Penny Pence Smith spent her childhood in Salt Lake City and her teens outside Palm Springs, Calif. She completed four years of high school in just three years, then continued her education at the University of Washington in Seattle, earning a degree in communication. In 1963, she moved to Los Angeles for a journalism career.

By 1980 she had left journalism and was recruited by a company in Silicon Valley. In 1986 she and her husband moved to Hawaii, but they returned to California in 1991 to take care of her mother. Smith ended up pursuing educational and business opportunities on the mainland until 2005. Since then they’ve been full-time Oahu residents.

When writing her newly released paperback, “The Last Legwoman: A Novel of Hollywood, Murder … and Gossip!” (Pueo Press, $12.95), Smith, 77, drew on her experiences working for a Hollywood gossip columnist in the 1960s and 1970s. The book is a smooth-flowing, modern mystery about the loose ends that are left dangling when America’s most widely read Hollywood gossip columnist is found dead under mysterious circumstances. Will the dead columnist’s assistant, known in the jargon of the time as a “legwoman,” be able to keep the column going while she helps a high-profile police detective investigate the death? Smith proves herself an engaging storyteller.

The coronavirus pandemic forced Smith to cancel the book release party she had planned for the end of April, but “The Last Legwoman” is now available at amazon.com.

Why did you set the story in 1983?

First, because 1983 was a transitional year in Hollywood gossip. It was the year “Entertainment Tonight” came on. During my time in the gossip industry, from about ’67 through ’76, even the Los Angeles Times barely had anything (entertainment-related) except reviews. By ’83 (entertainment news) was becoming mainstream. Another reason was because by ’83 I’d been out of (the industry) for quite a while. I knew I could capture it up to that point but I didn’t think I could bring the story any further forward in time.

The book has the standard disclaimer about the story being a product of your imagination and that any resemblances to actual persons, businesses, places and events are coincidental. Will people who are familiar with Los Angeles and the entertainment industry as it was in 1983 see any resemblances?

Absolutely yes. I sent a copy of the book to a really good friend of mine who was a publicist, and her husband was vice-president of marketing for one of the studios, and she said, “It’s going to be fun for people to try and guess who’s who, we all kind of know.” There are also a lot of specific experiences in the book that are taken from some of the experiences I went through — and enjoyed, frankly.

You taught at Hawaii Pacific University for more than 10 years, and retired a couple of years ago. What keeps you active these days — or at least until COVID-19?

I paint and I write and I dance. I’ve never sung before, but two years ago I joined the Windward Choral Society and so now I’m singing, and I’m really enjoying it. The hula kumu that I’ve been dancing with for years has a group of us two nights a week on Zoom for half an hour, so that’s fun. And I’ve still going through Zoom to my Pilates classes with the same instructor that I’ve been with for years. And when Zumba is on I do Zumba.

What is the first thing you’re going to do when the stay-at-home order is over?

Go to Buzz’s (in Kailua), sit on their deck and have one of their margaritas and some calamari.