One day while staring into a dusty New York City dumpster, author Lilly Koppel decided to trust her instincts and dove in.

That decision made all the difference in the world.

Inside the dumpster Kopple discovered a worn five-year diary that once belonged to an extraordinary young woman Florence Wolfson, who lived in the same apartment building as Koppel on the upper West Side of Manhattan in the 1930s. The discovery led to Koppel's first book: The Red Leather Diary.

Kopple described the moment that changed her writing life at a June 19 luncheon at the Denver Press Club.

She grew up in Chicago before heading to New York to go to Barnard College. As soon as she graduated, she landed a job at the New York Times as a clerk on the Metro Desk, answering phones and helping editors coordinate breaking news coverage.

She then started getting her name into the paper by reporting for the New York Times' celebrity column, called Boldface.

"I started having this kind of dual life. I work from 8am to 4pm and then have this kind of Cinderella transformation and go cover these red carpet events," Koppel said. She would interview celebrities from Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman to Lindsay Lohan.

But although this was interesting for Koppel up to a point, she was really searching for a larger story. "Just like any young person who moves to a big city, I was looking love and meaning in my own life. And this happened to come in a very unusual form," Koppel said explaining as to how she discovered the diary at a dumpster that led her to her book.

The reason why she decided to turn the diary in to a book was because she was very interested in the story the diary had in it and the life, the twist and turns that it had taken.

Koppel said, "I had felt like from the first time I found this diary I really felt like it was a work of art in that way."

Eventually, Kopple was able to meet Wolfson, now in her 90s, and return her diary to her.

"I think that just the fact I have met her, she has totally inspired me to continue to write and write the kind of writing I want to pursue," she added.

She felt that by being able to just pick up Florence Wolfson's story where she left off, she had experienced the power of connecting with another individual in a totally unusual way.

"Of course there was a lot chance involved but trust your intuition would be my message," Koppel said.

For more information on Lilly Koppel and her book The Red Leather Diary, visit www.redleatherdiary.com.