Camille Perri

The queer community deserves a happy ending just as much as anybody else.

Remember that input is as important as output. Take in something for inspiration, to relight the fire inside you, and ideas on how to fix whatever isn't working in your writing will usually follow.

They say you don't want to know how sausage is made. Book coverage is like sausage in that way: better not to know exactly how the gatekeepers of mainstream media choose which books to crown as must-reads each season - just swallow it down with a cold beer and call it a night.

The fact that there are still mainstream print media outlets willing to devote precious pages to book coverage at all is a triumph we should all be celebrating.

People do judge books by their covers, and the magazine editors deciding whether to include your book on their pages are working in a visual medium. So if you're less than thrilled by the cover your publisher proposes, don't be afraid to ask for an alternate version. Odds are that they want you to be happy with the final product, anyway.

I wanted to write a book about two women falling in love that wasn't hinged on tragedy or that involved some horrible identity-based misfortune. I wanted to write a pretty standard romantic comedy where nobody dies, nobody gets hurt, nobody gets sick.

I certainly firsthand know and love people who didn't fall in love with a woman or didn't even realize they were attracted to women until much later in life, and I'm sure that's true for many men who find themselves attracted to men as well. It doesn't always happen in adolescence. And that experience is completely valid and OK.

I'm a big fan of rituals in general because I'm a firm believer in muscle memory.

My advice to anyone with writerly ambitions and a demanding day job is to set aside a little piece of time, even an hour a week if that's all you can manage, and make it yours. This is your writing hour. Even if you use it up by staring at a blank screen and daydreaming, so what?

When I wrote 'The Assistants,' I knew very much that I wanted to write about income inequality and student loan debt and the gender wage gap, but I wanted to put it in a really slick, fun package. That book ended up being described as a socially conscious novel in chick-lit clothing.

Before my mother died, I was supposed to go to the local university, where I'd applied early decision. It was the same school my two older sisters had graduated from, which had been the sole criteria for choosing it.

A lot of queer stories revolve around tragedy.

I'm not sure if it's easier to address tough themes through humor, but I do think it's more fun and makes such themes easier to digest for the reader.

You can get away with making some extremely bold statements by Trojan Horsing them into a narrative via comedy.

I loved those movies from the eighties, movies like 'Working Girl,' 'Nine to Five,' 'Outrageous Fortune,' 'The Heat,' 'Bridesmaids,' 'Pitch Perfect,' and others.

One of my favorite things is to first read a novel and then see the movie. I enjoy picturing the characters and then later, seeing them on the screen, comparing how they're different.

If you ask any adult woman in this country to name an iconic romantic comedy, I bet the answer you'll hear more often than not is going to be 'When Harry Met Sally.' If the question were asked on an episode of 'Family Feud,' for example, it would place number one on the board.

'When Harry Met Sally' will endure. It will be the standard rom-com that others will improvise on for years to come.

When I knew I wanted to write a novel that would be a twist on a conventional romantic comedy, I re-watched 'When Harry Met Sally,' as well as the other two films in the indomitable Ephron trifecta - 'Sleepless in Seattle' and 'You've Got Mail.'

Nora Ephron's 'When Harry Met Sally' is a classic.

We're forfeiting our power if we succumb to apathy.

Clothing reveals what a character is trying to project as well as what they're giving away about themselves without even realizing it: their socioeconomic class; their confidence level; their vulnerabilities.

I think the skyrocketing cost of a college education has placed it in the sphere of being a luxury-priced necessity.

Keeping a journal is the number-one best way to develop your written voice.

I wrote 'The Assistants' while I was the Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief of 'Esquire.'