We're all familiar with Writer Blog Tours, but this one's different. It's the TURN DOWN FOR WHAT Writer Blog Tour.  The marvelous poet and teacher, Emma Bolden partnered with me in cooking this up, and we are mightily pleased at this, the chance to reject all forms of turning down. Or, at least when it comes to writer blog tours.

So, we came up with some fun questions together, and now we're ready to let this thing loose.

Tagged writers get to choose from TWO of these questions. My answers follow.

1) We know getting your work out is all about hard work, perseverance, & talent, but there's always a dash of luck involved. So, name the luckiest publishing-related thing that has ever happened to you.

2) Your book has been optioned by Oprah. Who's the star?

3) If your hometown threw a parade to celebrate your book, what kind of parade would it be?

4) Writing is sometimes a miserable experience. How do you drown your sorrows?

5) If you could be a box of cereal, what kind of cereal would you be and why?

6) Team Dickinson or Team Whitman?

7)  Arthur Quilling-Couch said that in writing, one often has to ruthlessly cut what one loves most -- in other words, "Murder your darlings."  What was your hardest darling to murder?

8) What's the weirdest thing someone has said when you told them you are a writer?

9) If you could rewrite/adapt/rework any story by anybody, what would it be and what would you do with it?

10) Agatha Christie, as the story goes, created many of her stories while eating apples  in the bathtub.  How do you spark the story-or-poem-making part of your brain?

 My answers:

3) If my hometown threw a parade to celebrate A FALLING STAR...

....the parade would run down 49th Street in Hialeah, Florida. There would be giant floats of famous Cubans--Celia Cruz, Beny Moré, Antonio Macéo, Jose Martí. (We couldn't do giant Macy's style balloons because of the phone wires everywhere.) Because the novel is set during the Mariel Boatlift, we'd make sure to have lots of boat-themed floats, as well as convertibles with all the Marielitos who broke all expectations of the time and became lawyers and doctors and teachers and business owners sitting in them and waving. There would have to be an enormous float with a statue of la Virgen de la Caridad, of course, and vendors would be selling lechón on a stick, and batidos de mamey to drink. And it would be a celebration of Cuban-American immigration and history. And I would weep big fat tears on the sidelines, having saved my place right in front of Sedano's Supermarket.

2) If Oprah optioned my book, one of the stars would be...

...Eva Mendes. Cuban-American actress and drop-dead gorgeous, she could play Solamaris. And I think Daisy Fuentes could play Magda Elena. The two of them look as if they might have been best friends in another life.  Pit Bull could play Angel. Dale!  If this were to ever happen (it won't, by the way), I know my one regret would be that I didn't write a character fabulous enough to be played by J-Lo. I'd have to go in and rewrite it somehow, adding a character just for her.

All done!

Thanks, Emma Bolden, for encouraging this turned-upness.

You can follow Emma on Twitter, @emmabo, or read her blog, A Century of Nerve And you can order Emma's book of poems, Malificae (GenPop Books) here.
I'm tagging New York Times Bestselling Author Rachel Hawkins for the next installment of the TURN DOWN FOR WHAT Writers Blog Tour.

You should know that Rachel is a dear friend, one of the kindest and funniest people I know, and a wonderful, wonderful writer. Tag, you're it, Hawkins.

Follow Rachel on Twitter at @LadyHawkins and order her newest book, Rebel Belle (Penguin) and her other books at the click.