Erin Dionne likes the Red Sox but you still must read her book

Erin Dionne wrote a book called Models Don’t Eat Chocolate Cookies (which you can, and should, and will be so glad that you did, of course, buy here) that I wish every girl I know could have read just before entering high school… why, you ask? This book is especially important to me because, well, it’s about the work I do. I wrote a thesis once, when I was an undergraduate at Bard College, and it was about (in a nutshell) how girls can learn to tell our own stories out loud and on paper to each other and, in so doing, save confidence esteem and strength so often lost on the eve of entering high school. Models Don’t Eat Chocolate Cookies’ Celeste tells her story, giving voice to this quiet confidence in faith. And Erin Dionne is behind all of this. She’s a baseball fan, mom to a beautiful new baby girl, married to a terrifically supportive husband, teacher of writing, promoter of fellow writers and all around amazing woman. For Erin Dionne, ‘the same five questions we always ask’.



1. What is your preferred writing brain food?
Chocolate chip cookies. YUM!

2. What is the soundtrack to your debut novel?
There are two original songs for the book, "Ruby Red Hair" and "Dreaming Without You" that my friend, Dann Russo, wrote. You can even download them from my website!

3. Describe your perfect writing space.
In my make-believe world, it'd be a room with a wall of bookshelves, a view of the ocean, and no Internet access.

In reality--it's my dining room table, a view of the neighborhood, and lots of snacks at hand.

4. Tell us about one of the secondary characters in your debut novel. How did he/she come to life?
Couscous, a chihuahua, was inspired by a story that a high school friend of mine told. I filed it away, and as I was working on MODELS, I decided that I needed a little more levity in the story. So Millie got a dog...with a lot of issues.

5. What did/will you do on your launch day?
Hang out with the dog and the baby, head over to Barnes and Noble to stalk people in the section, and pop open some champagne!

Download Dann Russo's songs and learn more about Erin here.

Back to Life

This blog is confused. It is forging it’s identity. It is quiet and outgoing all at once.

No longer. As of today, Permanently Inked has officially been re-imagined within the dawn of 2009, the year This Is What I Want to Tell You hits the world.

Permanently Inked will, from now on, bring you:

-Regular entries
-Thoughts from Keeley, Nadio, Parker & Noelle
-Playlists, art, recipes, musings
-Thoughts, excerpts, characters and questions from the recently revived No Happy Endings.
-Street art
-A full year of interviews with fabulous debut authors brought to you by the International Debs Blog Tour
-And of course, some pictures of my nieces, birthday tributes to my dearest, and the inevitable musings on writing and working in high schools all at the same time.
-No more confusion. At least not all the time.

Welcome.

Why Courtney Love?

Some people cannot listen to music when they write. Some people can only write when they listen to music. Some simply need music without lyrics. Some people—well. I need music. Sometimes. But most often I need to decide what my characters would listen to. The problem is—I’m often ten years behind the times. Right now, all I want to listen to is this.



I am loving this album. I listen to it at the gym. I listen to it when I’m writing. I put it on while I’m making coffee. It’s so fierce. Noelle would love this album. If she had ever even heard of Hole. So what is it, I keep thinking, that brings me back to Courtney Love and her yelling and torn slips and girl-rocking. Is it because I’m writing about 16 and I was 16 when I first listened to this album… or is it because I want to yell and scream a little bit. I am thinking I’m going to make a playlist that goes through phases of the writing. But for now, I’ll start here—after the first draft, gearing up for real revisions. I should warn you—there is no method or pattern to my playlists. It’s just what I need to listen to. Or what they need to listen to. I mean the characters.

Monday morning February 25th PERMANENT INK playlist

Hole; Celebrity Skin in its entirety
Wilco; Reservations
The National; Apartment Story
Mirah; Don’t Die in Me
Bob Dylan; I don’t believe you (she acts like we have never met)