Remember when I was blogging every day and this beautiful creature left the most amazing comments on the suck of life, the agony of writing, the sporn of love and then just us chickens traded missives about calories and other counts. Well GIVE IT UP FOR Shanna Mahin who has crossed over into the even purer agony of being a published author with her first novel, Oh You Pretty Things. Only look at our girl all Elvis Costello meets Michelle Williams with that super sexy smart look. I couldn’t be happier for you Shanna. Congrats. Yes, I’d love a comp. Hello??
And now, a little Q&A with the AUTHOR:
How old were you when you started writing.
I can’t remember when I started writing. I really can’t. I also can’t remember a single birthday party from my childhood (surely I had at least one?), half the men I slept with in my twenties, or the last thing I said to my father before he died. I can, however, remember when I started reading fluently–I was four–and my mother unceremoniously informed me that I could take it from here and that was the end of my bedtime stories.
Describe your first rejection.
In the fourth grade, Richard Lang passed me a note in class asking me to be his girlfriend. I demurely accepted and–poof!–we were a couple, which consisted of me wearing his royal blue cardigan for two days on the playground at lunch and one stilted conversation arranging a visit to my house that Saturday. I bought Boston Baked Beans candy (trust me, it was a thing) for us to share and waited in our living room, wearing his sweater and opening the door every 5 minutes to scan the street for his arrival.Three hours later, my mother told me that he was an asshole and we went to Bob Burns’ for drinks (Manhattan for her; Shirley Temple for me). On Monday, I searched for him on the playground before class and he finally rode in on the back of another boy’s bike, facing backward so he could only see where he’d been, not where he was going. As he passed, he flipped me off with a smirk, then his chauffeur looped in a wide circle around me so he could bellow at the top of his lungs that he wanted his sweater back. Fucker.
What drugs are you on?
Levothyroxine, Klonopin, Cheetos, Viibryd, red wine, resentments.
Who did you blow to get published?
I used up all my extraneous blow jobs trying to make boys love me in high school. (Absentee dad issues.) Post-therapy, I only blow for love and/or enjoyment, which, for the past 15 years has been directed at my husband. My agent, editor, and publicists are all women, so we just blow each other’s minds, have naked pillow fights, and drink champagne from our shoes.
What did you buy with your advance?
I haven’t spent it on anything except taxes, publicity, and other book-related expenses. I keep telling myself I deserve a reward, but I’m not sure I need one for finally doing what I’ve been trying to do for a decade, plus I’m afflicted with a certain miserliness for myself I do not have with others. Well, and there has been some great champagne for the milestones.(Amirite, ladies?)
Have you slept with any famous writers? If not who would be on your list.
Assuming there aren’t any I don’t remember from my aforementioned twenties, no. Ugh, writers. If I fuck one, will it leave when we’re done, or will we have to have writing pillow talk after? Because if it’s the latter, I’m out.
What do you most want readers to say about your book?
I love this book so much I’m going to buy a dozen and give them to all my friends.
- I laughed; I cried; it was better than Cats.
- Shit, I missed my stop.
- I hear you. I see you.
- ALL OF THE ABOVE.
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It has been a glorious couple of weeks for my writers. Kate Marvin received a Guggenheim for her poetry, Bettyville on the bestseller list for three weeks, a full page rave in the NYT for Alice Dreger’s Galileo’s Middle Finger, Cynthia Ozick blurbs Eli Gottlieb’s novel Best Boy, David Orr’s history of the Road Less Traveled gets a rave in Kirkus. As my mother sometimes says, I need a new cup because my cup runneth over.
Betsy Lerner 