I grew up in a warm and loving family of die-hard gamblers, where my father's poker games and my mother's mah jongg blended with big pots of delicious food and endless gossip and storytelling. As kids my sister, Helene, and my cousins and I bet on everything--which of our Weight Watching mothers would lose the most every week, who could hold their breath longest underwater or eat the most matzo, Maris versus Mantle. I went with my father and uncles to the track most Tuesdays, carrying the Daily Racing Form in my bookbag, and when I was twelve and predicted a big race, they anointed me "The Grecian," in honor of oddsmaker Jimmy the Greek.

But by the time I turned eighteen, I convinced myself that the gambling gene had passed me by. I went off to the University of Miami, looking to find a life that didn¹t include perusing the sports section and making bets on anything that caught my fancy.

I left college because my advisor told me that English majors had to go on to become English teachers. I didn't want to be a teacher. I wanted to be a writer. Although I had never trusted anyone in authority, I did believe that idiot advisor.

So for years I wrote funny little newsletters for my friends, sent missives that had people howling, had pen-pals far and near.

And then I got lucky. I met editor Annie Flanders, who was just starting the original DETAILS Magazine. She either saw potential in me or felt sorry for the miserable state of my life, I'll never be sure which. But she took me under her wing and had me start writing for the magazine. Annie's only mandate was that you were passionate about what you wrote. I had passion in abundance.

I started as DETAILS book reviewer. I spent hours on my couch, reading literary memoirs and scary mysteries, short stories and deep works of fiction. I went to sold-out readings and book signings, big book conventions and tiny underground poetry slams. I got to go to The Miami Book Fair, where I met Jane Smiley, TC Boyle, Richard Ford, Ray Carver and other writers who were so inspiring to me. My column, Book 'Em, was a complete joy to write each month.

I wrote the first Knifestyles of the Rich and Famous, a first-person, on-going column about plastic surgery for DETAILS. This was in the mid-80's, when plastic surgery was still in the closet. I had my breasts made smaller (one of the highlights of my life), and met women and men who had every single part of themselves transformed. These people told me their stories, both successes and failures. Knifestyles was both uplifting (no pun intended) and very frightening-- when plastic surgery goes wrong, it goes horribly wrong.

Then I interviewed Aidan Quinn, my first "celebrity" interview. Aidan was so funny and charming, and we went on to become good friends. I started doing more entertainment pieces. I did a cover story on Elizabeth Taylor and went to her house for a bar-b-que, interviewed Nic Roeg, whose films (Don't Look Now, Performance, and Bad Timing) I so admired, and got a tour of the newly opened Tribeca Film Center with a very chatty Robert De Niro.

In 1990, I started writing for other magazines. I traveled around the world-- to Paris to interview Roman Polanski and then Juliette Binoche, to Berlin to spend a week with Anthony Hopkins, to Rome for an afternoon with Susan Sarandon. I flew back and forth from New York to Los Angeles, and met actors at every stage of their careers-- I did one of the first interviews with Leonardo DiCaprio when he was 19, went club-hopping with Mike Tyson when he was still heavyweight champion of the world, went to Washington DC to interview Republican strategist Lee Atwater, who had put partisan politics aside for a brief second so he could put out a CD of classic blues songs. Thinking we would have nothing in common, I was completely bowled over by Atwater's's sense of humor and encyclopedic knowledge of music. When he had trouble forming words during our interview he invited me to come along to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with his life-threatening brain tumor. Our friendship continued until his death.

I covered Jennifer Lopez's first wedding (to Ojani Noa) for In Style, and helped zip her into her Escada dress. For a Cosmo cover, I saw Pamela Anderson's breasts (okay, who hasn't?). In the course of my stories, I've picked through Elle MacPherson's closet, shared lunch with Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Meg Ryan, Andy Garcia, and hundreds of other actors whose films I've watched over and over again. I interviewed Angelina Jolie when absolutely no one knew who she was, and JJ Abrams before his huge success.

I've danced with Christopher Walken, gone CD shopping with Jeff Bridges, and out-run the paparazzi with Sean Penn. I took Sherilyn Fenn to see a storefront psychic during her time on Twin Peaks, and interviewed Mariah Carey the night before her nervous breakdown. And no, I don't think I had anything to do with it.

And never, not for one second, have I stopped pinching myself and reminding myself how very lucky this girl from the Bronx has been. This is the point most people thank god. Me? I'll just thank Annie Flanders.

My work has appeared in magazines as diverse as the original DETAILS, The New Yorker, Fashions of the New York Times, Japanese and German Men's Vogue, The Goodguys Gazette, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, and Movieline's Hollywood Life.

I have been an on-air contributor to VH1's Sexiest Movie Moments, Entertainment Tonight, and Inside Edition.

For the past fifteen years I have been the co-host of the Woodstock Roundtable, a Sunday morning radio talk-show on WDST in Woodstock, NY. The host of the show, Doug Grunther, has been another mentor to me.

Since the inception of the Woodstock Film Festival in 2000, I have been the moderator of the Actor's Dialogue. Among the people who have participated in these always sold-out events are Aidan Quinn, Lily Taylor, Stanley Tucci, Steve Buscemi, Liev Schreiber, Olympia Dukakis, David Strathairn, Marcia Gaye Hardin, and Peter Reigert. Order your tickets early!

I am a winner of a NYFFA Award in creative nonfiction, was the 1997 Philip Morris Fellow at The MacDowell Colony, and the 2003 Artist-in-Residence at SUNY Ulster, where I taught a class in memoir writing.

My aunt Tillie always told me that our family was more interesting than the people I interviewed. I used to roll my eyes at her, but then I started writing Hats & Eyeglasses, my memoir about my love affair with gambling. Damn if my aunt Tillie wasn't right. The paperback of Hats & Eyeglasses will be published in winter 2009 ( Tarcher/Penguin).