Nancy Jo Sales is having a moment. The Vanity Fair contributing editor's terse 2010 article about the largest robbery ring in Hollywood history, “The Suspect Wore Louboutins” hits the big screen today, as the source material for Sofia Coppola’s “The Bling Ring.” And Sales just released her first book, a companion release to the film (also titled “The Bling Ring") that happens to be perfect summer reading: a play-by-play on the motivations and methods of a group of fame-obsessed L.A. kids who systematically stole some $30 million in gems, clothes, and other valuables from the homes of unsuspecting celebrities. That too, during the global recession. In researching this latest project, Sales, who has long covered what she calls the "kids beat," considered the shifting American fixation with wealth, fame and celebrity. The Huffington Post sat down to chat with the writer for her take on what ails us.

The Huffington Post: The story of the real bling ring is a pretty juicy one, and perfect for a magazine piece. How did you land on it?

Nancy Jo Sales: I saw an AP wire online -- it was just a four or five paragraph story, but as soon as I saw it, I said, ‘I have to do it.’ It suggested itself immediately as such an iconic thing, to most of the media. I was out in California in two or three days, and I felt like I was fighting for the story. Every time the kids had a court date, there was a [huge] press corp, as if they were covering a war.

HP: In the book, you talk about how the kids’ sense of self-importance seemed to infect everybody involved.

NJS: Everyone. The cops and lawyers started acting like celebrities. They were getting barraged with press requests. People say, ‘Why are kids so obsessed with fame?’ Everybody's obsessed with fame.

HP: Did you ever feel yourself getting caught up in the mania?

NJS: I'm very uncomfortable in those settings unless I'm there as a reporter. My job is to observe things. I think if I've been successful at all, it’s because I’ve been able to maintain a distance from celebrity culture.

Having said that, I did go on Twitter for the first time about 6 months after I wrote this book. And I'm doing this interview with you. I want people to read my book! But I want to do it without any kind of celebrification of self.

HP: Do you think social media makes that hard?

NJS: Social media exists, there's no taking it away. But it’s just a broadcasting tool. It doesn't have to be used for constant self-promotion. I think the way kids use it will change if the messages that are promoted by our culture change.