There are so many ways you can tune into Writers Revealed! Next show is this Sunday, at 7pm EST/4pm PST

1. Click here to listen to the live show
2. Going to miss the show? No worries. Click here to download the podcast
3. Want to call in and chat with our guest? Call (310) 984-7600
4. Want to chat with us? We’ve got a live messageboard
5. Or leave your question, nightmare/success online dating story, in the comments section below.

Want more scoop?

Listen to Chapter 15 of I Love You, Let’s Meet, as read by Virginia Vitzthum, the author.
Interview on Chicago’s WGN Radio
Read Virginia’s Salon.com columns

Enjoy!

Some 40 million Americans have tried online dating, about a quarter of all single people in the country. We all know someone who’s met his or her spouse online; many of us also have heard – or lived – tales of deception, disappointment and disappearance.

What we didn’t have was a book that explored how this amazing technology has changed the face of courtship. So I wrote one, interviewing dozens of online daters and focusing finally on 16 of the most dramatic and representative stories. I also weave in my own experiences online dating to illuminate the main differences between online dating and what went before: (1) more opportunities for creativity – and lying; (2) the blurring of dating and shopping; (3) the separation of sex and love; and (4) the opportunities to date more people than ever before.

Publisher’s Weekly writes of I Love You: Let’s Meet: Adventures in Online Dating: “More of a meditation than a guide, this volume combines research and the author’s personal experiences into a genuinely funny and informative read.”

Virginia Vitzthum has written for Village Voice, Washington City Paper, Ms., Elle, Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, and salon.com where she was the sex columnist. She’s also written a screenplay and a play and made a bunch of short videos. ILYLM is her first book. She grew up near DC and lives in Brooklyn.

Tell us about your online dating woes, conquests and successes! Or do you want to receive free advice about your online ad? Leave all the pertinent details in the comments section (no worries! you can leave anynomous comments - only I will have your email address) and a few lucky readers will score a free copy of I Love You, Let’s Meet!

There are so many ways you can tune into Writers Revealed! Next show is this Sunday, at 7pm EST/4pm PST

1. Click here to listen to the live show
2. Missed the show? No worries. Click here to download the podcast
3. Want to call in and chat with our guests? Call (310) 984-7600
4. Want to chat with us? We’ve got a live messageboard

Want more reading material?

Check out Time Out Chicago’s Review
Read an excerpt from the book
Chicago Sun Times Review

Enjoy!

*image courtesy of Chicagomag.com

Step into the perfumed parlors of the Everleigh Club, the most famous brothel in American history—and a catalyst for a culture war that rocked the nation. Operating in Chicago’s notorious Levee district at the dawn of the last century, the Club’s proprietors, two aristocratic (or so they said) sisters named Minna and Ada Everleigh, attracted the elites of the world with their opulent parlors and stunning courtesans. While lesser whorehouses specialized in deflowering virgins, beatings and bondage, the Everleighs spoiled their harlots with couture gowns, gourmet meals and extraordinary salaries. Not everyone appreciated the sisters’ attempts to elevate the industry. Rival madams hatched numerous schemes to ruin the Everleighs, including attempts to frame them for murder. But the sisters’ most daunting foes were the Progressive Era reformers, who whipped the entire country into a frenzy with lurid tales of “white slavery.” It was a furor that shaped America’s sexual culture and had repercussions all the way to the White House, even leading to the formation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. With a cast of characters that includes Jack Johnson, John Barrymore, John D. Rockefeller Jr., Theodore Dreiser, William Howard Taft, and Al Capone, Sin in the Second City is Karen Abbott’s portrait of the maverick Everleigh sisters, their world-famous Club, and the perennial clash between our hedonistic impulses and Puritanical roots.

Karen Abbott worked as a journalist on the staffs of Philadelphia magazine and Philadelphia Weekly, and has written for Salon and other publications. A native of Philadelphia, she now lives with her husband in Atlanta, where she’s at work on her next book for Random House, a portrait of Gypsy Rose Lee and Depression-era New York City. Visit her at www.sininthesecondcity.com.

Want to score a free copy of SIN? Simply leave a question for the author in the comment field and if we use it on the air, you’ll win a free copy!

There are so many ways you can tune into Writers Revealed! Next show is this Sunday, at 7pm EST/4pm PST

1. Click here to listen to the live show
2. Missed the show? No worries. Click here to download the podcast
3. Want to call in and chat with our guests? Call (310) 984-7600
4. Want to chat with us? We’ve got a live messageboard

Enjoy!

