For just over two weeks last spring, Philadelphia writers Cathy Crimmins and Tom Maeder locked themselves away from family and friends.
They worked feverishly to finish a compact, 95-page volume of politically incorrect satire, entitled Newt Gingrzch's Bedtime Stories for Orphans.
Dove Books published Bedtime Stories at the end of July, and it is currently in its third printing, according to Dove spokesperson Wendy Walker.
The book has sold more than 25,000 copies. Crimmins and Maeder have been promoting it through bookstore visits and more than 40 radio interviews.
The idea for Bedtime Stories developed last spring, Crimmins said, as she and Maeder watched Speaker of the House Gingrich and his Republican band take control of the halls of Congress.
At first, they worried that they might not have enough material to write a thoroughly funny book. But then the Speaker began talking about Boys' Town and orphanages as a solution to single- parent families on welfare -- and it wasn't long before they grabbed their pens and started scribbling.
In the interest of equal opportunity, though, the book also roasts President Clinton, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and former White House Communications Director George Stephanopoulos.
The authors nearly drove everyone crazy during the writing process, said Crimmins, who is teaching Advanced Non-Fiction Writing at the University this fall.
"It was very exhilarating to have something out that quickly," Maeder added.
Bedtime Stories represents the latest collaborative effort for Crimmins and Maeder. The pair met at an informal writers' group about nine years ago, he said, where members did more drinking and complaining about their publishers than work.
Since then, the group has dwindled from 10 members to four -- and Crimmins said she's still eager to publish a "serious book."
"It's not for lack of trying," she added.
Crimmins studied Old and Middle English at the University for a dissertation she has since put on hold. Her stable of published titles includes mostly humor works, such as The Secret World of Men and When My Parents Were My Age, They Were Old.
"Cathy Crimmins is a cunning aphorist," English Undergraduate Chairperson Al Filreis said. "She takes what seems natural in the language of popular culture, then makes it seem odd and strange, and then twists it verbally into a truism."
Maeder, on the other hand, majored in biology at Columbia Uni- versity, then took some graduate courses at Penn. He has written extensively about the pharmaceutical industry, and he and Crimmins have also produced an educational CD-ROM about Thomas Edison and various museum exhibits, he said.
"We like to do lots of things at the same time," Maeder added. "We get bored if we don't work"
Crimmins said that once she and Maeder found they could write about Gingrich from a coherent point of view, they plunged into this assignment.
In fact, Gingrich himself ordered 20 copies of the book -- and some bookstore owners think the Speaker wrote it.
"Apparently, he likes anything to do with himself," Maeder quipped.
Crimmins and Maeder split up the writing duties for Bedtime Stories, then swapped drafts of sections like "The Three Little Pigs and the Perils of Subsidized Housing," "School Lunch Hot, School Lunch Cold" and "Where Has Genny Flowers Gone?" for comments and editing.
But by the time the manuscript was ready for publication, it was too late to include "Packwood's Playhouse" and "Mr. Robertson's Neighborhood," Maeder said.
The duo will write three more books in the same humorous vein for Dove in the next year.
They would not disclose the identities of their next targets, but Maeder admitted that he and Crimmins are working on "a spoof of a perennial best-seller -- of the world's most-famous novel."