Sarah Colonna’s NY Times Best Seller “Life as I Blow It” is witty, charming, and downright funny. It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed out loud at a book – hell, it’s been a long time since I laughed at anything really. But when I picked up my copy of Sarah Colonna’s memoir, things changed. She chronicles her life from childhood in Arkansas to adulthood in Hollywood and goes through everything from her first boyfriend to her sexual encounters and everything in between. Sarah has been doing stand-up for years in and around Los Angeles, and is now a panelist and executive producer on “Chelsea Lately” and “After Lately.” Her convivial book is currently being turned into a series for NBC and today, Sarah talks to us about everything… including her thoughts on marrying a woman.
I’m telling you, pick this book up – it’s worth it.
CherryGRRL (CG): Congrats on your book’s huge success. How did it feel when you found it was a NY Times Best Seller?
Sarah Collona (SC): Yeah, it’s exciting. There was a lot of crying, good crying. It was above and beyond what I expected for sure.
CG: “Life as I Blow It” tells your story – from small-town Arkansas to the big entertainment hub of LA and all the ups and downs along the way. What inspired you to tell this story now?
SC: You know, honestly, it just felt like the right time. I started living alone again, I was in a relationship and I broke up with somebody and I was like 37 and at first you kind of feel like, Wait, what have I done? You know? Is this the right place for me to be in? I’m not married, I don’t have kids, but my career is going really well. Then I realized, yeah…that’s exactly where I want to be, and I think that a lot of people really struggle with whether or not that’s ok. You know, to be the opposite of traditional, when you grow up in a small town. I just felt like I’m going to write this story and maybe people can relate to it and understand that we are living in a time where it’s ok to live a less traditional lifestyle. But, it takes a long time to get there and to feel comfortable in your own skin. Maybe the fact that I am comfortable in my own skin is the reason. I’m finally comfortable in my own skin and with who I am and it took a while to get there, growing up in a small town and having people live a more traditional life. I thought, ok, now I can actually write about it.
CG: What are some things that fans/readers will learn about you and your journey in entertainment after reading your book?
SC: I think there is a lot. I think the main thing to learn is that I definitely had a struggle back and forth for years about you know, if I want to get married, if I wanted kids, and those kinds of things. I don’t think anyone will be surprised to learn that I made plenty of bad choices that resulted in very funny stories, so that’s good. I don’t think that will be a surprise – people will just learn details about them.
CG: Obviously your involvement with Chelsea Lately and After Lately has been extremely rewarding. How did you first meet Chelsea?
SC: We actually met when we were like 22, and we were both in an improv class. She has just moved here from Jersey, and me from Arkansas. We kind of didn’t know what we were doing so we took this improv class and then we were both like, eh this isn’t really what we want to do, we aren’t that good at it. And we were both trying to do stand-up at the same time, which was great. It was cool to have someone sort of in the trenches with you that had no idea what the hell they were doing when it came to doing stand up either. We would just trotter out to bad open mics together until we figured it out. We’ve known each other for years, then when she started this show, I came on as a panelist, you know the comics on the round table, and so I did that for about a year, then eventually they said, do you want to come on here full time? I was like, yeah, that’s probably a good idea (laughs). Probably something I should say yes to.
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