Play Dates

by Leslie Carroll

Avon Books

Literature and Fiction: Women's Fiction

February 1, 2005

ISBN-13: 0060596066

Available in: Trade Size

Play Dates
by Leslie Carroll

Sex and the single mother ... doesn't exist!

And I, Claire Marsh, should certainly know, because these days my to-do list looks like this:

1. Bring daughter Zoë to a birthday party, where twenty second-graders will be encouraged to play ice hockey.

2. Help Zoë with impossible school projects -- just how is she supposed to create a complete ancient Irish village?

3. Bring Zoë on a series of play dates with obnoxious kids. Hope that their nannies are actually paying attention, because their Upper East Side mothers and Wall Street fathers sure aren't.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my daughter. She was the best thing that came out of my marriage. (What can I say about a guy who dumped me for an older woman?) But there's something seriously wrong when my daughter -- and my thirty-year-old sister -- have better social lives than I do. After all, I'm in my twenties; I'm still cute! When do I get my very own play date?



Leslie Carroll's Bio

Leslie Carroll was born and raised in New York City. A professional actress as well as a novelist, over the years she has also worked in politics, advertising, public relations, law, and journalism. She has a Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University.

Although she always amused herself on long car trips by making up stories in her head and populating them with imaginary friends, Leslie's writing career gathered steam in 1998, when, during a long car trip, she proclaimed that she would like to be paid to write. What followed was the impetus for a career as a novelist as well as a return to the world of journalism: a stint as an Associate Editor at Back Stage, New York's leading trade paper for the Theatre professional, where Leslie wrote and edited industry news and features.

On stage, Leslie has played classical and contemporary virgins, vixens, and villainesses in New York and in regional theatre. She has appeared in commercials, voice- overs and talking books, and daytime dramas. Under the auspices of Survivor Productions, a not-for-profit professional theatre company that she founded in 1989, Leslie produced several seasons of "neglected" plays of the 19th century. She is also the author of three stage adaptations of 19th century/early 20th century English novels: Ivanhoe, The Prisoner of Zenda, and The Scarlet Pimpernel. Additionally, Leslie is the dramatist of The Diaries of Adam and Eve, based upon the humorous writing of Mark Twain, and the author of The Anglophile's Guide to Afternoon Tea in New York, cheerfully co-researched by close tea-sipping, scone- munching friends. Leslie considers herself more or less "the ultimate anglophile," with a particular penchant for Bath. Her occasional wanderlust has led her to other favorite (and wildly romantic) locales such as Venice and New Orleans.

Surrounded by hundreds of books, her own needlework, family mementos, and a plethora of pre-Raphaelite prints, Leslie lives on Manhattan's Upper West Side in a rambling pre-war apartment once shared with her grandmother. "Three generations of my family have lived here over the years. I jokingly refer to it as 'Tara.' "

She is a member of the Dramatists' Guild and both the national and New York chapters of Romance Writers of America.