Why self-medicate? Why not report sexual harassment? Easy. She’s not equipped otherwise. Nicknamed “Chubs” as a kid, she’s just living up to her brand, the obedient worker smiling away her pain.

Unaccustomed to refusing the men in her life and ill-prepared for intimacy, the narrator of Pretending to be Me hides her crippled self-confidence behind snark and an extra hundred pounds. When the high of a new hobby—re-writing bad televisions shows—disrupts her tenth year of desire-numbing, mood-leveling antidepressants, the woman thrashes with ulcerative angst over a possible career reboot.

But quitting her hated job for a new gig in series television does not fix her. Neither does white-knuckling down five sizes. There is no dream-job prize tied to size-fourteen jeans, only workplace politics, administrative drudgery, and ogling sexual harassment. And vulnerability is still excruciating no matter her size.

Bryan, a kind, master date-planner, gives her a new nickname—“Legs.” She allows herself to have long-overdue sex with him—the distracting kind, more vibration than emotion. For as long as she can, she fights the honesty she ascribes to worthy women, good writers, and healthy eaters. She douses intimacy with food, drink, and sex; ignores her insightful therapist; resists an empathetic acting coach; and takes the shiny distractions offered by a stunning, famous, world-traveling actor. A car accident, for which she blames herself, may finally force a drop of her defenses and a confrontation with her battered self-worth.

Pretending to be Me draws on aspects of my past: as a creative child stifled by strictness, as a budding actor obsessed with characters’ emotions instead of facing her own, as an angry food addict hiding from men under a weighty cocoon of my own making. As a multi-billion-dollar diet industry, sexual harassment, and over-prescribing pills all continue to make headlines in a world that glorifies fanfiction and Hollywood endings, my heartfelt and humorous story doesn’t gloss over the difficulties of recovery, the risk of replacing one addiction with another, or modern-day safe-sex realities.

Beta readers have likened my writing to Liane Moriarty, for which I’m flattered. I was a university-trained, play-loving professional actor in Chicago for a time. My love of good dialog and a deep understanding of character has guided me to create a flawed narrator the likes of a self-sabotaging “Cheryl Strayed” were she raised like a nun; a smart “Bridget Jones” cursed with real weight problems; a hidden, fragile Glass Menagerie “Laura” clawing toward her pre-Blue-Roses-nicknamed self.

A note for interested agents/publishers who share my enthusiasm for upmarket fiction driven by women’s issues: Pretending to be Me is complete at 137k words and ready for submission. Please use the contact form to request further info.