Introducing Epitamy Skyy

Saludos, Beloveds!

Recently I enjoyed a Burlesque photo shoot before EPITAMY SKYY's cameras. And what a fascinating time that was! Not only did this fabulous woman apply my make-up to a lovely perfection, but also she lent the shoot a creative element that proved priceless.

Thus, I had to share her with you, considering it goes against the Golden Goddess's Universe to horde a good thing all to herself...all the time! So I introduce to you, Miss Epitamy Skyy.


TheGoldenGoddess: Who is EPITAMY SKYY?

Epitamy Skyy: Epitamy Skyy is the company that I started with my daughter to cater to the beauty in every person. I, Epitamy Santiago, am the face for Epitamy Skyy Creations.


GG: What must readers need to know about her?

ES: I am very humble and shy. Yet I am the most outspoken or extroverted when it comes to bringing my canvas (the face) to life.


GG: How did you come to be in love with the artistry of MAKE-UP?

ES: I have always been fascinated and intrigued with the face itself. I have always "people watched," studying the dimensions on a person's face. Looking at how their makeup is applied. Imagining the possibilities and the "what-ifs" of if I could just do this or that to make them see the potential beauty that I see.


GG: Describe a new project in your business about which readers must know.

ES: I have created a Makeup/Makeover Package catering to the DIVA........It's called the DIVA Package. Basically it caters to the woman who likes to walk out of the house at 7 am and look like a million $. She is the businesswoman, the Real Housewife of Atlanta, the Socialite, and the true Diva! I come to her and get her started on her day by doing her makeup and styling if requested.


GG: Where can readers find you on the web?

ES: www.EpitamySkyy.com www.Eyertistrybyepitamy.tumblr.com www.facebook.com/EyeRtistrybyEpitamySantiago


GG: What is your passion outside of the MAKE-UP arena?

ES: Poetry & Photography! I LOVE spoken word and I enjoy writing poetry. I haven't gotten the nerve up to share my work with the world yet, but it is coming. I know it! Photography is like my second love after makeup. Photojournalism is where my passion lies! I want to be able to tell a story with my pictures.....give the viewers things to think about, talk about.


GG: Who would you like to enhance if you could make-up any face in the world and why?

ES: I have always loved the story of the Ugly Duckling....so I would want to enhance the woman who has the least self esteem because I can teach, guide and empower her to see how beautiful she truly is. I want to be able to see her grow and transform into the confident Diva that lies within her, just no one ever bothered to bring it out. She would be my muse and one of my greatest masterpieces!


INCENTIVES:
Get $10 off a Makeover when mention this interview!

Eye Rtistry by Epitamy Santiago

(678) 663 - 3525

Epitamy Skyy Creations
www.EpitamySkyy.com

Follow on twitter: @EpitamySantiago
Find on tumblr: eyertistrybyepitamy.tumblr.com


Isn't she lovely? There now, remember to mention having met Epitamy Skyy on A Golden Life with TheGoldenGoddess and save while you enhance your natural beauty! A glimpse of the Goddess in her Epitamy Burlesque Photo Shoot is coming soon! Stay tuned...

Living a Golden Life....

Laila Amor on The Beauty of the Present Moment...

Hello, everyone!

I'm Laila, the newest baby at the Moss/Sarden/Smith household. As you can tell from my photo, I am a big girl now. Actually, I prefer the spelling “gyrl,” the unique spelling my grandmother uses when she thinks she’s being creative. She's cool, though. You know she'd have to be, to let me steal the thunder of her blog this evening, while she jumps on her trampoline. Forever exercising, that one! She makes us tired most evenings, just bouncing up and down endlessly, in the center of the living room, getting it in.

In the event you’re curious, I'm seven-months-old on the 13th of this month. April Fool's Day was my brother's birthday. His name's Nazir. The big folks around here call him Naz or Nazzie Pooh, depending on the day. I call him Loco...and that’s because he's reached the Terrible, Terrible Two's! He deserves those two Terribles. Why? He freaks me out totally. Every time I spy him dashing about the house, dragging stuff and throwing blocks and catching pops from my parents and Grandma Goddess and commandeering my bottles and pacifiers, being I've got two, annoying teeth in the bottom of my jaw, I dream about doing the exact same things one day. Only difference, I'd do my mischief in alignment with the rules of the crib. This lil sista isn't into whippings! No, not me.

