Ellen Fein & Sherrie Schneider

Ellen Fein, who was studying for her Masters in Social Work, and Sherrie Schneider, a journalist, have been best friends for 30 years. They started writing The Rules out of Schneider’s apartment in New York City. Fein would come over once a week and they just wrote and wrote. They had no idea it would become a bestseller, they just wanted to help women stop making mistakes with men and get married. Fein got married by playing hard to get and was passing The Rules onto Schneider as she was dating her future husband.

Fein and Schneider have appeared on every major TV show, including Oprah twice, the Today Show, 20/20, and on the radio with Joan Rivers, Don Imus, etc. They participated in a UK documentary called “Living by The Rules” in which they helped three women date better. The Rules has been optioned as a movie by Paramount Pictures.

In 2005, they were hired by Ford Motor Co.’s PR firm to help sell the Ford Fusion with a driving and dating angle. They were named two of the “Most Fascinating Women” by Ladies’ Home Journal magazine in 1996 and interviewed for an ABC-TV special along with a dozen other honorees, including Oprah. They were spoofed on Saturday Night Live (“Get the Ring!”) and The Rules was the subject of one of Jay Leno’s monologues and has been mentioned on many sitcoms including Friends. More recently, they appeared in an online webisode created by the co-author of He’s Just Not That Into You.

Their newest book, Not Your Mother’s Rules: The New Secrets for Dating, (January 2013), is a thoroughly modern, fresh take on The Rules that will help women in today’s new information age create the happy dating lives they deserve. With tips like “wait four hours to return a text message and at least 30 minutes thereafter,” “don’t email anything you wouldn’t want a guy to have if you break up,” “rules for sexting,” and “rarely write on his wall,” this book will be revolutionary.

Fein is married with two children and loves to swim and watch reality shows when she is not writing or helping clients. Schneider is married with a teenage daughter and loves to read, watch TV and exercise when she is not writing or working with clients.