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Like Ayn Rand in literature or Craig Ferguson in late night comedy, two of her idols, Romanian-born I like my to create my own rules: it's the immigrant experience.
Before my debut as a novelist, I was known as a quirky columnist and founder of Manhattan Chronicles, where I published provocative, witty essays about relationships shifts at the dawn of the 21st century.
But let's start with the beginning. I was born in Bucharest, where my father was an eccentric comedy playwright and my mother a charismatic French teacher. When I first first saw my Dad speaking to himself and laughing while driving his car, most likely saying the lines of whatever comedy he was then writing, I knew that my father was "different".
After the fall of communism in 1989, my formerly drab life changed completely, as I was soon admitted on top of the list at the leading University of Drama and Film in Bucharest, the hardest to get into in the entire country. In my second year of college I started working for television, producing and directing my first documentary of 90 minutes at the tender age of 22, and my TV series about theater by the time I graduated from college. During that time I travelled extensively across Europe covering the arts.
However, I left that safe, charmed life, and changed my destiny completely for the second time, when I moved to New York after an experimental eye surgery in 1998. With black post surgical sunglasses, no friends and no money in her pocket, I took a series of odd jobs and experienced the hardships and adventures of being a first generation immigrant, which later inspired my writing.
My debut novel was DREAM JUNKIES written in 2005 and published for the first time in Romania in 2008, where it was an unexpected best seller; then MY LIFE ON CRAIGSLIST, Finalist of the Best Books Award for Women Fiction in 2011, and THE OTHER GIRL, Winner of the Best Indie Novella in 2012.
My heroes are vibrant misfits, immigrant New York women and men, at different ages and stages of their lives in the city with a keen sense of humor, unusual points of view, at some crossroads of sorts.
Not sure who my influences are. I love so many writers, screenwriters and playwrights, but I am writing in my own style. However, let me toss a few favorites: Woody Allen, Norman Mailer, D.H. Lawrence, Chuck Palahniuk, Henry Miller, Charles Bukowski, Tom Wolfe, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ellie Wiesel, Paul Coelho, Margret Mitchell, Jennier Egan, Philip Roth, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, John Patrick Shanley, etc.
I live in New York, on the Upper East Side. Thank you for taking your time to read my page, or even better, my her books and if you like them please leave a brief review them on Amazon.
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