As our nation's student debt crisis has reached a breaking point, we've been hearing lots of talk about student loan forgiveness. It's taken me 20 years to forgive myself for my loan - and just as long to pay it off.

I wanted to write a book about two women falling in love that wasn't hinged on tragedy or that involved some horrible identity-based misfortune. I wanted to write a pretty standard romantic comedy where nobody dies, nobody gets hurt, nobody gets sick.

'When Katie Met Cassidy' is a romantic comedy about two very different women who find themselves uncontrollably drawn to one another. Issues of gender and sexuality play their part in the novel, but first and foremost, it's a fun, fast-paced love story.

If you ask any adult woman in this country to name an iconic romantic comedy, I bet the answer you'll hear more often than not is going to be 'When Harry Met Sally.' If the question were asked on an episode of 'Family Feud,' for example, it would place number one on the board.

When I knew I wanted to write a novel that would be a twist on a conventional romantic comedy, I re-watched 'When Harry Met Sally,' as well as the other two films in the indomitable Ephron trifecta - 'Sleepless in Seattle' and 'You've Got Mail.'

I'm not sure if it's easier to address tough themes through humor, but I do think it's more fun and makes such themes easier to digest for the reader.