Dana Perino is widely known as the co-anchor of FOX News Channel’s morning show America’s Newsroom and The Five, the most watched program in cable news. She also helms FOX News Audio’s weekly podcast Perino on Politics. And that’s not all. Dana is the No.1 bestselling author of four nonfiction books too.
Most recently, the former White House press secretary for President George W. Bush (the first female press secretary in a Republican administration) decided to turn her literary talents to the world of novel writing with her debut work, Purple State, which follows Dorothy “Dot” Clark, a buttoned-up PR professional from New York City who feels stuck in her career and her love life.
On June 23, she will be at The Westport Library in conversation with real estate investor and Chair of Westport’s Board of Finance Danielle Dobin to discuss her new book. In anticipation of this exciting event, we sat down with Dana to learn a little more.
Dana Perino
EL: Purple State is your first novel, but your fifth book. What moved you to try your hand at fiction, specifically this story?
DP: Throughout my life, I’ve loved to read. I mostly read novels at night and on weekends, since I have to consume so much news and nonfiction for work. I’ve always been in awe of great authors. When I finish a book I love, I’ll think, “Wow. I have no idea how they did that.”
Given this feeling, I didn’t plan to write one. However, I’d long thought of telling a story where people from different regions of the country get to know each other and through this experience realize that we’re more alike than the polarization warriors want us to believe.
I was born in Wyoming and have lived in Illinois, California, England, Washington, D.C., New York City, and New Jersey. So, I know firsthand this is true, and I thought, wouldn’t it be a great story if I took the lessons from my book Everything Will Be Okay and got the message out another way.
It took an author I deeply admire, Andrew Graff, to give me a little push. We were on a walk in Bay Head, New Jersey—I’d invited him to come stay with us while he did a book event for True North at The Little Point Bookshop—and he said, “Last night you said you have an idea for a novel. I’d love to hear it.” I demurred and said, “Oh gosh I could never write it.” He, a creative writing teacher as well, asked, “How long is the walk?” I said, “About three miles,” as I looked down East Avenue. And he replied, “Well, start talking.” About four hundred yards into my monologue, he stopped and said, “Wait. It all comes down to a gerrymandered district in Wisconsin.” Wisconsin is the ultimate purple state; it flips back and forth and is considered, for now, a must-have for both parties to win the presidency.
I don’t know why, but all of a sudden it felt possible. Right there on East Avenue, I realized that my grand idea could be managed if I focused in on one place. That walk was on the first of June 2024, and I started writing the next weekend. I’ll always be so grateful to Andrew.
EL: How was the process of writing this book different from the others, and what themes from your own life played out on the page?
DP: Sometimes I look back on the last two years and think, I have no idea how I did that. I work a long day in television, and there was no time to write during the week. I kept a folder open in my notes app and as I had ideas, I’d pop them in there. On weekends, I’d do a morning walk and workout, eat breakfast and then kiss my husband Peter and say, “See you this afternoon.”
I’d sit in an oversize chair with a pillow on my lap to raise my computer a bit, and I’d write in silence for four to five hours. When I felt stuck, I’d look at my notes app and remember something funny I’d seen in New York that week, and then I’d imagine how twenty-five-year-old women would talk about it among themselves or with the guys they meet in Wisconsin.
I have a great editor, Sean Desmond, who has been with me for all the books. He could refer back to my previous work and knew, for example, that the horrible client Dot Clark deals with in Purple State, is a story that actually happened to me. I leaned into that. And he would steer me by saying, “Here’s what needs to happen in the next five beats.”
One of the challenging things when writing a novel is getting the dialogue right. Sean had great advice. He said after you write a scene, go back and ask yourself if anyone would actually say it that way. It turned out that my first draft, and often my second, was too stilted, and I know, as a reader, I would have rolled my eyes and maybe even stopped reading. So I worked hard on the dialogue. Then once I got the hang of it, I had a lot of fun writing the conversations between the characters.
The cover of Purple State by Dana Perino
EL: As a woman deeply entrenched in real-world politics, do you believe that love can successfully cross-party lines, as it does in your book?
DP: I do, though I fully understand the skepticism. I believe love has a lot to do with chemistry—a spark that becomes a flame kept bright by two people committed to making a life together.
I want people to see that politics might be interesting, maddening, passionate and even, at times, fun, but it doesn’t have to define who you are or what you see in other people. Sometimes the best thing to do is take politics lightly in order to be a happy, productive human. For example, politics might define a lot of what I have done in my career, yet it is absolutely not who I am. My life has been enriched by having friends from all walks of life. I really don’t care about politics as much as I care about being grateful for the time I have on earth and sharing it with the people who enrich my life.
EL: In addition to your thriving career as a television news anchor and political analyst, you also founded Minute Mentoring, a women’s leadership program designed to foster the next generation of female leaders. What inspired this pursuit and what does it mean to you?
DP: I have learned to live a life of gratitude. I really started practicing gratitude in a focused way when I worked at the White House. I made it a habit to say a prayer of thanks every time the U.S. Marine stationed at the West Wing opened the door for me. “Thank you for this opportunity, Lord. Help me not to waste a minute.”
If you’re fortunate enough to blaze a trail, people will want to know how you got there, and I felt a special obligation to reach my hand down and help others up the ladder. Though I found that in addition to career advice, many young women would ask me about living a life of purpose. And they really wanted to know how they, too, could meet someone and have a good marriage like the one I have with Peter.
While it was hard at first to write so directly to the younger generation with my best advice, I found my voice and realized there’s a hunger for more guidance. The supply and demand for mentoring is way out of whack. I can’t have coffee with everyone who asks. So, I put the lesson into books—and now into a novel—
that can help me even out the gaps between the time I have to mentor and the requests for advice.
EL: What’s next for you? Is there a Purple State sequel in the future?
DP: I love Dot, Mary and Harper so much. I think about them all the time. I wish they were real people; I think we’d all be great friends. I have big plans for them and hope that everyone who reads Purple State will find out what happens next. I am very excited for where this story is going.
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