TISH COHEN, FUHS '82, BOOK PUBLISHED
Cohen attended Fullerton High and will be back at her alma mater for her 25-year class reunion and a local book signing. (7 p.m. Friday -May 11?- at the Borders in Brea, and later will be holding an informal high school reunion at the nearby Buca de Beppa restaurant)
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Woman fulfills destiny with novels
By PETER LARSEN
The Orange County Register
Tish Cohen first glimpsed her future in the form of a comic strip beagle she'd sketched on a flimsy piece of cardboard from one of her father's freshly dry-cleaned shirts.
"I was staring at my Snoopy, knowing that I was supposed to write a story, a book, about Snoopy," Cohen says of the still vivid memory of her childhood in Canada in the 1970s.
"I sat there knowing it but not having the guts to do it, and I felt guilty about it, because even at that young age, I knew that I was walking away from something that was meant for me."
So she buried the dream in that part of the heart where the things one is too scared or insecure to risk are locked away.
By high school, Cohen's dysfunctional family had split, and she had moved to Fullerton with her father and brother, escaping each weekend for the underground clubs of Hollywood and dissolute parties of the canyon hillsides where her showbiz uncles lived.
But when you're supposed to be something so specific and real, no amount of school or partying or work can entirely snuff out destiny's flame.
And so years later – after she'd returned to Canada, married, mothered two sons and started to have anxiety and panic attacks – Cohen decided to find out if there was a novel within her.
Writing at her computer day and night, her phobias receded into the background at the same time as they provided her with part of the key she needed to unlock the success of which she long had dreamed.
That Cohen, now 43, would gravitate toward fiction makes a certain sense. Her life story unfolds like a novel, filled with picaresque encounters with celebrities and oddball characters, wild times and hard times, and a final twist that brings it all full circle.
Her parents split when she was 13, and Cohen and a brother moved to California with her dad, the businessman in an otherwise artistic clan.
"We flew in, and I think we went straight to my aunt and uncle's in Laurel Canyon," Cohen says. "I followed these broken stone steps down to the pool, very excited to go swimming, and the pool was filled with naked, drunk actors – a shock, coming from Toronto."
That uncle, Severn Darden, was an actor with roles in dozens of TV series and films such as "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes" and "Werewolves on Wheels." Another uncle, Paul Sills, co-founded the influential Second City comedy troupe in Chicago.
Her dad opened a medical laboratory across the street from Fullerton Union High School, where she made friends quickly despite the pasty Canadian complexion and odd accent that marked her as different.
The writer's dream got a spark when an English teacher wrote on a short story assignment that Cohen should be writing children's books and novels.
Still, the idea seemed out of reach to her, and between school pranks, such as driving her car across campus, and partying in Hollywood – the ruins of Errol Flynn's mansion and the Odyssey club favorite haunts – it was easy not to think about it.
"I had to rebel," she says. "I had no mother, no home life. And because of that, I think I was just sort of going wild."
By her late 20s, Cohen had settled down. In fact, the party girl was now almost afraid to go out of the house.
Parenthood had tilted the balance, tormenting her with panic-inducing fear that something might happen to her out there.
"I call myself an agoraphobe waiting to happen," Cohen says. "For me, I'm not afraid of open spaces or crowds, but just the underlying fear of going out of the house.
"I do go out, but there's that thought: I can go out there and probably live, or I can stay inside and definitely live."
After bouncing from job to job, she fell into writing by accident. The charity where she worked asked her to proofread letters, and from that she became editor of its newsletter.
Sentence by sentence, she slowly moved toward the dream. As she approached her 40th birthday, she decided to risk writing a novel.
"I decided I'd try to write one page," Cohen says. "I called my girlfriend and read it to her, and she thought it was funny, and so I thought, 'OK, I'll do another page.' "
The manuscript about a woman who bounced from job to job as Cohen had got her an agent but did not sell.
"I would have stopped at that point if the rejections were horrible, but the rejections were fantastic," she says. "They were all, 'She's a writer to watch,' and things like that."
