Author Spotlight no.141 – Pam Grimes – Morgen 'with an E' Bailey

Complementing my daily blog interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the one hundred and forty-first, is of Pam Grimes, author of Confessions of an Edgy Suburban Mom, and the 2012 Shirley You Jest! Book Awards / Shirley HAH non-fiction winner.

“Pam Grimes’ “Confessions of an Edgy Suburban Mom” spins a handful of humorous yarns. The best of them, such as “The Great Toilet Paper War”, sparkle to life when the author pulls back on the jokes and, with a deft, light hand, lets a great story tell itself.” ~ Shirley You Jest! Book Awards

Pam Grimes is an author, humor columnist, and domestic diva who lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, three teenage sons and their slightly bi-polar dog.

Shaped by a childhood resembling a Rat Pack movie (complete with Sinatra soundtrack), Pam was raised on a steady diet of off-beat humor, producing a unique, if not somewhat twisted viewpoint, far from the politically correct.

Her first published work, Confessions of an Edgy Suburban Mom is a collection of hilarious tales of family life set against the backdrop of that bizarre no-man’s land known as suburbia. Confessions is steeped in hilarious observations of parenting and family life and strives to both entertain as well as touch the hearts of its readers.

Conjuring images from the sixties through today, Grimes’ stories refresh our collective memories of youth while drawing sharp comparisons with today’s culture. Confessions of an Edgy Suburban Mom is available on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle.

And now from the author herself:

Raised in Portland, Oregon during the turbulent sixties and seventies I was more than a little sheltered, protected in the bosom of suburbia along with the rest of the Scooby Gang. But even suburbia couldn’t shield us from the rapidly changing social and political landscape, times indeed were a changin’, and we would need to change with them in order to adapt. Add to that a painfully shy child sporting a crooked pixie-cut, an unibrow that would even impress Ernest Borgnine, and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what shaped me as a writer. While this history serves as a backdrop for my writing, it’s my own family that I mine for humorous fodder. Raising three sons has been the greatest blessing of my life. Fortunately, my boys inherited their parent’s irreverent, slightly cracked sense of humor, and actually enjoy being the central characters in my writing. Don’t worry; I’ve set aside a healthy fund for their future psychoanalysis… just in case!

People usually ask how one becomes a successful writer; I always tell them that I’ll ask when I meet one. What most people define as “success” is rare among writers. Not many achieve the superstar status of a James Patterson or Nora Roberts. The writers I know don’t do it for fame or fortune; they do it because it’s their passion. Each writer’s path is as unique as his or her “voice” and in the eighties my path led me to the University of Oregon, where I majored in English and minored in snack foods. There I met and married my college sweetheart, a man who still wakes up everyday in shock and awe, wondering how he got mixed up in all of this.

After settling back in Portland, I worked as a personnel recruiter and college placement director. But my true desire was to raise a family, so I traded in my power suit and pumps for maternity pants and a pair of Keds, and spent the next eleven years raising three sons. While spending my thirties elbow-deep in diapers wasn’t without its charms, I was more than ready for a challenge once my youngest went off kindergarten. Raised on a steady diet of Nancy Drew mysteries and Stephen King novels, I was inspired to write at an early age. From the moment I could hold a pencil I was writing short stories for friends and family and once I got my hands on my dad’s old IBM Selectric there was no stopping me. With the boys in school I finally had the opportunity to return to my first love; writing.

After producing my first manuscript, a humorous mystery novel set in New Orleans, I decided to focus on short format stories, and eventually published my first column, The Edgy Suburban Mom in Connecticut County Kids magazine. Finding that my voice spoke to parents, women and mothers in particular, I focused on the pitfalls and general absurdity abundant in parenting and suburban life, from my own slightly off-beat perspective. The Edgy Suburban Mom was eventually published in my hometown, Portland, Oregon, in both Portland Monthly Magazine and Portland Family Magazine.

While writing about my family has been enormously rewarding, I’m excited to dive back into fictional writing and am currently working on my second novel; a thriller set on the Oregon Coast. Never fear, The Edgy Suburban Mom will return with another anthology of short stories, Confessions II will be available at Amazon in 2013.

You can find more about Pam and her writing via…

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The blog interviews will return as normal tomorrow with lad lit novelist Andy Holmes – the five hundred and sixty-ninth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, bloggers, biographers, agents, publishers and more. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further. And I enjoy hearing from readers of my blog; do either leave a comment on the relevant interview (the interviewees love to hear from you too!) and / or email me.

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As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do, and a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words. Alternatively if you have a short story or self-contained novel extract / short chapter (ideally up to 1000 words) that you’d like critiqued and don’t mind me posting it online in my new Red Pen Critique Sunday night posts then do email me. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry.