Authors Tawny Taylor and Emily Ryan-Davis

Hey gals, please welcome two lovely, talented and red hot authors Tawny Taylor and Emily Ryan-Davis! If you’re looking for something to spice up your weekend – these two are it! Take it away, ladies…


TAWNY Hello everyone! I’m so glad to be here this weekend, along with my Diva friend Emily Ryan-Davis. First, I want to thank Gemma for inviting us to come over and play. Emily, what’re we going to talk about this weekend? Maybe clothes, or shoes…or shopping…ohhh, shopping...

EMILY Shopping? One sec while I lock up my credit cards. Once the urge hits, I can’t shake it with anything less than three purchases. I never thought I’d be a shopaholic (um, neither did my husband).

TAWNY Is there a woman in the US who isn’t a shopaholic, LOL?

EMILY You too?! When did it start for you? I’ve only developed this condition since I met my husband (and his mother) who, at 52 years old, roams around in high hippie fashion some days, church fashion others. She once said to me, about a low-cut halter: “Oh, Jack would like that.” That shopping trip affected me in a number of ways (we won’t discuss the mental image of my portly father-in-law salivating over my mother-in-law’s breasts) and lead to my search for personal style.

TAWNY OMG! I love your MIL and I’ve never even met her! I was a mall brat and total clothes whore when I was a kid. I wanted to wear the latest…which was a problem because my family couldn’t afford to buy the latest. Later (totally showing my age here) I did the whole Flashdance thing with torn sweatshirts and leg warmers, and when I was in college, I went through my punk phase. That was pretty…not. Lately, I’m going for urban chic…with a touch of sass. In other words, I wear a lot of black. I won’t say my clothes are conservative, because some of them are trendy, but I don’t go to the extremes I used to. My style is more a blend of different styles, I guess you could say. I have some classic pieces, which I wear with more trendy ones. Then there are the cultural inspired pieces. I buy and wear what I love. In a word, my style is eclectic.

EMILY As a kid, I had the income barrier, too. On top of the size barrier. “Misses Plus” didn’t become a department until…way after I was out of the “misses” fashion category. My mom made up for her inability to provide the current style by going the “quantity” route. The way SHE was raised, she believed that three of something on last season’s clearance was better than one of something at current season price. And if one polka-dotted tee was good, three in different colors were fantastic. My first boyfriend’s mother was no better, fashion-wise. She subscribed to the same philosophy as my mom. I spent way too much time being excited by nabbing a few “Just My Size” t-shirts on clearance. They don’t even fit right!

Ok, since you confessed your Flashdance phase, I’ll confess some of my recent mistakes and the lessons I learned after the fact:

*Red plaid miniskirt and white thigh-highs with satin bows (trust me, I do not have good thighs, and the miniskirt is further destroyed by the sensible Dansko clog – yes, even when the clog is a patent leather mary jane)

TAWNY I shudder at the image of me even *trying* to pull off this look

EMILY I kind of shudder at what I must’ve looked like. Ew! And then there were the footless camouflage tights (do I even need to elaborate?)

TAWNY Hmmmm….maybe for…okay, I can’t see any way to make those work

EMILY I thought I’d go “Boy Scout Chic” and wear them with this shirred-hem khaki denim mini skirt and one of my husband’s Boy Scout uniform shirts. That was the G.I. Jane, What the Heck Were You Thinking? look. Ahh, and I almost forgot the stretchy salmon capris…with a drawstring waist…that I bought last spring.

TAWNY But I’m reading COMFORT here! Stretch is good. I like stretch and stretch likes me. Drawstring also good. Especially if you’re going to a picnic and you know you’re going to eat a lot

EMILY Stretch is only good if it fits right in the first place. And if all your inexpensive tops don’t shrink after the first wash, so what looked perfectly acceptable and hip-length was suddenly no longer than navel-length.

TAWNY If you’re looking for me to confess my fashion sins, I’m afraid I’ll have to plead the fifth. Okay, I’ll admit it—I live in sloppy sweats and cheap tennis shoes from Payless.

EMILY As long as you don’t live in Uggs (ugggggggghhh)

TAWNY These look comfy…comfort is good.

EMILY Comfort in the form of sheepskin boots you’re supposed to wear with socks is, in the end, more smelly than good.


EMILY I’ve finally come to an agreement with my body and my credit cards, and we’re all on the same page as far as clothes go. We’ve established a few rules. Among them: a) no shopping at Wal-Mart unless it’s for gym socks--

TAWNY—WHAT?!

