We’re back this week to interview our guest blogger of the month, Marilyn Brant. Welcome back, Marilyn!
Since this is Marilyn’s first visit to The Dungeon & her very first book release, we tried to take it easy on her, but…well, Mistress Heidi is only capable of so much gentleness. 
Let’s see how it went…
What is your favorite color? Light burgundy. (I checked my color wheel just to be sure!)
Favorite song? You have got to be kidding me! ONE song?! Um, no. That’s not gonna happen. I love too, too many. Stuff from the 1970s, the 1980s, many musical soundtracks, a smattering of Beatles, Elvis, Buddy Holly and Four Seasons songs, and a range of groups and singers popular today, especially Matchbox 20 (with sometimes solo singer Rob Thomas), whom I’ve seen in concert twice now with my awesome brother. *muttering to self* “ONE song?!”
Favorite movie? Hmm, I love movies, so this is tough, too. I’ll say When Harry Met Sally… just because I keep going back to it as one of the standards for great dialogue, fabulous characterization and a plot arc with a relationship growth I find fascinating. In spite of some over-the-top comedic moments, the emotions they touch upon in the film are pretty realistic overall.
And of course, favorite book? You realize it has to be Austen’s Pride & Prejudice!
What are you currently reading, & how are you enjoying it? It’s been very, very tough for me to make time to read for pleasure over the past several months. I miss it! But a lovely friend gave me a copy of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society over the summer and, whenever I’ve had a chance, I read some of it and just wish I had two whole days to do nothing but lay on the sofa and finish. It’s fabulous!
Name three books on your TBR pile that you can’t wait to read. Therese Walsh’s The Last Will of Moira Leahy, Two Guys Read Jane Austen by Chandler and Hill and Settling Back by Lainey Bancroft.
What was the first book in your chosen genre that you remember reading, or that made you want to write the same? It was Sue Miller’s women’s fiction story While I Was Gone (one of the few Oprah picks that I fully endorsed). I loved the themes she explored in this novel but I wanted to merge those themes with a slightly more whimsical element and a bit more humor, so I also really appreciated the fun romances of Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Jennifer Crusie.
What do you think of Heidi? She’s great, right? Nope…she’s REALLY great! (Note from Heidi: Why, thank you, thankyouverymuch.
)
How did you get started writing? Tell us a little bit about your first sale. Aside from being on the newspaper and yearbook staff in high school and publishing some academic work in college, I didn’t take writing seriously until I was about 30. I was a stay-at-home mom with a baby and desperately in need of a creative outlet, so I began writing poems again, essays on being a parent and educational articles for family magazines. I wrote my first book having never taken a creative-writing class or even having read a book on the craft of fiction. (The lack of craft is very evident when I reread chapters from that first book, by the way! I don’t recommend this shocking degree of ignorance…) I got some feedback though—mostly negative—from a prominent literary agency, which led me to study fiction formally, delve into craft books and, eventually, go to my first writing conference. It was there that I heard about RWA. I joined, wrote three more unpublished manuscripts, and then came up with the idea for ACCORDING TO JANE. My agent signed me on this book and submitted it to editors, but it needed to be significantly restructured before it sold. Nine months after it won the Golden Heart and was revised (again), it finally did sell—to John Scognamiglio at Kensington—on a sunny and surrealistic day in April 2008.
Fill in the blank—If you like [blank], you’ll love Marilyn Brant! If you like 80s music, offbeat characters, and Jane Austen, you’ll (probably) love Marilyn Brant! (At least for this book.)
As embarrassing as it is for me to admit, I have never read a Jane Austen book, nor watched a movie based on one. (Yeah, yeah, begin the pelting of rottenous fruit now. 
) So for the two of us out here in the world who are complete & total neophytes, give us a quick lesson in Jane Austen 101. Why should we love Austen? What is the appeal? And what are we missing? You haven’t even watched one of the MOVIES??!! Ohhhh, I’m kidnapping you at the next RWA conference and forcing some Firth on you—LOL! More seriously, the biggest thing about Austen, for me, is her perception. She had an uncanny, genius-level ability to see human behavior clearly. This really comes through in her character development. She doesn’t have to tell readers that a character is greedy or self-centered or arrogant, she conveys it so perfectly through their dialogue and behavior that you actually recognize the modern incarnations of these people when they show up in your own life. I LOVE that!
Tell us about ACCORDING TO JANE and why we’ll love every word.
ACCORDING TO JANE is the story of a modern woman named Ellie who gets dating advice from the ghost of Jane Austen. It begins one day in her high-school English class, just as Ellie’s teacher is assigning Pride & Prejudice. From nowhere, she hears a quiet “tsk” of disapproval aimed at the antics of the cute bad boy who has been teasing her. The author’s ghost takes it upon herself to stay in Ellie’s mind, offering up her own brand of Regency-era wisdom in regards to romance. Years and boyfriends come and go, but Ellie has a lot to learn about love. And, possibly, even Jane may benefit from a new insight or two.
