Zibby Mag

Book jacket biographies don’t tell us nearly enough about the authors we love. That’s why Zibby Mag launched the Author Snapshot, giving readers an inside look at the lives and work of our favorite writers.

This week we are featuring the dynamic duo, Audrey Bellezza and Emily Harding. Together, these two authors wrote the forthcoming novel Emma on 83rd Street! Read more below to learn about their joint writing process, the idea to revisit Jane Austen, and more!

Pre-order HERE, out 5/23.

What were the most exciting and challenging aspects of co-writing a novel?

Audrey: I think one of the most exciting aspects of writing a book together was actually writing a book together! I still can’t believe we did it. And during the pandemic too.

Emily: This whole idea was born from the need to keep each other sane during a particularly awful time in the world, so that really helped motivate us. I would send you a chapter and then you would send me a chapter, and suddenly we had a book.

Audrey: That was one of my favorite parts of this process—waiting to get your chapters each week. It was like a little present waiting in my inbox. And I loved sending chapters to you and hearing your thoughts. I just loved the whole collaborative process.

Emily: It really kept us going. I couldn’t be more grateful for where this book has taken us and hearing from people who are falling in love with it now, but for me it will always be this amazing project that we did for each other.

How did you decide to revisit Jane Austen’s Emma for this modern-day story?

Emily: Well, it was during the pandemic—and I had had a couple of glasses of wine—so I kind of remember the text conversation?

Audrey: I absolutely remember it! Yes, it was the beginning of the pandemic and there was just so much unknown. We were trying to homeschool our kids and maintain our careers and not go crazy. One night we were sending back and forth different things we had written and then we started discussing the idea of writing something together. We worked it all out in about four minutes.

Emily: It was so fast. But we also had no idea how to go about doing it, so we decided to adapt a classic that we both loved. I think the initial idea was that if we worked within a story structure that we both already knew and loved, there was a central idea that would always anchor us to the same place. It was a defined sandbox to play in.

What are you hoping readers will take away from Emma on 83rd Street?

Audrey: I hope they get a swoon-worthy rom-com that they fall in love with as much as we did. And I hope they fall for the friendships too. It’s not just Emma and Knightley’s love story; there are so many strong friendships that evolve throughout the book. I hope readers see how those are just as important as the romance.

Emily: And I hope that means readers also come away with a new love of Emma. Those relationships are so central to Austen’s original novel, and we worked very hard to maintain that as much as possible, while also modernizing them. It always came down to a simple question: what would it look like if you put Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley in modern-day New York City? I’m hoping readers will see just how relatable these characters still are, and maybe even finish our book with a desire to pick up the original novel again, or for the first time.

What are some of your other favorite Emma retellings?

Audrey: There’s so many wonderful adaptations, and I think we both have a soft spot for the 1996 Gwyneth Paltrow film, but as far as retellings go, I think the favorite has to be Clueless.

Emily: It’s the crown jewel of Emma retellings.

Audrey: Between the two of us, we’ve probably seen it a hundred times. It spawned a lot of conversation about the details and plot point that Amy Heckerling chose to keep, what she changed, and why.

Emily: One thing I hadn’t appreciated as much before starting this was how young Emma comes across in so many adaptations and retellings. In the case of Clueless, she’s fifteen. But in Austen’s book, she’s in her early twenties, the same age as Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. So the decisions she makes about her future, especially when she declares that she doesn’t want to be married, are very much those of an adult. That detail was important to us and we had a lot of discussions about how to maintain it in our version.

Did your careers in television help prepare you for writing this book?

Audrey: Yes! We already know how to tackle big projects, how to plot out a TV show, so we applied that approach to this. In the beginning, I think we even communicated through television terminology. I remember finishing a chapter and saying to you, like we were in an edit bay working on a TV show, “did you finish the cut?” Now we seem to have moved on from that, but it was definitely something that carried over from our production careers.

Emily: I think our experience in TV development helped a lot as well. We not only produced shows, but we both pitched ideas to networks. I loved it, but it’s also incredibly tough. For every concept that makes it on-air, there are a dozen that you love but never see the light of day. It forces you to develop a thick skin and you learn really quickly that it’s not personal. That really helped us as we collaborated on this, because I don’t think either of us took offense if the other one said, “That thing you wrote? It’s not going to work.”

Audrey: It was so nice to work together like that. We were very lucky to have each other.

Emily: That’s so true. I love a lot of people in my life, but I think you’re probably the only person, including my husband, that I could write a book with.

Audrey: I know, right?

What are you all working on next? Can we see any other beloved classic characters featured in any upcoming works?

Audrey: That’s a good question!

Emily: Well, we both really fell in love with these characters and I think we’d love to keep exploring the world of Jane Austen for as long as we can.

Audrey: Absolutely. We’re working on a couple of ideas too, so stay tuned.

Audrey Bellezza is a two-time Emmy-nominated TV producer who has spent over twenty years writing, developing, and executive producing nonfiction television shows for a number of networks and streaming platforms. Audrey lives in New Jersey with her husband and two children.

Emily Harding is a writer and TV producer whose work has appeared on numerous networks and websites. When not hunched over her computer working on her bad posture, she can be found losing another game of Monopoly to her husband and two kids.