been published in the Netherlands by Archipel.
CONFESSIONS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT won a Publishers Weekly Listen Up award, and, along with RUDE AWAKENINGS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT, was nominated for the Jane Austen Centre's Regency World Awards.
Laurie is also the creator of SEX AND THE AUSTEN GIRL, the comedy web series inspired by CONFESSIONS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT and RUDE AWAKENINGS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT.
Laurie is working on third novel and has also contributed a short story to the Austen-inspired anthology JANE AUSTEN MADE ME DO IT, coming October 2011 (Ballantine).
Prior to confessing a severe case of Austen Addiction, Laurie teamed with Richard Roeper of Ebert & Roeper fame to write a humorous, gender-specific guide to movie rentals entitled HE RENTS, SHE RENTS: THE ULTIMATE FILM GUIDE TO THE BEST WOMEN'S FILMS AND GUY MOVIES for St.Martin's Press. She also coauthored POPPING THE QUESTION: REAL-LIFE STORIES OF MARRIAGE PROPOSALS, FROM THE ROMANTIC TO THE BIZARRE for Walker & Company.
Having spent several years writing her first novel and reading all those proclamations about how aspiring novelists were more likely to win the lottery than ever get published, Laurie is passionate about encouraging other writers. Prior to coming into her own as a novelist, she spent an exciting decade as a freelance book editor working with authors of fiction and nonfiction. She has also taught classes in storytelling technique at Vroman's, Southern California's oldest and largest independent bookstore.
In addition to blogging for her own site, Jane Austen Addict (http://janeaustenaddict.com), Laurie is a frequent guest blogger on various book and culture sites, including PBS.org's Remotely Connected. She has also taken up tweeting Jane Austen's NORTHANGER ABBEY in 140 characters or less, having completed a Twitter version of PERSUASION.
A longtime resident of the very same Echo Park / Silverlake neighborhood in Los Angeles in which RUDE AWAKENINGS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT is set, Laurie now lives nearby in Pasadena, California, with her filmmaker husband and their cat.
"All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading." Oh, yeah. Education. Laurie graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from the State University of New York at Buffalo with a B.A. in Classics. Is that good enough for you, Mr. Darcy?
