That’s not just because she’s more prolific than Stephen King, who’s published a comparatively paltry 65 novels in more than twice the amount of time. More than twenty years (and over 80 published novels) later, and with another Princess Diaries book and movie on the way, Cabot remains a powerhouse. You an Anne Hathaway fan? You also have Meg Cabot to thank for her breakthrough role. Following Disney’s smash hit movie adaptation of The Princess Diaries, Cabot’s name fast became synonymous with the fun, romantic “chick lit” of the time.

At the age of 31, she’d begin publishing steamy, “pulsating” adult historical romance, before breaking into the public consciousness in 2000 with the back-to-back publication of her first young adult novels, The Princess Diaries and The Mediator: Shadowland. It was from that desk, though, in her tiny corner of NYU, that she’d write her first “ten or eleven” novels.

I’d be on my computer when they would come in and they’d be like, ‘I don’t want to interrupt you, but there’s a fire.'”Ĭabot would put out the fires, of course. “All the kids in the dorm knew that was exactly what I was doing. Over Zoom from her longtime home in Key West, Florida, she talked a mile a minute, the charming, real-life embodiment of the chatty early-aughts heroine she’s most known for: The Princess Diaries’ Mia Thermopolis. “It was exactly like that,” Cabot told The Conversationalist shortly before Thanksgiving. Only this time, she was the main character. But around that same time, in real life, an administrator at a New York University dormitory was living out a similar scene: tucked away in her office, tapping away at romance novels in between wrangling angsty students. Perky’s novel is played for laughs-a running joke, with key words like “pulsating” and “bratwurst” used to portray the luridity of her side hustle. “I’ll be right with you,” she tells a student, turning back to her PowerPC…on which she is crafting a magnum opus of a romance novel. Perky (Allison Janney) sits pert in her cardigan and pearls, tip-tapping away at her computer. In the opening scene of 1999’s cinematic classic 10 Things I Hate About You, guidance counselor Ms. By Alanna Bennett Over 20 years after the first “Princess Diaries,” the writer is still sticking up for romance.

The quarantine princess diaries