Way too cute, I am, for that nonsense!

Can you imagine the granddaughter of TheGoldenGoddess catching licks? I didn't think so.

Let’s change the subject. You like my picture? Thank you. Grandma Goddess was feeling particularly golden one afternoon, ran upstairs to her bedroom for her camera and returned to snap this picture of me. Oh, you can go on and say it! I see that look in your eyes. You're thinking my eyes are sleep-weary and drugged. Well, I did just get up, and I couldn't stop the Goddess from flashing that darn camera in my eyes, milk or slob dribbling down my chin. I don’t know which one. Blinding Light! Here's this pic!

It's a good thing I'm adorable!

That in the public domain, I'll get on with why I'm here.
As a baby, I am forever in the beauty of this thing Grandma Goddess calls the Present Moment. I cry whenever my folks leave me in a diaper long enough to itch, though that isn't often. After all, I am the Baby Gyrl, who is still relatively new. So they are yet pretty much enamored with me. Did I say I’m the only gyrl? And hey, I'm soft as Southern cotton, even if urine can itch a gyrl’s soft skin into hysterics!

When I’m hungry, folks, I'm truly in the moment. If that formula isn’t in a bottle at my lips the minute I feel hunger pangs, I will literally raise the roof up in this joint. Believe you me, they do not want the kind of drama I can put down. Come on. But that’s infrequent; after all, do I look like they’ve missed any feedings? Again, I didn’t think so either.

Might I add, if I tire of being on that perennial pallet they spread the second I raise my head from a sweet afternoon nap, there they go, delivering me to the blanket. In days of joyous present moments, I’ve perfected my crawl, which I must say, I am excellent at now. But then they want to bellyache about what I’m doing shouting at the top of my fabulous lungs, my curly head under a sofa with my well-padded rear sticking out, short stubby legs kicking my fury!
Babies got much to teach these giants in my house.

Sometimes my Grandma Goddess plummets straight out of the awesomeness of this Present Moment business.

Yes, she writes about it a great deal, and, okay! She does a fairly decent job at it most times. But, grown people, let me tell you…there are moments when she is lost in the sauce! The mix! The formula, however you want it. Like those times when my folks are rushing off to school or work, and they march me and Naz upstairs to her quarters, which I adore, and drop us in her office and wave---Grown-ups, the Goddess isn’t so golden then. She plunges so far from the Present, she peers at me and I know she is wanting to be looking at that lit screen to which she’s characteristically super-glued. Then it’s watch out, Nazzie! The things we usually do that are “cute,” suddenly they aren’t so cute! Like the time Naz pulled the pretty white straw-looking bloom from her Peace Lily and began whooping the sunshine off the big ole huge elephant leaves! The Goddess screamed loud enough to render me deaf, honey.

No, no, no! I like the time she fell out of the Present window in a split-second turn-around. Do grandmothers have ADD, too? Anyway, I was on her bed, waiting for her to finish taking care of my toiletry needs, when what does she do when a song comes on the radio that makes her sway and wind like she’s on a stage? Gets caught up checking herself out in the mirror, stirring up moves I imagined required censorship, but hey, what do I know? I’m just the baby! Okay. So I go to sending a yellow arc across the bedspread. Darn thing reminded me of the McDonald’s Arc. You know the one!

That brought her back to the beauty of the Present Moment quickly, I tell you!
Then again, there are times she topples out of the Moment under waves of anger. See, last week she lost one of her beloved files on that keyboard I persist on helping her click and, lo and behold, you’d have thought the Big Bang Theory was a lie! She flew into another Time Zone. Her locs were standing on end. Naz and I couldn’t even call for reinforcement without working cell phones.

But Grandma is a true Golden Goddess, though. Really. Took her a second or three, but she reeled herself back in. Ran a bubble bath and said something that sounded like, ‘To heck with it!’ Anyway, we all relaxed in those bubbles I longed to taste and Naz got popped for slinging over the tub’s side.

Hey, it’s all Enfamil in the bottle, folks! Admit it, you, too, have those days. When you do, just stay in the flow of the Present, and you will be quite alright! Your world can be a more pleasant place, I assure you! So come on and grab smooches off my cheeks, as Grandma does, so I can give this keyboard back to the Golden Goddess, who is never away from it long!

