Hemingways Inside The Beltway

We know what California Democrat BARBARA BOXER will do during the Senate's next filibuster--write her novel, an untitled yarn of politics and romance due next fall from Chronicle Books. Boxer joins a bipartisan band of politicians getting paid for telling tales.

LYNNE CHENEY Known for her kids' books, the Veep's wife also wrote a frontier novel, Sisters, in 1981. But--search the bunker--it's out of print.

NEWT GINGRICH The ex-Speaker's second novel in a series, Grant Comes East, fictionalizes the Civil War. Unlike the man, the books have bipartisan appeal.

JIMMY CARTER With his Revolutionary War book, The Hornet's Nest, Carter became the only President so far to try fiction--and admit it openly.