MELANIE LYNNE HAUSER

MOM NOVELIST HITS SUPER STARDOM!

Meet Melanie Lynne Hauser, a Chicago mom of two teenage boys who has transformed her stay at home life into the stuff that fairy tales are made of. Melanie never expected that she'd become a writer by trade since she spent most of her days shuttling her boys two and from soccer practice, school, playdates and appointments with the family orthodontist. Melanie dutifully played the part of doting mom, volunteering for dozens of committees and even had a stint as PTA President until the stress of the job landed her in a hospital emergency room.

While the PTA fiasco may have been Melanie's first sign that she may want to devote her time to something less taxing, the true writing on the wall came straight out of the mouth of her young son. When asked what his mommy did for a living, Melanie's wise cracking little boy replied, "My mom cleans houses." Melanie says, that with that fateful comment, "Perhaps it was time to look around for something else to do." And so, with her family as her comedic inspiration, Melanie embarked on a career as an author.

But the road to stardom is definitely not paved with gold nuggets or dollar bills for that matter. Melanie took a stab at writing her first novel and says it "stunk so bad that no agent wanted to represent me." So, she says, she buried it in the backyard and worked on her next book. That novel, actually got some interest from agents and she even secured one who attempted to sell it. While the book almost made it past the discerning noses of the marketing executives at a few publishing houses, it unfortunately never made it into print.

At this point in time, while she was no longer considered the family's "cleaning lady," Melanie says her son decided to wax poetic about her current career trajectory:

My mom's name is Melanie,
She writes lots of books
But can't sell any!

Humiliated and devastated, Melanie realized that her son's latest commentary was a step up from her previous line of work. Determined to finally break into the world of publishing, Melanie perservered and realized that maybe she needed to shake things up a bit. While writing her third novel about the life of a stay at home mom, Melanie devised an interesting plot twist. When the mom gets engrossed in trying to solve a major stain problem in the house, she inhales some noxious fumes that wind up giving her miraculous super powers! Bingo! A book that would set her apart from the rest and give hope to those moms toiling away with Swiffers and Magic Erasers!

With the help of her two sons, who are both superhero and comic book afficionados, Melanie got to work and hit a home run. After switching agents a few more times, Melanie pitched her book to Laura Langlie, an ambitious, determined and supportive agent who not only took her on as a client but became one of her biggest cheerleaders. Melanie's third novel, CONFESSIONS OF SUPER MOM and a sequel, SUPER MOM SAVES THE WORLD were bought by Penguin books. CONFESSIONS OF SUPER MOM, has just become available in soft cover and SUPER MOM SAVES THE WORLD will be released in hard cover in March 2007.

In the meantime, Melanie has also become a popular force on the worldwide web. Her blog, The Refrigerator Door, shares her musings on life as a mom and author and has enabled her to reach out to many women across the country who can relate and laugh out loud from her daily postings. Melanie has also begun contributing to Role Mommy with a brand new column called Confessions of (a not so) Supermom. To take a peek at her first essay, Click Here.

Even if you have to bury a few bad books in the backyard until you get it right, Melanie says the key to reinvention is to never give up. As she gets ready to embark on her latest book tour, this inspiring author and writer concludes, "The happiest moms I know are the ones who are doing what they love."

To watch Melanie in action, reading an excerpt from Confessions of Supermom, CLICK HERE