Although I haven’t read either of Erin Dionne’s books (but totally want to!), I am impressed by her mad titling skills. I mean, Models Don’t Eat Chocolate Cookies and The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet? Those are some truly excellent titles.

I’m sorta jealous, Erin. Of the titles, and the excellent blurb you got from Lauren Myracle. I loves me some Ms. Myracle.

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.

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.

Advice from Erin Dionne

What’s one of the best pieces of advice you’ve ever received?

Do what you love, the money will follow. SO TRUE!! If you devote yourself to your passion, everything works out okay.

What’s one of the worst pieces of advice you’ve ever received?

To play it safe. I firmly believe that taking risks are the only ways we can grow.

What advice would you give to your sixteen-year-old self, knowing all that you know now?

Enjoy who you are right now and wear a bikini! You look great!!! Any crappy stuff you’re experiencing now won’t matter in two months, let alone two years from now.

Sophomore year of high school, I received three pieces of green clothing from Santa: leggings, an oversize turtleneck, and a long, off-the-shoulder sweater. I loved them all and wore them often. I eventually found out through the grapevine that a boy who didn’t like me was keeping track of how often I wore each piece.

Have I mentioned that I’m from a small town where there was very little to do?

I think that proves it.

Things I Just Don’t Get

1. Stilettos. I guess they’re supposed to be sexy, but I find it impossible to feel hot when my feet are in a vice grip.

2. Football. I’ve tried, really I have, but all I understand about the game is that one team scores when the football reaches the end zone.

3. Tricked-out cars. If that fart box, spoiler, and those ground effects are some expensive attempt to lure the opposite sex, sorry, dude, but they didn’t work on me. I only noticed them after my husband did.

4. The popularity of Starbucks. There is much better coffee to be had. And yes, I’m a snob.

5. Sloppy joes. Their appeal completely escapes me. I love a good burger, though.

6. Facebook friend requests from people who openly despised me in high school. After I finish scratching my head, I usually say yes, though. Why hold a grudge?

7. Elmo and Barney. Maybe if they’d been around when I was four, it would all make more sense.

8. Young, beautiful women dating old, crusty men. I’ve been seeing these couples everywhere lately, and I don’t care how much money those dudes have or how amazing their personalities are. Yuck.

9. Def Leppard. Worst. Band. Ever.

10. Casinos. I’ve only been in a few, and they depressed the heck out of me. I just wanted to shout, “The house always wins, fools! Go home and save those nickels for your grandkids’ college tuition!”

I’m participating in a blog tour with a bunch of cool authors, so for the next several months, my Writer Wednesday feature will be replaced with interviews from authors who made their writing debut last year and have a second novel coming out this year. Impressive no?

I’ve asked all the authors to relay the best and worst pieces of advice they’ve ever heard, creating a sort of advice column for all y’all. I can’t wait to see what little nuggets of wisdom everyone passes on.

First up is Shani Petroff, whose debut novel, Bedeviled: Daddy’s Little Angel, came out last August. The sequel, Bedeviled: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Dress, has been on the shelves since January. Rabid Bedeviled fans will be delighted to know that a third installment, Careful What You Wish For, is due out in June, and I’ll be featuring it later in the summer. Thanks for stopping by my blog on your tour, Shani!

About Bedeviled: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly Dress

Angel Garrett knows two things for sure. The first is that she inherited her devil-dad’s powers. The second is that she wreaks havoc whenever she tries to use them. Especially  when she’s trying to impress her crush, Cole. Angel’s only solution is to stay as far away as possible from him until she learns how to harness this new gift. But how do you avoid someone and get him to ask you to the school dance at the same time?

About Shani Petroff

Shani Petroff is a writer living in New York City. In addition to tween and teen books, Shani writes for news programs and several other venues. When she’s not locked in her apartment typing away, she spends a whole lot of time on books, boys, TV, daydreaming, and shopping online. She has no devil lineage as far as she knows.

Advice from Shani Petroff

What’s one of the best pieces of advice you’ve ever received?

If you’re going to pursue your dream then pursue it—if you’re not then get a decent paying job. For a while I only talked about going after my dreams. I didn’t actually do it. However, I didn’t want to get a “real” job either… because I didn’t want it to stand in the way of my creative pursuits (which I wasn’t really pursuing—it was a pretty bad circle). So I would temp, wait tables, but nothing that interested me. Finally, my dad told me it’s great if I want to follow my dreams, but then I needed to really follow them. Not just talk about it. And if not, then he told me I should put my degree to use—get a job that would lead to a career—one where I wasn’t always struggling to make ends meet. I ended up doing both—following my dreams and getting a cool job while I went after them. (FYI, that cool job paid horribly for the first few years, but I knew I had the potential to move up the ladder, and it was in an industry that always fascinated me).

What’s one of the worst pieces of advice you’ve ever received?

Back when I was in fifth grade or so, I went to get my hair cut. I only wanted a trim. My mother thought that I should do something different. She suggested I get bangs. Big mistake. The woman started them from the middle of my scalp. Half of my hair was turned into bangs. To make matters worse, my hair was thick and wavy—so the bangs sprouted out in every direction imaginable. It took forever to style them the way I wanted—and even then they didn’t look right. It took me years to grow them out fully. (I actually like bangs—just not the ones the woman gave me.)

