THE FANCY-DRESS PARTY THAT LAUNCHED my CAREER

Laura Lippman, author of Dream Girl

I was mildly grumpy about being invited to a 1970s-themed party in 1991. I was

32, and the theme felt vaguely mocking. As someone who went to actual parties as a student in the late 1970s, I wasn’t ready to see my real life become someone else’s ironic theme. Also, it was an hour’s drive.

But I went because I adored the host, a magnet for interesting people. (Case in point, I watched a man in platform shoes and a gold jumpsuit moving enthusiastically to Kung Fu Fighting. He was a reporter for The Washington Post, who was beginning to make a name for himself. That name happened to be Malcolm Gladwell.)

But Gladwell did not provide my tipping point. That came from a conversation with a woman named Michele Slung, one of the few other guests who looked old enough to drink in the 1970s. When she heard that I was a reporter at The Evening Sun, she asked abruptly: ‘Have you thought about writing erotica?’

I wanted to say: ‘Whoa, I’m a simple lass from Baltimore.’ I wrote about poverty and homelessness, which was the paper’s unsexiest beat, though I adored it.

But I listened. She had a contract to publish a book of ‘classy’ erotic stories. She was having trouble getting submissions. If I wrote an acceptable story, she’d pay me $1,500. But she needed it within three months.

Deadlines, money – I understood those. And I secretly dreamed of being a novelist. So I wrote a story, using a friend of a friend’s anecdote about an impromptu threesome in which the woman abandoned the bed to sleep and the men woke up holding hands. And Michele had virtually no edits. She not only liked my story, she told me that she thought I could be a novelist and pledged to read anything I might write.

She also imparted an important lesson, which made my life as a novelist possible. Michele told me that women, socially conditioned to be modest, often need the ‘mask of genre’ when they begin writing. Having written an erotic story under a pseudonym, I turned to a life of crime (writing).

Three years later, I sent her my first novel. She found me an agent, Vicky Bijur, who still represents me, 25 novels later.

To this day, I tell women to talk to other women at parties. And keep an open mind about what constitutes a ‘party’ – a group DM can change your life if you’re willing to engage. Online support led to my first book of essays. And, if you see Malcolm Gladwell dancing to disco classics, you’ll know it’s a good omen. Dream Girl is out in July

“The party made me realise I was more interested in writing about Hollywood than BEING IN IT”