Groggin'

Hey everyone, I’m Maureen. I’m 28 and I live in a suburb of Chicago with my husband, one year old son and an assortment of morbidly obese pets. I love writing, drinking wine, going to Cubs games and traveling. My guilty pleasures are cheesy (and thus awesome) movies and television series from the ‘80s like Teen Witch and Small Wonder. (Please stop laughing.)

As a child, I inhaled every Baby-Sitters Club and Sweet Valley High book that I could convince my mom to buy. These books really fueled my love of writing (and possibly warped my views on fashion, but more on that later). So, at a tender school-age, I decided that I would become a writer.

My first attempts at writing as a kid always involved a group of four friends who were cool, popular and wore amazing clothes. What I never figured out was something sort of important: a plot. Which meant most of my stories ended after like four paragraphs.

Fast forward to high school and college. “Yeah, someday I’ll write a book,” continued to float in the back of my brain.

Finally, in the fall of 2005, I decided to just start writing. I still didn’t have one of those pesky things called a plot, but I yanked out a pad of paper and somewhere along the way, a great voice emerged. About a year later, I had a completed manuscript. Add another year onto the timeline, and I had an agent and a two-book deal.

My book, Was It Planned? is about a newly married couple and an unplanned pregnancy. It’s a hilarious take on the journey from happy hour to baby shower and all of the embarrassing, touching and shocking moments that come along with entering the world of Mom Jeans and minivans. It comes out from St. Martin’s imprint Thomas Dunne Books in summer 2009.

Shortly after I finished writing my book, karma laughed and I found myself unexpectedly pregnant. My husband suggested I tempt karma again and write a story about a married couple with a toddler living in Chicago who win fabulous riches in the lottery.

Yeah. I’ll get right on that.

Anyway, I’m thrilled to be a part of this new “grog.” My grog-mates all have fabulous books coming out and I cannot wait to read each and every one! The writing world is so full of heartbreak and soul-crushing that it’s amazing to find a little niche, a little community in the vast sea of publishing.

What else? Oh yes, I used to have a cat who was obsessed with Barbie clothes and lingerie, but that, my friends, is a story for another time.