Episode 84: Audrey Monke Returns!
(Like Mary Poppins Returns, Summer Camp Style!)
Today we welcome back one of our favorite guests, Audrey Monke, author of Happy Campers: 9 Summer Camp Secrets for Raising Kids Who Become Thriving Adults. Audrey has 34 years of experience as a camp director at Gold Arrow Camp in California, as well as raising 5 kids of her own, and she came by book writing after years of running her own parenting blog at sunshine-parenting.com.
Audrey discusses her writing process with us, the joys of working with a book coach, and her multi-pronged approach to marketing (including an AWESOME read-along book club on her Facebook page, scheduled for this summer!). We discuss the pros and cons (aka the good and evil) of social media, especially for writers, and how to deal with professional jealousy when everyone's success is in your face 24-7. (We're so happy for everyone! We are! We just WANT TO BE YOU, TOO). Audrey points out that everyone's in a different spot in their writing careers, and we're all on this journey together and we need to support each other any way that we can.
We explore how writing about your kids comes with a different set of rules in the age of social media. Audrey shares her secrets for raising happy, resilient kids in Happy Campers along with a hefty dose of camp wisdom, and talks about how parents can keep the lessons from camp applicable to their families year-round.
And shoutout to KJ Dell-Antonia and Jess Lahey from #AmWriting, who make another Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon-esque appearance on the podcast, and who are inspiring Audrey to dream of writing fiction after years of believing she's solely a nonfiction writer.
"Now I have in the back of my mind I have this dream of writing fiction at some point. We should use these things - when you feel that twinge of "wow, they're doing it" you need to say to yourself, "hey, maybe I can do that, too." - Audrey Monke
Abby gets to pick Audrey's brain about camp activities because Abby's the CAMP DIRECTOR for our Find Your Book/Find Your Mojo retreat this fall in Maine (in Acadia National Park)! Audrey says that despite the the nervousness newbies have to fight off, they really need to get to know each other the first day and she's got some tried and true methods from years in the first-day trenches at camp. So no worries, attendees, we've got you!
Congratulations, Audrey! Happy Campers comes out May 7 - just in time for summer break. Pre-order on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, IndieBound or Kobo.
Happy Campers: 9 Summer Camp Secrets for Raising Kids Who Become Thriving Adults
By Audrey Monke
