Deedee Divine’s Totally Skewed Guide to Life is my second book of humorous essays. I like to think the book has earned the “Divine” part of its title—as in Divine Intervention—but I’ll share more about that in a minute. Deedee is the nickname my oldest granddaughter gave me when she was a toddler. I added the “Divine” part. And then the character became my alter ego and sort of took on a life of her own. She made several appearances on Youtube. The next thing I knew, she was hijacking my columns. So I just got out of her way and let her have the book title too. For several years I wrote a monthly humor newsletter. But thanks to all the new improved spam filters, many subscribers were unable to retrieve their copies. Eventually, I switched from writing the newsletter to maintaining a blog. There I receive many comments each day. Unfortunately, a number of them are from someone named “Cheap Viagra.” Some suggested that I should wait for a better economic climate before releasing my new book. But after much contemplation, I realized that it’s during difficult times that people most need the healing power of laughter. Humor…
My debut novel, OFF THE MENU, hits bookshelves on August 5th, and recently, a lot of people have been asking me how I went about getting published. The short answer? By keeping my chin — and optimism — up even though I was receiving stacks of rejections every day. The long answer takes me back to a Facebook question I answered for my profile, which called for my most embarrassing moment. Unfortunately, my life is riddled with heinously embarrassing moments, and one of them occurred at a writers conference I attended in the mountains of California, where I met my agent. I’d been invited to an industry cocktail party out of the graciousness of one of the conference’s board members, and being an unpublished writer who was desperate to make a good impression, I researched the guest list, which included dozens of publishers and agents. This was my chance to wow them, I thought. And maybe snag an agent. So, I perfected my pitch. Practiced my smile. Wore a cute outfit. As ready as I’d ever be, I showed up at the party, determined and excited. And it would have been a great party had I managed to stay upright…