It’s way past an Angel’s bedtime, as I am NOT into writing all night. This babe loves sleep too much for that nonsense! So bye! Have a great week!

The Delight of DANGEROUS PLEASURES...

I finished reading the closing chapters of the novel early yesterday morning, as I crawled into my crisp, freshly ironed golden-rod sheets after another night of reading, writing and studying. Compelled, I read it akin to one sneaking a nibble of someone else’s leftover birthday cake. Like an intoxicating lover, patiently enveloped in shadows and deliriously awaiting the cool press of flesh and a sweetheart’s kiss under sighing sheets.

As I read, Mayson's tacit longing for Renee followed me into slumber, where, somehow, she finds the words to articulate her unspoken passion to a woman she absolutely adores.

“Your secret love will never be your true love,” Luther is crooning now from my PC’s speakers. Could be Mayson realizes this, so she determines to love her friend as just that, a good girlfriend in public. Her soul mate, in her heart. For who knows what tomorrow holds?

Now me. I’m all too familiar with unspoken passion. Having lived it for so much of my life. Dare I admit it? Otra vez? Por que no? I'd be in love with someone who had no virtual idea I loved her. Somehow I'd trust the matter to chance; hell, happenstance; okay, magic! Bueno, bueno. But we all know how that eventually ends. A capacious loneliness. And you.

At some point, though, you snap out of it, and you make a conscientious determination to live in the Present Moment, not in some distant Future, where, off in your dreams, you are The One for The One. Si, Querida, when you eventually awake and smell the roses, because suddenly they DO exist right now, you come to the conclusion that you, too, are blessed. So what? You weren’t the one. That time. Or the next. But eventually…you will be The One.

It’s a good thing I don’t love that groundless way anymore. Can’t do unhealthy…for long. (Giggles)

Mayson, I don't think, wakes to smell her roses. Though she makes a grave decision to protect those precious blooms. How? She orchestrates a smooth maneuver to assure herself that Miss Lady would be safe, while her secret love sows her sensual oats. What helps to wake Mayson is the presence of a maniacal lover, who has been jilted one too many times. I will not be like Chris, my handsome great-nephew, who narrates a movie while you’re watching it, making you wonder if your career and character can survive a child-abuse charge. Tu lo sabes? Yes, I know you do. We’ve all been there, but the little Sweetheart simply cannot help himself!

Get the book! The cover, la portada, is luscious! Mind you, it doesn’t hook into the eyes of the story, yet I can recognize a great concept most anywhere. Who can go wrong with a supple corset, partially gaping, with matching thongs, in a near leather look, a shock of unbound hair and tenderly bite-able skin? Ya know? So what it wasn’t Renee, Mayson or Kendra? A provocative picture and title can sell books, before readers recognize, if new, that the writing is even more stimulating. Whatever it takes..huh?

If you care to surf to Amazon when you leave here, you might want to read the review I left earlier today. Words are forever in my mouth, as rarely am I tacit, except for those times I am writing, like now. Like all day. But I adore these times. Now...back to my original thought...hmmm, being that words are in my mouth, they can't help but drift to my fingertips, too, where I tried NOT to give Fiona's story away totally.

No, I don't think I gave it away, but I will admit I LOVED the way Zedde stretched to bring her readers something different. Instead of the delectable heroines knowing who they are and going after what they want, our FINE Mayson, with her Jamaican/Chinese roots, ponytail climb-able, wavers in a precarious balancing act, wanting to carry-on with getting hers (with Kendra) while desiring who she desires. Yet her creed is “I never do straight girls.” Until she does….

Oops! Am I rattlin’ or tellin’ the story?

It was dangerous. Mayson even wondered if Renee would spin off into crazy as a result of the book’s final revelation, yet, like the other forays Fiona Zedde takes into pleasure, the several het love scenes, the straight-girl lovin’, the psycho-heifer routine, the unrequited love---it all works out!

Hey! I’m all for The Out, Babee! A damn good workout! Put out! Get out! Try out! Lock out! Shout out! Tu lo sabes, Corazon! (risas) Te amo, Fiona!

