Dahlia DeWinters – Author – Page 71 – Quirky Heroines, Happy Endings

The Wisest Maiden – Blog Tour – Week One

The time is finally here – my fairy tale/fantasy story “The Wisest Maiden” had been released by Liquid Silver Books!

After she is forced into marriage with a powerful ruler who deflowers and kills his brides, Issalia is compelled to use her wits to avoid the executioner’s axe. But can she avoid having her heart captured by the deeply wounded king?

Did you miss Week One? You can still visit! Check out the links below.

Week One

Monday— Excerpt
Interracial/Multicultural Books

Tuesday— Pineapple: Your P*ssy’s Best Friend:
W. Lynn Chantale’s Blog

Wednesday— The Importance of Word Choice
Book Babe’s Blog

Thursday—Toridesh: The King Exposed
Lorraine Nelson’s Blog

Friday—Issalia’s Speaks: Boost Your Sex Life with Aromatherapy
Shyla Colt’s Straight Shot

Support for MC/IR Writers, Information for their Readers

With the recent announcement of the Romance Writers of America sanctioning a chapter that deals with Multicultural and Interracial Authors of romances, I decided to take figurative pen in hand and make some comments. MC= Multicultural and IR= Interracial. Note that all IR is multicultural, but not all MC is IR. J

Writers need support. We need support through those times where we’ve done a manuscript and thought it was the worst thing we’ve ever written. We need support with the promotion that we are doing with our books. We need support when mapping out our next great idea.

Our readers want to know what’s new, what’s happening, what’s going on. They want to be there when our book releases, so they can be ahead of the wave.

I am pleased that the Romance Writers of America have finally acknowledged that yes, there are writers and readers of multicultural and interracial romance, but I also think that they are late to the party.

Ever since I picked up Sandra Kitt’s Color of Love, I have enjoyed reading romances that featured a black heroine. Mind you, it’s also fun to read the other types of romances too, but it got a little annoying to read about the heroine’s “creamy white skin” and “golden flaxen strands”. I wanted a heroine who had to set her hair at night and maybe touch it up in the morning before work. I wanted a heroine whose hero appreciated her thick curly hair, her creamy brown, bronze, earth-colored, carob-colored skin. Thus, I began writing romances of my own and reading romances that featured multicultural characters.

I also see the need to support authors of this romance genre, who can too soon get lost in the shuffle. My Facebook groups: IR/MC Romance Readers and Writers, as well as Multicultural Romance Authors. These groups are specifically for authors and readers of romance (not women’s fiction) that feature multicultural characters. These groups are new and finding their way, but we’d love it if you’d stop by, join and add your voice to the conversation!

Dahlia

Sultry Saturday – I'm Ready for some Football

Aren’t you? The Giants won the Super Bowl, Peyton Manning was fired from the Colts and Tim Tebow is a Jet. Drew Brees had a slight contract dispute and Wes Welker didn’t get the long-term contract he was looking for (but who’s surprised about that, really). Lots of changes taking place in the world of American football.

But this Sunday’s Hall of Fame Game with the Saints versus the Cardinals (no fair telling who’s going to win that one) kicks off a new season of any given Sundays. Will Peyton Manning get crushed in Denver or will he be able to pull out a ring? I mean, Tebow got the Broncos to the playoffs last year, so it’s not like they’re not a good team.

Enough with the football chat, I could go on forever, tell you about my fantasy league and why I think Matt Stafford is fantasy gold this season. But you don’t want to hear that. What you want to see is some American football hotness.

This is not my personal list, although I do have some favorites! See if you can guess who!

Brian Urlacher may be getting a little old for football, but the 6’4″, 258-lb linebacker certainly doesn’t show it on the field. He takes them down to the turf, even returning a fumble off of Michael Vick for a 90 yard touchdown. Elected to the Pro-Bowl eight times, Urlacher has proven he’s not just another hard body, although we appreciate him just so.

Peyton Hillis, a Razorback running back from University of Arkansas, has had quite a career in the NFL. First, a member of the Denver Broncos (where he had a stellar season), where the other Peyton is currently residing, he went to the Cleveland Browns, was voted to the cover of Madden and promptly had the worse season. Switched agents, pulled hamstrings and, gasp, got married. He is now with the Kansas City Chiefs and I have my fingers crossed that his 6’2″ 250-lb power running back will post the numbers he had his season with the Broncos. You’re awesomely cute, Peyton, but don’t mess up my Fantasy team, please?

Adrian Peterson, running back for the Minnesota Vikings is all that he’s cracked up to be. A former ProBowl MVP, this 6’1″ 217 lb specimen set an NFL record for the most rushing yards in a single game, in his first season as a Viking. But you don’t really need to know that, right? Just take a look at the picture and enjoy.

The Terrible Towel town, Pittsburgh, is the football home of this next lovely fellow. A safety with the Steelers, Troy Polamalu was a first round draft pick in 2003 due to his stellar college career at the University of Southern California. Making interceptions, tackling and rushing, this guy does everything but kick and pass. Gorgeous hair too, his Head and Shoulders commercials are legend..

