Sparkledoll.Com-Reflections, Celebrity Interviews and Behind the Scenes with Author and Pop Culture Critic Dorrie Williams-Wheeler
Get access to top career progression and interview strategies to boost your career prospects
Click here for more information
Click here for more information
Posted in Interview Preparation | 
Tags: author, Behind, Celebrity, Critic, Culture, Dorrie, Interviews, Scenes, Sparkledoll.ComReflections, WilliamsWheeler
Author and entertainment journalist Dorrie Williams-Wheeler has written an autobiography about her life entitled SPARKLEDOLL.COM: Reflections, Celebrity Interviews, and Behind the Scenes, with Author and Pop Culture Critic Dorrie Williams-Wheeler. It is a compilation of her thoughts, actions, and experiences organized into diary entries, articles, short stories, and excerpts from her other books. She begins the book by informing the reader that she wears many hats; writer, designer, critic, and ends the book with several random thoughts on a variety of topics. It has a conversational tone and reads like a personal diary, moving through subjects such as weight loss, childbirth, and the processes involved with writing a novel. Additionally, she shares how she transitioned from screenwriter to published author and entertainment journalist.
SPARKLEDOLL.COM also includes a chapter on the concept to conception details of various websites she has operated over the years and why she started them, such as imissthe80s.com. Williams-Wheeler was feeling nostalgic for the 80’s and couldn’t find an 80’s site that had everything she wanted, so she started one. She is still into musicians such as Duran Duran, The Go Go’s, The Bangles, and Billy Idol. This was surprising because I thought she would have been into more African-American artists like LL Cool J and Kool Moe Dee from that time period, but she does mention En Vogue. The book also includes celebrity interviews taken from her website thabiz.com with Cassidy, Towanda Braxton, Talib Kweli, JoJo, and Nivea; many of whom I had never heard of, so it may be a regional thing. The interviews would’ve made a good addition, but were a bit repetitious and boring.
SPARKLEDOLL.COM is a one-of-a-kind book. Williams-Wheeler truly wrote in her own voice, and followed her own rules, and to quote her, “I wrote the book the way I talk.” Unfortunately, I found the topics and organization hard to follow, the writing style extremely distracting and somewhat sporadic, and the dialects and slang used confusing. If edited and structured properly, this would be a good book for young high school girls looking to experience the ups and downs of being an entertainment journalist or possibly those who are huge fans of the 1980’s.
Reviewed by Ashanti
for The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers
Rating: 2 / 5
Sparkledoll.com was a short run limited edition special edition experimental book available for six weeks in the summer of 2005. Some like it, some hate it. If you can find it you may be enlightened, hopefully you don’t find it. Its completely out of print and all but 12 copies have been destroyed.
Rating: 5 / 5
Dorrie Wiliams-Wheeler reveals all, in this brutally honest look inside the life of an author and pop culture critic. As stated several times in the book, she put this work together in two weeks. WOW! She must have worked day and night to accomplish such a feat. This book is a public relations masterpiece as it promotes everything she does from books, websites, feature articles in online journals, to blogs, and much more.
The diary entries chronicle how she got started in the business of web design and details obstacles she overcame, head on. The interviews are fresh and attention-grabbing. I actually went to several of the websites to check out artists like Guerilla Black, Heather Hunter, Brooke Valentine and Rhymefest. I read how she outlines her day-to-day work juggling website management, publicizing three books, raising two kids, and keeping a husband in line. The reader has a chance to view candid photos of Dorrie as she changes through the years. Two short stories are included at the end that will peak your interest enough to go online and order the books.
SPARKLEDOLL.COM: REFLECTIONS, CELEBRITY INTERVIEWS, AND BEHIND THE SCENES, WITH AUTHOR AND POP CULTURE CRITIC DORRIE WILLIAMS-WHEELER is a book for anyone who wants to work in the entertainment business and/or aspiring authors. Don’t wait for a huge publishing house to welcome your story or someone else to develop your website, create your own way in your own time. Williams-Wheeler proves that it can be done. On the other hand, there is one huge lesson to learn, make sure you double check your editing, layout and picture quality before going to print. But what do you expect for a book that was put together from start to finish in two weeks.
Reviewed by M. Bruner for Loose Leaves Book Review
Rating: 3 / 5
Sparkledoll.com is the latest book from my favorite author Dorrie Williams-Wheeler. I have been following her career since her debut fiction novel Sparkledoll Always Into Something. [...] is a non-fiction book that is part “professional autobiography,” and part entertainment for her readers. The book is comprised of the following sections-Diary Entries, Dorrie the Writer, Articles & Short Stories, Dorrie the Designer, Celebrity Interviews, Random Thoughts, and Fiction Chapter selections.
The book includes some candid pictures of Dorrie. She really opens up in this book and in an attempt to let her readers get to know her. In several diary entries she speaks on how she feels like no one really knows her. The short stories are personal. One story which is fiction she claims is about her moving to New Jersey after graduate school and looking for love with someone that didn’t love her back. The other short story that I remember is her detailing the drama surrounding the birth of her first child. She developed a life threatening illness. In Dorrie the Designer she discusses her various websites and how she got started as a web designer. She talks about her old fan sites like a Marcus Camby fan site she had made in the 90’s named Cambyism, a DJ Quik websites and some more.
Some people will buy this book for the interviews. She operates a popular website and the book includes her interviews with some celebs. I enjoyed the Gerald Levert interview the most but the book included her interviews with Ciara, Mannie Fresh, Nivea and others. She had an interview with a new rapper named Rhymefest which was quite interesting. It’s a great book I don’t want to give it all away. The book also includes excerpts from her previous two fiction novels–I guess an attempt to draw in new readers. A great book by a promising young author.
Rating: 5 / 5