TheGoldenGoddess

Boxing The Bang Blues

Of my five sisters, I am the one who most favors my paternal grandmother, Sophie Mae Moss, a woman who epitomizes the words strength, intelligence and beauty. Yet, in spite of possessing her face and head, I have spent most of my fifty-three years hiding from the wind, yanked firmly under hats, bandanna-tied under scarves and above all else, safely ensconced behind crisply cut Geisha-girl bangs or a side-parted, side-sweep of hair (which I'm certain loudly announced I was engaged in a cover-up).

I lamented the size and shape of my high, sloping forehead, as if it were the most horrific feature ever unrecorded in the Guinness Book of World Records. How could this have happened to me? Why was I The Chosen One for rude comments from passing strangers, bodacious teens, classmates and, sometimes, even siblings and cousins? Just now, the thought crossed my mind if my grandma ever experienced the coming of age trauma of being different from the others. Somehow, I never thought to question her while she was living. Possibly because I'd have had to confess that, for me, to look like her was a constant source of pain.

The names---most of which I have since trained myself to forget---once shone down on me as bright and glaring as a hanging neon light. "Big Forehead" seemed to be the one that made the largest splash, whenever some kid wanted to be particularly nasty. So I learned to sweet-talk my mother into combing a shock of my hair (thank God it was always long once straightened) into my face and, pressing one hand to my head while her other snipped the hair into a blunt line snaking across my face, just above my brows. To encourage them to lie as protective as sentry, I resorted to tying a scarf across my forehead at night, at the expense, of course, of the bumps that would spring up in my adolescent face, considering oil and pores, same as oil and water, don't usually jive. That was when "Bumpy Face" got added to "Big Forehead" to weld a double whammy!

One long-lasting memory of the first part of my life is the ingenuity I'd muster to hide my genetic faux pas from the world. Yes, I walked backward in rambunctious wind, avoided direct eye contact with other people with high foreheads for fear they'd witness the self pity in my eyes, and walked with my hand plastered over my bangs if a fan or other wind-generating mishap occurred.

I learned to stand aloof from people, especially other children, when I was younger. Children were prone to observe whatever it was you were concealing, and like adults and animals, they'd find themselves drawn to my forehead; hands moving lightening fast to lift and slick back my non-antagonistic bangs. Yes, that was childhood. Great! Now fast-forward to young adulthood and you have a young teacher making sure to maintain a respectably healthy distance from those youngsters who were prone to invading another person's privacy...didn't matter if the other was the teacher.

One afternoon during sixth period, the last period of the day, I dropped my guard. The student had been standing near my desk rattling pleasantly for a few minutes, both of us charmed Spring Break loomed close enough to smell Panama Beach breezes. And as I'm grading essays, half listening, trying not to take too many sets of papers home with me, this student reaches out and gently but firmly swipes back my bangs! Mercy! I thought I'd be sued and suspended and sentenced, if I hadn't remembered I enjoyed my freedom and had bills to pay. Everything hidden inside me longed to bolt up from that teacher's desk and snatch a crank out of that child. Steam literally roiled up from my nostrils. Momentarily, the whites of my eyes turned alcohol red. I was so heated my hair went nappy then straight in seconds.

In a flash, he apologized and softly inquired if that was why I perennially wore bangs or styled my hair in my face. It took me a minute or two, but I eventually mustered a muffled yes. Surprisingly, the entire scene was privy only to us, but the aftermath remained with me for quite some time.

As the years played out, I vowed to overcome such a mentally and emotionally crippling self-prejudice. It didn't feel right. It didn't make me feel good to judge me. I told myself, I will learn to swim in this lifetime, same as I will hurdle the nudity I felt whenever I wasn't posted up behind my infamous bangs. I was notorious. As the times changed and the styles did the same, I didn't. What? I found a way to work my super-big Angela Davis Afro into a banged wonder. Braids arrived and were everywhere except at the front of my head. And my short natural had to be trimmed with enough hair on the top to tease down onto my bumpy forehead. Drats!

Then came the day I graduated from Tuskegee Institute with Highest Honors and relocated to Atlanta, GA. Wholly loving working and living outside of the confines of dormitories and my parents' hallowed home, I defied the odds one weekend and styled my hair off my forehead and turned the nose of my blue Chevy Chevrolet towards Tuskegee and returned for a weekend visit with my hair, for some unfathomable reason, styled completely off my forehead. My stepmother, I recall, studied me for a second and said, "Wow! I like you with your hair back off your forehead! I can see your whole face! You look wonderful!" And though there was nothing about her expression and tone that bespoke ridicule, I figured she had to be pulling my leg!

