Samantha Wilde on THIS LITTLE MOMMY STAYED HOME

cover1Today I’m delighted to welcome cybergirlfriend Samantha Wilde with her brand new debut novel, THIS LITTLE MOMMY STAYED HOME. Welcome Sam! Tell us about your book.

SAM:  Joy McGuire, a seemingly normal person with a seemingly normal marriage, has a baby, after which point, nothing is normal again. Not her breasts or her belly or her heart or her marriage. It’s a hilarious, rueful, laugh-out-loud post partum tale about the grueling work of the first nine months of the first baby when change is an urgent necessity that you wish you could run away from.

ROBERTA:   Dr. Rebecca Butterman, the protagonist in my advice column mysteries, is a clinical psychologist (like me.) If your protagonist made an appointment to talk to Dr. Butterman, what would that first session be like? What deep dark secret or problem would she be there to discuss and how much of it would she tell?

SAM:  Oh, I imagine she’d talk about hating her husband and his mother and sometimes wanting to run away from the baby and being mad at her mother and the grocery store clerk and pissed off about the isolation in suburbia. None of this, however, is at all secret. When you talk about your perineum on the first page, you’re not much of a secret person.

ROBERTA:  What got you writing in this genre?

SAM:  Being who I am, I suppose. I think my genre is chick lit, yummy mummy lit. It just came out of me that way, actually. And then it landed in a genre. Sassy, funny stuff about motherhood really only has one genre, in fiction, for the most part.

ROBERTA: What’s your favorite thing about being a writer?

SAM: The actual writing, the living inside the worlds of my characters, and some sense that some time, somewhere, my words may make someone laugh, may make a difference, for an instant.

ROBERTA:  Least favorite thing about being a writer?

SAM:  Being alone. I’m a people person. I don’t love sitting in front of my computer.

ROBERTA:  What is the most interesting thing that’s happened to you since becoming a published author?

SAM:  I started blogging. I am afraid of blogs, so this still surprises me. It’s been alright. I’m a ludite. I’m into in-person community, but I’ve learned a lot and made some connections.

Good luck with the book! You can visit Sam’s blog here.

Praise for THIS LITTLE MOMMY STAYED HOME:

“Here’s a talent: when a narrator’s doldrums make a reader laugh out loud. Samantha Wilde’s inkwell must be filled with truth-serum because this brave and funny book gets the postpartum peaks and valleys so very, winningly right.”
—Elinor Lipman, author of Then She Found Me

“Think of the funniest person you know, give her a baby and a month without sleep, multiply by ten and you’ve got the incomparable Samantha Wilde rocking the hilariously appalling realities of motherhood and the modern marriage. This book belongs on the bedside table of everyone who’s ever been a mother, or had one.”
—Karen Karbo, author of The Stuff of Life and How to Hepburn

Taking advantage of the rain

Hasn’t it been an odd summer so far? I’ve taken the rainy, cool days and used them to write like mad on a new book. The draft is done and out with readers so we’ll see what they think. I took a trip to our town police department to look for some real details. (Although yes, it’s customary to do research before you write it, not after!) I’m guest blogging at Type M for Murder tomorrow (Sunday)–please stop over and read about my history with the cops.

On a sad note, we lost my dear father-in-law this week. He was  a wonderful, interesting, funny, loving  husband, father, and father-in-law. We’ll miss him dearly. Continue reading ‘Taking advantage of the rain’

Sheila Curran’s EVERYONE SHE LOVED

cover-art-everyoneHave you ever had the sinking feeling that if you died early, your carefully laid plans for your family would die with you? Penelope Cameron in Sheila Curran’s new book EVERYONE SHE LOVED had that fear–only she did something about it. So when she is in fact sent to an early grave, her best friends in the world have agreed to a pact in which they have final say over any new wife (and stepmother to Penelope’s children.) Curran slowly unwinds the strands of their friendships, reaching into the past for secrets that threaten to overwhelm their strong connections.

