About Beth Orsoff

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: About Beth | Author Q&A

I’m not one of those people who knew from
  the age of three that they wanted to be    a writer. In fact, my mother had told me
    since the age of five that I should be a
     lawyer because I liked to argue [with
     her] so much. But I didn’t buy into that      philosophy until much later.

    When I graduated from the University of
   Florida with a B.A. in English/Film Studies   I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do with my life. So I became a professional
                                      lifeguard. I had health insurance, a killer tan, got paid to work out, and my hair was actually turning blond naturally. It was a great job.

But then one day Mom and Dad came to visit and gave me the “we didn’t send you to college so you could be a professional lifeguard” speech. Although my parents swear to this day that they never encouraged me to be a lawyer, they did pay for me to take the LSAT prep class. (You can draw your own conclusions.) Somehow I managed to score in the top 1% on the exam and instead of attributing it to the fact that I’m a good standardized test-taker, I decided it meant the law was My Calling. Since I’ve always loved movies and was already dating a screenwriter wannabe, I decided to move to California, enroll in USC Law School, and pursue my newly acquired dream of being an entertainment lawyer.

Shockingly, things did go as planned. For a while anyway. Although the first book I purchased after finishing the torturous three-day-long California Bar Exam was entitled “How to Write a Novel.” That should’ve been my first clue that perhaps the law was not My True Calling.

Fast forward seven years. I was a regular attendee of UCLA Extension Writers Program workshops and working as an entertainment lawyer in the Warner Bros. Theatrical Legal Department when I decided to quit my job so I could finally write that novel. And the rest, as they say, is history.