Zibby chats with debut novelist Laura Dickerman about HOT DESK, a rollicking, sparkling, and utterly funny publishing-world satire with a romantic twist. Laura shares how a one-sentence idea from her brother sparked the story of two rival editors forced to share a desk, leading to unexpected competition, secrets, and… love. She also talks about her memories of interning at The Paris Review, her thoughts on humor in fiction, the surprising inner workings of the publishing industry, and what it feels like to debut with a novel after years of teaching, parenting, and writing in the margins.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Laura. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked to talk about Hot Desk, a novel. Congratulations. 

Laura: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.

I really appreciate It's such an amazing platform that you have. 

Zibby: Aw, thank you. Well, if there's anybody who knows about publishing, it is you and your characters in this book and everything else, so, all right, tell listeners what the book is about. 

Laura: The book is about, um, two young editors. They're ambitious and they are at Rival Publishing imprints, but they work under the same publishing umbrella, so they're forced to share a hot desk, which if you don't know, is when people use the same desk but on different days.

And so they alternate different days of the week at the same desk. Neither of them likes it. Um, and so the book alternates chapters between them and they are, they start out sort of I don't know, in a passive aggressive arguments about different things on the desk, but everything heats up when they become rivals for an unpublished manuscript that a literary lion has left behind in his, uh, in his estate without an agent.

So they're, they're in competition to win that estate, and then they, uh, discover in the unpublished manuscript secrets that surprisingly involve Rebecca, who's the one of the main characters, her mother Jane. And so the book has a dual timeline. It goes back to Manhattan in the early 1980s when Jane Rebecca's mother is an intern at this, uh, at a fabulous, uh, literary magazine that I called East River Review.

And so the book then picks up Jane's voice as well. And, hi, Jinx and Sue. 

Zibby: Well, it's so clever and even if the book was about sort of just a day in the life of the publishing company, I would have laughed like the way you, you're such a good observer in this like funny, somewhat snarky, but in a good way, way, like you just observe everything. Even just how you pick apart, like what people might be doing on a Zoom with their camera off. I mean, it's so simple, but it's just, you just say it in a funnier way than anybody else. So I just got a kick outta the whole thing. 

Laura: Yeah. It's funny because for me, I hadn't worked in an actual real office since like the nineties when I was a, you know, an English teacher at a school that was founded in like 1628. So, I mean, my office was, you know, you're on the phone and uh, it was a very different world. But luckily my brother works in publishing and so he was the one that came up with the idea. He called me one day and he is like, listen, you know, your kids have left the house.

You need to write a book. This is your assignment. And he gave me this assignment he is like, we just had a call at work about this hot desking and I didn't know what that was and he explained it he was, he explained the concept and he was like, you should write a novel about two young editors who are forced to share a desk and fall in love.

And immediately I was like. All the characters came to me, Rebecca and Ben came to me, and I had the whole book right there and it was really fun. And he was my advisor about things and I was like, well, what are, you know, uh, I was like, first you get on the phone. He is like, no, nobody gets on the phone.

So, he was very helpful to me. And uh, he said, I said, so what funny things happen on Zoom calls? And of course during the pandemic I was on Zoom. I knew all about certain things, but you know, he told me. He was like, oh, people's cats are on Zoom. I was like people's cats, like during work. He's like, yeah.

So that was, we were, we were good collaborators at the beginning there, especially for sort of office things. But I do think, you know, I mean, if you know people, you know what happens in offices, I just needed a little bit of an update about things like phone pods and things like that. 

Zibby: I mean, I work in an office.

I didn't know about hot desks and some of the things, so thank you for that. 

Laura: Oh yeah. 

Zibby: Wait, that's so tell me about you and your brother and your, did you always wanna be an author? Like how did he know to even come with to you with this idea and why did he not try to do it and 

Laura: Good idea. Yeah, good point.

Zibby: How does your family feel about the whole thing? 

Laura: Well, he, Colin and I, I mean, I have two brothers. They're both great. Colin is in publishing and he's younger than I am. He is about six years younger. And so for a short time we were kind of on the same trajectory. We both, you know, were interested in English and then moved to New York City. We both were interns. Six years, uh, yeah, I, I don't know how many years, years apart at the Paris Review. Very, very early on. And I did a little work, um, in publishing, and then I became a high school English teacher. And so then I was one of those things where I was like, I was a writer who then became a teacher, and then I was a teacher who wrote, then I was just a teacher then I was a mom and then just life happened. And I always, in the back of my mind was like, you know, I wrote poems once in a while. I have a couple, I have a YA novel and a drawer. I, I, you know, I kind of did a little bit about it, but I sort of let go of it. And Colin, my brother, about 20 years ago, he called me up when my children were really little and he said, I have an assignment for you.

