To Hollywood, Tara Schuster is known as Comedy Central’s vp talent and development with credits that include Lights Out With David Spade, Key & Peele, Another Period, Detroiters and Hood Adjacent. To the rest of the world, she will soon be known as a published author.
The credit for the newest title on her résumé belongs to Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies: And Other Rituals to Fix Your Life from Someone Who Has Been There, Schuster’s new memoir set for publication Feb. 18, 2020 via Penguin Random House.
Writing is not a new side hustle for Schuster. Her plays have been performed at the New York International Fringe Festival and she’s had bylines in the New Yorker and Forbes. She says she wrote this book — described as memoir meets self-help — to help others, the same way she was helped to feel less alone through the work of A-list authors like David Sedaris, Cheryl Strayed, Elizabeth Gilbert and Nora Ephron.
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“After I drunk dialed my therapist on my 25th birthday, I knew I needed to wake up from my life of numb, thoughtless self-loathing, so I hacked together my own curriculum of self-care. I read every memoir cheesy self-help book I could get my hands on, and I kept track of my progress in a Google document,” she explains. “Five years into my self-care journey and feeling almost like a different person, I realized that the Google doc I had started to save my own life, could possibly save others. I realized this was the story I was meant to tell.”
In an announcement about the book, Schuster details a bit more about that story, starting with the assumptions made about life as a rising television executive working with stars like Jon Stewart and Jordan Peele. Though many assumed she was doing great, behind the scenes, Schuster was dealing with chronic anxiety, depression, self-doubt and a unique childhood. To deal, she was self-medicating, a recipe that led to rock bottom. From there, she kickstarted her self-help journey, one that she hopes inspires others to find similar relief.
The book is now available for preorder.
