Jennifer Weiner's personal inspiration for love story
Author Jennifer Weiner is out with her first love story, "Who Do You Love." It's a book, she said, that was inspired by her own tale of romance.
In her 20s she fell in love with now Sports Illustrated Books editor Bill Syken. He wasn't ready to tie the knot when marriage was on the table at the time, so the two split and Weiner married another man. When that marriage ended, and following the death of her dog, Weiner set out to reconnect with Syken.
"I found his old AOL e-mail address ... and I email him and I write in the memo line, 'Is this still you?' And it was him, and he wrote back immediately," Weiner said Tuesday on "CBS This Morning."
Though they're not married, she said their relationship is now back to where it was when she was in her 20s.
It's that story, in part, that inspired her latest book.
While her other novels had elements of romance, she said, she wanted to write a story centered on love.
In "Who Do You Love," that love story is sparked by the chance encounter at a hospital between Rachel Blum, a privileged Jewish Floridian, and Andy Landis, a poor, biracial boy from Philadelphia, who later in life becomes an Olympic athlete.
"I'm interested in second acts, and sort of what happens when you're 30 years old, you've accomplished this amazing thing and then you're done and you've got to figure out the rest of your life," Weiner said.
Outside of writing novels, Weiner has also written op-eds for the New York Times. In "The Pressure to Look Good," Weiner explores the strains women feel from social media.
"It used to be that, generally speaking, we all knew the occasions that required us to look good. Now? Every day is Class Picture Day. Every phone is a camera. Every picture or video ends up on the Internet," Weiner wrote.
One of her inspirations is actress and comedian Amy Schumer.
"She was the heroin of a romantic comedy; she was the lead, and it wasn't like 'OK, I'm going to diet and drop 30 pounds.' She was just unapologetically herself," Weiner said. "And it's like, if you're not so teeny tiny, when do you ever get to see that? 'Never.' It's like this sigh of, 'There I am. There I am.'"