Kristin Harmel, THE ART OF FRENCH KISSING, chick-lit novelist: Mr. Media Interview, Part 3 Return to Part 2!

Return to Part 1!

LISTEN to this interview by clicking here!

ANDELMAN: Would you describe yourself as successful at this point as a novelist, or are you still looking for that around the corner?

HARMEL: This is the first year that I would say yes to that question. The first two years I always sort of felt like well, I have these books out. And it was so exciting to walk into any Barnes & Noble in the country or any Borders and see my books sitting there. It still took a little bit of getting used to, like, “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe it. That’s my novel.” This is the first year, though, that I feel like something has really clicked into place. I’m having a lot of people turn up at my launch parties -- and I’m having these launch parties all over the country -- and strangers, people I’ve never met, and say things to me like, “Oh my God, I’m so excited to read your book. I loved your first two books and such a fan.” I guess I never thought I’d get to the point where people would say that. I always kind of look at them like, “Really, are you sure you have the right person?” It’s just an amazing, amazing feeling. So I guess because of that I do feel like I’ve achieved a moderate level of success, but I feel like I have a long way to go. It’s funny. I’ve had people ask me before, “Oh, you must be so rich now,” and obviously, these are people who have probably never read my book or known what a book contract could be. I’m certainly not speaking to you from the deck of my yacht or anything like that yet, but I do feel like I’m in a very good position where I feel like I’m beginning to get readers who are reading all of my books. And I’m able to support myself doing this, and at the end of the day, I think that’s what it’s all about. I have a life that I’m very, very happy with, and I’m doing something I love, and to me, I think that’s all you need to feel successful.

ANDELMAN: Do you indulge yourself in any way from time to time?

HARMEL: I shop too much. It sounds so stereotypically girly, and I know I sound like I’m trying to be Carrie Bradshaw from “Sex and the City,” and perhaps, in a way, I am. But I’m obsessed with shoes, and I do love to shop. And cupcakes, they’re my other indulgence. I’m obsessed with cupcakes.

ANDELMAN: Cupcakes and shoes.

HARMEL: Yes.

ANDELMAN: So if a guy shows up at your door with a French accent, puts a cup of cupcakes in each of two new shoes, he’s got it made.

HARMEL: I’m sold. Exactly.

ANDELMAN: Okay!

HARMEL: That’s all you need to charm me. Exactly.

ANDELMAN: I’m learning so much here. Now I have to figure out how to apply all this to a 20-year marriage.

HARMEL: There you go. Just show up with some shoes and cupcakes for your wife and speak French.

ANDELMAN: Speak French. That’ll be the tip-off. Okay, speaking of girly moments, have you had a, maybe this is kind of a boy thing, but have you had any in-your-face moments with girls that you went to high school or college with since the books have come out?

HARMEL: What do you mean by in-your-face moments?

ANDELMAN: Oh, I think you know. Someone who did not think very highly of you in high school or college, somebody you were competitive with, perhaps.

HARMEL: No, no, no. I’ve certainly had nothing like that. In fact, at my Atlanta party and my Orlando party, I actually had girls who I had gone to high school and college with, which was really nice. In fact, I even saw in New York, this doesn’t answer the girl part of the question, but I actually saw a boy that I had gone to kindergarten through third grade with at my New York party. So I think I’m fortunate in that, hopefully. I’m sure there are some people out there that probably don’t like me, but I think that, for the most part, I have not made many enemies along the way. So I’ve been fortunate in that.

ANDELMAN: Okay. This boy from third grade? Did he have a French accent? How do you remember him?

HARMEL: No, you know what? I remember him because we had gotten in touch recently on Facebook, which is obviously just a great way to connect with people, but he was actually my very first crush, my very first crush back in the third grade. When I was nine years old, I had a crush on him, and I actually saw him again for the first time since we were 10.

ANDELMAN: That I can buy. Okay, that makes sense to me. Now, I think Pete was kind of heading this direction when he called before. Now, I kept turning the pages in The Art of French Kissing thinking, “Okay, there’s gonna be sex on the next page, right? What? No, not this page. Okay, it must be the next page.” And just seeing the book, as tame as the book looks, it is called The Art of French Kissing. So my wife sees it, I’m reading it in the course of a few days, and she’s like thinking the same thing, and she made me swear that I would keep this book out of my daughter’s eyesight.

HARMEL: Oh, how funny. How old is your daughter?

ANDELMAN: She’s 11.

HARMEL: Oh, how funny.

ANDELMAN: So I get to the end of the book, there’s no sex. So what is it that I, as a man, do not understand about chick-lit? What have I missed here?

