Caitlin Flanagan Interview and Literary Mama Managing Editor on CNN

When Caitlin Flanagan’s editor approached me about reviewing her book, I asked her if Flanagan would agree to an interview with me. I had already read To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife and was, in fact, penning my review for Literary Mama when she contacted me. And I really wanted the opportunity to have a little peek at the woman behind the persona. So, earlier this week, I had the interesting experience of chatting with Flanagan over the phone. She revealed to me her advice for being an mother-writer and surviving the publicity whirl, some clarification around the omission of the infamous “when a mother works, something is lost” line from her book, and her favourite easy dinner recipe, among other things I’ll include in the author profile.

I also asked her about her appearance on The Colbert report (Salon.com has the video for those who missed it). I wanted to ask her in particular about the “lobotomy” exchange as I wanted to confirm that her comments had more to do with being on Comedy Central, than with what she truly believed.

This was her clearly prepared response to my question: “The Colbert Report is a piece of serious television journalism. No one is to construe it as comedy. When Stephen and I talked on air, we were talking journalist to journalist, American guy to American gal. And that’s the follow-up.”

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Managing Editor Andrea Buchanan’s book Mother Shock was listed as one of the top 10 books to buy for mother’s day on About.com.

On Mother’s Day, Andi was on CNN to talk about her books, It’s a Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons and It’s a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters. Andi’s blog entry, which describes her experience and links to the transcript, can be found here.