Early Fiction – Before I was capable of writing my own novels, I got two jobs that were more like extensions of all the line editing I'd been doing.
TUFF TURF (Signet/New American Library)
This is one of those teen coming-of-age movies that James Spader and Robert Downey Jr. somehow always manage to leave off their resume. I was hired to write the tie-in novelization, which was an easy job - or so I thought until I realized that the script they'd given me to work with wasn't the shooting script. So I had to go watch some of the filming in Los Angeles and figure it out. Even then, Downey's talent was so palpable it was practically a shimmering force-field on the set.
KESSA (Popular Library/Warner Books)
Dr. Levenkron had already written the bestselling, The Best Little Girl in the World - the first Young Adult novel to tackle anorexia. Kessa is the sequel. For some inexplicable reason, the publishers in their infinite wisdom chose to use this diaphanous photo of an anorectic teen who looks more like she'd been hanging out at Dunkin' Donuts than suffering from a terrible disease.