He said, YA, supernatural books are really big. You should write a novel about a boy who falls in love with a ghost, and I guess like I just really, maybe as an English teacher or whatever. I love an assignment and like that 1 cent, I was like, yes, the whole book came to me. So I wrote this whole book and I got an agent and I was like, oh, I'm gonna be the next Stephanie Meyer.

And that book didn't sell, so I was like, oh, okay. 20 years later, kids have left the house. Colin calls me up, gives me the one sentence assignment, and it just, you know, I think it was, I think I really, again, I love the idea of getting the assignment and also I feel as though writing this book and starting out with this idea that it was gonna be this really fun and funny and kind of romantic workplace satire, it really freed me up from the kind of.

You know I had been to graduate school in fiction and graduate school in English with a concentration in writing, so I had a very particular kind of writing that I thought that I was supposed to be doing. It was very literary and, and I think that being a little bit of a perfectionist kind of stopped me from doing as much writing as I, as I think I wanted to.

And then you know, just life, family, all of that. So I, um, you know, I, I think this really freed me up. It just came very quickly, very easily. It was so fun to write. And then of course, being me and having the interest that I had, I started to sort of develop this dual timeline and these older characters, and they became more interesting to me, these women.

And I was like, well, maybe I don't, maybe I haven't experienced publishing workplace now, but I, I have experienced a little bit of publishing workplace in the early 1980s, so I sort of drew on that and with my memories, you and then my imagination, and so I sort of, I did those two things together and it just, it was great and it, I was really lucky and, and everything happened really quickly and it feels like it happened overnight, but of course it did it was, it's been a long time coming as well. 

Zibby: That's how you know you're doing the right project when it's easy. 

Laura: That's exactly what it felt like to me. 'cause writing had always been, you know, extremely hard for me in the buildup to it. Right? Once I was doing it, there was nothing that felt as amazing as that in the process of it.

Afterwards I felt proud, you know, was happy, but it was that I feel like there's just years would be of this kind of torture of you should write, you should write, you should write. But this, you're right. Everything felt really fun and easy about this book, so. 

Zibby: That's amazing. And tell me about how much of your own experience from the Paris Review came into the East End?

East End Review? East River Review. 

Laura: Yeah. The East River Review. It's so funny because I was pitching an article to Air Mail, and I'm not sure if they'll end up with it or not, but it was sort of interesting about my experience with the Paris Review. Again almost 40 years ago. So it is incredible to me what I remember and what I have no memory of whatsoever.

And things you would think that I remember, like I know George Plimpton took us out to lunch, the interns. Uh, you know, I don't have a whole fond memory about that, but I, you know, I remember really clearly sitting on, you know, an armchair and looking out the window at the East River because they, the off the parish review offices were, um, in the bottom of the townhouse that he had on the east, on the east side, and you would go upstairs into his private apartment and, and read through Slush, you know, piles and manuscripts. And he was, uh, just a charming presence everywhere. So I just, you know, I, I started with, it just kind of came to me. I started writing about that and again, I used my imagination and I had an amazing time there. None of the drama that happened in my book happened.

Uh, George was a perfect gentleman and also, you know, I just. I wasn't really thinking of him, I was thinking of the situation, but the character of, there's a character in my book called The Lion who. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Laura: Sort of became, to me this a kind of composite character of all these sort of terrible literary men that were charming and brilliant and problematic as they say. And I was really interested in that, you know, how the kind of power and privilege that those men had, the kind of men that were really revered at the time when I worked at the Paris Review. So I was very interested in that. So I just created this, this character that really had nothing to do with George Plimpton, let me, let me say that.

Zibby: Yes. 

Laura: Publicly. Yeah. But I, uh, but I, I definitely, that kind of glamorous, you know, everyone's smoking and typewriter, typewriters and all of that. I think I deliberately set those scenes in the book a little, a couple years earlier than I was there, because I didn't want to, I mean, when I was there we were sort of doing floppy disc work and, and things like that, but I wanted to make it a little more clear cut. There were no, you know, there, there were no computers, there were typewriters, that kind of thing. So I wanted to set it a little earlier. 

Zibby: So when you were gathering your research from Colin and trying to figure out how to, how to really sculpt the setting, the narrative and the discourse about publishing, because so much is in here.

I mean it's like, it's so insidery. In all the best ways that I'm shocked that you yourself were not in a publishing house, but when you, what were you most surprised about when he told you, or when you were like, oh, I've gotta put this in. Like what stood out to you? What, what changed the most? Like aside from phones, you know? 

