Write what you know. That's the usual maxim for first-time novelists. And so it was for Entertainment Weekly senior writer Rebecca Ascher-Walsh and former Fortune Senior Editor Erik Torkells. Teaming up under the pseudonym C.J. Tosh, the duo penned ''Bite'' (Downtown, $22), a high-gloss novel following the professional and personal travails of Samantha, a posh writer for the showbiz weekly ''Star Face,'' and her gay buddy Tom, an editor at the finance mag ''Profit.'' But this is no roman a clef. ''Sam is thinner and cuter and single,'' says Ascher-Walsh. ''But her office is just as messy.'' And unlike her heroine, she's never been fired for rumors that she, ahem, got too intimate with Russell Crowe.

Originally posted Sep 05, 2003 Published in issue #726 Sep 05, 2003 Order article reprints