Who’s teenage years weren’t terrible? Remember the scary older kids? The sadistic gym teacher? The smelly kid who sat next to you in science class? Your first fumbling kiss? That time you threw up in the cafeteria? Your first attempt at putting on a condom? The period that arrived unexpectedly? That awful fight with your parents? The first time you got drunk? That note you wrote that you shouldn’t have written? The day you forgot to zip your fly? That monster zit? When, you wondered, would it all end? In When I Was a Loser, John McNally, author of the novel America’s Report Card, assembles twenty-five original essays—often hilarious, sometimes tenderhearted, always evocative—about defining moments of high school loserdom. You think you had it bad in high school? These authors had it so much worse!

On 6.24.07, we’ll chat with Julianna Baggott, Owen King, Timothy Schaffert, Kelly Braffet, and John McNally about their stories of angst, humiliation, heartache, and other staples of teen life.

Have you got your own hilarious or horrifying high school story? The publisher was kind enough to pony up five free books for our readers. Leave your comments here and my top five picks will receive a copy of the book. Read more about their guests and their stories after the jump.

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Congratulations! You’ve got a book deal. Now here’s the bad news: your publicist (your third) has left the company, your editor had a nervous breakdown, and everyone’s lost faith in your little book that could. You could sit at home and wallow over your stacks of autographed books or you could power on the laptop and be a guerilla. This week on Writers Revealed, learn from four authors who have successfully marketed themselves online. From MySpace to Virtual Book Tours to videos, learn how you can be your own marketing & publicity machine.

EXCITED? Then chat live with Kevin Smokler, David Wellington, Andi Buchanan and Josh Kilmer-Purcell, this Sunday 7PM EST/4PM PST. We also have three copies of David Wellington’s book to give away to our lucky readers/listeners! So leave a question here or feel free to phone in on Sunday and you might just score a free copy of Thirteen Bullets! More about the books and authors after the jump.
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Feel free to check out the latest podcast of my new show, Writers Revealed, by clicking here. This week was all about family, particularly the notion of the “bad mother” and I chatted with authors Elissa Schappell (Use Me), Liesel Litzenburger (Now You Love Me), Sabina Murray (A Carnivore’s Inquiry) and Victoria Redel (Loveryboy). After we chatted about their individual books and the mother characters in each, we delved into discussion about what makes a good mother, can we define it? is it a mother who’s fascinating or a good caretaker? is Dina Lohan a bad mom? How do parents shape their children? Challenges that today’s mothers face, including raising children in this age of influence (internet, tv, movies) and influential marketing, and we also discussed choice feminism in Leslie Bennetts’ The Feminine Mistake and have we back-peddaled on feminism?

And we talked about the soccer mom and Michael Apted’s documentary 7Up.

And I said “sort of” (oh wait, not true. GODDAMN) and “interesting” less this time - thank god! But listening now, I’ve discovered the word “fascinating” - who knew such a word existed? I have to say that I have the utmost respect for folks who produce podcasted/radio shows. It’s tough, but this journey is incredibly amazing. I hope you’ll keep tuning in!

Next week (6/3, 7pm EST) I’ll be chatting with Leslie Bennetts (The Feminine Mistake) and I’ll be taking live calls. Got a question for Leslie (because, hey now! i’ve got books to give away)? Leave them in the comments field below.

Click here for my previous posts on Bennetts and her book.

About the Book: It would be easy to dismiss this as yet another salvo in the mommy wars-—the debate over women opting out of careers to be stay-at-home moms. But Bennetts, a longtime journalist and writer for Vanity Fair, is more interested in investigating what she sees as the heart of the matter: economics. Through impressive research and interviews with experts and with real women, Bennetts shows that women simply cannot afford to quit their day jobs. Long-term loss of income has a cascading impact in areas such as medical benefits and retirement funds, not to mention a woman’s sense of autonomy, derived from financial independence. Further, a career supplies a woman with a measure of security for herself and her children in the event of unexpected sickness or divorce. As any woman who has tried knows, returning to the workforce and finding a well-paying job after an absence of years, or even decades, is difficult. Not so long ago mothers would pin a dollar bill to their daughters’ underclothes when they went out on a date in case, for some reason, they needed carfare home. Those mothers knew all to well that without money of your own it’s easy to be left stranded. As Bennetts expertly shows, it’s still true. - PW review

Bio: Leslie Bennetts has been a contributing writer at Vanity Fair since 1988, writing on subjects that have ranged from movie stars to U.S. anti-terrorism policy. Before joining that magazine, she was the first woman ever to cover a presidential campaign for The New York Times. Bennetts lives in New York City with her husband and their two children.