Laura: Yeah the phone, the phone thing. I mean, honestly, I think it's funny because of, because of the pandemic, I think in that, you know, I was on a Zoom call every week with my family, you know, my parents with, with the whole, you know, you see up their chins and all that. So I think that I sort of had, whereas I'm not particularly a person that's very comfortable, like tech and computers and things like that. But because of that, I have this, I, I knew what it was like to be on Zooms, right? And so the workplace also really changed because of that. So be, I think because of the pandemic, the idea of hot desking came around like, how do we, you know, optimize space?

How do we make, you know, save money? How do we have people at home and this and that? So I already kind of had this idea about what it was like to be on Zoom, and I knew what I was like on Zoom, like, you know looking at my hair and, and, and, and, you know, that kind of thing. So I used a lot of that. I think that, I mean, honestly, I'll say this again, cats, I, I was very surprised. 

Zibby: But not even, not even the Zoom piece, like the publishing industry piece and how you talk about submissions and like all the stuff in the meetings themselves and that, that talk about this memoir and this and this manuscript and just the way that you created the world, like these are all the conversations and like presenting to sales and like. This is all the stuff that actually happens and that anyone will see themselves in. So I don't know. 

Laura: Well, again, I was extremely fortunate because Colin was the publishing advisor to Darren Star's Television Pro, uh, show Younger.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Laura: And I don't know if you've watched younger, but it's, it came out a while ago, but it was just released, I think, or came out on Netflix. So people watch it, and it's about an older woman who pretends to be young. Of course, it's Sutton Foster, and she looks like she's 20 anyway, but, uh, she goes into publishing and so that was really fun to watch.

I mean, I think they were sort of like, yeah, publishing's still glamorous, but I'm not sure how glamorous it really is anymore. But it was, that's so he was helpful to me in that, obviously like what happens at a pitch meeting, but then I just, I mean, a lot of it's just people, right? 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Laura: So I feel like I know about people I had worked in publishing, I have friends in publishing my brother, all of that, and it just felt kind of organic from who the people were.

Zibby: Yeah. I love that when you think about writing it. Did you have other books in mind that you were like, oh, this will fit right in with this, this, and this? Like is there a genre that you're drawn to or authors that you were like, I want my book to be similar to so-and-so's, or this is the kind of thing that makes me laugh.

Laura: You know, it's funny because again, there was the, I think that when I wrote it, particularly when I first started writing it, I really tried not to think about it, 'cause I think that had tripped me up in the past. 

Zibby: Oh, okay. 

Laura: When you start to write and you, and you think, oh, someone else did this better, someone else did this before me, someone else did this exact story.

And I think that can be very crippling. At least for me, it was difficult for me to get out from under that idea that I had to do it perfectly or I had to do it differently. And so with this idea, I just, I really tried not to think about anything, um, or anyone who could have done it or, or anything. I just write my own version, my own, my own voice, my own feeling about it.

And then as I said, I became very interested in it. I love to read all the time. I read high, I read Low, I read everything, you know, so I felt as though later this idea of a mashup of genres was really interesting to me, right? Because at first I think people were interested in fitting this into a rom-com genre, but it really isn't a rom-com, right?

I don't the characters, it is what's, it's a very, very slow burn, as they say, right? So it's an enemy to the lover's trope. It's a slow burn, but they don't even lay eyes on each other until two thirds of the way through the book. And I'm sure that will make some people annoyed, but to me it was really important that they had very fully formed lives, work lives, friends, family, and, and before they fell for each other. That felt important to me. And then I had all these other things kind of happening and that were, uh, important to me in the book as well. So it wasn't that genre and it, uh, so I was interested in that. And in terms of books that are funny, I think the book is funny I, I.

Zibby: It is, the book is. 

Laura: You enjoyed it? 

Zibby: It's so funny. 

Laura: It made me laugh. So, I mean, I guess, I dunno, I think the, the, the gold standard of funny books. I would say probably. Where'd you go, Bernadette? By Maria Simple is hilarious. Just recently, I think the wedding people, Alison Espach. So good.

Just like so funny and you, and all the little literary touches in that as well. I think, um, the plot and the sequel are both really, really funny Jean Hanff Korelitz so I, uh, though, I mean you know, if I might be so bold, I would, I wish, I would hope that, you know, my book was funny in that way. That's what I was 

thinking about or hoping for the book. 

Zibby: So, armed with all that you know and have learned about publishing and from the characters in your book, now that you're taking a book out yourself as a debut, what insider knowledge do you have? How do you feel about the whole machinery behind publishing? 

Laura: Well I mean, I thought I knew a decent amount about publishing because again, I've been a, you know, in writing in, in books and English teacher and family, friends, like in the industry, I really am surprised and, uh, by the, the, just how many people are involved in, in getting a book out there, right?

So I think the way I leaned on, uh, you know, the assistance and the, and the copy editors and the, the marketing and the publicity and the, you know, there are just so many moving parts to get a book out there, and I feel like I've been really fortunate. The gallery has been very, very supportive, they're excited about it.