ROBERTA: Dr. Rebecca Butterman, the protagonist in my advice column mysteries, is a clinical psychologist (like me.) If your protagonist made an appointment to talk to Dr. Butterman, what would that first session be like?

SHEILA: If Penelope Cameron May came to see you, she might need treatment for her anxiety.  She’s beautiful, rich, happily married, successful, and the mother of two healthy children.  Why, then, can she not stop worrying about what will happen to them if she dies.  You, Dr. Butterman, would quickly discover that Penelope’s own mother died of ovarian cancer when she was only six, and her grief-maddened father married a deep fried southern bimbo, big of breast and small of soul.  She will also confess that she’s jealous of her best friend, Lucy, who’s never so much as glanced at her handsome husband, Joey Adorno.
ROBERTA:  What deep dark secret or problem would she be there to discuss and how much of it would she tell?

SHEILA: Penelope would keep saying you that you cannot really trust people to always to the right thing, that people make mistakes, that no matter how much you love someone, or someone loves you, bad things can happen.  Were she to tell you the whole truth, she might save everyone a lot of heart ache, but she can’t bring herself to.  She is also protecting a friend’s privacy.

Read more about Sheila and her wonderful books or order Everyone She Loved right now!

Praise for Curran’s DIANA LIVELY IS FALLING DOWN:  “Filled with characters who make you laugh out laoud even as they break your heart, this is a funny, warm, inventive, original book.” Jodi Picoult, author of CHANGE OF HEART

Summer Beach Read from the GCC

iohh-finalSummer’s on the way, and just in time, Judi Fennell’s new book IN OVER HER HEAD debuts on June 1. When Erica Peck, one terrified-of-the-ocean marina owner, finds herself at the bottom of the sea conversing with a Mer man named Reel, she thinks she’s died and gone to her own version of Hell. When the Oceanic Council demands she and Reel retrieve a lost cache of diamonds from the resident sea monster in return for their lives, she knows she’s died and gone to Hell.
When they escape the monster and end up on a deserted island, she amends her opinion - she’s died and gone to Heaven.
But when Reel sacrifices himself to allow her to return to her world, she realizes that, Heaven or Hell, with Reel, she’s In Over Her Head.

judi-fennell-comJudi Fennell has had her nose in a book and her head in some celestial realm all her life, including those early years when her mom would exhort her to “get outside!” instead of watching Bewitched or I Dream of Jeannie on television. So she did–right into Dad’s hammock with her Nancy Drew books.

These days she’s more likely to have her nose in her laptop and her head (and the rest of her body) at her favorite bookstore, but she’s still reading, whether it be her latest manuscript or friends’ books.

To celebrate the release of each of her books, Judi Fennell and the Atlantis Inn and the Hibiscus House bed and breakfasts are raffling off three romantic beach getaway weekends. All information is on Judi’s website.

And last but not least, I like to ask visiting authors what their characters would have to say to my psychologist character, Dr. Rebecca Butterman. But Judi went one better–she wrote the entire therapy session! Have a look:

