Over at The Huffington Post Eat the Press column, Peter Hyman interviews Bridie:

What prompted you to leave after less than a year on the job?

I left because I wanted to be a writer. But there was the added benefit of not having to work there anymore. Judith’s a notoriously difficult boss. She wasn’t the type of person I wanted to work for, and it didn’t exactly take years to discover that.

No, I’m sure you had that figured out before lunch the first day. Did you witness any of the alleged sexual outbursts or anti-Semitic remarks that are now coming to light?

I never heard her make an anti-Semitic comment, but does it shock me that that would have happened? No, it doesn’t.

It seems like the real Judith Regan outdoes any character that a fiction writer could create. Has your novel lost some of its potential sting now that the real Judith has been exposed?

I think the Vivian Grant character is pretty outrageous. Definitely, though, the headlines have been crazy.

Do they strike you as accurate?

I don’t think most people who have worked with her are shocked by what they’re reading. My guess is that very few ex-ReganBooks staffers are losing sleep over it. Everything I’ve read has been within reason.

Did you take a job at ReganBooks purposely seeking an experience that would make a commercial novel?

No, certainly not.

Do you feel the book says something original?

Boss from hell stories are not a new concept. But people want to read fiction that is reflective of their lives. It makes sense that readers would turn to these books that center around the workplace and center around the employer-employee relationship.