HARMEL: Oh, chick-lit is generally not sex. There’s generally very little sex in chick-lit, and if there ever is, it’s never like in a romance novel where it’s a sex scene for the purposes of getting you turned on or whatever. The only sex scenes I’ve ever seen in chick-lit novels are ones that have to do with the growth of a character or the growth of a character’s relationship. Chick-lit is a very different genre from romance, and I think a lot of people who don’t read a lot in this genre assume that it’s a very close sister to romance novels, and it’s really not. So I would describe chick-lit, in general, as more, basically, stories that are often light-hearted in some way but stories that are basically, at their core, stories of women finding themselves and of developing or learning some major lesson in their lives. It usually involves some level of romantic interest, but there are also a lot of chick-lit novels that are written about women who are married or women who are new moms or even women who have been recently widowed. I think chick-lit encompasses a lot of different types of novels and a lot of age ranges, too, but generally, there’s not a lot of sex in chick-lit. Sorry to disappoint you.

ANDELMAN: Especially if you’re telling me that a lot of it is marriage-related, I know there’s no sex.

HARMEL: The title of my first novel was actually How to Sleep with a Movie Star, and you should have heard the reactions about that. My God, I’ve been asked 50,000 times which movie star I’ve slept with, and I keep telling people nobody, nobody, but I think I’m going to start just saying, “I never kiss and tell,” and just leaving it up to their imagination.

ANDELMAN: But now you say what you will, but, ladies and gentlemen, go to kristinharmel.com, and the picture that pops up is her with Patrick Dempsey.

HARMEL: Who is very, very happily married with three wonderful young children and a gorgeous, gorgeous wife so he’s just someone I’ve interviewed a few times, and he’s an extremely, extremely nice man. And, yes, I admit to thinking he’s one of the most attractive people on the planet.

ANDELMAN: As Chris Farley would do, “interview,” and he’d be holding up his fingers like “interview” several times.

HARMEL: No, no, no. Just interview.

ANDELMAN: What is the difference between chick-lit like this, but there is no sex, which is okay, I get that, some people don’t want to read that stuff, and then doing a young adult novel which, I’m assuming, there probably is no sex in, either?

HARMEL: No, certainly not in the ones that I write. I think, at their core, they’re sort of very similar types of novels. And a lot of writers who write chick-lit also do a very good job with young adult novels. I think it’s a pretty easy transition because it’s obviously different types of settings, different types of scenarios, and obviously a different age group. But I think, in general, we’re doing the same types of character explorations and following our characters sort of on the road to learning a little bit more about themselves. The lessons tend to be a little bit different because the girls in the books are 15, 16, 17 as opposed to 28 or 35 or 42. You know what I mean? So they’re obviously at a different place in their lives in terms of discovering who they are and what they want out of life, but I think, in general, they deal with similar emotions and similar complications in their lives. And it’s funny. If you think about it, if you think back to high school, I think that sometimes the issues that you confronted in high school are sort of issues that continually re-appear throughout your life in just sort of in different form, if that makes sense.

ANDELMAN: I don’t know if my wife will agree, but I actually got to the end of this, and I thought my daughter actually could read this book.

HARMEL: Yes, I think so. It’s important to me, just personally, not to really write anything inappropriate in books. I’m certainly not marketing The Art of French Kissing necessarily to pre-teens, of course, but there’s certainly nothing in there that would be inappropriate for a girl who’s 15 or 16 or 17 to read and certainly the same with my teen novel, When You Wish, which is geared toward ages 12 and up. But I talked to a 10-year-old last night about it at my Orlando party. She was a really sweet 10-year-old who was telling me that she wanted to be a writer when she grew up, and I gave her a copy of the book cause I thought yeah, she might really like this. And I told her if she wanted to email me, we could keep in touch and talk about writing and stuff. So I think that I really try to keep the books very appropriate.

ANDELMAN: So what’s next? Do you have another book already in the pipeline, are you writing, what are you working on?

HARMEL: I do. I have two books due at the end of the month of April so I’m sort of losing my mind right now. I have one more young adult novel due and one more women’s fiction or chick-lit novel due at the end of April. So I am bearing down and working hard on those. And then when they’re done, I’m actually going to take a trip to Paris and to Rome – Rome, because my next book is going to be set there, and I need to do a little bit of research and Paris, just because I can’t go all the way to Europe and not go to Paris. So that’s what’s in the next couple months for me.

ANDELMAN: I’m going to recommend Vienna to you. I just thought that was a far more romantic and wonderful city than Paris could ever hope to be.

HARMEL: I’ve heard that Vienna is really beautiful, and I regret that I’ve never been there so maybe I will have to do that either this spring or when I go back in the fall.

ANDELMAN: I’ll watch for that.

HARMEL: Okay.

ANDELMAN: Alright. Well, let’s end with this. We’re both Florida Gators, apparently proud Florida Gators at that. Is there anything you’d like to tell the world about membership to the world’s best and, at times, most-reviled alma mater?

HARMEL: Gosh, I’m so proud to have gone to school there. I think it’s a wonderful, wonderful school, and I say that from the bottom of my heart. I feel like I could not have gone to college at a better place. It was a fabulous balance of a wonderful education as well as a great social life, and, of course, wonderful athletic life. God, who’s better than the Florida Gators?

© 2008 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.
  ¶ 9:57 PM