For you poor, poor Jets fans, don’t fear. You have a cute quarterback. Not a very good one, but a cute one and that counts for something. Mark Sanchez. He, like Polamalu, also attended the University of Southern California and was the second quarterback drafted in the 2009 draft. At 6’2″, 225, he’s rather short for a quarterback, with his Giants’ counterpart being 6’4″, the average height for quarterbacks, he still manages to make quite a few good games, to the extent of beating Peyton Manning and the Colts in the 2011 AFC Championship game. Good quarterback, needs a better O-line. But, he can always fall back on his looks!

There you have it folks, some of the NFL hotties that are on the field today. Granted there are tons more, but I just wanted to give you a sprinkling. If you have one, list your fave NFL hunk in the comments.

Dahlia

Sultry Saturday – Seven Things I Consider Sexy

Come in, sit down, have a drink. Never too early or too late for a drink. Get comfortable. I have something to tell you. A confession.

I love a hot male body, but after a while, they all look the same. I love steak, but I couldn’t eat it every day of the week. Mind you, this is not to say that I don’t enjoy a lovely specimen, and I will continue to look, believe me.

This confession, which I made to some other writer friends of mine some time ago, led me to thinking: What is sexy?

Lean close, now because I’m not going to raise my voice, and I’m only going to say this once.

Being a woman of a certain age, I’ve had my share of male candy. Most types. Most colors. A tiny share, but my share all the same.

Looking back, not a lot of them were what you would call model-handsome, but they all had a certain je ne sais quoi that attracted me, at least for a brief time. So, as I sip my drink, let me tell you what I consider sexy. (Gotta get the hubs in the room so I can make my list.)

Seven

Good teeth. Yes, I look a gift horse in the mouth. Every. Single. Time. I once chatted with a man on the phone first, then we met for a coffee date at the Barnes and Noble. He smiled and the date was over. Nice guy, but he needed to get a veneer on that front tooth.
Glasses. Love ’em. I wear ’em, sometimes. There’s something about a guy in glasses. He’s capable, he can to the job. And if he can’t do it personally, those glasses will help him find someone who can. A problem solver.
A sense of humor, preferably quirky. If you give the dog a voice, i.e. “You know, Dahlia, I don’t care for Purina One I’m an Iams kinda dog.” You got me. Yes, it’s effing weird but funny as hell.
Knows when to say no. “You want to watch XXXXX girly show with me?” “No. That’s for women.” Thank you. Don’t sit there and suffer in silence, then resent me later. Just say no.
Well-placed compassion. Adopt a dog from the pound. Volunteer with children. Have compassion, a scope for the world outside of yourself. If you saw School of Rock, the way the Jack Black character talks to the plump black girl who’s shy about going onstage? If you haven’t seen it, watch it. “Everybody wants to party with Aretha…” Awesome scene. Digression: If more teachers had that same attitude toward their students…wow. I’d totally go out on a date with Jack Black just because of that one scene.
Intelligence to try new things. Don’t be a dumbass. Don’t tell me you just like XXXX type of music or XXXX type of whatever. That’s boring.
Confidence. Fat, short, tall, whatever, have the confidence to be YOU. Because as Patti LaBelle says, “Be yourself, you can’t be no one else.”

Now I could go on and on, but let’s save that for another day. That’s my seven sexy for my Sultry Saturday. What do YOU find sexy? Talk to me in the comments.

Dahlia

The Sultry Scribe

I Met Toni Morrison

Let me tell you about the time I met Toni Morrison. It’s been a while, so my years may be a bit off, but she visited the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale, I believe in 1989 or early 1990. I helped to set up the luncheon and I remember the buzz of anticipation from everyone because TONI MORRISON was coming to have lunch with us.

I don’t know what I was expecting. No, that’s a lie. As an impressionable twenty or twenty-one year old, I expected Ms. Morrison to come floating in about six inches above the floor, escorted by men in dark suits, sunglasses and earplugs. Because certainly, such a famous author needed bodyguards to avoid being mobbed in the street, right?

To my surprise, Ms. Morrison peeked in, as if she wasn’t sure this was the right place to be. Then she came in smiling at everyone, her salt and pepper dreadlocks pinned on her head. And she asked us to call her Toni. Yeah right.

I remember that she was quiet. When she shook my hand, she put both of her hands on mine and looked directly in my eyes. I’m not saying she was personable, in fact she was a bit on the shy side, but she made a connecting with you. I’m just glad I didn’t jump up and down, squealing “It’s Toni Morrison, it’s Toni Morrison and she told ME to call her TONI!!!!!”

I don’t care for many of her books. Some may say that “oh, you just don’t understand the Black experience”. For those who may say that, remember that no one’s experience is the same. The Black experience is not monolithic. But I digress. The point is, not that I liked her books, but that she was a published author and I MET HER. That’s all that mattered. I was simply in love with the fact that she took a chance, wrote from her heart and got published.

Which is why, I suppose, I write. I don’t write for others. I write for what I like, for what I enjoy reading. And I think that makes the process so much more fun. It’s not about sales. It’s about my personal accomplishment.

So, there’s my story. That’s how I met Toni Morrison!!

And you know what made me like her even more? She went back for seconds!!!