News related to Clown Girl

by Monica Drake

Monica Drake Guest Blogs for Powell’s Books

16 Apr 2013|

True, I’ve been that neighbor down the hall, a dive apartment, the scent of frying onions seeping under the door. You’ve been there too, I think. Maybe you have. If you haven’t, that’s your loss.

There’s a Bukowski story called “The Devil Was Hot.” A man finds the devil trapped in a cage in a carnival. He gets the devil out, takes him home. Bukowski writes:

I fried him a bacon and egg sandwich for starters and we sat down with Flo.
“Your friend is a handsome looking devil,” she told me.
...Forward

Monica Drake talking about her new novel, The Stud Book, on Oregon Public Radio’s Think Out Loud

10 Apr 2013|

Portland author Monica Drake says she drew on her experience interning at the Oregon Zoo for one of the storylines in her new novel, The Stud Book. She worked on charting the baby elephants’ behavior every 45 seconds. Sarah, one of the book’s main characters, struggles with infertility in her personal life, even as she is surrounded by reproducing animals and zoo patrons who seem to be teeming with offspring.

Drake says the themes that emerge as her characters lives unfold include an implicit...Forward

PW reviews Monica Drake’s The Stud Book.

28 Feb 2013|

Publishers Weekly reviews Monica Drake’s second novel, The Stud Book.


“Drake’s characters don’t just remember an older, more run-down city, they seem to inhabit it… Drake (Clown Girl) combines their lives in a quirky, knowing way, showing the complexities of modern-day female life, species Pacific Northwest native.”


To read the entire review, go to Publishers Weekly.


Please be sure to also read Monica’s debut novel, Clown Girl, if you have not already!

Lidia Yuknavitch (l) and Monica Drake (r) with k.d. lang at the John Wesley Harding’s Cabinet of Wonders: A Benefit for the Children’s Cancer Association’s My Music Rx.

14 Feb 2013|

Lidia Yuknavitch and Monica Drake with k.d. lang last night at the John Wesley Harding’s Cabinet of Wonders: A Benefit for the Children’s Cancer Association’s My Music Rx.  Also participating was Carrie Brownstein, Peter Buck, Sallie Ford, Ben Gibbard, k.d. lang, Storm Large, Scott McCaughey, Colin Meloy, Eugene Mirman, and Laura Veirs.

Bridesmaids’ Kristen Wiig options Monica Drake’s Clown Girl

06 May 2010|

​Saturday Night Live cast member Kristen Wiig is using her own money to option Clown Girl, the 2007 Monica Drake novel that Wiig will adapt into a feature script. Wiig wants to play the heroine, Nita, a clown in crisis who works street fairs as Sniffles the Clown. Nita is barely surviving in her hometown of Baloneytown, pining for a dream man who used her to finance his attendance at clown college. As a result, she struggles to live and tries to resist the potentially lucrative prostitution...Forward