HW: Also, very true. Other than writing, do you have any hobbies? Since writing can’t really be considered a hobby for you anymore, what with you being a published author.
TW: I do. I have so many hobbies, it’s a little overwhelming. I love sewing. That’s part of why I wrote Velvet, because my mom was a decorator sewer for about ten years when I was growing up, so that was a part of our lives. That’s how she made an income for a while. I can’t sew half as well as she can, but I really enjoy doing it. But I hate patterns, so I just make things up, and they don’t always work, but I really enjoy it. So, there’s that. And I like, tangentially, knitting. My art teacher in high school taught me how to knit. And weaving. I built a loom a couple of weeks ago because I was bored. I’m weaving a rag rug. I also like book art, which is where you actually carve images into the pages of a book, so it becomes a three-dimensional piece of art. It’s super cool. It takes forever, like 14 hours per thing for a simple design. So, there’s that. And leatherworking. My grandfather was into leatherworking and I discovered a box of his tools in the garage when I was a kid. I love being able to carve designs into belts and stuff. What else? Carving things. Swords and stuff out of spare wood. That was a weird hobby of mine as a child. And painting, I like painting. I like singing, but I’m not very good at it, so I don’t do it in front of people. And just crafty stuff. I love crafty stuff. Making something that wasn’t there before, or taking supplies and making something beautiful out of it. That is my happiest time, just making something.
HW: That is an impressive list. I thought I was vaguely crafty because I knit and crochet and occasionally costume and I’ve done some embroidery, but your list is a little bit more extensive.
TW: I have to admit, I’m not very good at any of these things. I just dabble very lightly across a wide spectrum of activities.
“The Swoon Reads Experience”
HW: How did you first learn about Swoon Reads?
TW: From my mother. She saw an ad for it. I still don’t know where (I think it might have been on Facebook or maybe one of her friends had posted a link to it or something). I was actually at her condo sewing. I had totally taken over her living room with all her supplies out and was making costumes for something, and she said, “Hey, there’s this thing called Swoon Reads and it sounds like it’s right up your alley. It’s a competition-based, young adult, romance novel division of a company.” I said, “Yeah, that sounds great, but it’s probably a scam.” I didn’t even look at the link until a couple of days later. I read the terms of service and all the finer points and I thought, “Oh, no, this sounds fantastic! I should submit to this because I have a novel,” and then I did.
HW: Before you were chosen, what was your experience like on the site?
TW: Really good. It was really fun to be able to see the other community members, not only what they were writing, but what they were doing. Like what their backgrounds were. Were they a stay-at-home mom, were they a college student, were they in high school? Just to see the different people who were attracted to Swoon Reads and to these types of stories.
HW: Are you going to have a big celebration when the books actually end up in your hands?
TW: My plan is to go to the nearest Barnes & Noble or bookstore and grab every copy that I can and just kind of roll with them on the floor and giggle uncontrollably.
HW: That sounds great. No, really, we need video of this!
“About the Book”
HW: Where did you first get the idea for Velvet?
TW: After reading Twilight. I had kind of been into vampires before. I thought that they were really cool creatures. A lot of creatures in mythology are part animal or so inhuman, they’re a little bit hard to connect to, but vampires are basically humans with some teeth and some undead-ness, depending on which book you read. So, they seemed a lot more relatable. Then Twilight came out and it was this huge thing. The movies were just coming out as I was reading the books and my roommate was super into it, and that’s kind of what sparked my idea of, “Okay, I want to do my take on this now. All the frustrations that I have with previous versions of vampire stories, I want to address those and make my perfect vampire, if you will, or my perfect vampire story.” So, that’s what I attempted to do with Velvet.