Jancee Dunn grew up in Chatham, New Jersey. She has been a writer for Rolling Stone since 1989. She has written twenty cover stories for the magazine, including profiles of Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Ben Affleck and Madonna. She has written for many different publications, among them GQ (where she wrote a monthly sex advice column for five years) New York Magazine, O, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue and the New York Times. Her short story, "Who's My Little Man? was published in the November 2003 issue of Jane.

From 2001-2002 she was an entertainment correspondent for "Good Morning America." Prior to that she was a veejay for MTV2, MTV's all-music station, from its inception in 1996 until 2001. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband, Tom Vanderbilt.

Felicia C. Sullivan: I have to confess that I'm a bit nervous chatting with the girl who gives good interview. But I loved your completely riotous, terrifically poignant and sharp memoir, But Enough About Me. You unabashedly embrace all things 80's Jersey from the Aqua Net mile-high hair to The Boss, to Buick LaSabres, to giving the finger on the Turnpike. Growing up an hour away from the city, New York might as well have been China and you recount your family's annual trips in hysterical detail - the cannolis in Little Italy to a chorus of 'Let's go see the bums,' in the Bowery. For readers who have not yet read your memoir of a Jersey girl turned Rolling Stone reporter turned MTV VJ, might you tell us about this transition, which was a bit more than a drive through the Holland Tunnel? Over the years, how has New York changed for you or changed you?

Jancee Dunn: When I was growing up, my New Jersey town - Chatham, by the way - was only about an hour's drive from New York City, but we went in exactly once a year, and we did, as you say, the whole Suburban New Jerseyite Tour - Rockefeller Center, lunch in Chinatown. I vowed that I would live there, even though thanks to my father, I had a healthy fear of New York. He painted this dark picture - actually it was more of a nineteenth-century Five Towns picture of pickpockets, confidence men, flim-flam artists - so I didn't know if I had the guts to ever move there. When I got the job at Rolling Stone in the late 80s, they didn't pay editorial assistants that much so I commuted from my folks' house, taking the bus every day to Port Authority. I finally moved to town a few years later and I still marvel: what the hell was I so afraid of? Now I really feel like a New Yorker, although I've only lived here twelve years. Does that make me one? My best friend Julie Ð I write about her in the book Ð says that you're a true New Yorker if you travel to other places and the first thing you announce is, 'it's not New York.' Which is exactly what I do.

The other day, there was a rat on my subway platform, and he was just calmly waiting for the train along with the rest of us. When the train pulled up, he went over to the door and everyone was just convulsing with laughter, yet everyone was sort of horrified, too. At the last minute, the rat changed his mind. But it really brought everyone together. It's a beautiful story, isn't it?

FS: Each chapter is prefaced by spot-on advice, a running do's and don'ts of how to interview the world's illustrious stars from how to negotiate the opening line (never say you're a fan of their work) to how to cope with meeting the absurdly famous celebrity (never let them smell fear) to tips on refusing heroin with a smile (get them talking about their latest project), Ð did you consciously choose to structure the book this way, a clever weaving of the real world (growing up in New Jersey with two other sisters to living in New York City and trying to find love) and a surreal one, sometimes blurred, sometimes not? Sometimes, for me, the family stories were more comical than the star-studded ones. How do these two worlds reconcile?

JD: At first, when I was sending around a book proposal, I just had the "How To" celebrity chapters in there. I figured it was the only thing that readers would be interested in. You know? That was my currency. But a couple of editors kept urging me to put in stories about my family, and it just started growing. And yes, I did try and weave the real world and the much more surreal one of celebrity. I wanted to go back and forth because in my own life, whenever things got too weird, I would get counsel and support from my family. They are all so relentlessly normal, particularly my parents, that just talking to them would bring me back down to earth. Sometimes, when I was a veejay for MTV2, I would be at some rock festival, interviewing my fourteenth band of the day, and I would just get tattoo overload and feel really forlorn. I loved to call my dad, a former Eagle Scout, choir boy, and crossing guard, also the 'designated driver' in high school. He would say, Ôoh, hi honey, I'm just helping your mom plant some daffodils, then I'm going to make a ham sandwich,' and I would completely relax.

FS: Any tips or anecdotes that didn't make it into the book?

JD: One tip that I frequently use that I totally forgot to put in was to interview a celebrity's friends and family before you meet him or her. Then you print out the quotes, which are usually gushing and have a kind of memorial-service feel. Hand them to your celebrity, who will read them silently. Their chin will pucker; their eyes will moisten. They will look up at you with gratitude. Begin interview. As for anecdotes, I cut one about Kelly Ripa, of "Live with Regis and Kelly," just because it would look like I was pandering to her to get my book on the show. A women's magazine sent me to interview her and they insisted that I ask her what sex toys she and her husband use. I've never asked my sisters that question! Or my friends! I took a deep breath and asked her at the end of our chat so I could run out of there She turned bright red and spluttered that they didn't use any. The next day, of course, she talked about it on the air. Watching at home, I think I did a spit take into my coffee.

FS: For your former monthly GQ sex column, what was the strangest question you were every asked?