Dr. Butterman: So, Erica, why are you here today?
Erica: Well, Doctor, I have this stupid phobia.
D.B.: Why is it stupid?
Erica: I’m scared of the ocean. Well, what’s IN the ocean. There’s a difference, you know. The water doesn’t scare me, nor does the deep, but what’s in it? Yeah. Totally freaks me out.
D.B.: Do you know what instigated this fear?
Erica: (Nodding). Yes, but I can’t talk about it.
D.B.: Erica, if you can’t talk about it, you won’t be able to resolve it.
Erica: That’s not a bad thing, is it? I mean, I don’t need to go in the ocean to live, right? I’m fine on land so it’s a non-issue, really.
D.B.: But I thought you helped out at a marina?
Erica: I own the marina. With my brothers. But they’re off serving our country so it’s up to me to handle the business.
D.B.: Do you do charters from the marina?
Erica: Yes.
D.B.: So how do you manage that? I would think that running charters would entail having to go out on the ocean.
Erica: (Squirming in her seat). Well, that is, I… I did take out a charter. But that didn’t work out so well.
D.B.: What happened?
Erica: (Biting her lip and fiddling with the fringe on the sofa pillow) I… uh… accidentally threw some diamonds overboard.
D.B.: Diamonds? What were diamonds doing on your boat?
Erica: (Huffing) My stupid ex-boyfriend hid them in my grandfather’s urn. Can you imagine? Who hides diamonds in someone’s urn? That’s just gross. But I guess he knew they weren’t going anywhere, since I have this phobia and Grandpa was still in that urn. It’d been a… while.
D.B.: So then what happened? How did your ex react?
Erica: (Sits up straight and folds her hands in her lap) The bastard forced me in the water to go after them. At gunpoint.
D.B.: And how did that make you feel?
Erica: How do you think? I was totally p.o’d. How dare he!
D.B.: But you went?
Erica: Well, yes. I mean, he had a gun.
D.B.: And then what happened?
Erica: (biting her lip again and fidgeting. And playing with the pillow fringe) I… I met a merman.
D.B.: A merman. (arches eyebrow).
Erica: Yes.
D.B.: And did this merman have a name?
Erica: Reel.
D.B.: Were there any other mermen?
Erica: Oh, yes. His brother. Rod.
D.B.: (Her pencil falls onto her notebook and the good doctor interlaces her fingers and rests her hands on top of the notebook.) Rod and Reel. The mermen. Who’s their father? Fisher?
Erica: (Smiling) Oh, you’ve met them, too!
D.B.: (Stands) I think that’s all for today, Erica.
Erica: (watching the doctor leave the room) What’d I say?

Thanks for stopping by Judi and very best wishes with the new book!

A poem for Mother’s Day by Billy Collins

I love this–he’s brilliant!

The Lanyard by Billy Collins

The other day as I was ricocheting slowly
off the pale blue walls of this room,
bouncing from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one more suddenly into the past–
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breast,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sickroom,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift–not the archaic truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
that two-tone lanyard from my hands,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.
by Billy Collins

Update on the Madison Murder Mystery

The town of Madison Ct  was bursting with energy Thursday night as participants trooped from store to store picking up clues, sipping wine, and enjoying the ambiance provided by theater students from Daniel Hand High School. dsc00616

Our town selectman, Al Goldberg, circulated throughout the evening, assuring residents that he was alive and well–in spite of the demise of his fictional counterpart.

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Below Al and I check for vital signs in the “corpse” arranged in front of the Madison Art Cinema. The “suspects” in the mini-mystery outdid themselves when asked to pose for a photo shoot. dsc00611Before the denouement of the mystery, Roxanne Coady, owner of the fabulous RJ Julia Booksellers, hosted “Behind the Mystery” for patrons of the event. Attendees also enjoyed champagne, chocolate-covered strawberries, and complimentary copies of DEADLY ADVICE (thanks to Berkley Prime Crime). Thanks to the Madison Cares committee for an amazing evening!dsc00619

Madison Murder Mystery coming…

I can’t wait for the Madison Cares murder mystery night tomorrow! Here’s a neat article from Examiner columnist John Valeri. The “suspects” (including my good-natured husband) had their mug shots taken and all will be posted at the Madison Art Cinema tomorrow. Hope to see lots of you there!

dsc00607Today was spent at the Connecticut Library Association Conference in New Haven. I was on a panel talking about secrets we wished we’d know with fellow mystery authors Hallie Ephron, Jane Cleland, Rosemary Harris, and Jan Brogan–always fun to hang out with my pals and a bunch of librarians!

