Jenny’s back! Funny girl and author Jenny Gardiner pays us a visit with her usual snark intact to talk life and WINGING IT, in stores now. We’ve also posted a video so you can get to know the star of the book. I was blown away how well Gracycie can imitate her housemates’ voices.

If Oprah invited you on her show to talk about your book, what would the theme of that show be?

Um, how about What Took You So Long??? Actually I think I’d be so overwhelmed with undying gratitude I’d have to bring along a carload of food treats because I know Oprah would appreciate some homemade banana cream pie, maybe some amazing pound cake, I make a kick-ass pumpkin bread, too. The theme would be about plying people with food to please them…

What was the most fun scene in your book to write? The most difficult?

I enjoyed writing the scenes about crazy things Graycie has done–and she’s done plenty. Like when she’d snuck off the cage and I was trying to get her back onto it and using a broom to sort of “direct” her and she kept biting the broom and my ankles while repeating (in my voice) “Hello, Gray chicken!” (a little term of endearment I have for her).

The most difficult had to do with things that happened along the way. In my mind this was a story about Graycie but her life and ours are inexplicably tied together, so it became a memoir of my family as well. And it’s tricky writing about family without invading their privacy, so that was hard for me to strike a balance. And hard to revisit some of the tough things we’ve dealt with over the years.

Do you have a muse, good luck charm, writing vice?

Peanut M&Ms used to be my writing vice, but then I gave them up last year for Lent. Somewhere along the line, Mint M&Ms became my writing vice this year, but I gave them up for Lent. Today, it seems that Thin Mints are my writing vice. Are you beginning to see a pattern here? (I should definitely write at coffee shops, rather than at my desk right in the kitchen!)

What do you write on (type of computer, or notebook, etc.) and where do you write?

I have a MacBook and I usually write at home. My desk is basically in the kitchen (see above, bad food crutches) and in the main thoroughfare of the house, so it forces me to focus with external forces (i.e. kids, dogs, cat, parrot) are causing disruption, which is often. I love to work at coffee shops and when I really have to crunch on deadlines, I do that, though. But I feel guilty leaving the pets home alone all day so don’t do that regularly.

Have you had a “rock star” moment regarding your writing career? If so, what was it?

Well, maybe a peripheral one. I had the wonderful fortune of having Winging It be selected as a Pulpwood Queen’s book club book for this year, and that meant attending their awesomely fabulous Girlfriends Weekend in January in Jefferson, TX. The keynote speaker was an author whose writing I revere, and I thought at best I’d get a glimpse of him. But instead I got to join the other 30-odd writers who spent the weekend in the company of Pat Conroy, who is one of the most talented authors alive today, in my opinion. He was charming, gracious and thoughtful, he regaled us and the Pulpwood Queens with fascinating tales of his life as a writer and just funny personal anecdotes, and he even made a point of purchasing and having signed books from each author there. How cool was that?

What do you do to celebrate your writing successes?

Well, I’m never opposed to a nice bottle of champagne…And a lovely dinner out.

Describe your personality with five adjectives that would make your 5th grade English teacher proud.

Dogmatic, committed, persevering, jovial, reliable

http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Jenny-Gardiner/64294275

“As sweet as a song and sharp as a beak, Winging It really soars as a memoir about family–children and husbands, feathers and fur–and our capacity to keep loving though life may occasionally bite.”
–Wade Rouse, bestselling author of At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream, and Confessions of a Prep School Mommy Handler

“Jenny Gardiner’s hilarious memoir will have you alternately laughing and crying, and watching the skies for winged pets out for your blood.”
–Kristy Kiernan, Award-winning author of Catching Genius

“With her right-on humor, Jenny Gardiner manages to make owning a vengeful parrot sound like fun! You don’t even have to like pets to like this book.”
–Eve Brown-Waite
Author of FIRST COMES LOVE, THEN COMES MALARIA

“This funny, smart book is much more than a story about life with a challenging parrot. Jenny Gardiner writes with humor and grace about the challenges and joys and stresses of parenthood, too. I loved it.”
–Sarah Pekkanen
author of The Opposite of Me

To get the book, click on the book’s cover in the sidebar.