A Visit with Samantha Wilde

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.