Intimate Conversation with Tia Williams

Intimate Conversation with Tia Williams

Tia Williams
is the ultimate style insider. For fifteen years, she was a magazine beauty editor (at Elle, Lucky, Glamour, Teen People, and Essence.com), and created one of the first style blogs, the award-winning Shake Your Beauty. She’s the best-selling author of The Accidental Diva and the It Chicks series, and co-writer of Iman’s The Beauty of Color. Currently a copy director at Estee Lauder Companies, Tia lives in Brooklyn with her 7-year-old diva daughter and their various accessories.

BPM: When did you get your first inkling to write, and how did you advance the call for writing?
TW: I’ve always been a writer. I can’t do math, I have zero business sense, and I’m a disaster in the kitchen. But writing always felt right to me. I wrote my first book at age 7! And two weeks after I graduated from college, I moved to New York to become a magazine beauty writer. I also knew I wanted to publish books, but at twenty-two, I felt like I hadn’t had rich enough experiences to inspire juicy fiction. But after five years in New York – falling in love with a couple of charismatic lunatics, having my heart broken, experiencing a career in fashion magazines, finding a colorful community of young black journalists and authors in Brooklyn – I felt like I had enough material for my first novel, The Accidental Diva!  Five books later, I’m still at it.

BPM: Tell us about your passion for writing. Why do you write? What drives you?

TW: Growing up, I loved Jackie Collins and Judith Krantz's books...their protagonists were always strong, glamorous women with creative jobs, passionate love stories, and exciting lives in cities like Manhattan or L.A. But I never found books like this with black characters, so I made it my mission to change that.

As a kid, I wanted to be the black "version" of their main characters. With all my novels, whether they’re adult, like The Perfect Find and The Accidental Diva, or YA, like my It Chicks series – I try to create dynamic, fabulous characters so this generation of readers won't have to be the black "version " of anything! It’s so satisfying for me to introduce quirky, weird, witty, sexy, brainy, fully three-dimensional characters from all backgrounds – just being black and excellent, out in the world.

BPM: Can you share a little of your current work with us? Introduce us to your book and the characters.

TW: The Perfect Find is a juicy, hilarious story about star-crossed love and starting over! Jenna Jones a 40-year-old fashion editor who, in one nightmare week, gets dumped by her fiancĂ© of two decades, fired by Darling magazine, has a nervous breakdown – and then reinvents herself at an online fashion ‘zine, where she’s working for her evil rival from the ‘90s, Darcy Vale. But Jenna, who doesn’t have Facebook and has never “Twittered,” finds herself in over her head and surrounded by uber-cool millennials who think she’s a dinosaur. 

Worse? At her first party back in NYC, she gets tipsy and hooks up with a fine 22-year-old, Eric Combs, who ends up driving her nuts in all the right, but also wrong ways (especially since he has a secret identity that makes him the one person who could destroy her big comeback). Will she risk it all for love? Read it to find out!

BPM: What genre is this book? Do you write all of your books in this category? Why?

TW: The Perfect Find is chick lit (my favorite genre). I’ve always been drawn to big, sexy love stories set in the world I know best – the beauty and fashion industry, in New York. There’s so much material in that world; so many delicious characters.

BPM: Are any scenes from the book borrowed from your world or your experiences?

TW: Absolutely. Jenna Jones is the alter ego I created when my own life imploded. I was laid off from my magazine, got divorced, lost everything, and had to start again. I lived vicariously through her fight to start-over, and such a late stage. Jenna was a type-A weirdo like me, a perfection addict, and when things fall apart she discovers what she’s truly made of – and comes out on the other side, more powerful than ever before. She inspired me to chase my own comeback!

BPM: How may our readers follow you online?

TW: Readers can check out my website, shakeyourbeauty.com, or follow me on Twitter and Instagram at @shakeyourbeauty, and Facebook at Tia Williams.

Follow Tia for chit-chat, beauty babble, and book updates:


Shake Your Beauty Blog
http://www.shakeyourbeauty.com 

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/shakeyourbeauty
Pinterest:  https://www.pinterest.com/shakeurbeauty 
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/TiaWilliamsWrites 



Purchase The Perfect Find by Tia Williams

Available on Kindle, Nook, and in Paperback
Chick Lit, Steamy Romance, Workplace Drama, Fashion Fiction
Check out a free chapter! See more at: http://www.shakeyourbeauty.com