But she wasn't. Unbeknownst to me, I faced more years of walking toward total self acceptance and self love. And though that walk was to take a circuitous route at times, much like a snake hunting its tail, I eventually, finally, thankfully, proudly, I accept my forehead in all of its wonder and uniqueness. I am precisely the way the Divine wants me and made me to be. I am a legacy; my son has a slight bit of my forehead and, so too, definitely does my granddaughter, Laila Amor.

A few years ago I remember watching Tyra Banks, who also possesses a high forehead, host a show about accepting what is unique about you and making that feature or characteristic your calling card, your strength, your birthright. And that is what I have embraced...all that makes me One-of-a-Kind. On the journey, I've come to understand that once you accept you, others who love and care about you will also.


Cherishing this golden existence as I box the Bang Blues,
TheGoldenGoddess
2/28/2011

A Home-going Leads To A Home-coming

(L to R, Claudia Moss, Cousin Hannah Young, Sister Bernadette Stitts, Cousin Danny Young, Aunt Marion (my mother's baby sister), Cousin Mary Ann, Sister Glenda Pearl Halcromb and two precious little friends. We came together to say good-bye to my second cousin, Tracey Forman, daughter to my first cousin, Avery Young, Mary Ann's brother.)




I traveled to Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, on Thursday, February 24, 2011, to stand with my extended family, as we said farewell to my second cousin, my baby cousin, Tracey Forman. She was the only daughter, the only child, of my first cousin, Avery Young. Yes, when the clarion call goes out, whether for the Youngs or the Mosses, we go. Tracey was a Young on her father's side. My beloved mother Clementine Young Moss was her father's aunt, the sister to Avery's dear mother and Tracey's grandmother, Lee Young.

At Tracey's Home-going ceremony, I learned how very much she was loved and revered by the people with whom she worked and served beside in the U.S. Army. The sweet testimonies told of how she loved all with whom she came into contact, making them laugh one minute and making sure they were held accountable on the job the next. Sitting there, staring at her silent form, I had to smile, the stories making me nod and beam with pride and pleasure. I thought of her father sitting at the front of the church, near her open casket, where she was beautifully and ceremoniously dressed in her military uniform. Her father is incredibly hilarious, too, the funniest, wittiest remarks slipping easily from his lips.

Tracey's smile could brighten the dullest room, like her baby girl, who stood between the cars at the home where the families gathered after her mother's service. I don't know where her other three siblings were in the throngs of people, but they were absolutely gorgeous sitting side by side at the funeral, trying to be strong while the Davises flanked them, their grandmother's, Ethel Davis', family. Ethel and Avery were childhood lovers who parted ways as the years created a string of memories.

When the Home-going came to a somber end, everyone filed out of the sanctuary and crossed a foyer to enter the dining hall, where members of the church had prepared a savory meal for the repast. I could barely eat for meeting Tracey's other family and friends, so I popped out of line to snap pictures and chat. Perhaps I should have been a politician. Everybody received a hug and a hello. Swept up in the revelry of living, I captured over 300 pictures, most of which I will post on Facebook (so if you are reading this, please know that The Golden Goddess is Claudia Moss on Facebook, and you are invited to join me there, also!).


On this Home-coming trip, I spent time at Tracey's father's home in rural Roba, Alabama, a tiny patch of the world on the outskirts of Tuskegee. What a blessing that was! Avery, whose nickname is Muff, is an immaculate host, along with his beautiful wife, Renee. My sister Bernadette, whom we affectionately call "Chicken," because she was characteristically prone to fly into a rage and fight like a chicken with its head chopped, hopping and leaping and scratching up one side of her opponent and then another, spent the night with me! (Mind you, I used to be her opponent on numerous occasions in our childhood.) Avery's only sister, Mary Ann Young, and our little cousins, Hannah and Danny, were there as well. They are two of our cousins Brian and Shakira Young's brood. There are two more boys, William and Jeremiah. Then again...I may be missing a chap! Something is telling me there are five of them, but at this writing it is 3:01 AM, and I dare not wake anyone with a question of that sort.

