New Face: Jody Shields

AGE Fortysomething COMING SOON Her debut novel, The Fig Eater(Little, Brown), set in 1910 Vienna, is a mystery laced with Hungarian folklore and details of perverse medical practices. Miramax owns the film rights. WHERE YOU READ HER She was a Voguefashion and beauty writer. ''I used visual images to jog me into a mood for writing,'' says Shields. ''John Galliano's over-the-top clothes helped me imagine how constrained women moved.'' INSPIRATION Freud's Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria. ''Analysis is like detective work. It's the same search to decipher the riddle of someone's psyche.'' HER CASTING CHOICELiam Neeson as the inspector investigating a murder. ''He has a real physical presence.'' FUN FACT Once an artist, she's had prints collected by the Museum of Modern Art. HOW SHE CELEBRATED THE MILLENNIUM ''At a party in New York watching the lack of cars and pedestrians — and the fireworks.'' THIS YEAR'S RESOLUTION ''To do less obsessive researching'' on a novel set in World War I Europe.