Laurel Snyder Stops By

I know Laurel Snyder from the Class of 2K8 and she is one of the funnest, smartest and most engaging people I've met in a while. And her book, UP AND DOWN THE SCRATCHY MOUNTAINS, which Kirkus calls "a delightfully droll fairy tale", sounds every bit as adventuresome and entertaining as she is. Laurel took some time to answer my questions about her book, her favorite guilty pleasures and her craziest mom moment:

Tell us about the book.

I think of “Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains” as an old-fashioned fairy tale. It’s about a snarky little milkmaid named Lucy who’s best friends with a prince. But when their class differences get in the way (he has to begin looking for a princess to marry and she’s too common), Lucy runs away, and has some weird adventures in the Scratchy Mountains. She rescues a prairie dog, and breaks into a jail that also happens to be an ice cream store, and knits a forest... and learns about bad government.

How did you celebrate your book sale?

LOL! I had a little baby and was adjuncting at a community college, so of course I got the call as I was dashing from class to JCC to pick up my son from childcare. I’m afraid I spent the next hour stuck in Atlanta traffic with a bawling baby. I ran down my cell calling everyone I could think of. Then I got a little tipsy, of course. But not while driving!

What’s your favorite movie and what’s your favorite line from that movie?

Maybe my very favorite movie ever is “Two for the Road” with Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn. Because Brideshead Revisited and Lonesome Dove don’t count as movies. Favorite line is “Hamburger pills! Great big hamburger pills!”

What author would you most like to spend the day with and what would you guys do?

My favorite authors are mostly dead and gone, but I’d love to meet Norton Juster. And my favorite way to spend any day involves traveling and eating. So perhaps Mr. Juster and I could fly to Italy, drive out to Sienna for the day, and eat bread salad while sipping wine and people watching. Do you think he’d be up for that? Norton, are you reading this?

What’s your favorite way to procrastinate writing?

Well they took away my Scrabulous (GRRRR), so now I spend too much time on Twitter.

I hate the internet. No, I love it. No, I hate it. Sigh.

I want to be someone who gardens and makes soup all day, but I just stare at the screen.

What’s your secret guilty pleasure? Be honest!

I’m not very secretive, so I’m afraid I don’t have as much guilt as I should over things like drinking and cussing and watching reality TV. Does fast food count? I drive through the McDonalds far more often than my uber-organic mommy-friends need to know.

Two of the Longstockings are moms, one of us very recently, and I know you have two kids. What was your craziest mom-moment?

Oh, lordy—how can I pick? One awful one was in San Francisco, when Mose was about 1. I was there to do an event at the JCC, and had terrible bronchitis. I was also pregnant, AND nursing. And because I’m from the east coast, I was 3 hours off schedule. So there I am, at the party after the reading, surrounded by the likes of EL Doctorow, and everyone is sipping wine and eating sushi and skewers of things (delicately). And I am not only pushing a stroller with a screaming child, now 6 hours past his bedtime, but hacking up gunk, and leaking, and I have his carseat on my back, like a turtle, because there is no coat check! I turned to leave, and knocked someone over, and just bolted, because I realized that I really did not belong there. But when I got to the street, no taxi would pick me up. Because they hate to deal with all the mommy-gear. Finally some stranger took pity on me and hailed a cab while I waited, hidden, in a doorway. Then I jumped out and grabbed the cab, and went back home. And I didn’t travel again for a year.

Fun, huh? Not the glamorous life I envisioned book tour to be. Kids change everything.

What’s next for you?

LOL! Well, now I have TWO kids, so not a lot of travel. Heh.

I have a creepy picture book, “Inside the Slidy Diner”, coming out in time for Halloween. Illustrated by a truly amazing new illustrator, Jaime Zollars.

And I have another novel, “Any Which Wall”, coming out next year. It’s kind of an homage to Edward Eager, and LeUyen Pham is doing the art. Pretty awesome!

It does sound awesome! Thanks for coming by Laurel.

UP AND DOWN THE SCRATCHY MOUNTAINS is out on Tuesday and you can hang out more with Laurel at her website and blog.

#daphne