All of my siblings from my mother, Clementine Young Moss, were present to say good-bye to little Tracey, although four did not enjoy the delightful sleepover at Avery's home, which was much like a rustic retreat, complete with five horses and rolling stretches of land and a lake! My oldest sister Diane lives in Montgomery, Alabama, so she drove home after sharing an evening meal with us, saying she had to work, unlike some of us. (giggles) My twin brother Claude (Bubba) lives in Tuskegee, and off he went as well. Glenda Pearl and baby sis Athera, who travelled up from Margate, Florida, with Mary Ann, spent the night at my father's home in Little Texas, a tiny postage stamp of a rural area outside of Tuskegee, on the opposite end from where I was.

In the event you are wondering, I am Tootsie, the other twin to Claude. My father named my twin and me. He loved his great-grandmother's name, Claudie, but he considered it too out-dated for his second daughter. Thus, he crowned me with the name, Claudia, a classic nombre in any circle! And my twin brother's name came fairly easy, as my father's name is Claude.

When a light goes out in my family, I am reminded to live my BEST LIFE right now! And the gift of our lives is GOLDEN when we remember that we are divine creations having a human experience.


In closing, I invite you to "go home" if you haven't visited the homefolks in a while. You know it is all too "facil," as the Spanish can say, to stay away, for one reason or another. Just go home and sit on the porch, prepare the evening meal, listen to the old stories, bring the little ones and savor precious moments with those whose blood whispers the same melodies as yours.


TheGoldenGoddess
February 28, 2011

Praises to The Leading Ladies Society

(Left to Right: Claudia Moss, J.L. King, Trey Gooden, Goldie Buchanan, Angela Laster-King, Tina Crittenden, and Dr. Brown)




It was my pleasure to attend the Leading Ladies Society's "First Annual Lovers Retreat" at the Crowne Plaza Perimeter NW, in Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday, February 19, 2011. The beautiful gala boasted the following impressive seminar speakers: T.O.W.O.A. celebrities, Angela King and Tina Crittenden; Motivational Speaker and People Coach, Tangela Washington; New York Times Bestseller J.L. King and Hosts of Trey&Tonya Loveology on YouTube.com, Tonya Buchanan and Trey Gooden.

The Leading Ladies Society, Inc., is a scholarship and grant foundation committed to enhancing the lives of all women with networking, support, education, and empowerment. The Society's four defining principles are: Live life with PRIDE, PURPOSE, PASSION and always strive for PERFECTION.

The Society's 2011 goal is to award two academic scholarships and two small business grants to women. The proceeds from their upcoming events will go towards accomplishing these goals.

Please donate to The Leading Ladies Society, Inc. via their website at www.leadingladiessociety.com. The founders are Lynne Barney and Helen D. Brooks.


Living a Golden Life~~~
TheGoldenGoddess
2/27/2011

FIONA ZEDDE: My Guest Author on her 2011 DANGEROUS PLEASURES Blog Tour

Guest Author FIONA ZEDDE
stops in to discuss her latest enticing blockbuster,

DANGEROUS PLEASURES



TheGoldenGoddess: Welcome to "A Golden Life," Fiona! It is such a pleasure to have you visit on your 2011 DANGEROUS PLEASURES promotional blog tour! I am excited about the release of your new novel, as you are one of my favorite authors. Thank you in advance for gracing The Golden Life with your beauty, wit, charm and memorable voice.


How was the writing of this novel, your sixth novel, different from the other stories? Was it more challenging to tell? Did the writing come easier? Has your writing process changed?


FIONA ZEDDE: Writing Dangerous Pleasures was an interesting and different experience on a few levels. The least reason being that in the middle of writing the novel, I found out I had breast cancer and had to properly deal with that—surgery, radiation, chemo—before getting back to the book. By the time I finished the novel, it had to be pushed back an additional year because of its bumped publishing schedule.


As I was telling Spencer in an earlier blog visit, because of illness and more of life’s ups and downs, my creativity was at its lowest. But eventually the words came back to me, for which I’m very grateful.


The writing process has only changed for me in recent months because I quit corporate America to write full-time. Now, I am constantly challenged to put myself on a productive schedule. There are SO many distractions out there!


GG: How did you come to write this particular story---a romance different from the others in many ways?


