Loved 'Cat Person'? The author just landed a book deal

It was The New Yorker's most read fiction of 2017.

Now, the author behind viral short story Cat Person has landed a book deal. Her very first one.

After her relatable tale about grim dating experiences went viral, author Kristen Roupenian has sealed the deal on her debut book with a UK publisher, with a bidding war currently underway in the U.S., according to the Guardian.

UK publisher Jonathan Cape has bought the rights to Roupenian's first book for five figures, which will be a collection of stories dubbed You Know You Want This (yes, we do). The U.S. auction is currently sitting with 11 bidders and has reached over $1 million.

Not bad, you know, for Roupenian's first New Yorker story. In fact, she told the New Yorker in an interview that she'd only committed to being a writer in the last five years, after chatting to a friend at a bar before she'd finished her Ph.D., about to enter the Foreign Service.

"I’d had a few beers, and I was talking passionately about how, by becoming a diplomat, I was going to live my second-best-possible life," she said.

"It wasn’t my No. 1, absolute dream, but it was pretty great … and trying to be a writer was too risky. And she was like: “Uh, that seems like a terrible reason to join the Foreign Service. I think you’ll regret this choice on your deathbed. You should write your novel.”

In case you haven't read it, Cat Person is the fictional tale of Margot and Robert, who meet at Margo's cinema workplace and start up a text conversation. When it eventuates into an actual date, things move fast and get weird (but all too real).

"The themes of the story (sex, gender, power, consent) are ones that I’ve been thinking about, and trying to write about, for years," she told the New Yorker. "It’s not autobiographical; though many of the details and emotional notes come from life, they were accumulated over decades, not drawn from a single bad date."

Go read it, listen to our podcast on it, then hit Twitter (you'll want to).