Jamie Shupak takes us for a wild ride...plus a book giveaway

Today we have the pleasure of introducing debut author Jamie Shupak. Her novel, Transit Girl, came out on November 19th as an ebook. Jamie Shupak is the morning traffic anchor on NY1, Time Warner Cable's popular 24/7 news channel in New York City. Shupak, a news Emmy nominee, can be seen every weekday morning from 5:00 a.m. until Noon. She has been the subject of profiles in The New York Times and The New York Post, the latter of which dubbed her the "Trans-It Girl." The New York Observer named her one of the media's top 50 "power bachelorettes" while she was the dating columnist for Complex magazine, penning her advice for single men and women everywhere on a weekly basis. But the Philadelphia native and University of Maryland graduate now chronicles her romantic home life and the delicious, healthy meals she cooks on her food blog, TV Dinner. Featured on Mashable and in New York Magazine's Grub Street, Shupak showcases her culinary talents, tailored to her meat- and dairy-free diet. She currently resides in Manhattan with her fiancé, senior media correspondent for CNN and host of "Reliable Sources," BrianStelter.

Thanks to Polis Books we have THREE e-copies of Transit Girl to give away to some lucky readers anywhere in the world.

Learn more about Jamie by visiting her on Twitter and at her website. You can find Transit Girl at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and iBooks.

I have always loved to write, but I never had a specific interest in writing a novel. "Transit Girl" came about very organically a few years ago. I had just gotten out of a decade-long relationship and engagement so I was single for the first time in my adult life. This was, as you can imagine, a whole new world to me.

Each morning after a date, I'd tell all the fun (and funny) details of stories to a friend on Gchat – about the guy, our conversations, our texts, our makeouts, everything – and he'd sometimes reply and say that the stories belonged in a book. When I told my TV agent about the suggestion, almost as an aside, he said something to the effect of "If you want to write a book, you should start writing for other publications first – get some bylines, get your name out there as a writer." A few months later, an opportunity arose (through Twitter, of all places!) to write a weekly dating column for Complex. I jumped at the chance, but it wasn't until a literary agent got in touch with me (about nine months into the column, and a year after that initial conversation with my TV agent) that I started to think seriously about a novel.

The literary agent found me through The New York Times, which had published a profile of me and my traffic-reporting job (at NY1 in NYC). And I'm so glad she did! She gave me some crucial tips about story arcs and characters and sent me on my way with the best advice: just start writing. And now here I am.

The novel is loosely based on that year of my life and so it very naturally includes my career as a traffic reporter. The schedule and the shenanigans (both good and bad) that come with being on morning television are part of what defines me as a person, and by proxy, what leads to a lot of Guiliana's escapades in the book. I used a lot of traffic metaphors in it because not only do they keep it light and fast-paced, but I also think they poke a little bit of fun at the job. It's important to not take who you are or what you do too seriously. In part that's my hope for the book, too -- that readers just relax, escape and enjoy it.


Thanks to Jamie for sharing how her novel came about and Polis Books for sharing it with our readers.

How to win: Use Rafflecopter to enter the giveaway. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.

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Worldwide. Giveaway ends January 14th at midnight EST.