EMILY Look, if it’s a choice between the size 18 shorts at Avenue or the size 24 shorts at Wal-Mart, my vanity wins. : ) And there are other rules! Ok, b) nothing looks good enough on me to warrant buying two of it in different colors—

TAWNY *eyeing closet* Uhhhh. I’m glad I don’t have to live by your rules *grin*

EMILY LOL : ) My last fashion realization is, c) Soccer Mom Couture isn’t really the devil (well…not the meanest one, anyway).

TAWNY Soccer Mom Couture is HAWT

EMILY I’m glad we’re in agreement! Now, if only I could reach an agreement with my imagination, because the search for personal fashion sense? Not nearly as painful or embarrassing as my search for a genre fit. I wish I could find a manufacturer of “Right Fit” imaginations. My writing time would be so much easier if I could walk into a creative writing class, have a trained expert whip a tape measure around my head and declare me a Yellow 3 no muss, no fuss. Actually, I wish I could walk into a Lane Bryant and earn the Yellow 3 pronouncement, but I’m trying to keep this a fiction fantasy and not a fashion fantasy.

Maybe someday. We can all dream, right? In the meantime, at least I have my editor and my fabulous critique partners to inspect every new genre I try on with a critical eye toward making my butt look good.

TAWNY I hear you! OMG, the sins I’ve made in writing. I’ve needed a “What Not to Write” makeover, LOL. (Ever watch that show?)

EMILY Yikes—can you imagine Clinton and Stacy doling out Idea File critiques? “…you’re not REALLY going to write a plot revolving around the first vibrator, are you?” And, “Oh, this secret baby amnesia idea is SO 1984” (all amidst my frantic grabs at my story ideas—the elastic might be worn out, but they’re still mine!!)

Stacy and Clinton just wouldn’t see the, um, unique…um…(I’m stretching the wardrobe analogy a little too far here!) – Let’s just say I have a “closet” full of paranormal, dark humor, literary, erotica, literary paranormal erotica, the kinkier side of oo-la-la with a BDSM story, and even historical PLUS western all rolled in to one. They all look good on me (really!) but I’m sure they’ll look even better once I find the right combination. I know one thing for sure: my genre absolutely must have jean pockets. Any other style is not pretty on my behind.

TAWNY I’m with you on the pockets! And I want to read that oo-la-la with BDSM story. That one sounds--as my fave Project Runway winner would say—fierce!

I’ve tried on a few different genres too. I started with dark paranormal/gothic romance, tried on medieval historical romance for a while. That definitely didn’t fit. Next, I went for sweet contemporary romance. And I also wrote some humorous paranormal romances. . I swear, for a while there, my writing genre was changing more frequently than my hair color…and that’s saying something!

More recently, I’ve started blending styles/genres. Sex and the Single Ghost is a sexy chick lit-slash-mystery and Real Vamps Don’t Drink O-Neg is a blend of chick lit, paranormal romance and horror. I’d say, just like my personal style, my writing is eclectic too. There’s some humor. Eroticism. Mystery. Action-adventure. That’s what makes writing fun for me.

Interesting, isn’t it? How our fashion style kind of tells the story of our writing too? The same goes for my reading taste. Next to Gemma’s High Heeled Mysteries, I have James Rollins thrillers, Lora Leigh’s erotic romances and JR Ward’s vampires.

EMILY My bookshelf is pretty wild, too—on the reading front and the writing front. I hug my JR Ward, my Kate Pearce and my Terry Pratchett material all as fiercely as I hug my Eden Bradley and Elizabeth Hoyt books. In my own writing, I have “All the Trees in Pearl,” which is historical western erotic, but then I look at my dragon e-books and they’re an odd blend of paranormal and dark chick lit. I, um, like to think of it as less an issue of indecision and more an issue of wanting to sample a little bit of everything. : ) And now I want to go read. Or shop for shoes.

TAWNY Okay, so now it’s confession time. Anyone want to share her worst fashion sin? Or how about her reading (or writing) guilty pleasures? Tell us! And just to make things fun, there’s a trade paperback copy of Sex and the Single Ghost (and some other goodies) up for grabs! Emily’s also throwing in downloads of two of her e-books (winner’s choice) to a second winner. I’ll randomly draw two names from the comments on Monday, May 5th and post the winners in the comments.

Thanks again, Gemma, for inviting us to come play on your blog.

Tawny Taylor
www.tawnytaylor.com

Emily Ryan-Davis
www.emilyryandavis.com