Laurie Notaro first started calling herself "idiot girl" more than 10 years ago when she wrote for The State Press at ASU. Now, several jobs and almost three books later, she has found national success as a writer.
The online version of USA Today is currently publishing her series of essays called "An Idiot Girl Does America," and Worldwide Pants, David Letterman's production company, is interested in turning her work into a TV show.
Notaro said her route to success was torturous but rewarding.
"I was fired like eight times. I guess I don't fit that corporate mold very well," she said. "It was frustrating and depressing and hopeless, and I was broke. I wouldn't trade that experience for anything."
Notaro began writing humor columns in 1991 or 1992 (her memory is slightly hazy), when she was editor of The State Press Magazine.
Autobiography of a Fat Bride: True Tales of a Pretend Adulthood
Laurie Notaro
Published by Villard
"We had a humor columnist who was always late on his deadlines," she said, "and one day I was waiting and waiting, and he finally called and said he wasn't going to make his deadline - he was in jail on a DUI charge."
When the columnist was late again the next two weeks, Notaro fired him and took over the column.
She became well known in the Phoenix area for her humor in print, and she took work as a columnist at Java and Phoenix magazines, among others.
After being fired by a city magazine in Tucson, Notaro jumped at the chance to be a judge for a Halloween contest sponsored by The Arizona Republic. She used the contest as an opportunity to ask about freelance work, and the next day she had a regular job as a columnist.
She wrote a column for Republic-owned weekly The Rep and a daily for azcentral.com. First, her Rep column was canceled, then her online column was scrapped - the same week her book, "The Idiot Girls' Action Adventure Book," reached the New York Times bestseller list.
Her latest book, "Autobiography of a Fat Bride: True Tales of a Pretend Adulthood," was published in July.
Both of her books received positive reviews from USA Today, which then offered to publish her essays. An installment will be posted once a week for seven week at www.openbook.usatoday.com.
She has also has been working on a third book "about [her] on-again, off-again relationship with humanity," which will come out in July. The title will be "I Love Everybody and Other Atrocious Lies of a Loudmouth Girl."
"It's the best writing I've ever done," she said. Unlike her columns at The State Press and The Arizona Republic, she said, word count and content were not restricted.
"I could tell the story as truthfully as I want - it was almost like a vacation," she said. "It's really funny. It's all new material."
Notaro's writing is often earthy and frank, but she says the f-word isn't used even once in her new book. "My mother would kill me," she said.
In addition to her literary success, there's a possibility that "The Idiot Girls' Action Adventure Book" will be adapted for television by Worldwide Pants.
"They wanted to keep the hypothetical 'book' as true to the book as possible, and we had many of the same ideas, plus they kick ass," Notaro said.
Reach the reporter at jesse.christopherson@asu.edu.
