Today, as we kick off the whimsical month of April, I have the pleasure of welcoming the very talented (true) and incredibly serious (not exactly ;)
Samantha Wilde to Brant Flakes! Her new novel,
I'll Take What She Has, has garnered tons of raves, including one from Claire Cook, bestselling author of
Must Love Dogs: "Samantha Wilde has a dry wit, a big heart, and a sharp eye that doesn’t miss a
trick.
I’ll Take What She Has is a smart and funny behind-the-scenes look
at private school life and the grass-is-always-greener friendships of three
women who, like most of us, would have fabulous lives if only they could get out
of their own way."
And
Publishers Weekly wrote: "With wit, compassion, and a keen ear for
dialogue Wilde explores issues of insecurity, envy, young motherhood, and
friendship in this fast-paced work."
She recently did a wonderful interview (3/23/13) on
Word Cafe, too, so please check it out... Welcome, Sam!! So glad to have you here!
I’m
So Famous I Can Hardly Stand In The Same Room As Myself
by Samantha Wilde
Words
can’t describe the joy I felt when the New
York Cat Times published this glowing review of my new novel, I’ll Take What She Has: "Wilde possesses an unrivaled comic genius. I'll Take
What She Has purrfectly captures the truths of women's lives with such
cat-astrophic wit and poignancy that I would give one of my nine lives to have
the chance to read it again for the first time. A novel more addictive than
catnip--and better."
As you can imagine, having the entire
feline population of the United States run out to grab a copy of the novel put
me on the best seller list of every pet newspaper. (And in case you’re
wondering, I did donate a few copies to the local animal shelters for the cats
who can’t afford to buy their own.) I would have been happy with that kind of
success, after all, I’m really just a
stay-at-home mother, using nap-times and evenings to write the kind of novel I
love to read. I neither look nor dress like a celebrity.
But then an incredible thing happened.
The Nobel Mommy Prize committee got a hold of I’ll Take What She Has, which,
ostensibly about envy and friendship, is actually quite a lot about mothering
in the modern world. Within weeks I had a nomination in hand. “What we love
about this book comes out in its accomplished use of mom-speak that has the
veritable ability to conquer global world problems through the sheer force of
comic domestic humor unparalleled in the world of fiction from which it comes
with life and liberty for all.”
Wow! I don’t even know what that means,
that’s how important it is. By now, predictably, my sales have gone through the
roof which gave us enough money to repair the roof the books broke and to reseed our lawn so we can finally be the people with the greenest
grass on our block.
You know, I wrote a book about envy
among women friends; now everyone envies me. They say, “Sam, you have, like,
three hundred likes on Facebook! How did you do it?” Or they say, “Your book
was so amazing I reached Nirvana while I read it.” Some of them say, “My cat
cried when she read the part about the dog in I’ll Take What She Has.” One
stranger even told me that the book made him reconcile with his parents after a
thirty year estrangement because he finally could understand why his mother
acted the way she did.
You know what I say? I say, thank you
for making me so rich and famous. When the Zoo-Keepers Production Studio bought
the rights to the book and told me they plan to make it into a movie with an
all endangered species cast, I thought, you
and me Mother Theresa, changing the world, one creature at a time. When
Oprah called and asked to borrow my wardrobe for her next photo shoot (for the
cover of her magazine, of course), I said: “I’ll let you borrow my shoes, too!”
When the President called to congratulate me, I said, “Did you even read the
book, dude? Because it sounds like someone else wrote this conversation for
you, like a speech writer or something? How about a quick quiz, who did Nora
envy?”
A writer’s life can be a lonely and
anti-climactic place. You spend years working on a novel and it comes out and
no one sets off fireworks. People just keep going to work like nothing has
changed! I’m so glad I have lived through this incredible moment in time and
seen the cataclysmic effects of my novel. NASA called and let me know that the
sales figures rocketed so high they hit Pluto and turned it back into a planet.
Please don’t think I’ve let any of this
go to my head. I’m still an ordinary mother or at least that’s what my five new
nannies tell me when I ask them “How do I look?” You’re welcome to buy my new
novel, but keep in mind it could set off a meteor shower or bring about
permanent world peace. If you do, know how much I love you, that I am always
thinking of you, and that when I win my next prize (because I’m up for the Mama
Pulitzer), I will give you all the credit that I don’t give myself.
Samantha
Wilde hopes you have a very playful April Fool’s Day! She is the author of I’ll Take What She Has
and This Little
Mommy Stayed Home. See the new novel’s book
trailer here.
The at-home mother of three small
children, she is a yoga teacher, an ordained minister, and the daughter of the
really bestselling novelist, Nancy Thayer. Please like her on Facebook, visit her mothering blog, check out her website, or join her on twitter @whatshehas.
The Mafia comes to Miracle, Wisconsin...
