Tonight (9/27), small business and finance expert Monica Mehta (W'97, Counterparts) will be appearing for a second time on the "Real Time with Bill Maher" panel.

Monica has actually been all over the media writing magazine columns (Bloomberg, Businessweek, INC Mag, and Entrepreneur Mag) and appearing regularly on business and political shows ("O’Reilly Factor", "The Adam Carolla Show", Fox News with Neil Cavuto, "Fox & Friends", "Fox Business", MSNBC, Bloomberg TV, ABC News).

Find out what Monica will be talking about with Bill after the jump!

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This may be the juiciest "Penn Alumni You Should Know About" edition yet!

After the jump, check out exciting news about the latest from 19 Penn alumni with projects in TV, film, stage, web, apps, and print.

Plus, more stories of Penn alumni working together on entertainment projects ....an alum who dishes on what happens backstage as a Jeopardy contestant ....and an alum who is body doubling for a major Hollywood star!

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In this Penntertainment roundup, I've got some awesome projects and cameos from more Penn alumni you should know about!

Check it all out after the jump!

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After the jump, check out my DT roundup of these 4 Penn alumni making news on stage, literature and the arts.

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President Amy Gutmann appeared with Charlie Rose last Friday night talking about American democracy, politicians, relationships and money as it relates to her new book The Spirit of Compromise: Why Governing Demands It and Campaigning Undermines It (co-authored with Dennis Thompson of Harvard University).

Check out a clip from the show after the jump!

More Penn authors HERE

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Another story in this week's DT Halloween series for you...

Matt Blackstone (C'03) is not only a 10th grade English teacher, but he is the author of a new young adult novel, A SCARY SCENE IN A SCARY MOVIE (FSG/Macmillan), which released this summer and Seventeen magazine put it on it's Summer Beach Read list! Yep, this is another story about a Penn alum who is an educator and an author!

One liner is "It's about Rene, a male teen with OCD, and his lingo-inventing friend who tutors him in the art of playing it cool."

And if you're at Penn, you can meet him at the Bookstore at 2 pm tomorrow (this Saturday (10/29)).

After the jump, learn more about the book, Matt's perseverant path from Penn to becoming an author, and a great website for aspiring authors looking for agents!

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So you either just moved to LA or you're visiting and you're on a tight budget.  Another Penn alum has a solution for you!

Ashley Wren Collins (C'98, Bloomers, Penn Players) is not only a talented actress who can awesomely teach you how to unleash your inner skank, but this Penn alum is also an author whose new book will bring out the cheap bastard in you.

After the jump learn more about her book and about all the LA places where you can save money ...and find out where you can see Ashley promoting her book next week in LA!

Plus, be entered to win a copy of her book just by clicking the facebook "like" button below and/or tweet about it with hashtag "#ashleypennbook"!

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(l to r: ) Michele, Sabrina and Samantha

Remember the story I did about the Penn alumni sister realtors who have their own show on HGTV?

Well, not only is their fourth season of "Selling New York" about to debut in October, but the Kleier sisters teamed up with their mom and published a new novel called Hot Property.

After the jump, learn more about the novel and find out how they managed to get Penn into the book and Penn alumni onto their show!

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Recently, I covered Penn alum author Laura Dave (C'99) and her books The Divorce Party, London is the Best City in America and now her new book The First Husband (read an excerpt here).

We've learned that she doesn't write with one of these, but that seems to be okay because her book just got put on a prominent list you may have glanced at this past week!

Find out which list after the jump!

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Recently, I covered Penn alum author Laura Dave (C'99) and her books The Divorce Party, London is the Best City in America and now her new book The First Husband (read an excerpt here).

After the jump, check out a new video from Laura and find out:

• how she does research for her books before she starts writing
• her alternate approach to writing without an outline
• how long (and how many drafts) it takes her to write a book

And for you Los Angelinos, tonight Laura will be doing a reading, Q&A and signing at the Barnes and Nobles in The Grove at 7 pm.

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In my last post about Penn author Laura Dave (C'99, Writers House) her books The Divorce Party and London is the Best City in America were going Hollywood and being developed by Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon's production companies.

Today, Laura's new novel, The First Husband comes out and it's another novel that I'm sure will catch the attention of Hollywood again!

After the jump,

• learn more about her new novel
• read a passage from her book
• discover where the story of this book came from, and
• find out what exciting things are going on with her previously mentioned titles!

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If you haven't heard by now, Penn alum Jennifer Egan (C'85) won a Pulitzer prize for her very creatively constructed novel "A Visit From the Goon Squad".

What you may not have heard is that Hollywood has already knocked on her door regarding the book.

After the jump, find out more about the book, and where you'll be able to see an adaptation of this novel in the year/s to come.

