Parent Club Profiles | Hélène Boudreau - Children's Author Extraordinaire

Name please...
Hélène Boudreau

What's your specialty? (work-wise - you're probably pretty special at a lot of things)
Children’s author. I write picture books, chapter books, novels and non-fiction for kids and teens.

What's your shameless plug? (books, blogs, bling, etc.)
My new book, REAL MERMAIDS DON’T WEAR TOE RINGS, is about first zits, first crushes and first…mermaid tails? A great mother-daughter read and ideal for girls (9-13) entering puberty, especially those who like humour and a light touch of tween romance.


The YA-5 says:
REAL MERMAIDS DON'T WEAR TOE RINGS is an unputdownable adventure, part Judy Blume, part Hans Christian Anderson, and 100% delightful, this fun, fresh tale (tail?) will have girls begging for a sequel.

Parent or not a parent?
Mom of two chicklets; seven and nine.

Best thing about your work:
I get to work at a job I absolutely adore between 9 am and 2 pm and still get to pick my girls up from school, have family dinners, put them to bed, then carry on from 8 pm, onward!

Share a typical Tuesday (really we want to hear how you "do it all")
Up at 7, breakfast, lunch bags and chicklets to school by 8. Morning power walk, then shower and at my laptop from 9-2. Those hours are spent writing, reading, online ‘marketing’ (code for noodling around on Facebook and Twitter), critiquing manuscripts, revisions. I do author visits at schools on occasion as well and volunteer for field trips and class functions at my kids’ school.

Then, school pickup at 2:45, playtime at the park until 3:30, homework/projects/reading until 5. Dinner at 6ish, kids to bed by 7:30, then a few more hours of writing or relaxing with hubby, depending on the deadline-du-jour.

Notice, I didn’t mention ‘cleaning’ at any point during my typical Tuesday.

Do you blog?
Yup! About books, life and my love of cheese and cheap chocolate. HERE

Do you tweet?
Follow me, follow you? http://twitter.com/HeleneBoudreau

Link to a post/portfolio piece you think shows your most supreme skills:
My on-line home: http://www.heleneboudreau.com/

Wallflower or social butterfly?
I used to be shy but I think I’ve come out of my shell a bit since turning a ‘certain age’. That may be partly caused by the onset of senility or partly because I care a lot less what people think of me.

I is who I is, and all that. ;-)

Name 3 people you know in the virtual world that you would like to meet in real life?
My writing pal and critique partner, Sharon Jones, who lives in the UK.

My literary agent extraordinaire, Lauren MacLeod. (we’ve only ever spoken by phone and e-mail!)

Long lost cousins I’ve reconnected with on Facebook. We met way back when we were kids but don’t all the cells in your body regenerate every seven years? They are completely different people now!