On hot flashes

JAN: Most women don't think hot flashes are very funny, but Paula Munier does.

An acquisitions editor at Adams Media by day and writer by night, Paula coauthored a new humor book, Hot Flash Haiku, with Jennifer Basye Sander. And she's here with us today to share some of her wit and wisdom in perfect haiku form: (five, seven, five syllables).

Age Inappropriate

Is Just another way to

Keep This Old Broad Down

JAN: (laughing) How did you come up with the idea for this book?

PAULA: Jennifer came up to me at BEA (Book Expo America) and said, I have this idea. I want you to write it with me. It was such a funny idea, hot flash humor in seventeen syllables. I knew we'd have a great time writing it, we just needed to come up with an organizing principle.

JAN: Which was......???

PAULA: In some ways, as you age you are grieving your loss of some things. So we organized it according to the stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. In the denial category...

If I could turn back

Time, I'd look just like Cher

Before surgery.

JAN: How did you go about writing these and how long did it take?

PAULA: We split them up. There are about 250 poems in the book. I tried to write the more funny ones, Jennifer wrote the more profound ones and we had some contributors. A lot of red wine and chocolate was consumed to put us in the mood. It took about six months

In the anger category,

A cruel magic act

Gravity Tugs, I go from

Woman to Shar Pei.

and

Whenever someone

my age gets a face lift

It pisses me off.

JAN: Was it hard to master the haiku form?

PAULA. Once you get into the groove, the trick becomes how to make them all different. To write 250 of anything without repeating yourself is a challenge. Jennifer and I brought different perspectives. I'm older than Jennifer and a grandmother. She was married once and is still married. I've been married and now I'm dating.

In the bargaining category:

If Men Think about Sex

Every seven seconds

Why can't we get laid?

JAN: So are you thinking haiku now on every date?

PAULA: Not really, but it's a little like writing a country western song, you are always thinking in a narrative. And how to make so few words tell a story.

In the depression category:

Once I was hot

But now hotter than ever

Many times a day.

JAN: Right off the top of my head, I can think of three or four women I want to buy this book for. What has the reception been like?

PAULA: People everywhere love this book. The copy editor loved the book. The people at Penn Station Borders couldn't wait to tell us how much they loved this book. It resonates with people. You've heard that women over a certain age become invisible? Well, women of my generation are not going to settle for invisible. This book celebrates that. We're not doing that. We didn't anything the way our parents did and this either.

In the acceptance category....

Men Over 50

May need viagra

So drug him.

Paula Munier is also the author of Yes, We Can, 365 Ways to Make America a Better Place, On Being Blonde and the young adult novel, Emerald's Desire. She is the co-author of 101 Things You (and John McCain) Didn't Know about Sarah Palin.

Jennifer Basye Sander is the author of The Sacramento Women's Pages, as well as the author, coauthor and ghostwriter of more than thirty books including the recent gift book hits Wear More Cashmere and The Martini Diet.

ON FAVORITES

One’s favorite book is as elusive as one’s favorite pudding.
***E. M. Forster “In My Library” pt. II (1949)

HANK:
There's a discussion going on elsewhere--what's your favorite book? it's asking. And interestingly, although mystery writers/readers could all talk for hours about books we adore, and are thankful to have read, my favorite of all favorites was a winner by a mile. So I typed it in, and said, anyone else love this? I'd love to know. Days went by, and I didn't hear a 'Me, too' from anyone.


There were Jane Eyres (of course) and a lot of To Kill a Mockingbirds (who doesn't love that?) and a Shogun or two. And many more, of course. But I started wondering, if my favorite book is no one else's favorite book, why is that? And then, days later, a reply came in...Carol Shmurak of Connecticut says, she was just about to type in the same book. And I felt--let's have dinner! I just know I'll like her. The book is Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin. And if any of you have read it....


HALLIE:
And doesn't it feel like a betrayal when a best friend hates a book you loved-loved-loved and recommended? I recommended one of my favorite books from last year, Joseph Wambaugh's Hollywood Station to several good friends and their response was tepid.


HANK:
Well, you gave it to my darling husband for his birthday, and he's loving loving living it, I must say. So there's at least one soulmate. But yes, you offer a wonderful book, like a treasure you've discovered and want to share, and part of the fun is sharing the experience, right? Like in a book club. But then they look at you like, thanks but no thanks.


When it was my turn for book group, I chose Custom of the Country, my favorite of my favorite Edith Wharton. I went to the meeting, eager to share in a true reading delight. Instead I was hooted and booed. (Not really, but some of the group thought it was boruing and stilted.) The other half thought--as I do--it was innovative and thought-provoking and revealing and marvelous.


RO:
I've been in a reading group for over a year and a few months ago, I finally got to choose a book. I chose The Egyptologist, which I thought was clever, fun, smart, engaging, and original. Not my favorite book of all time, but a good read, as they say. People didn't get it, some hated it. I sat there and felt like I was from Mars. One of my favorite writers is Robert Hellenga (Sixteen Pleasures, Fall of a Sparrow.) And no one's ever heard of him. I keep waiting to mention his name and have someone say "Omigod, you like him,too!"


JAN:
Everybody brings their own life to a book. Also the mood of the moment. When I was in my late teens I went on an F. Scott Fitzgerald rampage, reading and adoring every single one of his books.

Now I'm reading The Great Gatsby for a second time. Clearly the revered author's most highly regarded book, and a story that intrigued me the first time around. You know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking, geez Scott, this sentence construction is a little pretentious. And man, you could never get away with this melodrama today. In short, now that I've gone through my jazz-age fascination, I have less patience. But other favorites -- and less revered works -- that I've reread have only gotten better as a repeat. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry for one. I could read that book once a year and still enjoy it. And yet one of my very best friends, a writing buddy, couldn't stand it. It's all just all so personal...



HANK:
Yes, going back is always interesting. Maybe it means there's a favoirte for each time of your life. (I read Look Homeward Angel about 6 times.) It means something to you then, lasting, sometimes, but sometimes ephemeral. I had a lavender hot pants suit once, I loved it. It was my favorite. (I will pause now, for the general hilarity.) And when I think about it in that time--I still love it. (I will join in, now, with the general hilarity.)



BREAKING NEWS. (Hank couldn't resist.) Just to remind you all that the pub date for my first novel, PRIME TIME is Tuesday June 12! Reviewers say "it's a perfect comimbination of mystery and romance." Here's a fun photo of some of the (very wonderful) people who came to Book Expo America last week and actually stood in line to get a copy. (That's me in the black and white checks. The chic woman in the ice green jacket is the charming and indefatigible Anita Sultmanis from Harlequin, who kept everything working perfectly.)
And it makes me wonder--might PT someday be someone's favorite book? At least for as long as they loved their hot pants?
Anyway. I hope you like it.
And looking back at our opening quote--does anyone actually have a favorite pudding?