In this month’s installment of “Book Keeping,” a series of articles about managing the publication cycle available to mediabistro.com’s AvantGuild subscribers, Jennifer Oko pulls back the curtain on Gloss, a novel about the world of TV journalism. “Journalists are surrounded by colorful stories and colorful characters every day, and certainly there is something delicious about journalism and newsroom drama that is just ripe for a comic satire,” Oko tells John MacDonald. As for publishing the novel under her married name, while her memoir about breaking the Russian sex slaves story for Inside Edition was a “Jennifer Beth Cohen” book, “back when we got the deal, I was thinking I would keep my maiden name as my more ‘literary’ name and my married name for my more ‘commercial’ projects, but, truth be told, I sort of regret that decision because there is no reason not to link them together… Both books are smart, enjoyable page-turners. They are just page-turners of a different variety.”
So how juicy is her backstage look at the TV news biz? “There were definitely instances during the writing of Gloss when I had to change a scene or a character’s description because I didn’t want that scene or character to resemble any real-life situation or person too closely,” Oko confesses. “I was a little nervous about what the response would be, but thankfully the response among my co-workers has been fabulous. In fact, some of my colleagues have jokingly told me they are mad at me for not basing a character on them.”