Author Guest Post with Dana Hammer: My Best Friend Athena

Fanny Fitzpatrick has the coolest best friend ever. Athena is smart, and pretty, and brave, and kind. Fanny loves her friend, but sometimes, she feels a little jealous of how perfect Athena is.

Welcome to the February 8th stop on the blog tour for My Best Friend Athena by Dana Hammer with Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, more author guest posts, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

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Author Guest Post

My Best Friend Athena: the Origin Story

It was during the first weeks of the shutdown that I knew I had to write something different. School had just stopped happening, and I was attempting to educate my child at home, with the help of a take-home laptop. My daughter was enrolled in kindergarten, in a dual-language-Spanish-immersion school, and was — understandably — having trouble focusing on the lessons, as they were all videos in Spanish, which neither she nor I spoke. I was deeply regretting my choice to enroll her in such a program. In an attempt to keep her focused, I decided we would set up a “mommy-daughter-desk”, where I would work on my writing, and she would work on…well, watching videos she couldn’t understand, in Spanish.

At the time, I was working on a very dark horror novel, about a bedridden, morbidly obese man, and the psychotic nurse who tortures him. It was basically Misery meets The Biggest Loser. Anyway, I was typing away, when all of a sudden, my sweet baby daughter said,

“He’s batshit insane.”

I looked at her little cherubic face.

“What?”

“You know what’s batshit insane? Ordering pizza and having it delivered through the fucking window.”

I looked at my screen. My daughter was reading the words I had just written.

I hid my screen from her view.

“Can you read this?”

“Yep!”

I knew she could read a little, but I wasn’t aware that she could read so well, or that she was at all interested in what I wrote.

“Alright, well, you need to focus on your work, ok?”

“I like your work better,” she chirped. “Why did he have pizza delivered through the window?”

“Well-“

“What’s fucking?”

“OK. Mommy-daughter-desk time is over.”

That day a seed was planted. My daughter was growing up. She knew I was a writer, and it was only natural that she would be curious about the things I wrote. She saw me typing and typing; it was only a matter of time until she started asking what I was writing about. I had to do something. I had to write something that I could share with her, that I could discuss with her freely.

And that’s why I started My Best Friend Athena. I knew I couldn’t write a picture book — I can’t draw. But I could write a book for older kids, something that was funny, and engaging, and had a good moral to it. Something I could be proud of. I wanted to write something with cool female protagonists who have interests, ideas, and adventures. I wanted something with magic and fun, and a little irreverence — something that adults would like to read, too.

My daughter is nine now, and I’ve just given her her very own copy of My Best Friend Athena. It’s an advance reader copy, hardback, with a bright, colorful cover. It has a special place in her reading nook, under her bunk bed. I hope that it will have a special place in her heart — and that it will keep her away from my adult novels for a little while longer.

About the Book

My Best Friend Athena
by Dana Hammer

Published 7 February 2023
Cinnabar Moth Publishing LLC

Genre: Middle-Grade Fantasy
Page Count: 234
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Fanny Fitzpatrick has the coolest best friend ever. Athena is smart, and pretty, and brave, and kind. Fanny loves her friend, but sometimes, she feels a little jealous of how perfect Athena is.

But even “perfect” girls make mistakes, and Athena makes a big one when she accidentally turns the school bully into a cockroach. He was picking on their friend Gemma and Athena lost her temper and her magic powers just slipped out right in front of Fanny.

Now Fanny knows that Athena isn’t an ordinary girl – she’s the reincarnation of a Greek goddess, powers and all – and now she needs Fanny and Gemma’s help to hunt down the bully-turned-cockroach and turn him back into a human boy.

Fanny doesn’t want to spend all her time looking for a cockroach. She’s got the Junior Miss Super Pretty Pageant to prepare for, if she can get over her stage fright. Besides, Athena’s Dad, Zeus, has forbidden the girls from meddling with any more cockroaches or magic, and Zeus is a god you don’t want to mess with.

Fanny has to make a choice. Should she pursue her pageant dreams, or risk Zeus’ wrath to find the cockroach-boy? What’s the right thing to do? And how do you hunt down a cockroach anyway?

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Excerpt

By the time I get home, everyone in town knows about Daniel’s disappearance, including my mom, which explains why she grabs me as soon as I walk in the door, like I’ve just returned from war or something. She hugs me so tightly I’m pretty sure it damages my intestines. “Honey, I’m so glad you’re home. Where were you?”

“Athena’s. Remember? I told you where I was gonna be.”

“A boy’s gone missing! I had no idea where you were! I was terrified.”

This is what happens when a kid goes missing. Your mom completely forgets about any conversations you had earlier in the day, because all she can think about is the fact that a kid is missing, and it scrambles her brains. 

“I’m sorry you were worried, Mom. But…um…a boy’s gone missing, you say?”

I’m such a bad actress.

“Yes! It’s all over the news. I got an amber alert just a few minutes ago. His name was Daniel Doyle. I think they said he went to your school. Do you know this boy?”

I panic inside. What am I supposed to say? “Yeah, I know him, and he’s a total douche-nozzle, and Athena turned him into a cockroach, but it’s ok. We’re working on it.”

No. I can not say that to my mom. Instead, I will deny everything.

“No.”

“Really?” 

I can tell that my mom doesn’t believe me. She has that skeptical look on her face that she gets when I lie. Probably because I’m a terrible liar. I can’t look her in the eyes, and my face turns bright red. It’s the worst.

About the Author

Dana Hammer is a novelist, screenwriter and playwright. She has won over forty awards and honors for her writing, few of which generated income, all of which were deeply appreciated. She is not a cannibal, but she is the author of A Cannibals Guide to Fasting. Dana is also the author of middle grade fantasy My Best Friend Athena which was inspired by a desire to write something her 9 year old daughter could read.

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Giveaway Alert!

Dana Hammer will be awarding a $10 Amazon or B&N gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

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