Jen Lancaster, a former associate vice president at an investment research firm, is now the proprietor of the popular blog www.jennsylvania.com. She lives in Chicago with her husband and dogs.

What similarities or differences have you discovered between your style of writing for your blog/Web site versus writing your memoir?

My blog is very stream-of-consciousness and doesn't follow the traditional storytelling guideline of conflict, complication, and resolution. Basically my blog is a framework of a bigger story, whereas the memoir is the fleshed-out and complete version of it.

The big difference is when writing a blog, readers don't mind when you leave out details because there's an opportunity to ask questions either via email or in a comments section. Interaction and immediate feedback are the keys to the whole medium's success. For example, a couple of days ago after watching the Ladies' Free Skate at the Olympics, I put up a one-sentence post stating, "Dick Button is a bitch" which spurred half a dozen funny email conversations. However, in my memoir, this sentence would be too esoteric because there'd be no frame of reference and no way for a reader to get immediate clarification. Instead, I'd have to do an entire paragraph about how figure skating is my Super Bowl and how Dick Button is a vituperative old man who delights at each and every screw-up on the ice because the sport was a zillion times better back when he used to do it and damn it, get him a pair of skates so he can take those anorexic little girls to school already!

I guess I'd say that regardless of the medium, my writer's voice doesn't change - but the level of detail and attention to structure does.

I really like the tone and voice of this memoir - the sarcastic, self-deprecating humor is quite close to my own. But have you found that some people are turned off by your humor, or do you find people applaud you for "telling it like it is"?

Thank you! That's the best compliment I could get. I love hearing when readers connect with Bitter! As for my humor, and really, the book as a whole, it's polarizing. Readers will either love it or hate it. Humor is so subjective anyway, and the wit in this book isn't about "safe" subjects - at no point do I ask what the deal is with airline peanuts - so there's tremendous opportunity for me to turn people off. I'd say my humor is more Denis Leary than Jerry Seinfeld. What I mean is ask a group of 100 people what they think of Seinfeld and almost all of them would agree he's funny. In the same group, maybe only 25 can stand Leary, but each of those 25 considers him brilliant. And personally? I'd rather be brilliant.

To me, your book seems to be a non-traditional "chick lit" book - in many ways it doesn't seem to fit the "chick-lit" genre or only in a very broad sense. Do you consider your book to be "chick-lit"?

I'm fine with the "chick-lit" moniker because I own a lot of shoe-covered, pink-jacketed books. The reason I enjoy chick-lit is the emphasis on the writer's voice - good chick-lit is like a conversation with your best girlfriends and that's a lot of fun. However, what makes me crazy is when these books focus on a will-she-or-won't-she-land-a-man arc. I mean, I'm in my late 30's - I haven't thought about chasing boys or fighting with roommates for years. I'd turn my nose up at them, yet I'm perpetually sucked in by the good writing. My intention with Bitter was to take a chick-lit voice and use it to tell a different kind of story.

In light of recent publicity about how accurate memoirs actually are, how much of your book is truly fiction and how much is truly non-fiction?

All significant events in the book are true - the lay-off, the wedding, the betrayal, the repossession, the eviction, etc. However, I definitely changed names and combined characters, added fictional details, and rearranged time lines. Partially this was done to move the story ahead, and partially to avoid being sued. However, I make this crystal clear with a disclaimer on the first page. The book has a solid foundation in truth, particularly the second half. The last six chapters were lifted almost word for word from the blog I kept at the time. Fleshing out those chapters was kind of awful because I'd since forgotten the worst of it, so I wrote them as quickly as possible. I wish those parts were less true.

For the two years covered in the book, readers are with Jen on a daily basis. But the book leaves readers in 2003; except for two emails that are dated 2004 and 2005, what are you doing now? Is there a Bitter #2 in the works?

I'd like to tell you I spend all my days writing, but that's not entirely true. Most people don't get rich from their first book, so I often temp when the financial need arises. I used to equate temping with a painful, mortifying death, but now that I've started a writing career, I look at temping as a way of getting out of the house and taking some financial burden off my husband. Back in 2003, I vowed that after my miserable experience trying to find a "real" job in Corporate America, I'd never take a full-time job again. So far, I haven't had to, and that's quite satisfying.

