Team

Laurie Viera Rigler

Publishing and Development

Laurie is a best-selling novelist who consults for Rigler Creative on book publishing and development of fiction projects for television.

Her novels Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict and Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict (Dutton US; Bloomsbury UK) could have been considered semi-autobiographical, were it not for all the time travel and body-switching.

Both novels have been optioned for television. Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict won a Publishers Weekly Listen Up Award, and Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict was nominated for a Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Mainstream Fiction. Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict was nominated for The Jane Austen Centre’s Jane Austen Award for Best New Fiction.

Both Austen Addict novels have also been published in France (Bragelonne) and in Italy (Sperling & Kupfer), and Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict has been published in the Netherlands (Archipel).

Laurie contributed a short story entitled Intolerable Stupidity to the anthology Jane Austen Made Me Do It (Ballantine). In Laurie’s story, Mr. Darcy brings charges against all the writers of Pride and Prejudice sequels, spin-offs and retellings, which have been wreaking havoc in his not-so-fictional life.

Laurie is also the creator of the Babelgum Original web series Sex and the Austen Girl, which was inspired by her Austen Addict novels and garnered over half a million views.

Prior to confessing a severe case of Austen addiction, Laurie teamed with Richard Roeper of Ebert & Roeper fame to write a humorous, gender-specific guide to movies entitled He Rents, She Rents: The Ultimate Film Guide to the Best Women’s Films and Guy Movies (St. Martin’s Press). She also coauthored Popping the Question: Real-Life Stories of Marriage Proposals, From the Romantic to the Bizarre (Walker & Company).

Having spent several years writing her first novel and reading all those proclamations about how aspiring novelists were more likely to win the lottery than ever get published, Laurie is passionate about encouraging budding writers. Prior to coming into her own as a novelist, she spent an exciting decade as a freelance book editor working with authors of fiction and nonfiction. She also taught workshops in storytelling technique at Vroman’s, Southern California’s oldest and largest independent bookstore, and has presented at writers’ conferences.

Laurie is working on her next three novels, one of which is the third installment in her Jane Austen Addict series.