welcome to between the cover summer series where we have a spotlight on South Florida authors I'm Anne bocock and joining me is Meredith Berlin Meredith is a three-time Emmy nominated producer she was editor-in-chief of several magazines including 17 and Soap Opera Digest her new book is friends with issues Meredith thank you so much for being here thank you for having me this is a most fitting title of a nove friends with issues we have Susan and Elizabeth and Brooke and they are friends they're smart and glamor successful but there are definitely some issues right can you give us a peek into each of these women yes there first of all I thought that what was interesting to me was they were all women in their 40s they were all successful they had all made their mark on Manhattan and now they were living in the suburbs and started sort of thinking about what's the next chapter in my life El has to deal with a new diagnosis of Ms and she was an editor of a top magazine sounds familiar Brooke is in a marriage she's been married since she was in college and her husband has really changed he has some big issues and she has to decide if this is the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with and Susan is married to Nick and kind of think of Nick as the person they're all friends with um he has an influence on all of them she loves him he loves her but li fe died a long time ago and she's trying to find out what her own sexuality is and building a new fo r herself who's the character that enjoyed developing the most I enjoyed Susan because I never knew anyone like Susan so I mean I had a little idea of who she was but she took off on her own and I admired her Moxie she was one of those people who really didn't have an edit function between her brain and her tongue and I admire about her I really liked her and she told her own story she kind of of me and just went I thought she was a wonderful character thank you the book is set mostly in New York's some par in in LA but it's in the 90s yes the magazine publishing world it is your background yes but and as I'm reading it I'm thinking okay it said in the 90s but the challenges and the issues for women haven't changed all that much right isn't that interesting um yeah I started this book in 1997. which is one that took place you know takes place and I chose not to change it because I did want to get into the magazine World which is so diff than it is now um also because we didn't use the devices that we do now we weren't texting everyone we're you know it wasn't a big part of our life so there was more Reliance on real conversati but yeah things have not changed that much I mean you know in in raising children it's still more on the women in terms of I think this was it was this way for me when I was that age and I think it is still for many if I was at work I felt I should be with the children if I was chil should be at work so that push I think still goes on I think it's it's exactly the same as you said you started writing it a few decades ago and like a lot of people that have a manuscript they shelve it but then you came back to it yeah and you wrote it yeah and it's really really good so what's the lesson here well first of all I went back to it because my college roommate lives down here I moved down here and she be long to a writer's group you should come I think and and that being ot her writers um really Spurs you on you know it's a lonely business so so if you have a group of people who are like-minded and you know can kind of encourage you and give you good criticism that really helps I think I never wanted to go odbye to it I just it I put it away but I really wasn't ready to say goodbye and the people that were most important in my life said what about the what about the novel and coming down here I just say go for it so it's what's it about it's about Not Giving Up on new dreams Elizabet characters has Ms like you yes there are days that she struggles there are days that she just kills it right tell me about the MS part and writing this book did you always want to have that character and is this in some way advocating for other people with Ms yes it's definitely advocating for it I think in the beginning it was cathartic for me um to to tell that story it important for me to show that it didn't Define her but it did hold her ba certain times and learning to listen t is not a disease that you can just push through when something happens yo to listen to your body and you gotta stop so writing it wa when my fingers didn't do very well on the computer one of the issues that I have is wor retrieval and stuttering sometimes so great hopefully right now I'm doing right great but when you're find your words as you're writing a book not so easy and on those days I ta ke some time off I I mentioned that I was recently o terrible car accident Well that took everything that was already wrong my deficits and made them so much worse but you I'm lucky in that I had it long enough that I know what to do and I'm very lucky that I do not need assisted devices you know came once in a while but that's it I did want to show that this was a real disease and how someon dealt with it and dealt with it well I want to know one thing you learned about yourself when you finish th that you didn't know before you started it th I like that answer what were the kinds of books that you gravitated to when you were young when you were a child the first book that hit me that I woul under the covers at night with the light on were the Laura Ingalls Wilder books on The Banks of Plum Creek oh just that was it if we could look at your bookshelf at home what would it say about you it would say I'm pretty eclectic in my tastes I love Thriller anything by Daniel Silva I'm going to read thrillers historical fiction and girly book work in between Meredith Berlin the book is entertaini it is a peak of the world of the Rich and beautiful the title is friends with issues this has been such a pleasure thank you I enjoyed meeting you I love having you here thank you so much Anne I'm Anne bocock please join me on the next between the covers [Music]