FZ: I was consciously trying to do something different with this new book. That was my challenge since—six books and three novellas in—I already have a certain way of writing, scenarios I like to explore, and type of characters I typically examine.
Straight women have never interested me as characters for my novels before, but I thought with Renée’s particular friendship with Mayson (an out lesbian), there could be some interesting possibilities there. At the beginning of the novel, I had an idea of how it would all wrap up, but as I wrote, the characters surprised me and essentially wrote the ending themselves.


GG: Houses play a significant part in Toni Morrison's fiction. What would you say has surfaced as a mainstay in your fiction? Why?


FZ: Strangely enough, the exploration of mother/daughter relationships has been a preoccupation of mine. I hadn’t fully realized it until I was having a conversation with another writer about recurring themes and HE pointed this out to me. His eye caught the frequent appearance of father/daughter pairings and troubled mother/daughter interactions. None of my characters are orphaned and their mothers (whether present, dead, or estranged) play important roles in their lives.


I’m sure all this is due to some subconscious things I’m still working through. But my mothers are important to me. They’ve influenced and supported me through my maturation process and through my writing career. My father, however, has been absent from my life since I left Jamaica twenty years ago.


GG: Mayson offers Renee the advice: "One day you'll realize that it's okay not to love everyone who loves you." This is a very revealing statement, reflecting the complexity of the gorgeous woman's personality. What did you find most intriguing about Mayson as a character? How was she culled? Have you ever known her outside of the pages of your work?


FZ: Mayson is my newest darling. She is focused and centered as a person, yet she has the biggest potty mouth and isn’t afraid to use it. That’s one of the most intriguing things about her. Also, like most of us, she has the clarity and wisdom to see what everyone else in her life needs, but she’s blind to her own desires or more so, how to satisfy these desires.


She’s completely a work of fiction, based on no one. Mayson came to me one day in the shower—I get most of my ideas there—already speaking one of the lines from the book, something about life dropping shit bombs. After that, I knew she was a keeper.


GG: Your covers and titles are always as beautiful and sumptuous as your narrative voice, your presence and your love of Rumi. "Dangerous Pleasures" is a testimony to this truth.

Share a behind-the-scenes peek at how you decided on the title "Dangerous Pleasures" and the rear visual of a partially unlaced beauty of a fairer hue than the dark-chocolate sirens who have previously graced your covers?


FZ: I very rarely get any input on the covers of my books. The only one I chose was Every Dark Desire. My publisher chooses the covers based on whatever criteria the house has in mind. I haven’t had any strong objections to any of the covers so far, though. But, when a friend of mine saw the cover for Dangerous Pleasures, she asked with surprise, “Why is there a white woman on your book cover?” All I could do was shake my head.


As I was writing the book and envisioning Kendra, the title actually came to me. It was between Pleasure in the Dark, Dark Pleasures, and Dangerous Pleasures. My editor thought the final one would give the book an edge and tease the readers toward the notion that this book was REALLY different from all the rest.


GG: What does the creative horizon currently forecast for Fiona Zedde? May your devout fans expect a road down a different path?


FZ: It’s interesting that you ask that. I’m actually about to release a Young Adult novel under the name “Fiona Lewis” in April. That’s absolutely something different. I’m also currently working on a more literary novel called "Blossom in the Snow" set in New York of the 1920’s. I’m really excited about it and hope my readers will be, too.


GG: Muchas gracias, Fiona! I love the way you meet your new challenges with only the strength, fortitude, and grace that only you can! And if you are excited about the wonderfully new paths your work is taking, then we, your devout readers, share your enthusiasm. I wish you continued peace, love, health and wealth always....


Beloved readers, get your copy of Fiona's new novel this January 25th at a store near you, or you can order it from her website (www.fionazedde.com) or www.charisbooksandmore.com. or Amazon.com. If you haven't indulged yourself in the unforgettable experience of reading a Fiona Zedde short story or novel, there is no finer time like the Present!


And for those readers interested in reading more about Fiona on her blog tour, please follow me over to her next blog appearance at Spencer Hope Davis' blog, "Observations from the Road Less Traveled," on the Day of Love, February 24, 2011.


The two links to ink are http://www.spencerhopedavis.com/ and www.fionazedde.com.


BESOS