WWW- Author N. Kathryn Howard admits to portraying men in a somewhat dim light in her debut novel, “The Stripper Diaries.”

“I do exploit the men a little bit, and they fit into certain categories,” she said. “There’s the lonely people, there are the womanizers, and there are the cute kind of guys that go to the clubs for fun in groups. I do make fun of the men there a bit. They can be kind of pathetic, but what I really found unanimously is that they’re lonely and they’re seeking some companionship. They just want to talk to a pretty girl.”

Born and raised in Valparaiso and a graduate of Valparaiso High School, Howard left the region in 1982 to study at Arizona State University. In 1991, she left Arizona for California, settling in Los Angeles, with hopes of becoming an actress.

In her early days in L.A., she worked slinging drinks at a bikini bar, which inspired her to pen what would become “Diaries.” In her off-hours, she conducted her own research, interviewing both the talent and regulars at her place of employment.

“I was looking at films that had been made about that business, and no one really captured the comedy end of it,” she said. “Everything that had been done about the stripper business was very dark and very seedy. But I didn’t find that to be the case. And the inner workings of how a club like that works had not been told right.”

After a half-decade, she decided to make her way through the entertainment world as a writer instead of as a thespian. She began work on “Diaries,” first as a screenplay, in 1998 before converting it to its current fiction tome form.

“Diaries” tells the tale of Alex Parker, a former corporate climber who leaves the nine-to-five world for the bump and grind of an L.A. strip club.

For a brief period early in the decade, Howard put “Diaries” down for another screen play, “Combat Barbie.” Inspired by her sister, who served in the Army, Howard described “Barbie” as a “PG-rated update of ‘Private Benjamin.'”

Yet circumstances beyond her control would force her to abandon “Combat” temporarily and return to her “Diaries.”

“Unfortunately, it hit the market right when (President) Bush declared war (on Iraq), and nobody was laughing at the military. It’s just sitting on a shelf right now, but I still have great aspirations for it, either as a film or even as an animated series.”

Howard also is hoping to bring “Diaries” to life outside of its 224-page confines, as a small-screen endeavor.

“It’s very set up for (television),” she said. “It’s become sort of this four-girl comedy, ‘Sex in the City’-type of a thing, and I think that the cable networks certainly might go for it.”

“The Stripper Diaries” is officially set for release by the El Segundo, Calif.-based Tenth Street Press later this month, advance copies of the book can be purchased at select Barnes & Noble book stores, at Howard’s Web site, www.thestripperdiaries.com, and at www.amazon.com.