1--What is the title of your latest release?
SERENDIPITY
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
A group of friends decide to rent a share house in Ocean Beach, Fire Island for three weekends over the course of one summer. Drama ensues!
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
After setting my debut novel in the titular community of Kismet, Fire Island, I knew that I wanted my second book to be a return to the beach. Fire Island is actually comprised of seventeen different, distinct towns, and while I spend the majority of my summertime in Kismet with my husband’s family, I had a very memorable experience in Ocean Beach in 2018, when my friends and I rented a share house in that buzzy, renter-friendly community a few towns down, for three weekends over one summer. When it came time to write Serendipity, I immediately had the idea to use those three weekends as a three-act structure for a friend group novel.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Yes! My protagonist Maggie and I have a lot of similarities: we both hate showing up anywhere empty handed, can find an excuse to throw a themed party out of thin air, and love nothing more than a night out at the movies. We are both sensitive, talent-agency-trained workaholics who pretend to have thick skin, so while I could also see us participating in a long ping-pong of rescheduling plans due to work emergencies and then silently having panic attacks about it, I like to think that we’d create a safe and healthy friendship to collectively champion our dreams (and calm our anxieties.)
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Ambitious, thoughtful, sentimental.
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
God Bless the Copy Editors! I’m always amazed by the new things I learn through their fact-checking process. Take this example: for as long as I’ve been visiting Fire Island, we have been ordering the beach town’s specialty, Rocket Fuel cocktails. The ingredients: coconut cream, pineapple juice, amaretto, bitters, and Bacardi 151 rum. So, imagine my surprise when my lovely copyeditor flagged that Bacardi 151 had actually been discontinued in 2016. What had we been drinking for the past eight years?! Turns out, many of the Fire Island bars and restaurants still have their own 151 connection, or have switched to a rival label, Caribaya 151. The more you know!
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
A little bit of both! For better or for worse, I can’t even begin to write a book unless I have an outline in place. As a result, I’ll sometimes edit and tweak as I draft since I do have a general direction for where I’m hoping to take the story, but I also will leave big chunks of trickier moments with a “TK COME BACK HERE LOL SOS” note in highlighter yellow. Momentum is key, first and foremost, so I often write with my WiFi off and my eyes closed, to see how many words I can get out onto the page…and save the hardest parts to come back to at the end.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
It is impossible for me to say no to buffalo chicken dip. I’ve written that snack into both of my books so far. Honestly, I don’t think a Becky Chalsen book would be truthful without a character eating buffalo chicken dip, somewhere, somehow.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
My husband and I moved into a two-bedroom apartment so I could have a dedicated library room to write in during the weekends. It’s gorgeous – one wall is lined with bookcases, the other with colorful art. Unfortunately, I am someone who is most comfortable – and creative – when completely horizontal. I need my neck in the most strained position you could picture, so most of my work is realistically done from the bed or the couch, using a pillow as a desk. Luckily, my husband works from home in our library on his WFH days, so it still gets plenty of use.
10--Who is an author you admire?
Emma Straub. I’ve loved every book she’s ever written, but more than being one of my all-time favorite authors, I so continuously inspired by how she champions her local community. Emma and her husband have opened two independent bookstores in my neighborhood – the perfectly-pink branded Books are Magic stores. Their events calendars are filled with author and reader programming, their merch is ubiquitous on the city streets, and their shops are two of the warmest hubs for Brooklyn bookworms. I’m a forever fan.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
My answer to this question will eternally be The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares, for two reasons. 1) Growing up as part of a set of quadruplets (we’re all four sisters), it was one of the first book series I read that featured four girls as the leads in a non-competitive way. The characters immediately reminded me of my own sisters – we’re different in passions and hobbies and skills but similar in personalities and values and an affinity for life. It was remarkable, to see a version of myself reflected on those pages. Then Ann Brashares changed my life for a second time when 2) I went to see the movie version of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants in 2005. I couldn’t believe these characters that I had dreamed up in my head were now shining before me on a silver screen! It broke my brain, and then made me want to work in book-to-film development, which is the career I’ve pursued since graduating college. Thank you, Ann!
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
When my agent Sabrina Taitz called to say that Dutton was going to publish my debut novel Kismet, I was away on a beach weekend with friends. We celebrated with champagne on the beach and probably too many rounds of tequila shots at night. (Looking back, it was the exact type of celebratory, friend group magic that inspired my second book Serendipity!) When Sabrina called a year and a half later, to say I’d have the mind-blowing honor of being a twice-published author with Dutton, I immediately burst into tears. This time, I was at home on the couch, in a much safer environment for a happy sob session.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
Speculative fiction! I love novels where the world appears like ours does, but the dial is ever-so-slightly turned towards the surreal. My favorite recent example is Shark Heart by Emily Habeck, an all-around work of metaphorical genius. Highly recommend!
