And they said publishing was dead! Prodigious Hills hottie Lauren Conrad can now add "authoress" to her CV, having penned the sure-to-be-Pulitzer Prize-winning opus L.A. Candy -- the first of a three-book (!!!) series loosely based on her life. The first volume of the evocative novelization, published by HarperCollins, is out this June. In it, Conrad explores the antics of a character named Jane Roberts, who, much like Conrad, climbs the Himalayas, dances around a maypole with some cheerful trolls, and then goes on to star in a reality show on a flagging cable channel that may or may not have once aired Yo! MTV Raps.

She says, "Some of the characters may symbolize people in my life but it is in no way calling anyone out." Obviously she means Brutus, the surly, hunchbacked ogre who appears in chapter seven -- not at all a shout-out to Spencer Pratt. Although there are banshees that appear at the saga's outset, and Conrad's description of them is painstakingly Shakespearean in their contrast to Hills harpies Heidi Montag and Whitney Port. Conrad, for whom a stint as poet laureate is all but inevitable at this point, explains, "I've always loved books that I could lose myself in, ones that would transport me to another place, but had characters I could relate to. So, I'm so excited to have this opportunity to write books like that for other readers." And we thank you, Lauren, for picking up the pen where past scribes have failed.