What advice would you give to your sixteen-year-old self, knowing all that you know now?

Follow your dreams. Don’t let anyone stand in your way. Oh, and a few years down the line when you see a guy that’s completely your type named, well, let’s call him Mr. X (I’ll fill you in later to keep his name off of the internet) and you make eye contact across a crowded room and he moves toward you just like in all the best romance movies—run the other direction. You can do much, much better. Don’t let him or anyone ever make you feel like you aren’t good enough. (Although he did make for some amusing stories down the line—so, maybe it wasn’t all bad. Live and learn).

I entered junior high in 1988, a particularly unfortunate year for fashion and hairstyles (or one of the best, depending on your point of view). I followed a few of the trends. I had acid-washed jeans and a spiral perm. But since I wasn’t one of the cool kids and knew that my attempts to climb the social ladder would only lead to a world of pain, I didn’t have as much of a stake in some of the more extreme looks that were popular at the time. I never, for example, sported the claw, a.k.a. mall bangs.

Looking at what could have been fills me with deep regret.

I’ve been amused to see the comeback of skinny jeans since they were all the rage in the late eighties. The main difference now is that, thanks to stretch denim, the jeans of the today don’t require the wearer to do anything extra to make them skin-tight. I had several pairs of jeans in junior high with zippers at the ankles, and that was good enough for me. A lot of kids, however, resorted to safety-pinning the cuffs of their pants to get them as tight as possible. They stashed extra pins in their lockers, and some people even sold them for a small profit.

I actually got made fun of for not pinning my pants or ratting my bangs. Even back then, amidst all that bad fashion, I knew that this was messed up and wrong.

Tera Lynn Childs, awesome author of Oh. My. Gods. and Goddess Boot Camp, is holding an Olympics-themed contest. I donated a copy of TMI, which is part of a prize pack with Tera’s two books. How could you go wrong? Check out her latest blog entry for details on how to win. If you scroll down, you’ll see that there are more giveaways, and all contests run through the end of the Olympics (February 28).

For all you aspiring authors out there, I’d like to direct your attention to an outstanding web site strung with many pearls of writing and publishing wisdom. It’s called Kidlit.com and is powered by the fabulous Mary Kole, a writer and literary agent at Andrea Brown, one of the best agencies in the country.

While Mary’s interest and focus is on publications for younger readers, much of her advice is useful for anyone trying to get published. She answers questions from writers about how to submit their work to agents, how to deal with rejection, and why the wheels of the publishing industry turn in such creaky, funky ways. She did a series of posts a couple of months back about revision (so, so important) and is always stressing the importance of patience, a must-have trait for anyone dealing with the publishing world. It takes patience to craft and complete a great story, even more patience to polish it umpteen million times, and yet more patience to wait and see if agents and editors are interested. And if they are (oh happy day!), there will be yet more waiting to see your labor of love hit the shelves.

Axl Rose was totally right about that patience thing.

I regularly get questions from people about how to get a book published, and I’ve started directing everyone to this site. I’ve learned a ton from Mary, and if you’re interested in getting published, you will, too.

My Celebrity Crushes, in chronological order

1. Michael Jackson: It was the moonwalking.

2-3. Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix: Is this photo not man-tastic?

4. Matt Damon: Ooh, he was so cute in School Ties.

5. Kate Winslet: I’m not afraid to admit to a girl crush. Can ya blame me?

6. Christian Bale: I’m all over the sit-ups scene in American Psycho.

7. Orlando Bloom: Is he still getting work? He should be, with those cheekbones.

8. Dave Navarro: He carries off the eyeliner so well.

9. Jack White: No offense, Jack, but it’s more about your voice and your guitar playing.

10. Robert Plant: I’m on a huge Led Zeppelin kick right now. The hair is almost as good as the voice.

Notice the trend toward musicians? What can I say–I’m a sucka for boys who sing, dance, and play the guitar.

I was an alto in the junior high choir. One day, for my own amusement, I passed around a note that said, “Look at the footprints on the ceiling.”

They all totally fell for it.

Ag. I got the flu (on my little girl’s second birthday, no less), which really threw me off my groove. I’ve noticed this happens to me every few months, right when I feel like I’m finally getting organized. I’m exercising regularly. Cooking tasty, nutritious dinners and freezing the leftovers. Writing thank-you notes in a timely fashion. Cleaning out my closets and hauling bags to the Goodwill. Catching up on email. Preparing for world domination.

And then…I get sick.

Chaos ensues for a week or two, and after I peek out from under the covers and survey the rubble, I realize I’m pretty much right back where I started.

Okay, not entirely. I mean, it normally takes more than two weeks for my closets to become pits of disaster.

The exercise thing really frosts my cookies. It’s so hard to get back into a good routine after being sick. I don’t want to push myself too hard, yet the longer I wait to do my yoga, the softer I get and the harder it’ll be when I finally do it again.

I know, wah, wah, wah. There are far more serious problems I could have. I know that. At the same time, I have a right to be annoyed, don’t I?

I don’t have time to be sick.