Welcome to the blog, Tanya!
1.
Tell us about you.
I live in the northeastern United States with my boyfriend and my cat. I’m going to allow my boyfriend his privacy, but the cat’s name is Fred. Here’s a picture of him dressed up for Christmas. You can see how much he enjoyed that. Fred’s favorite things are pats and food. If you aren’t feeding him, you should be patting him, and if you aren’t patting him, you’re useless and must die.
Oh, you said tell you about me. My favorite things are chocolate and good reviews. Don’t make me kill you.
Ed.- You got me at hello 😉
2.
Optimist or pessimist?
Optimism and pessimism are different filters through which we try to predict the future. I’ve given up on trying to predict the future. Whatever will be, will be, and it’ll be all right, even if it doesn’t feel that way right now. So, that sounds somewhat optimistic.
3.
You have a lot of themes at play in WHEN IT ALL FALLS DOWN. Without giving spoilers, what underlying message do you hope to convey through the work?
The primary theme in When It All Falls Down is that relationships (people) are all that matter but that in order to make our relationships work, we have to be forgiving of each other.
4.
Are we better off as a society today? What, in your opinion, is the biggest lesson learned from our past?
We really are. I know it doesn’t feel that way in the US right now, but progress has never been linear. The overall trend, if you look at the history of civilization, has always been towards a more inclusive rendering of “liberty and justice for all” and I don’t think anyone can stop that upward trend for long, even if they manage to set back the clock temporarily.
5.
Growing up is tough. Growing old, maybe tougher. What does the raging success of the 50 Shades series say about adult readership? Are they missing the point?
I haven’t read 50 Shades, so I can’t render an opinion on the series itself, but it’s an example of the billionaire trope which is enjoying popularity right now. Women today are required to be very strong, very adult, and so the temptation is there to escape into a world where someone (a man, for those who are heterosexual) takes over the adulting. That doesn’t mean those women want to abdicate control in real life, but at the end of a day of juggling work, family, and cultural expectations, they’re tired and sometimes overwhelmed and they deserve whatever fantasy brings them relief and joy.
6.
The definitions of family and gender are changing. Is it legislative or evolutionary?
I don’t think the compositions of family or gender are changing, just our ability to recognize the legitimacy of those various compositions thanks to social evolution. Legislation then slowly catches up to understanding.
7.
What are you working on now?
My next release will be Aftercare, which is a M/M BDSM romance. It features a Muslim immigrant (a very urbane, but somewhat, reluctant Dom) and the attorney who’s handling his brother’s murder case. I’ll be releasing that hopefully in April if I can get the editing finished! In the meantime, I’m writing a dystopia like everyone else in the US.
8.
Any last words?
I just want to put in a plug for the #guesswrite competition on Twitter. Any writer who’s trying to break in to self-publishing can definitely benefit from this prize package. I’m grateful to all the people who came before me, like the hosts of #guesswrite, for their guidance and example. I’ve made friends through Twitter and through NaNoWriMo who’ve critiqued my manuscripts, shared their lessons-learned, and been a source of inspiration and motivation. Remember: relationships are everything.
Ed. – Amen, sista!
When It All Falls Down
by Tanya Chris
Published by Tanya Chris Publishing (self-published)
M/M contemporary, coming-of-age romance, 64K words
Available 2/2/17 from Amazon in paperback and on Kindle. Eligible for Kindle Unlimited.
Blurb:
Maybe Charlie should have waited until he graduated high school before coming out, because since that revelation there’s been a growing distance between him and his friends. Charlie’s tough, though. He doesn’t mind eating lunch alone or watching his former gang interact with their new best buddy. What he does mind is seeing Drew Lavoitt suffer the same fate.
Drew didn’t come out. As far as he, or anyone else knows, he’s straight. What Drew did is accidentally hit and kill a little girl. Now the boy who was voted Most Popular, and who Charlie has maybe had a crush on since eighth grade, faces financial ruin, expulsion, and the fear that if he’s not everything, he’s not enough.
Popularity, wealth, acclaim—these things are easily lost. In each other’s arms, Drew and Charlie find something that can’t be taken from them. Together the two build a foundation on which they can re-create their lives.
Excerpt:
“Drew, I’m not your boyfriend.”
“At school, you said yes.”
“I can be your boyfriend at school, if that makes it easier for you to be at school, but I’m not your real boyfriend. Are you really expecting me to be … faithful to you?”
“I came out to my parents for you.”
“I don’t understand that part either. I don’t understand any of this.”
“What’s so hard to understand, Charlie? I want to be your boyfriend. Not just at school. All the time. But if you don’t want me—”
“Come on,” I said, cutting him off, “don’t start the drama up. You’ve got to know how much I want you.”
“Then we don’t have a problem.” He snuggled deeper into my side until he was rubbing his cheek along mine, our faces pressed right up together. Drew might not have a problem, but I did. My problem was that I wanted to turn my face into his and kiss him—not a quick brush of lips like what he’d given me in the hallway yesterday but the real thing. And then I decided, fuck it. I’d show him that being my boyfriend wasn’t what he wanted.
He was startled when I did it—when I brought my hand up to cup the back of his head and hold him still so I could really get my mouth against his, my tongue between those softly parted lips. Like he hadn’t been expecting it, like he hadn’t known that this was what happened when you rubbed your almost-too-skinny boy body up against a gay guy. He gasped, which opened him further up to me, and his body got stiff where it had been pliant, and I thought you see? and then that thought vanished beneath a whole bunch of oh my God because once he got past that initial shock, he kissed me back.
Praise for When It All Falls Down
“Read this faster than I’ve read anything in ages. Bittersweet, and strangely addictive.”
“Lately, books have seemed almost boring…and then I read this one.”
“Drew and Charlie are instantly shippable, love these boys to pieces.”
About the Author
Tanya writes in a variety of romantic and erotic genres, being an avid follower of many of these genres herself. Some of her favorites are M/M romance, MFM threesomes, and BDSM with male submissives.
Tanya lives in New England with her boyfriend and her cat and has participated in many of the activities about which she writes, but not all of them. It’s left to the reader to decide which are which.
http://www.tanyachris.com
Twitter: @tanyachrs
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tanyachrispublishing/ Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15067939.Tanya_Chris
Thanks for dropping by, Tanya. See you around the Twitterverse! — A.B.
A. B. Funkhauser, Author 