Leah Garchik, the Original Gossip Girl

With everything going on in the city of San Francisco, it can be a little chaotic. This includes the people and the places, but there's nothing like a little about-town gossip and eavesdropping to make things even more interesting. Thankfully, Leah Garchik puts all of this and more into her daily column for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Garchik, a Brooklyn native and "a woman who has never owned a car with push-button windows", is married to her husband, Jerry, and has two sons, Sam and Jacob. Although her educational background is not clear, she states that she "...typed to put [her] husband through Harvard Law School".

She began her career at The Chronicle in 1984 where she began writing her daily gossip column. Garchik's column has earned notoriety and acclaim with being named "Best Items Column" in the country in 1992 by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and being named "Best Columnist" by San Francisco Bay Area Publicity Club for 1998, 2001 and 2004. She was also named "Best Gossip" in a San Francisco Chronicle readers' poll.

Garchik has a no-holds-barred approach to her column, letting the subject of her written assault make their bed and Garchik making them sleep in it. She also states that "the further away they are, the nastier I am." This can be exemplified in her latest column about author Stephen Elliot:

"Stephen Elliott has been promoting his newest book, a memoir called The Adderall Diaries, with a series of readings at private homes around the country. Many guests have never been to a book reading before, and Elliott calls the tour 'like a giant sociology study.' (His Bay Area readings start this week.)

'Last night in Fort Lauderdale,' he e-mailed last week, 'I made out with a girl at the home event who made a point of telling me she hadn't bought my book. I think she thought that since we were making out I would give her a book, and I felt that because we were making out she would certainly buy one.'"

What also makes her column so unique is that not only does she let you live vicariously through her in order to get in on exclusive events and get the skinny on local and international celebrities, but she lets the reader themselves in on the fun. Garchik's column includes reader-submitted quotes from eavesdropping around town. This particular aspect has become so popular that she's compiled a book titled Real Life Romance filled with bits of romance advice overheard around San Francisco.

It's important as a writer to be versatile, and Garchik brings just that with her column. One can't be too sure where she'll end up. One time she could be at an opera performance, critiquing an actress' choice of dress, to a charity event among such stars as Nicholas Cage and Maria Menounos. I mean, if you consider them stars, anyway.

The random nature of Garchik's column brings a breath of fresh air amidst a time where columns are dominated by news and politics. She brings fun and a sense of accessibility to her writing, which seems to bring readers coming back for more. Who doesn't want to see public figures cut down to size once and a while?

And let's be honest, a little gossip never hurt anybody either.