Expertly Aged Advice: Abigail Grotke

IF MODERN TECHNIQUES for landing the beau or beauty of your dreams are attracting the monsters from your nightmares instead, then step into the olden days with Abigail Grotke, a.k.a. Miss Abigail, to see if maybe grandma had a better idea.

Building on the success of her popular Web site "Miss Abigail's Time Warp Advice," Grotke combined advice from the site with new excerpts and playful graphics to compose the book "Miss Abigail's Guide to Dating, Mating, and Marriage: Classic Advice for Contemporary Dilemmas."

But Grotke's guide isn't another self-help book from some know-it-all guru. It's actually a self-help book from dozens of gurus, circa 1822 to 1978. Grotke compiled some of the best advice from long-forgotten guidebooks, and the tips are still relevant for that timeless thing called love.

At 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Grotke shares her insight in a talk at the Library of Congress.

» EXPRESS: How did you get into the advice game?
» GROTKE: I was working at the National Museum of American Art and some friends were like, 'Hey, let's do a Web site.' It was literary stuff and photographs, kind of a Webzine of sorts. I thought, 'Well what can I contribute?' I had about 60 or 70, a small collection at that point. So I was like, 'Hey, why don't I start giving advice from the books? It'll be fun.' So the persona emerged, and I started getting some questions from friends. Eventually Yahoo picked me up as the site of the week, and then it exploded from there. It became its own thing.

» EXPRESS: So when did you decide to take the leap into the book realm?
» GROTKE: I was at the London Times for about a year and a half, in 2000 to about 2003. After that I felt a little bit burnt-out on the advice and wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I had thought up a proposal with another publisher that didn't go anywhere, but I kept it in the back of my mind and always had something on hand. And I think it was two years ago now, I was mentioned in some New York list-serve and two publishers called me that week; it was pretty amazing. One of them was Penguin and they didn't pan out, but [Thunder's Mouth] was a small press and they seemed to click with the topic.

» EXPRESS: How did you choose which information would make it into the book?
» GROTKE: I used some of the "best of" stuff from the Web site focusing on the dating advice, the love stuff and the marriage. And rather than have Q&As throughout the whole book, I decided to have a question every chapter, to cover some of the more frequently asked questions. So some of those questions are compilations of things that I've received over the years, some of the main topics that people are concerned about.

» EXPRESS: What's the most frequently asked question?
» GROTKE: "I like this boy but I don' know how to tell him." Or, "I like this girl but I don't know how to tell her."

» EXPRESS: What do you tell them?
» GROTKE: Just tell them.

» EXPRESS: Does repetition in the answers make it hard to keep the advice fresh?
» GROTKE: I stopped answering questions on the Web site a while ago because I have a day job and I was feeling guilty about not answering everybody's questions. Though a lot of them were similar-themed questions, so I do update with random advice on the blog.

» EXPRESS: But this book was hilarious. Are you being serious?
» GROTKE: I'm not. I had this persona in my head that was this proper [lady] but with a little bit of [sass] about her. On page 107 there are kissing tips from Pat Boone that say you're not supposed to kiss unless you're really in love. I had to contact them for permission and Pat's assistant wrote me back that he was so excited that I was writing this book. I think he thought it was all very serious.

» EXPRESS: So is your target audience people who've actually heard of Pat Boone?
» GROTKE: I think there are a lot of people out there that remember what their grandmothers told them or what their mothers told them. Also, there's just this fascination with and interest in other people's problems and wanting to spill your guts to people. So it's a combination. It's people looking for serious advice and people who want to get a good laugh out of it.

» EXPRESS: I was actually surprised at how much some of the advice hasn't changed.
» GROTKE: Yeah, the way the advice was told was slightly different but there are common themes throughout that we still struggle with — like how to tell if we're in love.

» EXPRESS: Do you take your own advice?
» GROTKE: I'll look up occasional things, like some of the etiquette advice. I still don't know how to use a fork correctly.

» EXPRESS: What's next for Miss Abigail?
» GROTKE: I'm not sure. The whole thing has been this sort of mysterious ride and every couple years it turns in another direction. So I don't know, maybe a TV show or something.

» EXPRESS: Any words of wisdom this Valentine's Day for youngsters in love?
» GROTKE: [From Margaret E. Sangster's "The Art of Happy Home Making," 1898:] "As a rule, young people do not say to themselves, 'Go to, I will seek a mate.' On the contrary, they are won by some slight thing; some grace of manner, or charm of speech, a dimple, a blush, a soft word, and before they know it, all is over with them, so far as love is concerned."

» Library of Congress, James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. SE.; Wed., 11:30 a.m., free; 202-707-2905. (Capitol South)

Photo courtesy Abigail Grotke