YA Agent Jill Corcoran

My good friend (and current prez of Sisters in Crime) Judy Clemens has just signed with a new agent for her young adult fantasy. I rolled over to check her out and came across her blog. she has lots of interesting links and advice so take a look (especially of interest to writers of middle grade and YA books.)

Murder 203

The fabulous librarians at the Easton and Westport CT libraries threw an amazing literary house party this weekend–Murder 203. Writers spend so much time hunkered behind their keyboards that it’s a treat to get out and see the world–chat with other authors and spend some time with readers too! And the Saturday lunch was to die for!

dsc00590Saturday, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel on “keeping a series fresh,” meeting up with old friends Jane Cleland, Katherine Hall Page, and Justin Scott, and meeting new friends Donald Bain and Renee Paley-Bain. They write the “Murder She Wrote” books–33 in all–so believe me, they know something about the topic.  dsc00595And it was fun to hear veteran SJ Rozan interview the guest of honor, Linda Fairstein.  What funny, talented women!

Today I had the pleasure of appearing on a panel about amateur sleuths with Katherine Hall Page, Rosemary Harris, Con Lehane, and Karen Olson. dsc00597I find it amazing that I can come away from every conference with great new ideas. Monday, it’s back behind that screen, refreshed and renewed. Thank you Connecticut librarians!

Why I’m behind in my WIP

Up until last week, I was plugging along pretty well on my new book. Then the local arm of Habitat for Humanity, Madison Cares, asked me to help out with their fundraiser by writing a mini-mystery for our town. They gave me a list of merchants and personalities to work into the story and off I went. Here’s the dope–it should be tons of fun!  rearwindowposter-2

Support Madison Cares while you Love Your Local Merchants at ‘Murder Mystery Night’ April 30

Yellow crime scene tape, chalk body outlines and mug shots of local suspects are just some of what you will find in downtown Madison during this year’s Madison Cares’ Movie Night April 30.

The theme for this year’s event is “Murder Mystery Night in Madison,” and will feature a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller, Rear Window.  To set the scene, Madison’s own murder mystery author Roberta Isleib will be writing a short mystery that takes place in Madison and includes town personalities. Copies of Isleib’s story will be available at local merchants starting April 23.  The mystery will also be published here on Madison Cares’ web site.

Isleib has published eight mystery novels. Her latest series stars a Connecticut psychologist and advice columnist, including Deadly Advice, Preaching to the Corpse and Asking for Murder (Berkley Prime Crime.) A clinical psychologist by trade, Isleib took up writing mysteries to justify time spent on the golf course. Her first series, featuring a neurotic professional golfer and a sports psychologist, was nominated for both Agatha and Anthony awards.

Beginning at 5:30 pm April 30, participating merchants will host receptions in their stores, where visitors can sample wine and hors oeuvres as well as gather clues to solve the mystery. Each store will provide a different clue. Participants can visit as many stores as they wish to collect clues and enter their guess of “whodunit” before the movie begins. One lucky sleuth, drawn at the theater from among the correct entries, will win a weekend getaway for two.

The evening will culminate at Madison Art Cinemas at 8 pm for a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954), starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly. In keeping with the theme, this year’s movie will be Alfred Hitchcock’s, Rear Window (1954), starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly. The movie is about a photojournalist confined to a wheelchair with a broken leg, who believes that a murder has been committed by his neighbor.

Tickets are $35 and can be purchased in advance at participating Madison stores, including RJ Julia Booksellers, Given Fine Chocolates, Peter Indorf Jewelers, Jolie Boutique, Anna Mia’s, bella Perlina, Walker Loden, Maggies of Madison, Frances Amerique and Ciao Bella Moda International.

A limited number of Patron tickets are available for $50. Patron tickets include reserved seating at the theater and admission to a private event at R.J. Julia Booksellers, “Behind the Mystery,” at 7 pm by Isleib and bookstore owner extraordinaire Roxanne Coady.

All proceeds from the event will benefit Madison Cares.