Dede Sophie

Today I’m happy to welcome Karleen Koen , the New York Times bestselling author of Through a Glass Darkly, Now Face to Face, and Dark Angels, who’s guest blogging here today. Her latest book, Before Versailles focuses on four intense months of King Louis’s young life. It’s the summer of 1661, and after the death of his prime minister, twenty-two-year-old Louis steps into governing France. He’s still a young man, and in a way quite inexperienced and shy, but also very determined, intelligent and headstrong. He’s used to having anything and everything his heart desires—land, women—including his brother’s wife. Why did I write “Before Versailles”? by Karleen Koen Read more »

My heart goes out to friends and family of Harris Wittels. I’m devastated just as a person who only looked up to him for his jokes and podcast appearances–I can’t imagine what kind of grief they are feeling. I may have been the only person in the world to see this moment, so it feels important to share: I saw Harris once in real life. I was waiting in line to see Comedy Bang Bang at the RiotLA festival and he came out of the theater and stood nearby to smoke a cigarette. No one else in line even seemed to notice he was there so I tried to keep my freakout internal, but now I really regret missing my chance to tell him that his jokes were important to me. Anyway, as he was finishing up his cigarette, he pulled out his phone, wrote something really quick and then went back inside the theater. Minutes later, he came on stage for his Foam Corner segment of the show. He said that he had just written a joke he wanted to share, and then proceeded to do his famous bit: “I hate smoking sections...