Gossip Girl

New York Magazine profiles the author of our favorite books about super-obnoxious, hyper-privileged Upper East Side teens. We have several Gossip Girls and anxiously await the latest.

This part was great:

From the beginning, Von Ziegesar added her own raw and distinctive touches, not all of which went over with Little, Brown. In Gossip Girl No. 1, Serena falls serendipitously into modeling and—like Carrie Bradshaw—ends up pictured in bus ads all over Manhattan. However, unlike Carrie, the shots (at least in Von Ziegesar’s initial draft) were artistic close-ups of her anus—part of a series of shocking celebrity portraits. Little, Brown suggested Von Ziegesar substitute a belly button. She chose a compromise that works hilariously well—the orifice is itself a mystery, even to Blair, who is tortured by her former friend’s sudden fame. “Was it her belly button? It looked like the dark pit at the center of a peach . . . Blair could never get completely away—Serena was fucking everywhere.”