The most feared woman in entertainment journalism is starting a showbiz fiction website
"My website will present short stories, novellas and novel excerpts written by Hollywood insiders like myself," Finke wrote on her official blog. "After 30 years as a journalist, I'm now going to expose the hard truths and gritty reality of showbiz through creative writing."
Finke made a call for writers who are interested in contributing to the paywalled site, though the first round of writers will have to be invited by Finke.
"I will accept submissions by invitation only because I first need to ensure you know enough about Hollywood to write intelligently about it," Finke said.
Readers will be charged $1.o0 a post, the proceeds of which will partially go toward paying the writers. She is also looking for illustrators.
Finke said the site will launch in June.
To add some extra bit of news to the announcement, Finke released a newly taken photo of herself. In recent years, gossip sites, including Defamer, which offered a $1,000 prize, and the now defunct The Daily, had been trying to acquire a current photo of the notoriously private journalist. Before Monday, the most current known photo of Finke was black and white and aken an unknown amount of years ago.
The announcement of a fiction site was unexpected as many believed that Finke's next step was to cover politics, a move that would be immune from her Deadline contract's noncompete clause.
Previously, Finke was set to launch a second entertainment journalism site called NikkiFinke.com. It was subsequently shut down when former boss, Jay Penske, enforced the noncompete clause in her Deadline Hollywood contract.
Finke was reportedly fired from Deadline Hollywood - the website she founded in 2006 and then sold to Penske in 2009 - in November 2013 after multiple conflicts with Penske and disagreements about her role in managing sister publication Variety, which Penske bought in 2012.
Known for her numerous big scoops and harshly worded smack downs of entertainment executives, Finke was also famous for her annual live snarkings of entertainment's biggest awards shows, the Emmys and the Oscars.