After 30 plays and training at NYU's School of Arts you were cast in the feature film The House on Sorority Row. You've also had the opportunity to add soap opera roles to your portfolio. You were in Guiding Light and Santa Barbara. What were those experiences like? What roles did you play? What was it like behind-the-scenes? Would you ever audition for another soap opera role?
Harley: My first soap was Texas and I played Brett Wheeler, a young and wealthy geologist. After that came Guiding Light, in which I played Annabelle, a schoolteacher haunted by ghosts and a serial-killer father, followed by Mary-the-nun in Santa Barbara. Soaps are fast-paced, tough work and the cast and crew become family. It was a great gig for me in my 20's, but I don't expect to be auditioning for one in my future-or for any acting roles, for that matter, for the next few years. My book deadlines are challenging enough, not to mention 3 children under the age of 6! But you never know. In ten years I might have another mid-life career change . . .
You went on to appear in many feature films. Which were the most memorable for you?
Harley: Parenthood was by far the biggest-When Harry Met Sally was a great movie, but my part was only one day's work. Arachnophobia was sheer fun, and The Favor was my biggest acting role. Other films were memorable in more personal ways, reflecting what was going on in my life at the time, but these are the ones you're most likely to run into on cable . . .
So when did your motivation to write kick in? Have you dedicated your time and talent to writing? Did you always want to write a mystery?
Harley: I've always been writing, starting with letters and journals, followed by poetry, country western song lyrics, a play, the beginning of a screenplay, 20 pages of a musical, and many essays and short stories. I was still in the thick of my acting career when I started Dating Dead Men, but it was two years before I realized it was a murder mystery rather than literary fiction. (The title, of course, came after that realization.)
Tell us about your first novel, Dating Dead Men, which was published Jan. 20, 2004. Who was your publisher? How did you choose a Los Angeles greeting-card artist as your protagonist? Can you tease us with the plot without giving it away?
Harley: Dating Dead Men, published by Doubleday, features a greeting card artist because my best friend from 4th grade wrote me a letter describing her lifelong dream of running a card shop. That intrigued me, and Wollie was born. The plot in a nutshell: Wollie's dating 40 men in 60 days as part of a scientific research project for a radio talk-show therapist writing a how-to book. She's meeting men, but not falling in love, until she's enroute to the mental hospital to visit her brother, a paranoid schizophrenic, and runs into a dead body-and all the complications that come with it, one of the complications being a short, dark and handsome stranger . . .
In Dating is Murder, Wollie gets talked into being a contestant on a reality TV show called "Biological Clock." On top of having no luck in finding the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with, what else happens to complicate matters?
Harley: A friend disappears, leading Wollie into a missing person search that throws her into a world of designer drugs, German babysitters, dead boyfriends, community college, giant frogs, FBI stings, L. A. toddlers, and bad TV.
How many more books will you write for what appears to be a series? Are the novels accepted by the same publisher? What have your experiences been like with your editors, publisher, production staff and PR rep (if you have one)?
Harley: I've written two Wollie books and I'm contracted to write two more, all for Doubleday. I've had nothing but great experiences with Doubleday, from my editor, Stacy Creamer, to Rachel Pace, the publicity person who does a great job with my books, as well as a woman named Margaret Winter, a Random House rep on this coast. I don't have much contact with anyone else, and I don't have my own PR rep, as Rachel would be hard to improve on.
How many markets did you send your first manuscript to before it was accepted? How did you keep your confidence level up and stay on course?
Harley: Finding a publisher wasn't very hard, once I found my agent, who's wonderful. Finding an agent was the tough part. Once Renée (my agent) took me on, and worked with me to polish the novel, she knew who to send it to, and sold it within a week or two. The rejections along the way are always, always rough, but as with anything else-the acting business, finding Mr. Right-it only takes one. One publisher, one agent, one guy that's the right fit, who thinks you're great. With every rejection, I do what I imagine everyone does: scream, weep, shrug, then move on.
Who has offered their support the entire way?
Harley: I have an enormous family and a lot of friends who are always there in times of need. And I had great writing teachers and a great writing group and later on in the process, I found my husband, who thinks I'm the cat's pajamas. I'm very, very lucky.
Are you working on your third novel?
Harley: Yes!
