Louise Dean wrote four novels but found writing lonely and needed to work in a team. NEW LOOK Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. AdvertisementThis as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with prize-winning author Louise Dean about running a business instead of writing. Before I became an author, I thought you had to be funny and clever to write a novel. Working alone at my desk was isolatingOver the next two decades, I was in a cycle of writing novels and raising kids.

---

Persons: Louise Dean, Dean, she's, —, I'd, Simon & Schuster, Booker, Betty Trask, Le Prince Maurice, that's, weren't, I've Organizations: Service, Bookseller, Penguin Random, Costa Locations: New York, France, Northern Ireland, Nice, Belfast