A Writer's Worst Nightmare Spun Into Gold
By Jeff Copeland
I never aspired to write books. Real writers wrote books. I was a screenwriter. I wrote scenes and dialogue. I didn’t want to wrestle with paragraphs and chapters. Leave that for the New York literati, I thought. I wanted to create good, poignant movies like Come Back, Little Sheba and They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? And that’s exactly why I coerced a transgender Andy Warhol superstar named Holly Woodlawn into starring in a small low-budget film I was determined to make.
It was 1988. Holly was a washed-up alcoholic, I was a starry-eyed dreamer, and we’d both hit the skids. But despite our respective misfortunes, I relentlessly hustled for a break, submitting my screenplay (with Holly’s photo and bio attached) to anyone of merit, trying to raise money. When my submission was discovered in the trash by a curious apprentice, the underling, eager to prove himself, called me on the phone.
“We don’t represent screenwriters here,” he said. “We represent book authors, and I think there’s a book in Holly Woodlawn.”
We met the apprentice and Holly was excited. But she couldn’t write. She needed a collaborator. And after 3 years of failing to make it as a screenwriter, I decided to give it a shot. I had no idea what I was doing. All I knew is that Holly’s life story was the craziest, funniest, most appalling tale I’d ever heard. Lou Reed didn’t even scratch the surface when he sang about her in his classic hit, Walk on the Wild Side.
“Darling, I don’t want this book to be a woe is me drag,” Holly said. “I want to be Auntie Mame on speed!”
With that direction in mind, I hammered out the first chapter of A Low Life in High Heels and a fifty-page proposal. Holly loved it. So did our newly promoted agent. And I was thrilled because I knew I was onto something incredible that had all the makings of an award-winning film. But our journey to getting published wasn’t easy. It was fraught with challenges and upheavals, and at times felt like a crazy thrill ride with unexpected twists and harrowing turns. When success finally came, the greatest thing that could have happened did. We hit the big time. It was a dream come true… until opportunistic wolves began to circle. Deception reared its ugly head. Deal points were broken. Daggers were thrown. Backs were stabbed. And the damage was irreparable. It was a writer’s worst nightmare.
I was lost and floundering, trying to find my way, when I fell into non-fiction television, writing programs about science, travel, crime, and general fluff. It wasn’t a great career. But it was a good 25-year career highlighted by an Emmy nomination. And while I’m grateful to have made a living writing those shows, they never measured up to the joyful experience I had working with Holly Woodlawn. While her book’s success was bittersweet, working on it was really fun. Those memories were precious to me, and I started writing them down, hoping to capture them all before they faded with time. I thought perhaps I’d have enough material for a magazine article. But in 2016, having completed over 100 pages, I wondered… Was this a book? Well… obviously not, based on the lack of response I’d gotten from my queries. I got discouraged and shelved the project.
By 2019, my career was over, and I was working as a grocery store stock clerk. Surprisingly, the monotonous routine of organizing cans on a shelf inspired me to write again. By 2020, I had a 425-page manuscript.
“It needs work,” said my friend and fellow writer, Tam Warner, after reading the first draft. “But you’ve got something here. Keep polishing.”
Yippee! More work. I polished my manuscript until 2021, when new queries were cast out and more rejections were reeled in.
The one publisher I really wanted to hook was Feral House, but they didn’t respond. I was flummoxed. Why wouldn’t Feral House, who published books about Ed Wood and Vampira, want a crazy book about Holly Woodlawn? Their lack of response just didn’t make sense to me.
So, after a few months, I decided to take a different approach. I contacted Feral House through their website’s licensing portal, requesting permission to use a Vampira photo. When the publisher, Jessica Parfrey, replied immediately with rights information, I asked about my Holly Woodlawn query. Jessica explained the Hollywood show biz angle wasn’t that interesting to her because she’d grown up in it. Her father was a successful character actor.
“I’m not giving you a hard no, just that it would need to be reworked a bit for us,” she wrote.
I chewed on that thought for about a year, while I waited for other literary agents and publishers to respectfully decline.
“I simply don't feel able to publish the book with enough success,” responded an editor. (I wanted so badly to rewrite that rejection and send it back!)
“It’s a book about writing a book,” one agent scoffed. “I can’t make any money off of that.”
And then this from another editor, “My main thought is how this might be more of Holly's story.”
More Holly. Now I got it…my story was too broad. I’d written an ensemble piece; a memoir about the absurdity of trying to make it in Hollywood. While Holly was definitely part of that narrative, there were other characters twirling in and out of the spotlight. And those characters, apparently, were distracting.
If there was one thing I learned writing for television, it was how to cut a script for time. Focus on the essence and chuck the fat. So, I took a hatchet to my precious baby and chopped out some of my favorite Hollywood stories. Pee-wee Herman, Shelley Winters, Bette Davis, and Jodie Foster were just a few of the casualties. Within a few hours, that manuscript went from a portly 425 pages to a svelte 305.
On June 28, 2023, I resubmitted to Jessica at Feral House with an assertive sales pitch that explained why we were a good match. About two weeks later, she responded, saying the manuscript was much better. “But there's still work that needs to be done,” she wrote. “The tone and direction aren't always consistent -- but when it works, it's great.”
My creative process doesn’t always adhere to the rules of tone and direction, unfortunately. But six weeks later, I delivered a new draft. About four weeks after that, Jessica responded with an offer.
“Congratulations,” she wrote. “— not about the offer, you've received those before, but for creating something wonderful.”
Working with Holly Woodlawn and landing a book deal for A Low Life in High Heels took a little over nine months. Writing Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn and getting it sold took over five years. And that’s the reason I never wanted to write books in the first place! But now that I’ve started my third, something tells me this new chapter in my career is going to be the best one of all.
Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn was published by Feral House in February 2025.
Jeff Copeland is the author of Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn and the co-author of A Low Life in High Heels. His screenplays have been optioned and/or developed by Madonna, Academy Award-winning producer Michael Phillips, Rose Troche, and Michael Zoumas. He’s written and produced award-winning programs for Discovery, Animal Planet, ABC, Fox, HGTV, and ITV America. He’s also produced DVD bonus features for The Princess Bride, Hudson Hawk, Martian Child, and The Fifth Element, as well as Garry Shandling’s Not Just The Best of the Larry Sanders Show. Eventually, he tired of the Hollywood grind and went into Los Angeles real estate, becoming an agent with Claire Lissone’s Real Estate Collective in the burgeoning West Adams District. A passionate neighborhood activist and historic preservationist, he got involved with the Mid-City Neighborhood Council, helped fund neighborhood beautification projects, and helped spearhead the revitalization of Mid-City Heights. In 2019, when his mother’s health declined, he chucked his career, moved back to the middle of nowhere, and got a job as a cashier at a Circle K gas station. He worked there for ten minutes.