Laurie Viera Rigler’s best-selling novels CONFESSIONS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT and RUDE AWAKENINGS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT (both published by Dutton in North America and by Bloomsbury in the UK) could have been considered semi-autobiographical had they not involved time travel and body switching. Her short story, INTOLERABLE STUPIDITY, in which Mr. Darcy brings charges against all the writers of Pride and Prejudice sequels, spin-offs and retellings, appears in the anthology JANE AUSTEN MADE ME DO IT (Ballantine). Laurie is also the creator of the Babelgum Original web series SEX AND THE AUSTEN GIRL, which was inspired by her Austen Addict novels and had over half a million views. She is working on her next two novels.

CONFESSIONS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT won a Publishers Weekly Listen Up Award, and RUDE AWAKENINGS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT was nominated for a Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Mainstream Fiction. CONFESSIONS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT was also nominated for The Jane Austen Centre’s Jane Austen Award for Best New Fiction.

Both Austen Addict novels have also been published in France by Bragelonne and in Italy by Sperling & Kupfer, and CONFESSIONS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT has been published in the Netherlands (Archipel).

Prior to confessing a severe case of Austen addiction, Laurie teamed with entertainment columnist Richard Roeper to write a humorous, gender-specific guide to movie rentals entitled HE RENTS, SHE RENTS: THE ULTIMATE FILM GUIDE TO THE BEST WOMEN’S FILMS AND GUY MOVIES for St.Martin’s Press. She also coauthored POPPING THE QUESTION: REAL-LIFE STORIES OF MARRIAGE PROPOSALS, FROM THE ROMANTIC TO THE BIZARRE for Walker & Company.

Having spent several years writing her first novel and reading all those proclamations about how aspiring novelists were more likely to win the lottery than ever get published, Laurie is passionate about encouraging other writers. She works with authors of fiction and nonfiction as a book editor and writing coach and has also taught workshops in storytelling technique at Vroman’s, Southern California’s oldest and largest independent bookstore.

“All this she must possess,” added Darcy, “and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.” Is that so, Mr. Darcy? If you must know, Laurie graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from the State University of New York at Buffalo with a degree in Classics. Which, for some strange reason, brings to mind Tony Curtis as Antoninus in Spartacus.