Thursday, January 29, 2009

Awesome Authors: Amanda Marrone

Amanda Marrone grew up on Long Island and now lives in Connecticut with her family and talking dog Griffin. You can learn more about her and hear Griffin say “hello” here: www.amandamarrone.com.

Blogs are a central part of the Bradford Novels universe. If you have a blog, why did you start blogging, and how did you come up with the name for your blog? I started blogging after taking an online YA writer’s class that used LiveJournal as its virtual classroom. The instructor, author Lauren Barhnholdt, was a big blogger and I found a lot of other writers there. We were all sharing our writing journeys and successes as well as pictures of our kids and pets. I came up with my blog name after watching a really cheesy reality show called The Surreal Life. Being a mom and wife can be a bit unreal sometimes, so I came up with The Surreal Wife.

What's your favorite thing about blogging?
Meeting other writers and hearing from people who’ve read my books. It also gives me a great place to brag about my dog, Griffin, oh, and sometimes my kids, too.

What's the difference between a blog and a diary? A blog is a place to put yourself out there for the world to see, and a diary is a place to reflect on things privately. I’ve only kept one diary that was used as a sounding board when I had just turned seventeen and spent eight weeks in France as an au pair. I still have it and rereading it makes me cringe! I was horribly homesick, and it’s filled with all sorts of moaning about missing my boyfriend back in the states, doodles, song lyrics, and endless pages about how I was going to be a changed person when I got home. Yeah, that didn’t happen.

Spencer Grace Kelly, the main character in GoldenGirl, is named after her distant relative, the Princess of Monaco. What’s your favorite Grace Kelly movie, and why? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this, but I loved High Society. I’m a huge musical fan, and Grace Kelly is just stunning in this one. I loved the telling moment when her finance gushes about putting her on a pedestal and you can see the wind being sucked out of her, because she she’s looking for an equal partner not an admirer.

GoldenGirl is full of scandals and exposed secrets. What was the biggest scandal at your high school? Did your classmates discover any of your deep, dark secrets?
There was one deep, dark secret that luckily only a few people found out about, but I sure wish no one had!

What are your most recent books? What new projects are you working on now? My most recent books are Uninvited and Revealers. Right now I’m working on a middle grade series about a twelve year old girl working in a magic repair shop, and I have two new young adult ideas I’m playing around with.

7 comments:

  1. Amanda, Griffin is AMAZING. I love the fact he can say words and sing.

    Thanks for stopping by!

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  2. Okay, so I can barely housetrain my dog, and yours TALKS? What the ef?

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  3. Thanks for having me! I have to say Griffin was an AWFUL puppy. He nipped and bit nonstop. We'd rub his tummy and he'd be straining his neck to bite us. It still floors me when I meet new puppies and I can hold them and they don't try to bite. I assumed all puppies where nonstop nippers.

    That said, it was easy to teach him to talk. We thought the sound he made when he yawned was really cute so we'd praise him and give him treats and called it 'singing'. Then my daughter suggested we teach him to say hello. I said, "Sure" thinking it would never work, but five minutes later he said his first hello. He'll do just about anyting for treats. When I showed the breeder his youtube video she said his dad is very vocal.

    Amanda

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  4. Amanda,
    I just checked out your website and the books look great! Also great are the Griffin videos, love the singing :)

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  5. Do they still do pet tricks on Letterman?

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  6. That is so cool that Amanda started blogging for a class. Me too! Although I deleted all my old posts and turned mine into a YA book blog.

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  7. Yeah, and while I'm not necessarily about shilling for the competition, I happen to know that Lauren Barnholt is great!

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