The Bergen Record

Northern New Jersey newspaper The Record featured Marcy and Bad Marie on the cover of the arts section today, answering the question: “How did this young woman who grew up in Englewood make this leap – from human resources to feted novelist?”

Marcy and Marie in the New York Times

In an article on “nanny novels,” the New York Times Felicia Lee featured Marcy, her daughter Nina, and Bad Marie, along with writers Mona Simpson and Victoria Brown. The story also ran in the International Herald Tribune.

“Envy is something I’m interested in, in general,” said Ms. Dermansky, interviewed in her home in the Astoria section of Queens, where she lives with her husband and daughter, Nina. “There’s always a house that’s better to play at, someone who has better toys.”

Because of their flexible schedules as writers, Ms. Dermansky and her husband only occasionally rely on a baby sitter to look after their daughter, now 11 months old. Employing a nanny, she said, is “a tricky thing to do” for all the usual reasons.

“I’m not against it,” she added, “but I feel lucky with my life right now.”

Read the entire article.

Marcy’s Bad Marie Playlist at Largehearted Boy

Marcy shares her Bad Marie playlist with Largehearted Boy:

I did not listen to Scarlett Johansson’s Anywhere I Lay My Head just a little bit. Scarlett is ingrained in my brain. Bad Marie is not a long novel, just over 240 pages, but I probably wrote over 100 new pages with the album on repeat.

Taking My Baby To The Movies

Marcy’s article about taking her daughter Nina to a “Mommy and Me” screening at the Landmark Sunshine Theater was published in Film in Focus. Here’s how it begins:

My daughter Nina, seven months old, sitting on my lap, started talking excitedly to the big screen in front of her.

“Doy doy doy doy doo doo,” she said with enormous enthusiasm — or something very much like it. We were watching Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus at the Landmark Sunshine Theater in Manhattan, a Wednesday matinee in their weekly Rattle and Reel screening series for parents and babies. I looked around nervously, afraid that Nina was making too much noise.

Litpark Interview

Susan Henderson and Marcy trade secrets from high school–and share old pictures–in their discussion of Twins on the literary website litpark.

Backstory.com: Twins

I am not an identical twin. Before writing TWINS, I had started another novel about a young woman in San Francisco and then I realized that the last thing I wanted to do was write a book about myself. Instead, I set out to amuse myself. I started with a new, outlandish voice (Sue) and then countered her voice with a quiet, controlled opposite (Chloe). Read more.

Large Hearted Boy: Book Notes

I couldn’t stop seeing TWINS: The Movie in my head while I was writing the actual novel. Chloe and Sue were real to me, the scenes coming in as if I was part of the audience, watching. I could see my identical twins at the tattoo parlor: skinny and pale, cold and nervous in their pink bras. I could see angry Sue on her unicycle, riding defiantly through the snowed filled suburban streets. Or Chloe, in her shiny uniform on the basketball court, shooting free throw after free throw.

Here are some songs by indie artists that would be on the TWINS soundtrack

Mediabistro: Three The Easy Way

My article with tips for getting published appeared on the writer’s web site mediabistro.com: MBTToolbox.