A second book, based on her work as a decorative painter, also failed to sell, but by then she had the idea for a book that would become the novel "Town House." Once more, the story – Jack, the agoraphobic son of a dead rock star, brought back to the world outside by Lucinda, a precocious kid next door – had its roots in her life.
"I'm in every single character," Cohen says. "My wild-child self is in Lucinda. My reclusive anxious self is in Jack."
After 3 1/2 weeks, the manuscript was finished. On a Thursday in 2005 it went out to the publishers, and the anxious waiting began.
"At this point I had a theory: If somebody's going to buy your book, they buy it right away," Cohen says. "If you don't hear anything, they're not going to.
"By Sunday, I hadn't heard anything, and I was in tears. I thought I should go get a job at the department store and forget it.
"And by Monday, my agent called and said: 'Do you have a photo? Because Publishers Weekly is doing a story on you.' "
In the stunned silence that followed, her agent caught her up on the whirlwind that had swept up her manuscript.
Editors at several publishers saw movie potential in "Town House" and forwarded it to Hollywood literary agents and studio contacts, lending it the buzz that gets deals done.
"I couldn't have been more floored," Cohen says. "And here's the irony: That night I went to bed and woke up at 3 a.m. – now my book is about a man who is crippled by panic attacks – and had the biggest panic attack I'd ever had."
Two days later, Fox 2000 and directors Ridley and Tony Scott's production company had bought the rights. (A screenplay by the writer of films including "Quills" is complete.)
A week later, HarperCollins bought the book, out this week as a paperback. Cohen, on a book tour from her home in Toronto, will sign the book at 7 p.m. Friday at the Borders in Brea, and later holding an informal high school reunion at the nearby Buca de Beppa restaurant.
She's written and sold two young-adult novels and is finishing a second adult novel for her publisher, putting the days when she doubted her ability to succeed as a writer further behind her.
"I always thought that writing was for special people, and I was just a regular person," Cohen says. "But I also knew from the time I was really young that I was supposed to do it."
Woman fulfills destiny with novels
By PETER LARSEN
The Orange County Register
Tish Cohen first glimpsed her future in the form of a comic strip beagle she'd sketched on a flimsy piece of cardboard from one of her father's freshly dry-cleaned shirts.
"I was staring at my Snoopy, knowing that I was supposed to write a story, a book, about Snoopy," Cohen says of the still vivid memory of her childhood in Canada in the 1970s.
"I sat there knowing it but not having the guts to do it, and I felt guilty about it, because even at that young age, I knew that I was walking away from something that was meant for me."
So she buried the dream in that part of the heart where the things one is too scared or insecure to risk are locked away.
By high school, Cohen's dysfunctional family had split, and she had moved to Fullerton with her father and brother, escaping each weekend for the underground clubs of Hollywood and dissolute parties of the canyon hillsides where her showbiz uncles lived.
But when you're supposed to be something so specific and real, no amount of school or partying or work can entirely snuff out destiny's flame.
And so years later – after she'd returned to Canada, married, mothered two sons and started to have anxiety and panic attacks – Cohen decided to find out if there was a novel within her.
Writing at her computer day and night, her phobias receded into the background at the same time as they provided her with part of the key she needed to unlock the success of which she long had dreamed.
That Cohen, now 43, would gravitate toward fiction makes a certain sense. Her life story unfolds like a novel, filled with picaresque encounters with celebrities and oddball characters, wild times and hard times, and a final twist that brings it all full circle.
Her parents split when she was 13, and Cohen and a brother moved to California with her dad, the businessman in an otherwise artistic clan.
"We flew in, and I think we went straight to my aunt and uncle's in Laurel Canyon," Cohen says. "I followed these broken stone steps down to the pool, very excited to go swimming, and the pool was filled with naked, drunk actors – a shock, coming from Toronto."
