Sam Cook (who writes under her full name, Samantha) was born in North London – where, a dyed-in-the-wool city girl, she still lives, happily settled in a crooked old house in Stoke Newington. After studying English and Film at the University of East Anglia, and then working at London’s British Film Institute and Museum of the Moving Image, in 1990, aged 24, she spotted a job ad in the Guardian newspaper calling out for new young guide book authors (those were the days!). Rough Guides were planning to publish guides to Canada, Thailand and the USA; despite having been to none of these countries, she applied immediately. (Mortifyingly, her application included the classic: “Writing and travel are my two great loves,” which she is still teased about to this day.) Impressed at her interview by Martin Dunford’s green baseball boots, Kate Berens’s punky hair, and Greg Ward’s quirky wit, she knew this was the place she wanted to be. Clichéd application letter notwithstanding, she got the job, and started working on the Rough Guide to the USA – with co-authors Greg, Tim Perry and Jamie Jensen – immediately.

Undeterred by the fact (one which she kept quiet at the interview) that she couldn’t drive, she set off criss-crossing the nation by Greyhound and Amtrak, begging and borrowing lifts when she could. It was on this trip that she first encountered New Orleans – and started a lifelong love affair with the place that has yet to fizzle out. Jetlagged and nervous, she hated the city at first, seeing only the tourists and the trash – two days, a few gumbos, many Sazeracs and lots of jazz bands later, and she was hooked. She went on to write The Rough Guide to New Orleans and the Directions Guide to New Orleans, and remains deeply committed to – and connected to – the city she will always count as her spiritual home.

From 1992 to 1998 Sam worked in the London office (which, in those days, was based in Covent Garden), as editor, senior editor and managing editor, leaving to go freelance and to concentrate on writing. As well as the USA and New Orleans guides, she wrote the Rough Guide to Online Travel with Greg Ward, hoping to jump on the Rough Guide to the Internet’s phenomenal success and make millions. Greg and Sam haven’t yet made their millions – but they did marry each other, which is even better.

As a freelancer, Sam has not only been a Rough Guides author, but has also edited and contributed to dozens of their titles in both the Travel and Reference departments. She enjoys the variety of a freelance life, which has incorporated everything from writing a chirpy booklet encouraging teenagers to stay in education to editing a hefty tome on comedy movies and even enjoying a short spell helping out in the picture department. She’s also training to be a humanistic psychotherapist, and mucks about doing drama lessons on Tuesdays.

Her most recent book, The Rough Guide to Chick Flicks – which entailed a full nine months wallowing in classic weepies, smart rom-coms, overwrought melodramas and crazy screwball comedies, all in the name of research – is her favourite so far. She can’t stop gazing at the book’s gorgeous cover and grinning.

Please visit Sam's website at www.chickflickguide.com.