Meet Amy Gettinger - author & all-round superwoman

It's beginning to look a lot like Chick Lit

If you follow my Facebook page you’ll definitely know that a fantastic Christmas anthology written by a collective of 9 Chick Lit authors (including myself, no bias of course) is set for launch in 2 days on November 4th. The Anthology, ‘It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Chick Lit’ is a collection of funny and sometimes romantic (or tragic) Christmas stories, each with an individual voice and flavour, but all based around the holiday theme.

In celebration of this release I’ll be running a series of blog posts on some of the authors (including their favourite Christmas recipe and the story behind it), beginning with the fabulous Amy Gettinger.

1: Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you write.

I am a mother of two employed (!!) UC grads in engineering, one of whom is married and buying a condo at age 25! I’m also a dog person/whisperer and a lover of all pools and pool noise. “Marco!” “Polo!” Yep. All summer long, right outside my window while I write. What fun.

2. Give us an overview (with all the best bits) of your story in the anthology.

My story, “Deck the Malls with Purple Peacocks,” has a determined Mexican woman living in California, working two jobs, then three, with her eye on starting her own business. But when things start to fall apart and she has to struggle to keep her goal intact, she finds she has more support than she ever knew she had--including the support of Three Wise Women and a very cute Cuban guy. The question is, will she have to go back to Mexico?

3. It’s a Christmas collection, so what does your usual family Christmas look like?

We get a real, fat 6-foot noble fir and decorate it with our huge collection of ornaments. Most of these are hand painted, blown glass beauties with glitter and all kinds of sentimentality attached. Blown glass ornaments I have: a red hot chili pepper, a luscious mermaid, a blue feathered parrot, a Mickey Mouse, about a dozen Santas (including the $$$ Christopher Radko one, which is super cute), a Santa hanging from a balloon, a pickle, a beach Santa, many snowmen, a squirrel, a banana, 2 bunches of grapes, several churches, red stockings, harps, violins, a large, GORGEOUS red angel, a lemon, and a multitude of colorfully painted balls of many sizes. I probably forgot some.

What was the question again? Oh, Christmas? Yeah. Who cares what we do after we get the tree up anyway? We basically eat lots of chocolate and open a few gifts on Christmas Day. Maybe throw a roast beef in the oven. Maybe not. LOL

4. Lastly, give us your best Christmas recipe and where it came from.

Persimmon Pudding

Made by my mother and grandmother in Indiana from wild Indiana persimmons for years, until our family moved to California in the late 1960s and my mother used the larger hachiya or fuyu persimmons.

Ingredients:

1 quart (4 c.) persimmon pulp (which means you have to skin and take the seeds out of a bunch of persimmons and then mash up the pulp pretty good)

2 eggs

1 ¾ c. sugar

4 c. flour

4 c. milk

1 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. baking powder

3 Tbsp. butter

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. allspice or mace

¼ tsp. cloves

¼ tsp. nutmeg

¼ tsp. ginger

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2. Melt butter in a 9x13 pan to grease it (may need another small casserole for extra)

3. Sift spices and dry ingredients together

4. In a large bowl, stir together the persimmon pulp, eggs, and sugar. Add flour mixture and milk, alternately stirring some of each into the persimmon until smooth. Pour into a large greased crock or casserole dish. Drop dabs of butter on top.

5. Bake for 1 hour (or more-until it sets) in the preheated oven. Pudding will be brown when finished. Serve hot or cold, with whipped cream.

Who is Amy Gettinger?

Once a community college ESL instructor, now coaches reader’s theater for seniors. She lives in her dream house in Orange County, California underneath a eucalyptus windrow full of parrots and crows. For fun, she walks the local beach cliff path with her husband and the dogs--and thinks up perfectly ridiculous characters and crimes to write about. Check out her books listed here and grab them from Amazon now