Lisa Scottoline, Francesca Serritella Share Secret to Their Mother-Daughter Writing Partnership
The pair are the authors of the "Chick Wit" newspaper column.
— -- Mother-daughter writing duo Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Serritella attribute their ability to write seven books together to one thing: love.
“Love, love, love is the answer, the secret,” Scottoline told ABC News’ Deborah Roberts in an interview that aired today on “Good Morning America.”
“I'm an only child. She was a single mother for much of my upbringing. So that comes naturally,” Serritella said of their loving relationship. “And it doesn't mean it's always smooth sailing.”
The pair’s latest book, “I’ve Got Sand in All the Wrong Places,” recollects humorous, and sometimes poignant, moments in their lives.
Scottoline began her career as a lawyer but -- even though a divorce left her a single mother when Serritella was an infant -- she longed to stay home with her daughter, and so switched careers.
“I just started to try” writing books, she said. “And after five years of rejection, really hard, broke times, I got published.”
The now bestselling crime novelist’s first book was a hit, a success she said she still does not take for granted.
“I’m shocked every day,” Scottoline said. “No joke, really. Blessed. Lucky. Amazed.”
Serritella described what it was like to watch her mom overcome the odds in the publishing world.
“She built it slowly, and I got to see that perseverance and her work ethic and see her push through like she said, [with] initial struggling with getting published, and to see that, you know, failure is an event, not a definition,” Serritella said. “To just keep on moving forward.”
The "Have a Nice Guilt Trip" co-authors also together write the “Chick Wit” column in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Serritella writes from her home in New York City, while Scottoline works from her farm just outside of Philadelphia.
Scottoline’s farm is home to many animals, and even more books.
“I feel so lucky to have a life in books,” she said. “Like sometimes I think I'm like in a book, and I kind of am. It doesn't get better than that.”
