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Shelly Mazzanoble

Goodreads Author

Born

in The United States

Website

http://www.shellymazzanoble.com

Twitter

shellymoo

Genre

Humor, Biographies & Memoirs, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Influences

Sloan Crosley, Jen Lancaster, John Irving, Joan Rivers, Melissa Bank, ...more

Member Since

August 2007

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/shellymoo

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About a million years ago, Shelly Mazzanoble had a short story published in a literary magazine called Whetstone. They paid her $50 which she used to purchase a keg and threw a great big party.

Motivated by her strong desire to curate menus for cocktail parties and her friends’ penchant for drinking free beer, Shelly has gone on to publish short stories and essays in Carve, The Seattle Times, Scary Mommy, In the Powder Room, and has been syndicated on popular websites such as Blunt Moms and BlogHer, where she has been named a featured writer. She writes a regular column called Mom in the Middle for the Seattle-based parenting resource organization PEPs (Program for Early Parent Support) where she seeks to scare daunt forewarn enlighten new p About a million years ago, Shelly Mazzanoble had a short story published in a literary magazine called Whetstone. They paid her $50 which she used to purchase a keg and threw a great big party.

Motivated by her strong desire to curate menus for cocktail parties and her friends’ penchant for drinking free beer, Shelly has gone on to publish short stories and essays in Carve, The Seattle Times, Scary Mommy, In the Powder Room, and has been syndicated on popular websites such as Blunt Moms and BlogHer, where she has been named a featured writer. She writes a regular column called Mom in the Middle for the Seattle-based parenting resource organization PEPs (Program for Early Parent Support) where she seeks to scare daunt forewarn enlighten new parents about the terrors joys of parenthood.

Not wanting to completely waste the theater degree procured from lovely Ithaca College, she removed all the narrative from that first published short story and turned it into a one-act play. Blue Malls, starring Shelly herself, was produced in Seattle’s Mae West Fest XIII. Due to the anxiety dreams still plaguing her, she did not star, support or even understudy in her play, The Chicken & the Egg (also originally a short-story), which was produced in Mae West Fest IV and later Manhattan Theatre Source’s Estrogenius Festival.

In 2006, Shelly was introduced to the roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons, while working for Wizards of the Coast. She’s still bitter that no one introduced her to this game earlier as her imaginary friends and innate desire to lie tell stories would have been put to good use. Her book, Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress: A Girls Guide to the Dungeons and Dragons Game published by Wizards of the Coast, was nominated for an Origins Award and won an ENnies Award— the annual fan-based celebration of excellence in tabletop roleplaying gaming. Confessions has been translated into Japanese with the far superior title of, On Mondays I’m a Wizard (even though her game was on Wednesdays) and has been required reading in college classes focusing on game design and theory. Her second book, Everything I Need to Know I Learned From Dungeons & Dragons: One Woman’s Quest to Trade Self-Help for Elf-Help was nominated for an Origins Award and has the distinct honor of being read by at least six of her non-D&D playing friends. Shelly really loves writing books with very long titles. In fact, she is at work on another book with a very long title. Sadly it does not include a dungeon or a dragon but it does include a toddler and several uses of the term “lady parts.” (TMI? Just wait.)

When not slandering the reputations of newborns and eschewing the very notion that having “just one baby” is indeed easy (WTH, Mom?!) She enjoys perfecting her Bert from Sesame Street impression (“Ernie! My pige-unnns!”), eating raw cookie dough, Ladies of London, when her husband is the one who gets up to fix her son breakfast, going down a Pinterest rabbit hole, painting things gray, ankle booties, her green sweatpants, quoting Mommie Dearest, the idea of a garden, and being the oldest mom at daycare. She lives in Seattle with an alpha cat named Zelda, various foster dogs, a very patient man who either doesn’t read her blog or just has a really good sense of humor, and a genius* toddler who loves Panda bears, falling down, and poop, and who provides his proud mother with endless fodder. At least until he gets a lawyer.
Shelly encourages you to check out her blog, especially the older entries because she had a lot more time to think and edit back then. If you like reality TV, Shelly wants to be your friend.

*According to 3 out of 4 grandparents
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Shelly Mazzanoble’s books

Average rating: 3.45 · 1,178 ratings · 243 reviews · 6 distinct works • Similar authors

	Confessions of a Part-time Sorceress: A Girl's Guide to the D&D Game 3.43 avg rating — 723 ratings — published 2007 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Dungeons & Dragons - One Woman's Quest to Trade Self-Help for Elf-Help 3.33 avg rating — 323 ratings — published 2011 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	How to Dungeon Master Parenting: A Guidebook for Gamifying the Child Rearing Quest, Leveling Up Your Skills, and Raising Future Adventurers 3.98 avg rating — 66 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Welcome to Dragon Talk: Inspiring Conversations about Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Love to Play It by Shelly Mazzanoble (Goodreads Author), Greg Tito 3.79 avg rating — 66 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Monday witch (HJ Bunko G-senor 01-01-01) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Welcome to Dragon Talk: Inspiring Conversations About Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Love to Play It 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Shelly Mazzanoble's Blog

How to DM Parenting is a Book of the Year!

My book baby has new bling! Thrilled to share HOW TO DUNGEON MASTER PARENTING has been selected as a finalist for American Bookfest’s Best Book of the Year in Parenting and Family!

This came hot on the heels of finding out it was also getting a starred review in Booklist! Can I just say how much I love librarians!

Here’s an excerpt. Full review will be posted in November:

“While geared toward D&

Shelly is Currently Reading

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Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned"

by Lena Dunham (Goodreads Author)

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Feb 10, 2015 10:45PM

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Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs

by John Bowe

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Aug 16, 2010 09:39PM

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Men are Stupid...and They Like Big Boobs: A Woman's Guide to Beauty Through Plastic Surgery

by Joan Rivers

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Jul 20, 2010 08:35PM

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Shelly Mazzanoble wrote a new blog post How to DM Parenting is a Book of the Year! My book baby has new bling! Thrilled to share HOW TO DUNGEON MASTER PARENTING has been selected as a finalist for American Bookfest’s Best Book of the Read more of this blog post »
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Quotes by Shelly Mazzanoble (?)

“Mothers are like dungeons. Some really stink and you'll do anything to avoid them. And some are lush sanctuaries filled with gold, jewels, and butterscotch schnapps-spiked Nestle Nesquik.”
― Shelly Mazzanoble, Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Dungeons & Dragons - One Woman's Quest to Trade Self-Help for Elf-Help

tags: dungeons, dungeons-and-dragons, fantasy, mothers, roleplaying

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“The beauty of religion in D&D, according to James, is “that we have all of these different gods you can choose from, so you can find a set of commandments that are already in line with how you want to play your character.”
― Shelly Mazzanoble, Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Dungeons & Dragons - One Woman's Quest to Trade Self-Help for Elf-Help

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