If a celebrity apologizes and there's no audience around, does it still count? Apparently not. Because when Tom Cruise and Brooke Shields both welcomed daughters on the same day last April, Tom sent Brooke a gift, which she said she would accept as a token of renewed friendship.

Last weekend I read "This is Not Chick Lit, Original Stories by America's Best Women Writers," edited by Elizabeth Merrick. As a contributor to "This is Chick-Lit," an anthology that was conceived as a response to that book, I was...

America's got a buzz for spelling bees, or at least, for entertainment involving spelling bees. From the hit documentary "Spellbound," to the terrific book and far less-terrific film "Bee Season," to...

Glam rock? Check. Conjoined Twins? CheckCheck. I begged the editor to allow me to cover "Brothers of the Head," an Official Selection of the Tribeca Film Festival. The fact that two of my more unusual interests would be together in one place meant that I needed to be...

As usual, Jon Stewart said it best. "I'll do a USA Today crossword if I'm in a hotel, but I don't feel good about myself afterwards." He grimaced when he said it, making us know that he didn't just not feel good, he actually felt kind of unclean. "Bring...

It's easy to blame Kaavya Viswanathan for the startling similarities between "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life" and Megan McCafferty's bestselling novels, "Sloppy Firsts" and "Second Helpings" (45 by Crown's count). After all, her name's on the cover, and until a few days...