I've been doing a lot of writing, though, and my agent and I are just about ready to start shopping a sequel to Bitter. The new book is different from Bitter in that it's less of a memoir and more of a series of funny essays based around a central theme, but it definitely answers a lot of "and then what happened?" questions. However, it should also be able to stand on its own and will likely appeal to a more gender-neutral audience. I'm aiming for a Laurie-Notarto-meets-P.J.-O'Rourke kind of read.

I'm always curious about the genesis for a book's title and sub-title. Is this title your creation? Your editors? A bit of both?

My agent and I struggled with a title for almost a year. I leaned toward something with Greek Tragedy in the title (more on that in a minute), until my friend Nick told me, "Honey, the My Big Fat Greek business is SO over." He's my arbiter of taste, so I definitely listened. We also kicked around both phrases from the subtitle, but neither of them really grabbed us. Then one day I was trolling the GoFugYourself site and one of the writers mentioned that something or other was the new black. I paired the expression with "Bitter" and voila! A title is born. I'm such a fan of puns and twisted idioms that the title felt like a natural fit the second it came to me.

I'm intrigued by the classical references in your book - the two parts refer to "Icarus" and "Pandora," both characters from Greek and Roman mythology, while your author's note refers to Greek tragedy. How or why were these classical elements incorporated into the book? And do you think the average reader is going to recognize these classical references?

I love that you caught the references! Like I said, for a long time I pursued the Greek Tragedy route because I thought the definition really fit my story. You know, the protagonist got what was coming to her specifically because of the way she lived her life? At first I tried to pair up chapters with various stories from Greek mythology but this was far more difficult than it sounded. However, the stories of Icarus flying to close to the sun and melting his wings and of what happened when Pandora opened the box so illustrated my points that I had to add them.

The average reader may or may not catch them the first time around, just like they may not realize my landlord on the Westside was Apprentice winner Bill Rancic. Recognizing these details isn't crucial to enjoying the book, but I quite like the idea of rewarding those who are paying close attention.

Your use of footnotes as additional commentary and asides to action in the book is original and different. I know people in my creative writing classes would frown on this as a distraction. How did you arrive at this format? And did you have to fight to get them included?

When we started the editing process, my agent and editor both suggested striking parts that didn't quite move the story along. Although I agreed with them, I still thought these bits had a place in the story and wondered if there wasn't a way to include them. I mean, knowing my dad accidentally invaded Mexico has nothing to do with my story, but it's awfully funny. Then I remembered my editor had worked on Diary of a Mad Bride and it had subtitles, so I figured this was a good compromise. And although they subtitles are both wrong and distracting, I think they work.

Through the course of the memoir, your relationship to money changed dramatically. Has your relationship with money continued to change and evolve?

How do I put this? I guess I'm a lot less stupid about money now. At the end of the book I'd swung to the other extreme out of necessity, but I've since found that a happy medium seems to work best. I'm definitely no longer about instant gratification, but I'm learning with proper budgeting, it's possible to splurge occasionally. For example, I just got a $150 pair of shoes to wear at my book events, but the other three pair I bought in 2005 came from Target. And the last time we had a spare $400, we didn't go out for a lavish dinner like old times. Instead we bought a great kitchen set from Ikea and now dinner every night feels like a treat since we sit at a dining table, rather than hunkered over a coffee table in the living room.

Near the end of your memoir, the importance of your blog and web site increases. Does your web site continue to provide the sense of community and advice that is in the book?

The blog is different now. It was born of frustration and when things were at their nadir, it was my only outlet. When I started it, a lot of my audience was experiencing similar circumstances. But I noticed as my circumstances improved, so did everyone else's. I began getting more hits from corporate LANs, meaning people were going back to work and checking in from their cubicles. Now people are much more likely to ask me for advice about writing and the community stems from my readers having started their own sites.

Small Spiral Notebook reviews Bitter is The New Black.