Day 2: How Debbie became a model booker...

2k8: We're back for the second day of debut author Debbie Reed Fischer's launch week. Her young adult novel, Braless in Wonderland, is available everywhere.

Debbie, you've got to tell everyone that great story of how you became a model booker. AND explain the strange pic at the top of today's post!

Debbie Reed Fischer: Well, I sort of fell into it. Or rather, it fell into me.

During my senior year of college, I had an internship at a model and talent agency. On my first day, I was told to file head shots and resumes in these huge, floor-to-ceiling filing cabinets. There were six of them. Wildly curious about the talent repped by the agency, I spent more time reading the resumes than filing. So I wasn’t paying attention to the fact that I had pulled open every single drawer on this one filing cabinet.

Until I heard a strange creaking sound.

And jumped out of the way just in time.

The entire filing cabinet tipped over, knocking into the one next to it, then into the next one, and so on and so on and so on, until the last mammoth filing cabinet crashed into the wall. It was like giant dominoes.

The owner actually had to hire a moving company to set the cabinets straight again!

Certain I was fired, I sneaked out early. Later, I received a call from the owner. “You’re the best intern we’ve ever had,” she said. “I want to hire you.”

I took the job, and the next day, told the story to this stunning model lounging in the waiting area. “Don’t you think it’s weird I got hired?” I asked her.

“No,” the model replied. “That’s the business. It’s crazy.”

And she was right. It was glamorous AND crazy.


2k8: How did get from being a model booker to writing Braless in Wonderland?

Debbie Reed Fischer: I’m a graduate of the University of Miami’s screenwriting program, so my plan was to write screenplays. Although, as fate would have it, I fell into the business side of the film industry, starting out as a talent agent for TV and film.

And then I did the model booking thing in Miami. The modeling world provided me with a treasure chest of material to write about. I usually felt like the blonde on The Munsters, scratching my head and wondering what planet I’d landed on. I kept notebooks on everyone and everything while I worked there, and years later, those notes came in very handy when I sat down to write the Braless in Wonderland. The book is fiction, but the notes make the scenes really authentic.

2k8: Thanks, Debbie!

Oh, yeah, and about those modeling terms from yesterday's post--

backdrop: whatever's behind the model at a photo shoot (eg. seamless paper)

clean-clean: clean hair (as in washed), clean face (as in no makeup), how you might be instructed to show up at a photo shoot

cyc studio: a photo studio with no corners

(From Model Business)


Join us tomorrow for the inside skinny on where Debbie does her writing!

Psssst! In the meantime...hop on over to Nineteen Teen where M.P. Barker, author of A Difficult Boy, is guest blogging today. You don't want to miss it!