And it’s my friend and fellow writer’s group member, Wendy Ponte. OTBKB is thrilled that Wendy is going to be writing the weekly Park Slope column for the Brooklyn Paper.
Here’s an excerpt from this week’s column, Wendy’s take on celebrity children’s book author, Julianne Moore, who read at the Seventh Avenue Barnes and Noble last week.
I think I’ll write a children’s book. I am a writer, so it’s not that much of a stretch. I know how to put words together in interesting ways. Of course I’ve never done that particular type of writing before, but that certainly hasn’t stopped other non-kids-book writers from the trade.
Indeed, hearing Julianne Moore last Thursday at the Barnes and Noble on Seventh Avenue reading from her new children’s book, “Freckleface Strawberry,” has given me hope. After all, she’s never had anything published before — and I have! And, anyway, it’s easy — right? There aren’t that many words, and all I need is a good moral, or some kind of childhood affliction that turns out to not matter after all. I didn’t have an annoying childhood nickname like Moore’s Freckleface Strawberry. But I did have awfully hairy arms for a 9-year-old girl, and the boy sitting next to me at school teased me all year until I finally convinced my mother to let me use bleach. Maybe I could call my book “Gorilla Girl,” or just plain “Hairyette.”