Tamara Lush, Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, Vol 4 Contributor
It’s almost time. On December 11, 2018, Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, Volume 4 releases. What better way to get jazzed than to meet one of the contributors.
May I introduce, Tamara Lush. This writer is someone I know in real life!!! See I am fangirling, too. Tamara was tremendously helpful to me at the beginning of my writing career and I appreciate she took the time to talk with me and answer all my crazy questions. I am thrilled to see her story in this anthology. But let’s see what she has to say about it.
How do you describe yourself and your writing to readers?
I like to tell readers that I write sexy tropical romances that are a little over-the-top. They’re almost Jackie Collins-like romps, with lots of glitzy locations, parties, cocktails, rich dudes and feisty women. I joke that there are usually three things in my books: champagne, people having sex on fabulous terraces, and at least once, the heroine slaps the hero’s face. My serial novels especially are very similar to a telenovela (Spanish soap opera).
Describe your path to becoming a writer?
As a girl, I’d write “books” made up of paper, with cardboard covers. They were heavily influenced by my favorite movie at the time: Raiders of the Lost Ark. I had a serious thing for Indiana Jones, so all of my stories were about swashbuckling, prickly men who did interesting things around the globe. Usually, they were archaeologists of some sort and were joined by the heroine, who was always an archeologist. Although I don’t write about archaeologists now, my characters are essentially the same. Independent women, alpha males. Exotic locations.
In high school, I knew I wanted to make writing a career, and ended up choosing a school that specialized in communications: Emerson College. There, I got a degree in journalism. For the last 25 years, I’ve been a print journalist.
I’ve always wanted to write a romance novel, but it was only when the news started to get really bleak in 2014 that I felt the pull to write something fun, something that ended well. I also knew I wanted to write hot sex. Little by little, I chipped away at my first novel, Hot Shade. It was published in 2015 by Boroughs Publishing Group.
What is your favorite book you’ve written and why?
My favorite book is Constant Craving, a second-chance erotic romance novel. It’s about a newspaper publisher who wants to save her dying family business, and her ex, who makes her a sexy offer that she can’t refuse. Not only is it super-sexy, but it’s an allegory of the dying print media business.
We have had discussions on sexy writing, so I have to ask, how did you decide to submit a story to Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, Volume 4?
I’ve read most of the Best Women’s Erotica books and have loved them, and knew I wanted to submit someday. The theme of Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, Vol 4 is “risk,” and I felt that I had to write about an older woman — she’s in her mid-fifties — who steps out of her comfort zone to have an encounter with an older man. It was important to me to write older characters, and I also wanted to try writing something a little more literary and a lot less dramatic than my usual work. I’m 47, and can attest that my sex drive has not shriveled up and died. I think the erotic romance genre should be a lot more diverse, in all ways, including age. Sexytimes don’t end at thirty.
How did you come up with your idea for your story? Can you tell us a little about it without giving it all away?
My story is about a woman who meets a hot silver fox on a word-game app. I’d talked with a friend about how many women he’s meeting on a word game app, and that’s where I got the idea.
How was writing for this anthology similar or different to writing your erotic romance novels?
This was more difficult, in many ways. Trying to keep a full story arc to 3,000 words is tough! It made me focus and hone in ways I don’t when I’m writing a novel. I did some heavy, heavy editing of my words.
What’s a quirky thing that readers don’t know about you?
In 2012, I did a news article about 50 Shades of Grey, and how libraries had banned the book in certain areas. Then I went on a national network morning show to talk about the issue. I’d wanted to write a romance novel in my early twenties but was too afraid to start. I spent years reading narrative nonfiction. When I did the story on 50SOG, my love of the erotic romance genre was rekindled and I decided to try writing a book two years later.
What’s on the writing horizon?
In 2019, I’m taking a sabbatical from my journalism job to write fiction. I’ll be focused on a new series called Paradise Beach, about a family that owns an adults-only resort on a Florida island. The series will be sexy and sweet — lots of consent and respect — and a bit funny. I think we need some lighter reading material these days to save our sanity.
Thank you, Tamara. I look forward to reading your story. Join Tamara on her writing adventures. Click on all the links below and Follow Her!
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