I am a novelist and recovering screenwriter.  My first novel The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc, was a Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club featured selection and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Pick. It became a national best-seller and is now in its 22st printing.
It engendered The Southern Belle’s Handbook, Sissy Leblanc’s Rules to Live By, which included all Sissy’s rules such as, “It’s okay for a woman to know her place, she just shouldn’t stay there.”
My next novel, The Bad Behavior of Belle Cantrell about intolerance and love is set in 1920, a time when women were expected to “know their place.” Prohibition was in full swing, women were clamoring for the vote, and a narrow-minded intolerance was sweeping the world.
During my screenwriting days, I wrote screenplays, pilots, and MOWS including episodes of The Highlander, The Equalizer, Crime Story, Chips, Knots Landing, Dynasty, and The Waltons, but I'm best remembered for writing that cultural icon the “Who Shot J.R.?” episode of Dallas. I taught screenwriting at UCLA for seven years and worked as an international screenwriting consultant in Germany, Sweden, Spain, and Canada. I'm on the Board of Directors of PEN USA, a past Board Member of Women In Film and longtime Trustee of the Women In Film Foundation. I'm also a member of Northwestern’s Council of 100 and NUEA where I mentor young alums. I live in Beverly Hills with my husband, writer-producer Carleton Eastlake, and I continue to enjoy Bad Behavior.