Film critic and author Marsha McCreadie remembers an afternoon spent with the late Nora Ephron discussing life, filmmaking, and the industry for her book The Women Who Write the Movies.

So how did I actually get to interview Nora Ephron, who died at the age of 71 two days ago in Manhattan? I had put in requests in the usual fashion, for a book I was writing on women screenwriters. But what sealed the deal was cornering Ephron in the woman’s room of the Loew’s 84th Street movie theater on her beloved upper west side of Manhattan, setting for You’ve Got Mail and When Harry Met Sally…, the topic of the latter — can a woman and man be friends without or with having sex? — having spawned innumerable rom-coms.

Ephron laughed, said O.K. As a former journalist she must have taken pity instead of bolting herself in a stall or calling a guard. A better question might be why she was at a public screening. But as a confirmed New Yorker who was frequently seen on the streets of the city making a movie, she was as much a fixture to the neighborhood as its inhabitants were to her. “It’s just Nora making another film” was a typical comment on Columbus Avenue, tolerating the inconvenience of having crews on the block. By then Ephron was directing, too. “It isn’t entirely the boys keeping women writers out. It’s smart women realizing the real power is in directing,” she said later. Ephron directions include Bewitched, You’ve Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, Mixed Nuts, Julie and Julia.

The thrice Academy Award-nominated Ephron (scripts for Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally…, Sleepless in Seattle) never wanted to be screenwriter, or in the movie business at…