My Squirrel Days
CBC Books | | Posted: December 10, 2018 7:40 PM | Last Updated: December 12, 2018
Ellie Kemper
Meet Ellie, the best-intentioned redhead next door. You'll laugh right alongside her as she shares tales of her childhood in St. Louis, whether directing and also starring in her family holiday pageant, washing her dad's car with a Brillo pad, failing to become friends with a plump squirrel in her backyard, eating her feelings while watching PG-13 movies or becoming a "sports monster" who ends up warming the bench of her Division 1 field hockey team in college.
You'll learn how she found her comedic calling in the world of improv, became a wife, mother and New Yorker, and landed the role of a bridesmaid (while simultaneously being a bridesmaid) in Bridesmaids. You'll get to know and love the comic, upbeat, perpetually polite actress playing Erin Hannon on The Office and the exuberant, pink-pants-wearing star of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
If you've ever been curious about what happens behind the scenes of your favourite shows, what it really takes to be a soul cycle "warrior," how to recover if you accidentally fall on Doris Kearns Goodwin or tell Tina Fey on meeting her for the first time that she has "great hair — really strong and thick," this is your chance to find out. But it's also a laugh-out-loud primer on how to keep a positive outlook in a world gone mad and how not to give up on your dreams. (From Simon & Schuster)
From the book
There comes a time in every sitcom actress's life when she is faced with the prospect of writing a book. When my number was up, I told myself that I would not blink. I would fulfill my duty as an upbeat actress under contract on a television series and serve my country in the only way I knew how. I would cull from my life the very greatest and most memorable of anecdotes, I would draw on formative lessons learned both early on and also not too long ago, I would paint for the reader a portrait of the girl, the teenager, the woman I am today, and I would not falter. I would write a book.
And so, Reader, I got to work.
First, I started dressing like an Author: black turtlenecks and dark denim jeans. Then, I started sipping like an Author: double shots of espresso with no Hershey's syrup to cushion the blow. Finally, I started talking like an Author: "That reminds me of my book," I would begin most sentences. I noticed people stopped talking to me as much.
But onward I marched.
From My Squirrel Days by Ellie Kemper ©2018. Published by Simon & Schuster.