Sunday, March 20, 2011

Interview--DEE DAVIS 2

BIO: Author Dee Davis has a BA in Political Science and History, and a Masters Degree in Public Administration. During a ten-year career in public relations, she spent three years on the public speaking circuit, edited two newsletters, wrote three award winning public service announcements, did television and radio commercials, starred in the Seven Year Itch, taught college classes, lobbied both the Texas State Legislature and the US Congress, and served as the director of two associations. She’s won the Booksellers Best, Golden Leaf, Texas Gold and Prism awards, and been nominated for the National Readers Choice Award, the Holt and two RT Reviewers Choice Awards. To date, she has sold twenty one books and three novellas in contemporary romance, romantic suspense, and time travel romance including: Set-Up in Soho, A Match Made in Manhattan, Midnight Rain, Dancing in the Dark, Chain Reaction, Exposure, Enigma, After Twilight, and Just Breathe. She’s lived in Austria and traveled in Europe extensively, and although she now lives in New York, she still considers Texas home.

Thanks for being here again, Dee. It’s a pleasure.

#1- Tell us a little about yourself outside of your writing career… I’ve been married for twenty years and have one daughter. We’re from Texas, but have lived in Manhattan for the past seven years. We spent three years living in Austria when my daughter was a baby. And she’ll be heading off to college soon. I love to travel, to garden, and to cook. I’m addicted to TV. I’ve recently renewed my love for baseball. I love Broadway. I love to read (big surprise). And I love spending time with my family. We’ve just moved to a new apartment and at the moment, I’m loving my new terrace (in NYC that’s a coup!)


#2- When do you think you first knew you wanted to be a writer, and does it live up to those first expectations? I’ve always written. Since I was old enough to put pencil to paper. I still have some of my old stories in a box (in storage in Queens). There’s just something so compelling about filling a blank page. But I didn’t consider writing as a career until I was pressing forty and decided to give writing a book a go. Everything in Its Time was the result of that effort. And here I am eleven years later still pinching myself. It’s been an amazing ride and exceeded my expectations in so many ways I hadn’t even considered.


#3- Have you ever found yourself with writer's block, and if so, how did you work through that? Perseverance. Sometimes it’s just a matter of sitting there until the words come. Sometimes it helps to work through the scene on paper. I outline each chapter to help me to focus. It’s so easy to go off on a tangent, and especially with romantic suspense that isn’t a good thing. And sometimes when the blockage is really bad, a complete change of scene is in order, just to clear the mind and get the creative juices flowing again. Starbucks is a wonderful place for that kind of mind clearing. I’m also blessed with to amazing critique partners, Kathleen O’Reilly and Julie Kenner and they are wonderful at taking phone calls at all hours to work through a plot point.


#4- What are your ideal writing conditions, and how do you handle deadlines? I’m “performance under pressure” kind of girl so the closer I am to a deadline the better I seem to perform. I do try to parcel it out so that I’m not overwhelmed but sometimes as we just talked about, the words come when they come! So I have to be ready to perform when my subconscious is ready.


#5- Authors are now depended upon to do a lot of their own marketing. Was this a big adjustment for you, and do you feel the social media sites help with sales? You know I’ve always seen the need to do my own marketing. I think social media has just helped authors use newer online options like blogs and social sites to bring their work to readers attention. I also think that houses working in conjunction with their authors can do a lot with the new options available within social networking. I’ve been lucky in that respect. Grand Central has been wonderful about helping me develop new avenues for promotion. I do think it’s a brave new world, and one I’m enjoying. I like meeting new people – whether it’s online or in person, but the beauty of online is that I get to do it in my PJs without any makeup.


#6- Are there any upcoming releases we would like to know about, and could you give us your web site so readers can check it out? Dangerous Desires is on bookshelves now. And the third book in the A-Tac series Desperate Deeds (Tyler’s story) will be out at the end of July and I’ve just started to work on the next three books in the A-Tac series. So watch for more from the bold, badass and seemingly bulletproof team members of the American Tactical Intelligence Command in 2011 and 2012. For more about me or my books check out www.deedavis.com Or you can follow me on Twitter (deesdavis) or Facebook (deedavis1).


#7- This about concludes it. Thank you again for joining us. Is there anything else you would like to share? Just that I’ve enjoyed visiting with you guys! Thanks for having me.

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