If your plane crashed in the Andes, would you convince the other survivors to eat Heidi first or last? Heidi—and I say this with a great deal of affection—I believe this is the single strangest thing anyone has asked me at any time on this book tour. (And possibly EVER!) I don’t have an answer to your odd cannibalism question, but I can tell you, I’d award you a very large chocolate statuette just for coming up with something that stumped me like this!! (Further intrusive note from Heidi: Here in The Dungeon, we pride ourselves on keeping people on their toes. You have been warned. 
Oh, & I’ll take the giant chocolate statuette, thank you…one roughly my own size & weight, please. It’s been one of those months. 
)
If you could write anything—whether in the same genre/sub-genre as you’re writing now or another—what would it be? Oh, this is my genre. It’s what I’ve wanted to write from the beginning—light contemporary women’s fiction—sometimes with a paranormal twist, sometimes without, but always with romantic elements and some comedy. I would wage war against anyone who tried to make me do anything else right now. That may change someday, but I don’t anticipate it happening soon. As far as what specific storyline I’d want to write next—all I’ll say is that I’m working on it!
What are you currently working on? The proposal for my third novel and the final revisions on my second one. Book two is finished, except for a few scene tweakings, and we finally have a title: FRIDAYS AT NINE. It’s a modern fairy tale about three suburban moms who have to rethink the state of their marriages and their lives when one of the friends asks the others a surprising question. It’ll be out next October!
Since it’s October & Halloween is right around the corner, I have to ask—have you had a chance to read Pride & Prejudice & Zombies? And if so, what did you think? I have it, and I’ve read it (mostly). I’ll admit to doing some heavy skimming in spots. My initial reaction was that it was a clever idea (if you’re into zombies) (Intrusive note from Heidi & Mistress Heidi: We are. We sooooo are!) but I got bored with the premise fairly quickly. For me, the book’s gimmick took away from the aspects of Austen’s story that I most loved—her subtlety in displaying conflict, her insightfulness in revealing character, etc. Also, eating brains has never been of high appeal to me, so I’m pretty clearly not the target audience for that book! (Further intrusive note from the Heidis: Oh, you only say that because you’ve never tried them. Don’t worry, they taste just like chicken. 
)
Thanks so much for having me visit, Heidi! Looking forward to being back again next week.
Thank you, Marilyn! Great interview. We’re thrilled to have you back with us this week! I’m not promising to let you drag me off at RWA & brainwash me with all things Austen, but you’ve at least piqued my interest. 
Don’t forget, my Darlings, that Marilyn will be giving away a gift set made up of an ACCORDING TO JANE t-shirt, a Victoria’s Secret Big Caramapple lip gloss, & a four-pack (20 flavors) of Tea Treasures tea packets at the end of her visit. Only one winner (U.S. residents only, please), but every comment left during her visit—all three weeks—will be counted as entries, which gives you many chances to win. 
Remember, too, that you can learn more about Marilyn & her books by visiting MarilynBrant.com.
But, just because “ultraviolent zombie mayhem” didn’t do it for me, it doesn’t mean I’m not a big fan of the paranormal in literature—after all, I’ve got Austen herself taking on the role of a ghost in my debut, ACCORDING TO JANE! I don’t know how many of you have ever wondered what it might be like to have someone you considered incredibly wise and clever whisper in your ear and guide you through a situation where you felt unsure of yourself… Most of adolescence was a kind of interpersonal minefield for me—there were endless friend dramas, high-school clique hierarchies, mystifying family members and boys who may have been aliens (I still haven’t ruled that out) for all I understood them. Plus, although I have an awesome younger brother, I never had an older sister, or even any older cousins, to give me advice as a teen. If I could have chosen anyone to fill that role, it would’ve been Jane. The problem, of course, was that she’d been dead for a couple hundred years… Getting to write this book gave me a chance to resurrect her–LOL!
)–fire away!
As many of you probably know, November (only one short week away!) is 
To paraphrase The Princess Bride’s Inigo Montoya, I would suffer humiliations galore.
And I’m very happy about it because I loved this story; I think it came out really, really well.
Thankfully, since we didn’t have anything hugely pressing at the time, the news didn’t send me into a tailspin, but that doesn’t mean I won’t miss her. She’s always been wonderful to work with & is truly the one who held my hand & guided me back into the fold when I started thinking about actively writing Desires again. (Thank you, Diana! 
I miss you already!)
And last but not least, I am grateful for those of you who helped me last week in deciding what to do about the MaryJanice Davidson books/novella. I did set aside Dead & Loving It to pick up Undead & Unappreciated. I’m enjoying Unappreciated very much, & it’s moving very quickly, so hopefully I’ll get through them all in no time. Plus, it helps to be reading something vampire while I’m working on something vampire. 
So I have been reading MaryJanice Davidson’s Dead and Loving It…& enjoying it very much, I might add…but now I have run into a bit of a literary dilemma.
events of Undead and Unreturnable.”
)