14--What’s your favorite movie?
I could sit here and give you an answer befitting my film/TV development executive work experience… or I could be honest: my favorite movie since the eighth grade is the Amanda Bynes classic, She’s the Man. If you asked us to right now, my sisters and I could still recite the entire movie for you, starting with the opening credit song. It was such a formative viewing experience in those high school years, when we used to have friends over and watch the same movies on repeat. A teen romance and a modern-day Shakespeare reinterpretation?! “My favorite’s gouda…” and anything with ties to Shakespeare.
15--What is your favorite season?
To quote Moira Rose, Awards! I live for Hollywood awards season. My husband and I are voracious movie-goers and watch new releases all year long. I love the carpets and the gowns and the live social media reactions, and any excuse to celebrate movies that mean so much to me all year long. If we’re confined to the constructs of weather though, the beach read novelist in me absolutely votes for summer! Awards season + a day at the beach = Serendipity vibes, for sure.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
The best part about being a quadruplet is sharing a birthday. Our birthday is December 21st, so most years we throw a big party in Manhattan before loved ones travel home for the holidays. We invite practically everyone we know: family, friends from growing up, from four different colleges, four different careers, and beyond. It’s so much fun to put all of our extended Chalsen circles into one room and watch new connections be made. Everyone in the room has been “vetted” by one of my sisters – which essentially just means that all the guests are very friendly and love karaoke – and it creates a really magical energy. Plus, I never have to stand awkwardly by myself in front of a cake as people sing “Happy Birthday,” since I have my sisters by my side!
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Hacks! Season 3 just came out on Max, and I can’t get enough. The show is such a perfect, hilarious representation of what it’s like to be an assistant in the entertainment industry. I started my career in the mailroom of the talent agency, William Morris Endeavor, where it’s a common adage that if you can’t handle the small stuff (coffee orders, scheduling, etc.) then you can’t handle the big stuff (actually making the shows and movies we love to watch). In S3, I adored following Ava’s progress into the “bigger” responsibilities – a properly credited writing role, a festival panel, etc. – while still being driven by the qualities that make (in my opinion!) great assistants into great execs: care, passion, and enthusiasm for the work and the people who make it. I dare anyone not to laugh at Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder’s banter.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Anything you’d serve in a summer BBQ! Hot dogs, cheeseburgers, macaroni salad, that watermelon dish with mint and feta cheese. Extra points for onion dips and Lays on the side.
19--What do you do when you have free time?
My husband and I recently rescued a sweet orange cat named Maurice (“Mo”) and he has taken up all the free space in our hearts, schedules, and camera rolls ever since.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
Cat videos! And more writing one day, I hope, but nothing I can announce right now. Until then, cat videos.
A Novel
This summer, will three weekends in a Fire Island share house be enough time for Maggie Monroe to fix her life, find love, and make sure she doesn’t lose her friends for good?
It’s been six years since Maggie followed her screenwriting dreams to Los Angeles and forgot to look back. But things in Hollywood didn’t go quite to plan. Now, twenty-five and suddenly home in New York, Maggie doesn’t know who she’s more anxious to see: her ex-boyfriend, Mac, or her ex–best friend, Liz.
For Liz, Maggie is the girl who abandoned her at the worst possible moment and an unwelcome surprise who could derail her perfect summer. Liz is recently engaged to her high school sweetheart, Cam, but Maggie’s arrival brings old wounds bubbling to the surface, exposing the cracks in Liz’s apparent happily ever after.
When Maggie accepts her former friends' unexpected invitation to join in their summer share house, a rental named Serendipity, she knows it’s the chance she needs to get her life back on track. For three weekends, Maggie, Liz, Cam, Mac, and their closest friends will take the ferry to Ocean Beach, Fire Island, for some sun-kissed bliss, if only they can avoid the drama of their past catching up to the present.
With the nostalgic flavor of a stack of sepia-toned Polaroids, and perfect for fans of Emily Henry, Jennifer Weiner, and Ann Brashares, this big-hearted, page-turning story delves deep into a complicated friend group as they navigate one messy yet magical midtwenties summer.
Women's Fiction Contemporary [Penguin, On Sale: June 4, 2024, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780593474723 / eISBN: 9780593474730]
Becky Chalsen is a writer and film/TV development executive. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and now lives in New York City. Becky is a quadruplet and married to her high school sweetheart—an identical twin—whose family has spent summers on Fire Island for more than three decades. Her debut novel, Kismet,was published by Dutton in 2023. Serendipity is her second novel.
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