That uncle, Severn Darden, was an actor with roles in dozens of TV series and films such as "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes" and "Werewolves on Wheels." Another uncle, Paul Sills, co-founded the influential Second City comedy troupe in Chicago.
Her dad opened a medical laboratory across the street from Fullerton Union High School, where she made friends quickly despite the pasty Canadian complexion and odd accent that marked her as different.
The writer's dream got a spark when an English teacher wrote on a short story assignment that Cohen should be writing children's books and novels.
Still, the idea seemed out of reach to her, and between school pranks, such as driving her car across campus, and partying in Hollywood – the ruins of Errol Flynn's mansion and the Odyssey club favorite haunts – it was easy not to think about it.
"I had to rebel," she says. "I had no mother, no home life. And because of that, I think I was just sort of going wild."
By her late 20s, Cohen had settled down. In fact, the party girl was now almost afraid to go out of the house.
Parenthood had tilted the balance, tormenting her with panic-inducing fear that something might happen to her out there.
"I call myself an agoraphobe waiting to happen," Cohen says. "For me, I'm not afraid of open spaces or crowds, but just the underlying fear of going out of the house.
"I do go out, but there's that thought: I can go out there and probably live, or I can stay inside and definitely live."
After bouncing from job to job, she fell into writing by accident. The charity where she worked asked her to proofread letters, and from that she became editor of its newsletter.
Sentence by sentence, she slowly moved toward the dream. As she approached her 40th birthday, she decided to risk writing a novel.
"I decided I'd try to write one page," Cohen says. "I called my girlfriend and read it to her, and she thought it was funny, and so I thought, 'OK, I'll do another page.' "
The manuscript about a woman who bounced from job to job as Cohen had got her an agent but did not sell.
"I would have stopped at that point if the rejections were horrible, but the rejections were fantastic," she says. "They were all, 'She's a writer to watch,' and things like that."
A second book, based on her work as a decorative painter, also failed to sell, but by then she had the idea for a book that would become the novel "Town House." Once more, the story – Jack, the agoraphobic son of a dead rock star, brought back to the world outside by Lucinda, a precocious kid next door – had its roots in her life.
"I'm in every single character," Cohen says. "My wild-child self is in Lucinda. My reclusive anxious self is in Jack."
After 3 1/2 weeks, the manuscript was finished. On a Thursday in 2005 it went out to the publishers, and the anxious waiting began.
"At this point I had a theory: If somebody's going to buy your book, they buy it right away," Cohen says. "If you don't hear anything, they're not going to.
"By Sunday, I hadn't heard anything, and I was in tears. I thought I should go get a job at the department store and forget it.
"And by Monday, my agent called and said: 'Do you have a photo? Because Publishers Weekly is doing a story on you.' "
In the stunned silence that followed, her agent caught her up on the whirlwind that had swept up her manuscript.
Editors at several publishers saw movie potential in "Town House" and forwarded it to Hollywood literary agents and studio contacts, lending it the buzz that gets deals done.
"I couldn't have been more floored," Cohen says. "And here's the irony: That night I went to bed and woke up at 3 a.m. – now my book is about a man who is crippled by panic attacks – and had the biggest panic attack I'd ever had."
Two days later, Fox 2000 and directors Ridley and Tony Scott's production company had bought the rights. (A screenplay by the writer of films including "Quills" is complete.)
A week later, HarperCollins bought the book, out this week as a paperback. Cohen, on a book tour from her home in Toronto, will sign the book at 7 p.m. Friday at the Borders in Brea, and later holding an informal high school reunion at the nearby Buca de Beppa restaurant.
She's written and sold two young-adult novels and is finishing a second adult novel for her publisher, putting the days when she doubted her ability to succeed as a writer further behind her.
"I always thought that writing was for special people, and I was just a regular person," Cohen says. "But I also knew from the time I was really young that I was supposed to do it."
For more information, go to www.tishcohen.com
Contact the writer: 714-796-7787 or plarsen@ocregister.com
posted by Connie @ 10:58 AM
0 Comments
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home