JD: There were so many. "How can I get my wife to let me pee on her neck?" "My equipment is completely covered with hair, you can't even see the skin, is that strange?" "My girlfriend's macaw likes to watch us have sex, is that strange?" I used to call up various doctors and psychologists for quotes and they would eagerly take my calls. They couldn't wait to hear what I'd ask them.

FS: Readers get a backstage pass to the unglamorous world of a celebrity journalist, a job many would kill for: difficult talent, hours of late-night research and hard work for short segments, and a constant state of nerves. From your first day at Rolling Stone to finishing this book, what hadn't you expected of your career? What surprised you?

JD: I certainly never expected to be a veejay. It's not like I sent in audition tapes to television shows - it really just happened, because MTV2 wanted 'on-air personalities' who knew their music, and there aren't a ton of female rock writers out there. And then I got a gig as an entertainment reporter for "Good Morning America." It was only a year, because they justifiably did not renew my contract, but when I see tapes of me interviewing Cher on the red carpet, or Jennifer Lopez, or Elton John, in my little grey suit and bob hairdo, I just can't believe that I did it. Morning television is a world unto itself.

It has surprised me how radically celebrity journalism has changed since I started doing it sixteen years ago. I used to spend days with my subjects but of course now there is so much media. The long, confessional interviews are becoming a thing of the past. Photographers are more aggressive; fans are much more aggressive. Because of the internet, and ready access to photos of celebrity zits and cellulite and shots of them taking out the trash, fans really feel like they know stars. I've been with stars and people will come up and ask for hugs. When I was younger, I would have put lit cigarettes in my eyes before I dared ask a famous person for a hug.

FS: Okay, so you're a VJ again, albeit virtually. What would be your eight-hour lineup?

JD: Ooh, I love this question! I would do just what MTV2 did in the early days and program a lineup of completely disparate videos - campy stuff like Jermaine Jackson ("Dynamite" is my favorite, a ladies' prison theme) the Replacements (they were all sort of non-videos but I loved them) early r&b videos where the dancers were regular girls and probably the artists' cousins, such as "Doowhatyalike" from Digital Underground, and maybe some old Led Zeppelin and some James Brown concert footage, U2's "The Sweetest Thing," "She's On It" from the Beastie Boys. I like videos that are funny, either on purpose or inadvertently ("Hello" by Lionel Ritchie, in which a hot blind girl, an art student, makes a bust of Lionel's head, each Jheri-Curl carefully in place.)

FS: Your website reflects you Ð someone who's serious about her career but doesn't take herself so seriously. Your mom's recipes, mini reviews of your guilty-pleasure flicks, you go beyond the traditional stock author website. Why?

JD: You know why? Because I had seen a few author's websites and they just seemed so deadly serious. "Look for my appearance at the Tattered Cover on the 19th, blah blah blah." And I didn't want to have it be this self-serving platform, like ÔI was so excited to read my fortieth great review, see below!' Plus, the book is really about all of these different people that I love, and I was eager to include them. I've gotten a lot of e mails about my friend Tracy's crock pot barbecue pork recipe. How great is that? I'm trying not to make the website too insane. My father wanted to put up pictures of my niece and nephew but I drew the line.

FS: You recount a chilly experience with Jennifer Beals. Any other encounters (they can be anonymous of course) that sent you reeling?

JD: Well, since I'm granted immunity: one movie star lit up a huge joint, actually it was a Thai stick, right when I arrived and was so out of it that we had to sit there for a few hours until he came down. I had traveled 22 hours to see him - it was maddening. And there is one blond singer that I can't stand, who humiliated me in front of her entourage, but I can't name her because I like her publicist. Plus, I can't bite the lucrative hand that has fed me - what if the book doesn't do that well and I must return to that world? Another rock star would call me when he did drugs and would just sort of babble away. But really, most things are in the book. I honestly didn't witness that much bad behavior.

FS: What are you up to these days? Any new projects?

JD: I am figuring out a proposal for the next book Ð fiction this time. Other than that, I write for magazines such as Vogue and O, The Oprah Magazine, which is the most fun gig. I have been doing press in the UK and every night lately, interviews with Australian journalists. One told me to tell my mom that she was the best part of the book and when I told her, she almost cried! It was so great. She said, 'someone said that from halfway around the world.'

FS: Imagine a salon in your home replete with writers, artists, musicians, politicians, celebrities Ð alive or dead Ð who would be sipping cocktails in your house and why?

JD: If I may, I am going to steal that question for my own use. Is that okay? Willa Cather, whose writing I love because it was so clear, plus she worked at the turn of the century magazine McClure's. Virginia Graham, little known now but she hosted one of the first talk shows, called "Girl Talk," in the fifties. She wrote a bunch of spunky, can-do books, including the inspirational "If I Could Do it, So Can You." My late Southern grandma, Lillian Corners. Louis Armstrong. Johannes Vermeer and Goya, just because they're my favorite artists. Boss Tweed Ð you need a sleazy person that the others can gossip about. Queen Elizabeth 1, the original career gal. Wait, I've changed my mind. Maybe I would make it all people who were famous posthumously, like Samuel Pepys, or Nick Drake, or Emily Dickinson, so I could give them the good news.

Visit Jancee Dunn's Website