in 'online ) Arts Life On The Bookshelf JN Digest Selected news and feature stories from the Detroit Jewish News. vvvvvv.detroitjevvishnews.comInevvs ) Back In Time Look for Alexis P. Rubin's "This Month in Jewish History" for December. vvvvvv.derroitjewishnews.com ) What's Eating Harry Kirsbaum? wvvw.detroitiewishnews.com/opinion jewishicom ) This Normal Life Brain Blum goes to India in search of the lost Jews of Jaipur. Did he find them? Read his column on Jewish.com and find out. ) Unassuming On Jewish.com, Martin Peretz, editor-in-chief of The New Republic, writes in memory of Larry Tisch , 6 Onli— . iii www.detroitjewishnews.com/advertisers Ira Kaufman Chapel... www.irakaufman.com GIFTS DetailsArt.com ... www.detailsart.com PARTIES Patti's Parties ... www.pattisparties.invitations.com 12/ 5 2003 92 For online advertising, call 248-354-6060 Chick Lit Sisters turn to childhood tales as inspiration for adult series. M-10 -11 ADVAINYVNt u th O OAV e‘• eP 11 - V 7 er Sos e Q n nte ol w al y 1 ?dCahyoo 0 -, 1 , ' h ler 0 ‘-'.110 rtth rob SANDY COHEN Copley News Service L illa and Nora Zuckerman swear they didn't per- sonally partake in the debaucherous adventures detailed in their first book, Tangle in Tijuana (Fireside; $9.95), published in March. "Everyone's heard a story about Mexico," said Nora, 27. "There are just so many insane possibilities." So why not let readers decide where the Tijuana tale takes them? That's why the California-based sisters wrote their book in the old "choose-your-own-adventure" style that spawned more than 100 books popular with young readers in the 1980s. Only this time, the audi- ence is the Sex and the City set, what Lilla calls the "bad-ass, young chick genre." "Chick lit is exploding," said Lilla, 28. "I've read every one of those hot-pink books out there, and where is the ballsy twentysomething chick who doesn't give a damn about find- ing a husband? I wanted to cre- ate a story to fill that niche." The niche must have needed filling, because Lilla and Nora — both first-time authors — scored themselves a two-book deal with publisher Simon & Schuster and helped create a new choose-your-own-adven- ture-type series for adults called "Miss Adventure." The second volume in the series, Beauty Queen Blowout (Fireside; $9.95), about a dark-horse beauty con- testant participating in a pag- eant in Reno, Nev., came out in September. At the end of each chapter, readers are faced with a choice: Do you go shopping or head straight to the bar? Do you leave with the handsome stranger or stick with your drunken friend? Each selection determines the course of the story. Amanda Patten, an editor with Simon & Schuster, said she hopes the new series will appeal to the now-grown readers of the original choose-your-own-adventure books. "All those same people are reading all this chick lit," she said. "I think people like to get involved in their entertain- ment in a way they weren't before. Here's something where you get to control the story. You decide what happens, and if you don't like what happens, you can go back and start again. "You really get more bang for your buck when you have 38 different endings." LLA' AND NORA ZUCKERMAN Of course, plotting out such a story can be challenging, par- ticularly for a pair of first-time authors. That's why Lilla, who came up with the idea, asked her screenwriting sister, Nora, for help. "I thought it was a slam- dunk of an idea," Nora said. "I was writing [screenplays] on my own and I was stuck on a project, so I was thrilled to write something in a new for- mat." The Jewish Zuckerman sis- ters, who grew up just outside L.A. in a family of five children — dad Ken is a land developer and mom Peggy is a small busi- ness owner — spent months brainstorming wacky scenarios for their fearless female charac- ters. Each chapter had to tell its own story and connect seam- lessly to other chapters, regard- less of the readers' choices. It turned into something of a logistical nightmare, Lilla said. "We made a big flow chart and it looked like a crazy fami- ly tree," she said. "It was the most disorganized, amorphous- looking mess you've ever seen, and that was our outline." They chose chapters and wrote every day. They matched up • page numbers and made sure all 38 possible stories held together. Once their first manuscript was complete, they looked for an agent. Nora had experienced ample frustration as a screenwriter, so she prepared her sister for the repeated rejection they were about to experience. "Nora's a realist," Lilla said. "But I was telling her, 'We can't lose. This is brilliant. In fact, this is a series.'"