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My next book, and how it came about. Take a look-see! @FeiwelFriends
https://t.co/J5Zoqzv8b6 https://t.co/MeqLoEDeut
June 21
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So, I wrote a book on accident.
Here’s how that happened...
I’m the youngest of eight kids and, no, it wasn’t a Brady Bunch deal where two reasonably sized families were joined by marriage. Rather, all eight of us were born to the same mom and dad, one right after the other, and we all grew up together under the same roof, usually stacked on top of each other in bunk beds.
It was like being born onto a football team. There was a lot of shouting and running around. We were a tide of humanity that swept across public places like thundering linebackers. We caused a lot of damage, incurred many injuries, and accumulated a lot of stories, which we still retell to make each other laugh.
Then, after fifty some odd years of withstanding my family, the house we grew up in burned down. Totally on accident, which was the weird part, considering I had nearly burnt the house down three different times that I can recall.
When my sister Martha called to tell me—first and most importantly—that everyone was fine, no one was injured in any way, but everything from our childhoods was lost, we both started laughing. She texted me pictures of the smoldering ruins, and to this day they make me giggle.
Unfortunately, this phone call with my sister Martha happened just minutes before a conference call with my editor and my agent. I had to explain to my agent and my editor that I was only partially prepared for the call because the house I grew up in had just burned to the ground. I really tried to say it with a straight face, but I couldn’t. I burst out laughing.
Naturally, they had some questions.
I told them that if they knew my family, they’d know that the house had survived far longer than it had any right to. And burning the house down is just so Angelini. It was bound to happen someday.
That’s when they both told me I needed to write about my family. For years now my husband has been telling me the same thing, and he’s usually right about stuff like this. So I said okay.
I started writing down anecdotes. I went for the old classics, the one’s my family had memorized. I had a blast writing it all down, laughing myself to tears. But when I read it back, it didn’t make any sense. It was a mess. I realized I couldn’t tell the funny bits without telling all of it. And the more I wrote, the more of those funny anecdotes I removed.
Memoirs are not my thing, apparently. But fiction is. I came up with a story, I added some characters and took others away. I never intended to write this book, and yet somehow, without meaning to, I ended up with Snow Lane.
SNOW LANE is a work a fiction. It didn’t happen this way. But it’s all true. This is the most honest book I’ve ever written, not because the plot is a faithful recounting of my childhood. But because if you read it you’ll understand why my sisters and I can laugh at tragedy.
The book comes out January 2nd, and I am so excited for you all to read it!
You can pre-order your copy here. http://amzn.to/2sqpVXc
P.S. For those of you who can’t wait that long…. I just received some ARCs. :)
Feiwel and Friends
June 21
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Where’d I Go?
Hello again! It’s been years since I posted. Literally. I was never very good at posting to begin with. Managing a social media profile is more than a skill. It’s a talent. There are some people who have it, and then there’s me.
It’s not that I don’t like writing. I write nearly every day. I just usually prefer writing about the imaginary people I’ve created in my head than about myself.
See, I just don’t have that much to write about. I rarely have life-altering realizations. I don’t have the ability to paint crazy cool designs on my fingernails, I’m not fussed enough to dye my hair unicorn colors, and I almost never have good advice. In fact, if I ever give you advice, probably don’t take it. Every good thing that’s ever happened to me has happened pretty much on accident after I made about a million terrible choices—as if the universe saw what a mess I was making of my life and decided to throw me a bone.
But, seeing as how you all took the time to sign up for this, you deserve to know what I’ve been up to. The long and short of it is I had a baby. And nearly three years of my life just flew out the window.
I suspect there are more than a few new moms out there, stealing five minutes for themselves to read this post, who are glancing up at the title and wondering where they went, too. It just happens when you have a baby. You check out of the “You” motel, with it’s crisp sheets and whenever wake up time, and willingly subjugate yourself to something like the army, but way harder. Drill sergeants have nothing on colicky babies when it comes to yelling.
Then they stop being babies and turn into toddlers, and you really can’t take your eyes off them for a second or they’ll be chewing on electrical wires or licking the bottoms of their shoes. You say the craziest things when you have a toddler—things you’d never think you’d have to say to another human being. Like, Please don’t stick your finger in the cat’s butt. He doesn’t like it. Or, No, your diaper is not a nest. Do not put scrambled eggs in there.
Toddlers. The only thing that separates them from the clinically insane is age.
And then, suddenly, they become little girls. They choose their own outfits and use the bathroom by themselves and they start saying please and thank you and I love you, mommy. And your heart breaks into a million pieces.
There’s no checking back into the “You” motel. Momming is a life-long gig, and I hear it gets way harder from here on out. But there’s finally more time and there’s more room for me.
So that’s where I’ve been. And I’m back. Hello again.
And stick around because I have two important announcements coming up. 😸
June 19
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Josephine Angelini shared Bookstr's photo.
June 13
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Josephine Angelini shared Bookstr's photo.
May 31
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I literally thought for 2 days that the #wonderwoman "think thin" marketing was a sick joke. I am so saddened it wasn't.
May 16
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A little humor to get us through the day.
#magic
May 10
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Blade Runner has been one of my favorite movies since I first saw it in the 80's. I'm terrified the reboot will let me down.
May 9
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Josephine Angelini with Amy Plum.
May 1
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In only 4 easy steps!!
April 17
