Flirting with…the New Pride and Prejudice Movie. I miss America, I really do, and one thing that makes me miss America a lot is that in Europe we have to wait a bit longer for hit shows like Lost and House and Desperate Housewives (and I am now a devotee of all three shows). But one thing that is good about being here in Europe is that I got to see the new Pride and Prejudice movie in September, because it is a British movie (produced by the same team who did Bridget Jones’s Diary and Love Actually) and was released in Europe early. Never in a million did I think that Keira Knightly and Matthew MacFadyen could make the parts of Eliza Bennet and Mr. Darcy their own. But they did. And I was stunned. Matthew M. is a sensitive, more tortured (yet equally lovable) Darcy that the ever-wonderful Colin Firth. Keira K is a bit more playful than Jennifer Ehle’s Lizzie in “that” BBC adaptation. My only criticism is that the film would have been the richer had it included a wet shirt scene, LOL. Or cell phones…

Something that I get asked a lot is this: where do I get my wacky ideas from. Well, I collect them from everywhere. From news articles, from TV shows, from books, and even from real life, too. Here’s a little Q & A from behind the scenes with Flirting With Pride & Prejudice.

Q. You’ve never taken part in an anthology before. Why did you agree to take part in this particular anthology on Pride & Prejudice?

A. Because (a) nobody has asked me to take part in an anthology before this one, and (b) when I first read Pride and Prejudice (age 14) I totally fell in love with the book and immediately gobbled up Jane Austen’s entire catalog, and have re-read P&P at least once a year ever since, so when the good folks at Benbella asked me along I couldn’t resist! It was a total blast.

Q. Flirting With Pride & Prejudice has some fabulously fun essays and also a lot of wonderful deep, meaningful nonfiction essays by a lot of wonderful, intelligent writers. So how come you wrote a fun, fictional light piece instead of a deep, meaningful essay on, for example, A Woman’s Place in Society in the Early Nineteenth Century?

A. Because I’m all about fun, baby! And because the great folks at Benbella said “yes” when I told them what I wanted to write.

Q. What gave you the idea to use cell phones in your piece?

A. Well, as I was sitting in front of my blank computer screen scratching my head and trying to come up with a theme, my cell phone rang and it was Teenager #2 calling to tell me he would be late home from school. And I thought, “How did we ever manage without cell phones?” And then I thought, “I wonder what difference cell phones would have made if Jane Austen had had one in her day,” and so the idea for Pride and Prejudice. With Cell Phones was born.

Q. The front cover of Flirting With Pride & Prejudice features a rather dandy early nineteenth century man and an elegant nineteenth century woman—and she’s holding a cell phone. Did your publisher add the cell phone because of your piece?

A. LOL, no. It was nothing to do with me—the decision had already been made. But when I first pitched the idea of Pride and Prejudice. With Cell Phones to my editor at Benbella, and he told me about the addition of the cell phone to the front cover, it seemed like Fate Was Telling Me Something! And When Fate Tells You Something, it’s a good idea to listen...

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