D.C. food writer Emily Heil serves up a spooky new novel

What they're saying: Heil's work as a food journalist at the Post means she's worked alongside several recipe writers, which helped her craft her protagonist's career.

• "Food really is just a theme in my life, in my work," she says. "So it really felt like a natural extension of me."

In the book, Heil's protagonist relocates from Brooklyn to her hometown on the Virginia coast, a place inspired by all the "quirky personalities" and "warmth" of Heil's own hometown of Onancock, Va.

The intrigue: When Heil first forayed into fiction, she took classes at The Writer's Center in Bethesda.

• And during her days as a gossip columnist, she wrote a never-published novel "about a cabal of women who actually secretly ran Washington."
• Her second book will be released next fall.

Fun fact: There's a recipe for parsnip soup at the back of the book that Heil says would be the perfect snack to pair with the novel.

If you go: Heil will be in conversation about her book with the journalist Rachel Kurzius on Thursday evening at East City Bookshop.