Q: Summer Blowout is the story of a large faux-Italian Irish family of hair salon owners. Where did that come from?

A: The family also does hair and makeup for local television shows. When my second novel, Must Love Dogs, was made into a movie, I found myself doing lots of television interviews for the first time. I made friends with some of the hair and makeup artists, because we were both traveling from show to show. One day I thought, What if they were a family? A couple of books later, it just started coming together into a novel. I don't question these things - I just start writing!

Q: What other research did you do for this novel? And how did you find the names of all those lipsticks? My Chihuahua Bites was a particular favorite….

A: Every novel gives me the opportunity to discover a new world, and I have to admit hair and makeup are not my things, so this one was a challenge! I spent a lot of time shadowing some very generous stylists while they were working, asking tons of questions like, If you were going to put highlights in a dog's fur, exactly how would you do it?

As for the lipstick names, I've always wanted to name paint colors or nail polishes for a living, so I originally planned to make them all up. But early on, people started asking me, have you found any good lipsticks this week? So most of them are real - turning my readers on to hot makeup choices seemed like an added bonus!

Q: There are some wonderful scenes in Summer Blowout that involve applying television makeup to political candidates. Is that a nod to this year's presidential election?

A: I thought it might be a fun antidote to the 24/7 barrage of an election year to write about politics through the eyes of someone who has absolutely no interest in them. Bella Shaughnessy, the heroine of Summer Blowout, thinks they should outlaw political parties and make the politicians pool their campaign money to fix some bridges. She also talks about a certain blush that looks good on everyone, “even politicians.”

A: Well, I'm one of eight, so I certainly know the big family drill! Everybody has an opinion about everything, and it's like that old telephone game - by the time a story goes from my brother in California to my sister in Rhode Island to my brother in Virginia to my sisters in Georgia and back to Massachusetts, it's a whole new animal. As for the faux-Italian part, I'm fascinated by the way other cultures can seem more glamorous than your own. I'm only a quarter Irish, but my family always pretended to be a lot more Irish then we are - I guess because we were living in an area called the Irish Riviera.

Q: Bella Shaughnessy's marriage flames out spectacularly when her half-sister runs off with her husband. Anything like that ever happen in your family?

A: Oh, please, like I'd tell you! Actually, my own family has strict rules about this sort of thing, but I've certainly heard stories. And once the book is out, I'm sure I'll hear more!

A: All the time. I love hearing them when I'm on book tour. I also have a very active website, and I get lots of reader email. I think reader response is key. The author writes the book, and then the reader brings her own life experiences with her when she reads it, and somehow that makes the book come fully alive. It's like the tree falling in the forest thing - to me my novels don't fully exist until readers bring their own lives to them. And also, as an author I wouldn't survive without the support of my readers! It feels to me that we're all in this together, which is why I dedicated Summer Blowout to my readers.

A: Scary juicy! That part was such a surprise for me at first. I thought people would avoid me in supermarket lines to try to stay out of my novels, but the opposite turned out to be true. People offer up all sorts of crazy, personal stories, just on the off chance I might use them in a novel. I guess everybody wants their fifteen minutes!

Q: Like some of your other novels, Summer Blowout is set in the fictional town of Marshbury, though the whole clan heads to Atlanta for a big Southern wedding. How does living on the South Shore of Massachusetts influence your writing, and why did you set the wedding in Atlanta?

A: To me, Marshbury just sounded like Mayberry RFD goes to the ocean, sort of an Any Beach town, USA. It's also an intentional combination of two local towns, Marshfield and Duxbury -- I always try to put enough local references in my novels to make them extra special for people who live near me. But I've heard from readers from all over the country who say their town is just like Marshbury, even though it's near a lake/mountain/dessert, instead of the ocean.

I spent a lot of time in Atlanta on book tour with my last novel, Life's a Beach, and I had a blast there. I also thought there were some rich possibilities in writing about Northerners at a big Southern wedding. Also, my daughter graduated from Emory and stayed in Atlanta, and I have two sisters and a stepmother there, too, so I wanted to be able to take a tax write off for my family visits. Kidding!

Q: You wrote your first novel in your minivan outside your daughter's swim practice when you were 45, you walked the red carpet at the Hollywood premiere of your second novel at 50, and your last novel, Life's a Beach, was a bestseller, too. How do you feel about all this success?

A: Well, I guess the good news is that it's never too late! As for success, I'm just thrilled that more and more people are discovering my books, and I stay focused on trying to become a better writer with each book. For me, that's really the measure of success - and the only part I can control.

A: Focus on the writing. So many aspiring writers want a book on the shelves, but they're not willing to put in the hard work to make it happen. Books are easy to start and fun to finish, but there are lots of pages - and tons of rewriting - in between! I'll be teaching some writing workshops on book tour this time around, and they can also check out the aspiring writers' page for more advice.

A: I just write `em -- I let everybody else worry about the messages! I suppose if I had to cop to a message, it might be something about family and unconditional love -- nobody loves you more than your family, and nobody drives you crazier, often at the same time. And probably, that life is for laughing!

A: I'm about halfway through my next novel, which Voice will publish in the summer of 2009. When you don't write your first one until you're 45, you have some catching up to do!