Personalizedbabybook’s Blog reviewed My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy today. And they got me. Whoever wrote the review was sure to warn, “Prepare to get sick of Askowitz’s whining.”  Why do they always say I was whining?  Ew, there I did it again.  Okay, but this review also said, “Prepare to laugh uproariously at very simple moments.”

And because you might not click the link, here’s what else it said:  ”This memoir has roots, and will make you laugh as well as cry as it goes from  childhood to death to birth and circles through the three. I’m glad Askowitz didn’t try to soften any of her edges, because her sadness, flashes of anger, moments of self-pity and doubt coincide perfectly with her humor and faith in the future and her child.  AND YOU DON”T NEED TO BE A LESBIAN OR PREGNANT TO ENJOY IT.”  (My bold).

Thank you Personalizedbabybooks.

Last night I did an interview with SistersTalk Radio.  It was so much fun.  A great interview.  The host was hard on me, which was really good.  She said that in my book, My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy, I came across racist.

I said, “I’ve been accused of being a brat, of being homophobic, of being an entitled cow, but never racist.”

She said I mentioned race whenever I described a character.  That race seemed to be at the top of my mind.

I think she might be right. When I wrote My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy, I was a new writer. I thought then that I needed to physically describe all my characters.  If one of my characters was black or Latino or whatever, I probably said so.  But here’s my question:  Is awareness of race, racist?

Click here to link to the interview:

My Miserable, Lonely,Pregnancy got on someone’s top 10 list for 2009!   I’m there with Dave Eggers and some guy who won the Booker Prize!!!  See below or go to ShelfAWARENESS.  My Mis would make a great stocking stuffer!

Hey, there’s a new website called dynamicfamilycoachingsolutions.com.  It seems really cool because they did an audio interview with meeeee!  Check it out today!

1.  Write another one.

2.  Hire a publicist, if you can afford it and if you’re publishing house doesn’t hire one for you.  If your publishing house hires one, be on top of him or her.  It’s up to you to make sure you are their focus.  If you hire your own, make sure he or she has friends in key places, like on the Oprah show or Good Morning America.

3.  Create a website for yourself and your book and keep it current by writing a blog, like this one.  Also read other blogs and comment on other blogs and make blog friends.

4.  Keep a mailing list.

5.   Create post cards and buttons and e-postcards and mail them out for all book-buying occasions.

6.  Send yourself on a book tour.  Know people where ever you go and have people in those places organize and invite their friends.  Call your friends on the phone and invite them personally to all your events.

7.  Do a virtual book tour.  Ask bloggers to blog about your book and host book-giveaway contests. 

8.  Get on Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Friendster, Shelfari, Booksprouts…  

9.  Carry books wherever you go.  Sell them one for $15, two for $20.

10.  Believe in your book. 

Celebrity Parents Magazine wrote a story about me.  I’m a celebrity.  :)

BOOK REVIEW:  MY MISERABLE, LONELY, LESBIAN PREGNANCY (Cleis Press)

It’s her second attempt. She knows the routine. She’s purchased the sperm box for $320 with her bank card. She’s singing all the way to the clinic. Her partner of six years, unfortunately, has left her six months ago. Fine, she’ll do it alone. Then one day it happens–on the pregnancy test stick, two hot pink lines. This is it. 

There’s nothing Andrea Askowitz wants more than to become a mother, and her no-holds-barred account of that journey, My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy, is the funniest memoir in years, not to mention so upbeat and heartwarming you want to give it to every woman friend you know, pregnant or not. Bursting with laugh-out-loud humor, enriched by the author’s deeply touching vulnerability, Askowitz’s book utterly belies its title–it has very little misery or loneliness in it. Andrea is surrounded by a delightful cast of big-hearted women who accompany her on her mission toward motherhood. 

What a refreshing new voice! The humor is just salty enough, the language crisp, with a nice, honest bite. Askowitz has the expert timing of a stand-up comic but the honesty and sensitivity of a good Jewish girl who has dreamed her whole life of becoming a mother and is not going to let being a lesbian stand in her way. Her single-minded quest is so studded with revelatory, witty delights that the book is a page-turner simply because one funny scene follows right on the heels of another–her diary entries are energetic, bluntly honest and in their own whiny, bitchy way, dang near fearless.

 From confronting her liberal but disapproving parents to facing the possibility that she could have two uteruses, her provocative diary entries leave you constantly wiping your eyes from laughter and tears. Accompanied by her hauntingly attractive ex-lover and her gloriously faithful, straight best friend, Askowitz bravely takes you along for the whole confusing, challenging ride of creating another human being, sharing it all with you right up to the minute-by-minute last contractions of the emotionally pitch-perfect ending.–Nick DiMartino

 Shelf Talker: A hilarious and heartwarming memoir of a woman’s challenging journey through a long-desired pregnancy.

A Saturday night reading of My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy.  God it was good. 

Misery Loves Comedy in Lesbian’s Tale of Pregnancy.  It’s been a while since My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy got any attention.  I’ve even sort of forgotten about it.  But today MiamiARTzine.com printed this review of my book.  

Tina Koenig writes that lesbians wanting to get pregnant have the will, but not the willy. 

She also says that all families end up being conventional in the ways they live, love and laugh.  How sweet and true.  If you haven’t read My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy, you oughta.  Go on.