A freelance writer whose work has appeared in American and English publications, I recently completed a novel, THE TAME MAN, and a screenplay adaptation, DEVOTED LADIES. I am represented by Martha Millard at Sterling Lord Literacy in New York City. I lived in London from 2000 to 2006 and currently am based in NYC. I’ve published essays, articles, cover pieces, as-told-to articles and reviews–plus a deliciously anonymous film and pop culture blog. Publications include The London Times Sunday Magazine, The Guardian Weekend Magazine, Inside New York, Time Out New York and others. I’m a former Editorial Assistant at Harvard Review, worked in publicity at New Yorker Films, and was a co-founder of Firewater Films. I was awarded a Mellon Foundation Grant, and received two Fiction Fellowship Grants at Columbia University.

But LORD. . .Blah blibbidy blah.  This is far too formal for us. You and I never rested on formality in the past. So let’s get down to it, shall we? Q & A Time?

Q: Dana– Where are you and how can I get a grip on you? 

A:  Massaged with avocado oil and wrapped in combed yak every night before ascending the rosewood steps to my bowered bed, I am somewhere in Manhattan; curious, misplaced, and utterly impossible to get a grip on (primarily due to the avocado oil).  Lately I’ve also been enjoying a little Trollope in bed. Christ, I forgot how good he is!  Seriously the best.

Q: What are your interests?  And will you please eat cheese crackers while you list them?

A: I don’t know who you are, but I like you. I am mouth-scattering cheese cracker crumbs as I tap away at the keyboard. My interests include cooking, travel exercise and, of course, 19th Century literature. I also quite enjoy films, cinema, movies, and occasionally flicks. I can be found riding my horse Bill Clinton through Central Park underpasses, while wearing a veil and weeping softly for what might have been. Then I check my phone to see what’s on Netflix. 

Q: I do hope you love romantic comedies where women are taught not to be so damned uptight, the complete works of Garry Marshall, and any movie where people kiss and a crowd applauds.  Also–Isn’t it hilarious when men pretend to be young boys with mental disorders? 

A:  No. I prefer movies like Cecil B. DeMille’s Cleopatra, where actresses play seaweed-covered clams who offer jewels to visiting Romans. That seems a better way to go through life than wearing a pencil skirt + stilettos and hoping A. Sandler will rock your world. I do like The Lady Eve, Kieslowski’s Trois Couleurs, Avoir est Etre, Santiago, RKO in the Thirties, Warner Brothers pre-code, Stanwyck and Arthur, Lubitsch and Leisen, each moment of bitchery in Stage Door, and every crazy-soaked frame of Polanski’s Bitter Moon. 

Q: Talk to me of books. Not yours.

A:  I like Austen, Thackeray, Trollope, Dickens, Fitzgerald. The redoubtable Ruth Rendell when she writes as Barbara Vine. Raymond Chandler. Anything Jeanine Basinger has to say about Film. Right now I am reading Pictures at a Revolution by Mark Harris, and Monty Python Diaries 1969-1979 by darling Michael Palin. Plus, I do adore a little Balzac in the morning.

Q: What’s the best time you’ve ever had licking stamps?

A: Most definitely Terence Stamp that night in Galway Bay. It was a while back, but he had a lovely pomegranate flavour.