Hi there! The Memo (June 2024) is my first novel, which was co-written with my dear friend Lauren Mechling during the darkest days of the pandemic. It centers on a woman named Jenny Green who, like so many of us, has long suspected that she never got the memo. At her 15th college reunion, those suspicions are confirmed, big time. Everyone she knows is killing the game, except for her. But all is not lost! With the help of an unorthodox career counselor, Jenny has the opportunity to undo her biggest mistakes and uplevel her existence by the time she locks into adulthood at 36. And you’ll never guess what happens next…

I have been writing for most of my career for newspapers and magazines. I always dreamed of digging into a longer, more ambitious book project but lacked the time (and, let's face it, the discipline) to pull it off. After several false starts, I put down my book ideas and outlines, too frustrated to even look at them again. But Lauren and I were talking one day and we had this idea, a proposition, really: What if “getting the memo” wasn’t a mere colloquialism? What if there were a group of people–not us!–who actually got the memo? We couldn't stop thinking about it. At the time, we were both freelancers with not as much work as we’d like, stuck at home overseeing remote schooling for our kids and trying to understand how seemingly everybody we knew had time to bake bread, do 500 Peloton workouts and try new skincare products. We’d worked hard, went to good schools and tried to make all the right moves, yet there we were, drifting along in a memoless tide. What if there was a magical memo that could help us optimize our lives? What would it tell us?

Lauren was convinced that this idea had the makings of a novel, and we decided to write it together. If nothing else, it would be a creative project to help us endure through these challenging times. I was skeptical. “I've never written a novel before,” I told her. “Don't worry! I'll help you!” she said. Lauren has written a zillion books–from YA to literary fiction–and she promised me that we could collaborate on an outline and then have take turns at the keyboard. We would hold each other accountable. And we did, catching up every day to review the most recent additions. She said it would be fun. And it was.

The most common question we are asked is, how do you write a book with someone else? My answer: How do you not? Having a writing partner is having a fellow creator as well as a therapist, seeing eye dog and accountant (I’m the latter). It’s also, in a way, having a co-parent, with the book as our baby. Lauren and I may have been more than two hours away from each other during the pandemic, but we had a shared document that we would work from every day, sometimes simultaneously. Later, when we were editing the manuscript, I was living in Berlin, so we were collaborating across the Atlantic. (We’d often chat inside of the doc - “HELLO LAUREN!” I’d write when I saw her lurking.) As mutual admirers of each other’s humor and style, we trusted each other to make changes that would benefit the work as a whole. In the end, the writing was a really delightful–and funny–process. That said, we appreciate that it’s a rare thing to be able to work in this way and remain friends, which, miraculously, we did.

When I’m not writing, I read pretty much anything I can get my hands on. My tastes range from erotic thrillers to Icelandic sagas and, of course, time-travel novels–Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five is my favorite. We wrote a lot of different versions of The Memo (one of them involved a horny Welsh sheep farmer; don’t ask), but eventually the story that The Memo wanted to be revealed itself to us. We hope that the fun we had writing it travels to you when you read it, and that it helps those who might have wondered if they, too, didn’t get the memo feel better about their life choices. If you want to get in touch and tell me what your magic memo would have advised you, or just say hello, I’m on Instagram and Threads at @racheldodes.

Take care and happy reading!

Hello there! I'm the author of many novels — and not only that but many kinds of novels, from a YA detective series and a proper literary novel about the ups and downs of female friendship to an interactive vampire thriller that ran as a serialization in an online magazine that the New York Times called “brilliant.” Not sure about that, but it was definitely bananas. I am especially fond of my latest work, The Memo, co-written with my dear friend Rachel Dodes. It’s a book about a woman who has a crushing sense that she never got the memo—and it turns out she is right. There was a memo she didn’t get. Literally. When Jenny shows up at her 15th college reunion, her old career counselor tracks her down and hands over the magic set of instructions and gives her a chance to do over her past mistakes.

What can I say? It’s a personal fantasy. I have always been plagued with indecision and a sense of “what if?” I’d hand over all my worldly possessions to have a guardian angel (or, in this case, bespoke document) to tell me what invitations to say yes to or what books not to bother reading (since it knows I’ll end up not finishing them) or what to serve myself from the buffet at the office Christmas party (how was I to know the cod fritters would make me sick?). My memo would have told 22 year old me to figure out a way to borrow money and buy an abandoned Brooklyn parking lot whose value would skyrocket and that I could eventually sell to a real estate developer for a fortune. It would have told 37-year-old me to call in sick on the day a friend and I had lunch and got into the blowout fight that ended our relationship (I still miss her!). It would have steered me away from quitting my job to write the YA novel about Italian fortuneteller sisters who are kidnapped and trafficked to Chicago. I ended up having to put in a drawer because every editor rejected it (though I maintain it was a good novel). It definitely would have mandated that I get Beyonce’s phone number when I interviewed her for a newspaper story zillions of years ago (too many years ago for my memo to tell me to take a selfie with an iPhone).

It probably would have had less to say about my career choices, as I have had a very rewarding work life. I spent the year after college as an “editorial assistant” which was late-90s speak for sitting around Manhattan offices and answering men’s telephones. I was restless and really wanted to be a writer, so I wrote a letter to an upstart newspaper in Canada, and offered my services. I was offered an internship that turned into a job, and I spent three glorious years as a newspaper reporter in Toronto, reviewing movies and hanging out for very short periods of time (seven minutes was the typical allowance) with the likes of Lionel Richie, one of the Rolling Stones, and Beyonce along with the two other members of Destiny’s Child. It was the best, but I missed New York, where I grew up, so I came back with a portfolio of clips (that’s industry speak for published stories) and I started working at local newspapers. One of my assignments was to interview the author of a scandalous book called Gossip Girl, and it got me thinking: Maybe I could write a funny and fast-paced book for young readers? I floated this idea by my friend, the brilliant Laura Moser, and we began the draft of what would become The Rise and Fall of a 10th Grade Social Climber. Our manuscript earned more rejections than I can count but eventually found an editor and became a bestseller, and spawned a trilogy. I think they’re out of print now, but you can always try the used book sites (which are awesome, dangerously so).

Writing is an addictive habit, and I kept at it. As I got older, the themes that colored my young adult books (friendship, ambition, the bonds of love) made their way to material for people who felt a little more age-appropriate. If you ask me how I'd describe my books I'd say I want them to I want them to delight, occasionally shock, and make you feel like somebody is reading your mind and has said the thing you never dared put into words. I also love playing around with words, so if my book contained the occasional sentence that is so striking you you want to grab a pencil and underline it, that would make me very happy to hear. But if you told me you were so wrapped up in the story and just wanted to get to the end to see what happens and then talk about it with a friend, I’d be very happy to hear that too. I’d also be happy to hear from you! I’m on the platform formerly known as Twitter as @laurenmechling and on Instagram at @laurenomics (I made that up when Freakonomics came out, and here we are a century later). Take care, and happy reading, Lauren x