And now it's time for your morning seizure:

Twenty-six-year-old investment banker cum Times Sunday Styles writer Dana Vachon [author of the blog D-Nasty] just sold two books to Riverhead publisher and vice president Cindy Spiegel. With the assistance of his famously aggressive agent (and former Tina Brown right hand) David Kuhn, Mr. Vachon signed for an eye-popping $650,000 advance.

Both will be novels, and will be Mr. Vachon s first forays into book-writing. Ms. Spiegel described the first 70 pages of Mergers and Acquisitions: A Romance, which she read before bidding, as "really funny."

"What I based everything on was the writing and what I think is his incredible talent," said Ms. Spiegel. "The pages themselves were a little short on plot it was more of a novel of manners than of plot. I mentioned that to the agent, and 20 minutes later I had a plot in my hand."
[...]
"It was very, very impressive," Ms. Spiegel continued.

I was trying my hardest to write some sort of joke about Vachon As The Waspy-Striped-Button-Down Version Of Whomever joke, but it's rather difficult to be creative when one is simultaneously shitting and crying.

More Blog Novelists [Transom (4th item)]