The fictional Barbara King established herself in the television industry as an on-air anchor at national broadcast and cable news networks in the 1990s.
Port Washington native Brigitte Quinn, King’s creator and author of the critically acclaimed and just-published novel, Anchored (Curtis Brown Unlimited), did the same thing, first at NBC News and MSNBC, and then at Fox News Channel (FNC), from 1999 to 2008. But readers should not consider King to be Quinn’s alter ego.
“I took my own story and then blew it up and changed everything,” Quinn said during an interview near the Manhattan studio of 1010 WINS radio where since October 2014, she’s been the station’s morning drive-time co-anchor. “My own story wouldn’t sell books,” the married mother of three added, with a laugh.
Anchored’s page-turning action takes place from 2000 to 2002, and has won comparisons to HBO’s The Newsroom. King, who resides in Bayville with her husband, Ben, and their 5-year-old son, Rory, is working a midday hard-news shift but is angling for a prime-time show at Manhattan-based The Phoenix, the nation’s number one cable news network. In the alternative, King would welcome returning to a broadcast network’s news division.
The plot thickens when King is paired with Jack Stone, a new Phoenix hire, and the couple’s on-air chemistry spills over into their personal lives, especially after they drive home together to their respective Nassau County residences. Everyone knows how long that can take, even if the car’s passengers can honestly say they drove straight home. Stone lives in Brookville with his wife and their 10-year-old daughter.
“I inserted romance as a subplot as part of a larger story about Barbara trying to get up and out of a cable news network,” Quinn explained. Anchored also explores in vivid detail the backstage television news network machinations which are hidden from viewers—management’s contractual disputes with on-air personalities, the over-the-top tactics employed by producers to boost ratings and the intra-network rumor mill, which in Anchored, appears to originate in the makeup room.
Quinn, a graduate of Paul D. Schreiber High School and Cornell University, also earned a master’s degree in fine arts in nonfiction writing from Sarah Lawrence College after leaving FNC. Her debut novel took shape at the latter institution. “I wrote about my experiences in the television industry,” Quinn stated, referring to her time at Sarah Lawrence, “And my advisor said, ‘why don’t we talk about you writing a novel?’”
Quinn had finished Anchored by the time 1010 WINS radio came calling last year, and the timing worked well because she drives each weekday to Manhattan from her family’s home in Westport, CT, and arrives at the office around 4 a.m. Quinn and her husband, Dave, are the parents of three children—Jennifer, a 17-year-old high school senior; Stephanie, a 14-year-old high school freshman; and 11-year-old Rudy, who is in the sixth grade. They have resided in Westport since 2002.
“I write the entire 5:30 half-hour as soon as I get there,” Quinn said, referring to the first 30 minutes she hosts on weekday mornings. Radio station 1010 WINS is consistently one of the highest-rated stations in New York City during those hours.
Given her schedule, Quinn is not leading a life like Barbara King, who throughout Anchored is periodically traveling to Washington, DC, and attending late-night industry dinners. “My kids tuck me into bed every night at 8:30 p.m., but my job allows me to meet them at the school bus each and every day,” Quinn said.
Mike Barry, vice president of media relations for an insurance industry trade group, has worked in government and journalism. He can be reached at mfbarry@optonline.net.
