Amy Vansant's MOMS ARE NUTS is Released

Annapolis, Maryland

A team of Emmy winners, magazine editors, comedians, TV personalities, best-selling authors and social media superstars have collaborated to produce a laugh-out-loud book not about being a mom, but about having a mom.

"You know how it's not OK for someone else to make fun of your mom, but if you tell the joke yourself, it's funny?" says Amy Vansant, who edited the collection. "That's what we're doing here. There's a healthy respect and love for our mothers in this book, and also an acknowledgment that the 'my mom is crazy' sentiment is a universal experience."

Vansant is the former editor of Surfer Magazine and author of The Surfer's Guide to Florida who now writes comedy for humor sites such as McSweeney's Internet Tendency, as well as on her own site, AmyVansant.com. While she's been at work finishing a novel lately, she took a break to pull this collection together after a funny conversation with her husband.

"We were having a glass of wine one night after dinner," Vansant says, "and I don't even remember which of us was telling the story - but it was a story about one of our moms. I said, 'Moms are nuts,' and he said, 'I bet every single person in the world thinks that.' He's right, I think."

Contributors to the collection have also written for Comedy Central, The Tonight Show, The New York Times, US Weekly, VH-1, and The Onion, and include actors, stand-up performers, and alums of comedy programs such as the Groundlings and Upright Citizens Brigade. Critically acclaimed comedian Abbi Crutchfield contributes, as does comedy writer Gloria Fallon (who also happens to be the sister of The Tonight Show host, Jimmy Fallon).

"These essays are so good and so funny," says Laraine Newman, actress, writer, and original cast member of Saturday Night Live. In fact, she says, "It makes me mad that I don't know a lot of these writers. Wait...that's the kind of back handed compliment you'd get from an obnoxious mom. Curses!"

Comedian Wendy Liebman says, "I laughed and cried and loved Moms Are Nuts. Each writer turned their nutty memories into the sweetest lemonade."

The eye-catching cover art - featuring a diverse klatch of peanuts (plus an almond and one pistachio) dressed as mothers and grandmothers - was created by Mary Laura Philpott, one of the contributing writers, who is also the artist behind The Random Penguins tumblr comic.

The paperback will be available at independent bookstores like the famous Parnassus Books nationwide on April 8, and through online booksellers like Amazon as well as in e-book form.

For more information, to order the book, or to see hysterical outtakes from the peanut photo shoot visit http://www.MomsAreNuts.com.