Jane Austen in Scarsdale Or Love, Death, and the SATs [Paperback]

Anne Ehrlich is a dedicated guidance counselor steering her high-school charges through the perils of college admission. Thirteen years ago, when she was graduating from Columbia University, her wealthy family---especially her dear grandmother Winnie---persuaded her to give up the love of her life, Ben Cutler, a penniless boy from Queens College. Anne has never married and hasn't seen Ben since---until his nephew turns up in her high school and starts applying to college.

Now Ben is a successful writer, a world traveler, and a soon-to-be married man; and Winnie's health is beginning to fail. All of these changes have Anne beginning to wonder&Can old love be rekindled, or are past mistakes too painful to forget?

With all the wit and perceptiveness of Jane Austen'sPersuasion,Jane Austen in Scarsdaleis a fresh and romantic new comedy from a novelist with a knack for making modern life reflect literature in the most engaging manner (Library Journal).

In Her Own Words

Tips on Writing a First Novel at Age 47
by Paula Marantz Cohen

Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be a writer. My early experiences with writing, however, were not encouraging. I began keeping a journal in the third grade because writers were supposed to keep journals. I was conscientious for the first few days, then, inevitably, forgot to keep up. Sometimes I'd have a resurgence of energy a week or so later and fill in the missing pages, trying to fool the journal into thinking I'd written them when I should have. But I rarely went more than a few more days before petering out again.

As a result, if you visit my parents' basement today, you will find notebookslarge and small, spiraled and stitched, with Moroccan leather and tie-dyed coversall empty except for the first few pages.

In junior high school I began writing short stories and sending them off to women's magazines. It was a time when women's magazines published stol(