How did you get this e-mail?

From Gawker—a story I never get tired of hearing!

Who is Sloane Crosley? What, do you not live in New York, or something? Sloane used to be a successful book publicist (she's worked with Joan Didion, Toni Morrison and Jonathan Lethem, among others). Then she wrote an email. It was a story about getting locked out of her apartment that she sent to a bunch of friends, and, unlike most emails people send to all their friends, hers was pretty funny—funny enough for Village Voice editor Ed Park to publish it. Things snowballed from there—more essay-writing, a book deal, a bestselling book, an HBO development deal—and next thing you knew, Sloane Crosley was a successful author and a successful book publicist, while many of us are just trying to be successful at one thing, like not spilling on ourselves when we eat food.