Dark roots, inappropriate ensemble and all (3 Qs for genre-jumping author Grace Coopersmith)

I'm not sure if San Francisco author Marta Acosta is moonlighting with her campy Casa Dracula series (pubbed by Pocket) or daylighting with her new single title release Nancy's Theory of Style  (S&S Gallery) writing as Grace Coopersmith. Either way, she seems to be having a lot of fun with it.

Grace, thanks for popping by. This is a dramatic leap in career direction -- from undead to high life. You're a publishing pro by now, but does this book make you feel like a virgin, touched for the very first time?
Yes, dark roots, inappropriate ensemble, and all! No, it's actually very different because I've built up so many relationships over the years. At first I was going to rely on my new Grace Coopersmith persona, but I realized that many of my online pals were happy to help me get the word out about my book.

I'm digging this author photo with the tutu! Call upon your powers as a recovering drama student and sample for us a bit of dialogue between Tutu Girl and Author Grace Coopersmith.
Tutu Girl: Did I ever get to wear toe-shoes and dance lead?
Grace: You earned your toe-shoes, but you were assigned to the back row, where you always should have been. Stop crying, dear. The world needs clumsy back-up performers because they make the real stars, like me, look fabulous by comparison.

The event planning theme begs a question about your fantasy dinner party, but I'm more interested in your fantasy book club. Who's invited and what's on the reading menu?
I'd rather answer the question about the dinner party, because I work very hard to make mine seem effortless! Hmm, my fantasy book club would have to include people who are snarky, smart, and interesting. Jane Austen, Mark Twain, P.G. Wodehouse, Reese Witherspoon (who also went to Stanford and got her English degree), Craig Ferguson... If I could have a fictional character, she'd be Sophie Kinsella's Becky Bloomwood, because she's so dang funny. We would be reading Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing aloud and laughing and drinking margaritas. You would be invited, too, so long as you brought pie. Key Lime would go with margaritas. We could sneak Jane aside and ask her if she finished any manuscripts that no one else knows about.

Visit Grace Coopersmith's website for more about the book. And the tutu.

Comments

I'm putting another pie in the oven. I want to go to that book club!

Thanks for stopping by, Grace!
LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this post! Thanks, Grace. And can I go if I can ever figure out how to make my Vagina Monologues cookies?
Marta said…
Hi, Colleen, as soon as I get my corpse rejuvenation machine working in the garage, I'll set up that party!

Kathryn, in my tragically unsold YA gothic, one of the teenage characters recites an ode to her mother, an artist who paints female nudes:

“Your cupcakes are tender and quite delish,
But won’t you grant your children’s wish?
A mother’s love is what we cherish
So please no coconut as pubic hairish,
Nor gummy worms as labial lips
Or any substance for a clitoris.
We firmly support your creative expressions
But vulva cupcakes will cause insurrection.”

You're on your own for cookies.
Sounds like that character was on HER own. ;) And that's a hilarious poem!

The V cookies only had a VM on them, because I was too embarrassed to do that--but someone else actually did! (They were even flesh colored . . .)

And "corpse rejuvenation machine." Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Ha! Loved it, Marta.