I'd predict that 99 percent of the small talk in the staff elevator at my library involves the following question and its answers: "Are you reading...
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When it happens, it feels like winning the lottery. An email arrives out of the blue, from one of my publishers or a festival director or a member...
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"The publisher describes it as The Big Sleep meets Animal Farm, and, frankly, we can't do better than that." Booklist (starred review)
"[A] delightful mystery-thriller set in a city populated by stuffed animals." San Francisco Chronicle
"[T]he romantic triangle among Eric, Teddy and Emma is engagingly drawn, and never for a moment does the story feel like kids' stuff. An appealingly unique world, cut from some interesting cloth." Kirkus Reviews
Eric Bear loves Emma Rabbit. They are both stuffed animals and the main characters in my first novel, Amberville. Eric and Emma were sitting on your bed when you came home from school when you were little. Or else they're sitting on your son's or daughter's bed now. They're not cute Disney characters. They're not heroes with superpowers out of a Marvel comic. They're your stuffed animals, supplied with all the feelings of desire, joy, anxiety, pain, hatred, and love that you project onto them. They're as close to you as you can get.
But at the same time, these bears, rabbits, and occasional gangster dove are clarifications. With each individual stuffed animal, you have an opportunity to put a few of your character traits aside and more clearly observe the ones you're left with. Without reducing or simplifying yourself. Let the bear carry your anxiety. Let the owl represent your suspicion. And perhaps put a bit of your love into each and every one of them?
The stuffed animals populating Mollisan Town — the city in which Amberville is one of four districts — are like any other stuffed animal. Passionate. Outraged. Shrewd. And stupid. They play. And drink. Use drugs. Tell lies. Are too naive for their own good. While others are far too calculating.
I'm the same way myself. Too stupid, clever, calculating, and naive. All at once. Like any stuffed animal. My plan is to write three more books about what happens in Mollisan Town; give each part of the city its own novel. I think they are going to be very different from each other. Because each part of town is so different. And because the amazing thing about us stuffed animals is our inexhaustible ability to surprise.
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