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Mother's Day is Sunday, May 8 and while you should certainly get mom a card (these are my favorite), I've got a fun, inexpensive suggestion to go along with that card from Penn alum and supermom blogger Emily Rosenbaum (C'95, Grad Ed '96).

Over the past year, I've covered Emily and her experiment where she didn't serve herself an actual meal, but ate whatever her 3 kids left behind on their plates.

Emily is that mother; you know, the one who avoids chemicals, minimizes food waste, shops locally, fears sugar, hides from corn byproducts, and tries to convince her son that lemonade is not a fruit. Don’t even get her started on BPAs. Six years after making her first batch of muffins, she’s not just pureeing squash and baking bread. She’s forming little lumps of chicken-apple-spinach mush into nuggets, coating them in homemade breadcrumbs, and lovingly brushing them with olive oil. She is poised on the edge of craziness, unless she toppled in last Tuesday.

In her recently released fifty-page memoir, Cooking on the Edge of Insanity, Rosenbaum shares recipes and tells the tale of living sustainably while cooking for a family of five.

Don’t bother to tell her she’s nuts. She already knows.

After the jump, check out what happens when she takes her three children to the grocery store and ends up developing a new couscous recipe.

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Over the past few years, DT has followed the great journey Brian Yanish (C'95, Mask and Wig) has been taking with his his Scrap Kins childrens property.

What started out as a few sketches from Brian's childhood has turned into a NYC-based Creativity program for kids based on the adventures of a group of monsters that live in a recycling center and build their world out of the things we throw away.

For you parents and educators out there, after the jump find out about Brian's fantastic new book that will keep your children occupied for hours.

...And see how actress Brooke Shields got involved with The Scrapkins!

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Over the past few years on DT, many of the great edited videos (including THIS and THESE) were thanks to my good editor friend from high school and Penn, David Chalfin (C'96).

Recently, Dave's touching story about the strength and resiliency his mother showed in the wake of his father's death when he was 16 appears in the Chicken Soup for the Soul: Grieving and Recovery.

I've read it and it is really written beautifully.

After the jump, check out an excerpt from his story.

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If you were a fan of the CBS series "Without A Trace" and the baseball film 61, then you're a fan of this Penn alum's work.

More about this alum and his new project with Paramount after the jump!

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You're on the road and stop to grab a burger at McDonalds or Burger King.  You know what you're getting no matter what city you're in.  But have you ever stopped to think about how and when these fast food chains started?

One Penn alum did and wrote a compelling book about it.

More about this Penn alum author and his new book after the jump.

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What if you woke up one day to all your dreams coming true...but those dreams were more like nightmares?

Allison Winn Scotch (C'95, Kappa Alpha Theta, Theater productions, DP) explores this concept in her 3rd novel, The One That I Want that she's currently touring the country with.

More about her book, how she got her start and how and where you can attend her book reading tonight (Thursday) in LA...

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A few years ago, Paul Provenza (C'79, Mask and Wig) showed us an inside peek of the comic world when he had his celebrity comedians deliver their own versions of the world's dirtiest joke in his film, The Aristocrats.

Starting this week, Paul serves up a lot more "celebrity insider" comedy that you'll want to check out...

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Since he graduated Penn in 2000, Rob Sachs (C'00) has spent the past 10 years working in radio and has now recently branched out into the world of publishing.

Tomorrow (Tuesday, 5/11), Rob returns to the Penn bookstore from 6-7 pm to discuss his new book What Would Rob Do?: An Irreverent Guide to Surviving Life's Daily Indignities.

Rob's book is the product of his own podcast of the same name and offers tips on lessons ranging from how to get past a nightclub bouncer to what to do you when you get a big zit or how to avoid going to a chick flick.  This book gives Rob's take on life's awkward and embarrassing moments as well as tips he's received from experts including Erik Estrada ("How to act around a celebrity"), Fabio ("What to do when you're underdressed for a party"), Air Supply ("How to write a love song") and Tom Wopat aka Luke Duke ("How to avoid stage fright").

For all of you aspiring journalists and authors, Rob tells us exactly what his career path has been from Penn until now...

Per Rob,

"My career in radio started at Penn - I was a DJ on WQHS and eventually went on to become the station manager.  I also started working for WXPN on the program Kids Corner and worked doing basketball and football games for Penn Sports.   It was through a conference that WXPN paid for me to attend that I made connections at NPR.  I've been working here for 10 years doing everything from reporting to directing to producing to hosting my own podcast which became the basis for my book."

Below, in one of Rob's segments from his site, he talks about how to avoid embarrassing moments when getting a professional massage.

Get Rob's book HERE

Rob's website HERE

More Penn Authors HERE

More Penn Journalists HERE



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