Interview with Leah DeCesare + #DebBallGiveaway of FORKS, KNIVES AND SPOONS

Today on the Debutante Ball, I’m excited to welcome Leah DeCesare to talk about her debut FORKS, KNIVES, AND SPOONS, which New York Times bestselling author Ann Hood said that, “Reading Forks, Knives, and Spoons is like having your best girlfriend take you by the hand and tell you a story. A story you want to sit and listen to until the very end.”

There are three types of guys: forks, knives, and spoons. That is the final lesson that Amy York’s father sends her off to college with, never suspecting just how far his daughter will take this lighthearted advice. Clinging to her dad’s Utensil Classification System as a guide, Amy and her skeptical roommate navigate heartbreaks and romances. In college and beyond, they label guys as nerdy spoons, arrogant, player forks and husband-material, dateable knives. On the quest to find their perfect steak knives, they learn to believe in themselves—and not to settle in love or life.

This book took me back to my own years of college, back in the early 90s. I found myself humming along to songs, laughing at the mention of a particular fashion style and smiling as I remembered the weirdness of college relationships.

You too can have a chance to get a copy for free! To enter to win, simply retweet on twitter:

RT to Enter! Interview w/ @LeahDeCesare + #DebBallGiveaway of FORKS, KNIVES AND SPOONS https://t.co/uYSAHUlcT3 pic.twitter.com/RUfAjpJee8

— The Debutante Ball (@DebutanteBall) May 6, 2017

Or you can share our post from Facebook. We will select and contact the very lucky winner on Friday, May 12th at noon (US Only).

Now, on to the interview!

Talk about one thing that’s making you happy right now.

I feel like I haven’t stopped smiling since FORKS, KNIVES, AND SPOONS has been released. Amazon shipped pre-orders about a month early and I’ve never spent so much time on Facebook! People near and far, friends from all times and corners of my life, have been posting, sharing and sending notes of congratulations. It has been touching to feel supported in something that is so important to me.

Having the enthusiasm of other authors, and early readers and reviewers has been completely smile-inducing and I am overcome with joy and gratitude

Where do you love to be?

I am a beach person and love to be at my parents’ house on the Connecticut shore where I grew up spending summers. I breathe in the salty air and instantly relax and smile. This is my favorite writing getaway location – I move in for a few days of nonstop writing while my parents travel.

As much as I love being out and socializing, I also cherish being home, snuggled in with my family. Our oldest heads off to college in a few short months and it will be the first time in eighteen years that I don’t have my whole family under our roof each night. It’s the natural progression and she’s confident and ready, but we’ll miss her around the dinner table each night.

Share something that’s always guaranteed to make you laugh.

I grew up in Newtown, Connecticut and after the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook School, my sister organized an online auction to raise money for services in town. She rallied a bunch of musicians and bands (she worked at Universal Records) to donate signed items — drum heads, albums, sheet music, guitars — and she also had some other random items.

In my efforts to help out, I kept getting onto the auction site and bidding some things up. I’m laughing already as I type this … my sister sent me a picture congratulating me on one of my big wins: Metallic gold sneakers with spikes all over the back of the heels. She and I could not stop bursting into tear-filled laughter at even just the mention of those gold sneakers. I haven’t thought of them in a while, it’s time to bust them out and send my sister a picture!

What’s your next big thing?

I’ve had an odd career path and after being in event planning and PR in New York City, I stayed home with my babies. I loved the new moms’ group after my oldest was born and a few years later, got certified as a birth educator which launched a fourteen year business as a birth and postpartum doula and birth/early parenting educator. The work was rewarding and intense and I always knew it was not going to be lifelong. Now, I’m using those experiences in my work-in-progress in which my protagonist is a doula. The nature of the job is quite intimate and entails supporting families at their most vulnerable and exposed states — this gives me a lot of rich material for working into fiction.

What’s the strangest job you’ve ever had?

One summer, I was struggling to find a waitressing job which was my usual summer gig, so I answered an ad (I have no idea why – I must’ve been really getting desperate) for encyclopedia sales. It gets worse – it was DOOR-TO-DOOR even! All I remember is a group of us piled into one person’s car, singing “American Pie” the whole drive then being dropped in a neighborhood with minimal training. I had a lovely chat at one family’s home and a string of polite rejections before driving home singing “American Pie.” That was my one day on the job. Horrible!

Thanks so much for joining us, Leah! And congrats on the launch of FORKS, KNIVES, AND SPOONS!

Leah DeCesare is the author of Forks, Knives, And Spoons and the nonfiction parenting series Naked Parenting, based on her work as a doula, early parenting educator, and mom of three. Her articles have been featured in The Huffington Post, International Doula and The Key. She writes, teaches and volunteers in Rhode Island where she lives with her family.

 

You can find more of Leah here:

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