Amy Wallen

The Book Catapult is proud to host local author Amy Wallen for the release of her new book, How to Write a Novel in 20 Pies on Tuesday, October 18th at 7:00pm!

As a novelist, memoirist, and associate director of the New York State Summer Writers Institute, Amy Wallen has a few things to say about the writing world, many of them irreverent and snarky. From her perspective as a teacher, mentor, and published author, her belief is that the way to survive the hard knocks of writing a book and trying to get published is to bust a gut working, laughing, and eating pie. With chapters including "Oh Agent, Where Art Thou?", "Revising, Rewriting, and Reimagining," and "The Joy of Rejection," Wallen balances out the challenging stages of the writing process with both sweet and savory goodness, featuring recipes for chocolate pecan pie, salmon and portobello pie, and the recipe for the best cherry pie ever. Throughout the book, Wallen demystifies the vagaries of the publishing business, providing delicious recipes that will keep your belly full even when you're staring at an empty page. Her writing advice is neatly paired with the brilliant illustrations of Emil Wilson, who shares her sharp wit, sardonic look at the demands of the writing life, and her mad love of pie. Combined, the stories, lessons, images, and recipes will provide encouragement and camaraderie for the novel-writing journey, from putting pen to page, to finding an agent, to celebrating publication—all with a piece of pie.

Amy Wallen is the author of the Los Angeles Times bestselling novel Moon Pies and Movie Stars and the memoir When We Were Ghouls: A Memoir of Ghost Stories. Amy is the associate director at the New York State Summer Writers Institute during the summer months, and the rest of the year she facilitates and co-teaches (with past Los Angeles Times book critic David Ulin) a manuscript workshop in San Diego (at which she serves pie) and teaches novel writing classes at UCSD Extension. She is also the creator of Savory Salons, literary salons with pie—a day of discourse with successful authors on the writing life. She’s also the founder of DimeStories—Three-minute stories told by the author, and featured on NPR. Currently, she is working on two novels, and she started NaNoPieMo after NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which encourages writers to get started on their novels.