Jennifer Brown

Beep! Beep! Blog tour bus coming through! And today I'm slinging questions at Erin Dionne, author of THE TOTAL TRAGEDY OF A GIRL NAMED HAMLET.

Just happens, this book was one of the first books I read for my 100 Books for 2010 reading goal, and I loved it! (Not a surprise -- I also loved Erin's first book, MODELS DON'T EAT CHOCOLATE COOKIES, too) (Also not a surprise, because I kinda totally love The Bard myself).

But I won't try to tell you about the book, because I think Erin herself can do a much better job of it:

About THE TOTAL TRAGEDY OF A GIRL NAMED HAMLET

Hamlet Kennedy just wants to be your average, happy, vanilla eighth grader. But with Shakespearean scholar parents who dress in Elizabethan regalia and generally go about in public as if it were the sixteenth century, that's not terribly easy. It gets worse when they decide that Hamlet's genius sevenyear- old sister will attend middle school with her-- and even worse when the Shakespeare project is announced and her sister is named the new math tutor. By the time an in-class recitation reveals that our heroine is an extraordinary Shakespearean actress, Hamlet can no longer hide from the fact that she--like her family--is anything but average.

3 Qs for Erin Dionne:

1) What non-writing activity most inspires you to write?

Driving. I always get ideas when I'm in the car, and it's so frustrating!! I want to race home and jot everything down. Alas, I usually end up standing in the grocery store aisles, trying to remember what I am supposed to be purchasing and muttering to myself about some character or another...

2) Do you keep your rejection letters? If so, what do you do with them?

I do keep my rejections. Some are stuffed in an ancient issue of Writer's Market; some are in a file folder in a cabinet. I use them when I give school presentations.

3) What was the moment where it really sank in that you are officially "an author"?

I still don't feel like "an author"--I envision authors feeling a lot more confident about their work than I do-- but when I received my box of ARCS for MODELS, I opened it up, saw my name on the cover, and just started crying. I couldn't believe that I was seeing MY BOOK. It was incredible.

About Erin Dionne:

Erin Dionne’s debut novel, Models Don’t Eat Chocolate Cookies, was inspired by events that occurred in seventh grade, when she wore a scary peach bridesmaid dress in her cousin’s wedding and threw up on her gym teacher’s shoes (not at the same event). Although humiliating at the time, these experiences are working for her now. Erin lives outside of Boston with her husband and daughter, and a very insistent dog named Grafton. She roots for the Red Sox, teaches English at an art college, and sometimes eats chocolate cookies.

Visit Erin at her website: www.ErinDionne.com

Click here to purchase a copy of THE TOTAL TRAGEDY OF A GIRL NAMED HAMLET.

Thanks, Erin, for stopping by! Good luck with your book!