I think, you know, they're really, they've put a lot behind the book, which I, which makes me feel extremely fortunate, but it's a whole world out there. And, and of course I'm a person that, you know, uh, lives in indie bookstores and loves bookstores, and, but to realize sort of the, just these people out there, I mean, you know, you know better than I do, but people who own bookstores, who buy books, who, who sell books, who hand sell books, who are just really committed to this world. I mean, it's very beautiful to see, especially now I feel as though I, I guess that's so important to me in terms of people's humanity. Like me, again, this is an English teacher and a writer speaking, but I really do think that we are better people for reading, particularly fiction. I'm gonna say it.

And I, and I just to, to be reacquainted with or to sort of be on this side of that world and those people, uh, has been really beautiful and, and exciting. And I'm also, I mean, look, Zibby, I'm like 62 years old. This is the most exciting thing that's happened. I'm like, just, you know, I'm like, Hey, alright, this, I'm just enjoying so much everything and, and really trying to, really just trying to enjoy every moment of it and to, and every first is exciting to me and I'm just trying to, um, live in it. 

Zibby: Okay. You don't look 62 Fyi. No really. That's a shock. I thought you were just choosing the premature gray thing. 

Laura: Oh my gosh, my hair's been gray.

It's been a little bit gray since college. 

Zibby: See I told you premature gray. 

Laura: Yeah. 

Zibby: I'm right. 

Laura: Exactly. In my mind, I still have black hair with a couple streaks of gray, and sometimes I walk past like a shop window and I'm like, what is that? You know? But I've, I've gotta embrace it. I don't, I mean, I, uh, when I was, um, first thinking about you know, writing things on a website and kind of this idea of make, putting myself out there, all of that, I was like, well, I was, I was Googling, you know, late bloomers, people who write late, you know, like at the age of 37 so and so published her first. I was like, no, later, later bloomers. But I, um, I did discover that, uh, Laura Ingalls Wilder published Little House on the Prairie when she was 65, so. 

Zibby: Wow. 

Laura: Like, yep. Got in right under there. So. 

Zibby: Well, you and Laura Ingalls Wilder. See, we'll just say, and both have Laura, in your names. It was meant to be. It was. So now that you've done this one, what are you gonna do next? Did Colin give you any more ideas or did you have some of your own? 

Laura: Not no, I, I feel like I, he would laugh.

I, I feel as though I'm, you know, this, this unlocks something I think for me, in terms of a voice that I feel really good about, and not to say it's gonna be exactly the same voice, it, it won't. But I just feel like this idea of writing the kind of book I love to read, that's fun to read, that's fun to write.

I feel like it did unlock a little bit and I have a couple ideas in my head. Um, one of them right now is taking some precedence over the others, and I, it's also kind of a mashup of a genre. I literally have two chapters, so I'm not getting too excited about it. But a lot of it's already in my head.

I've taken a lot of notes. I've, uh, I have all the characters and the sort of idea, and it starts with a, it starts with a dead body, so there's a little mystery. 

Zibby: Ooh oh, okay. 

Laura: And, and then it's also got, 'cause I love a romance, it's also got this sort of romantic trope of, I think they call it second chance love when someone comes back to their sort of hometown and. 

Zibby: Yep.

Laura: You know, the high school boyfriend they left behind. So I, I've got a couple of, uh, of ideas about that and so I, but right now I, I know Collin's like you should be writing, uh, my agent's like you should be writing. But I, like I said, I'm just really enjoying all of the things that are going into the pre-publication of the debut novel too.

So I wanna, I wanna make sure that I have that. 

Zibby: Well, it sounds like you have all the wisdom you need to get through this experience. 

Laura: That is, that's, that is one thing about being a, a crone with your. 

Zibby: No, you are not a crone. 

Laura: I'm reclaiming crone, a crone is good. I love crones. I think crone is a good thing.

I'm excited to be a and I'm excited to, you know, I have no, this is, like I said, I mean this is just like a bonus dream come true for me so. But yeah, no, I think we're gonna reclaim the crone.

Zibby: I like it. Let's rebrand. Exactly. 

Laura: Well, you've got, you've got a couple decades to go, but I think you'll be happy to. 

Zibby: I don't have that much time to go.

Not I'm like a decade, but thank you. You know a little more. Oh my gosh. Well thank you so much, I really was so entertained. I laughed so many times and you, you know, you just never know what you're gonna get and I got just hours of entertainment, so there you go. 

Laura: Oh, well thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Zibby: All right, well, congratulations. I will be rooting for you and. 

Laura: Thank you. 

Zibby: Yay. 

Laura: Thank you. 

Zibby: Okay. 

Laura: Bye. 

Zibby: Alright, thanks. Bye-bye.