When you put the wrong date in your calendar for an interview with Jen Mann, the blogger/author behind People I Want to Punch in the Throat, you kind of fear that you’ll be added to the list.

But Mann — who will be coming to the downtown library for a moms’ night out event on Wednesday, October 11 at 7 pm, as part of a book tour to promote her latest humorous essay collection, Working with People I Want to Punch in the Throat — couldn’t have been more understanding, despite her famously feisty, tell-it-like-it-is persona.

Mann first appeared on most readers’ radars back in 2011 when her caustic blog post about failing to keep up with other Elf on the Shelf mommies went viral. The response took Mann (a realtor at the time) by surprise, but she also knew that she needed to act fast if she wanted to keep her new readers engaged.

“I had a lot of emotions,” said Mann. “On the one hand, I was terrified. I’d never had a million people read something I’d written. And while most responses were positive, there were also five percent of them that were people who were threatening my children and things like that. … I decided then and there what to do. I wouldn’t post photos of them or use their real names on my blog. But I’d also wanted to be a writer since I was five, and I had 17,000 fans by the end of that first night, so I had to figure out how to keep them fed.” READ THE REST HERE