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Thursday, August 9, 2018

Featured Author: MJ Post


Welcome Today's Featured Author
MJ Post!!



Chef Showdown: A Romance by MJ Post

Eight chefs. Twelve days. The toughest judge imaginable.
Toby Brutus is a country boy who calls himself the Crawdad King of Mississippi.
Kacie Lee is a Korean-American from Jackson Heights, Queens who runs a burger joint.
The attraction is immediate – but can they trust each other? Can they find love and still strive to win? Will their hearts survive --- a chef showdown?
Nina Lestrade, known as Madame Queen, is a formidable judge who pulls no punches and backs down from no one. She and she alone will determine the fate of all the contestants — but when young love is also at stake, what role does this powerful and temperamental culinary expert have to play?




About MJ Post :
MJ Post (pseudonym) is a contemporary romance author who lives in Queens and teaches English in a Brooklyn high school. (Fuhgeddaboutit!) A member of Romance Writers of America, MJ writes about strong women and the men who love them just as they are. MJ is married with no children. A fan of superhero comics and movies, MJ uses the catchphrase Excelsior! It means “onward and upward” and is both the state motto of New York and the favored expression of the great comics visionary Stan Lee. Feel free to connect with MJ on social media.
MJ says: “I do takeovers and live-writes upon request. You can book me directly or through my PA, Elizabeth Gardner.”

Amazon author page:  https://www.amazon.com/MJ-Post/e/B074HX7TJK
Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/MJ-Post-Author-302156203319243
Readers’ Group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/432743907149227
Mailing list/newsletter:  http://eepurl.com/dyVqqz



Interview With MJ Post


1.     Can you tell us a little about your books?
 I’m glad to tell you a little about my books. I’m a contemporary romance writer, currently focused on the new adult subgenre – I mean, characters in their twenties – and my focus is on strong women. My heroines are all women who can stand up for themselves and use their positive qualities to make a difference. They have problems – everyone does – and they are vulnerable to their need for love, as we all are – but they act to work on their problems, and the men in their lives respect rather than dominate them. And of course, the sex is great. 😊 What else about my style? Well, the characters tend to be a little potty-mouthed, as I am myself in person – not during interviews, of course! The stories are mostly dramatic, but they are focused on watching characters fall in love, and there is usually some humor involved in that, too! Finally, I try to show what a wide variety of people can fall in love, because I’m a Brooklyn writer, and Brooklyn is and always has been about the mixture of cultures.
 

2.     What inspires you to write?

My inspiration to write comes from multiple sources. One is my love for story and characters, which has been with me since childhood. When I get ideas, I just NEED to act on them, or they make me crazy. My satisfaction from getting a good character moment, or advancing my people toward the happiness I envision for them, is really visceral. Another inspiration is New York City. Although I have an affinity for the South and often write about characters and situations from there, I’ve been a New Yorker for a long time, and this city is full of crazy personalities, fun places, and amazing stories. One last source of my inspiration is the chance to interact with readers. I’ve always craved this, but there wasn’t much of it before I was writing romance. In romance these days, though, because of the social media aspect of promoting your work, your readers are your friends, following along with you as you go, and I really, really enjoy that.



3.     How many books have you written? Which is your favorite?
 In the romance field, I’ve written five novellas and one novel so far. The novellas are co-authored with Mysti Parker, who was my romance Jedi master from 2014 until 2018. (I’m working on my own now, but we are still closely affiliated.) The novel is my first solo romance, and I’m working on more novellas on my own now. More on that later. Under my real name, I’ve published five novels, two nonfiction books, and various shorter works. I may seem to have come into the marketplace fairly recently, but actually I’ve been around for a while.
As for my favorite – my favorite is probably always going to be the one I most recently finished, so right now, it’s Chef Showdown, in which two expert young chefs fall in love while competing on a TV cooking show under the watchful eye of a very tough judge.



4.     Do you have a special time to write or how is your day structured?
 I don’t have a special writing schedule. I squeeze in writing whenever I can, since I work full-time as a school teacher. Some days I’m not able to write at all. When possible, I keep a notebook with me and work on my stuff, and recently I’ve begun typing it all into Google docs, so I can add to it from work or from my iOS devices and not just at home. I was using Scrivener previously, and I think I would still need that software for a novel requiring a lot of research. Chef Showdown was all about Scrivener; I had dozens of files of notes.

5.     Do you have a favorite food or drink you must have nearby when writing? 
 I have no favorite food or drink required when writing. Caffeine is tremendously helpful, though. As I get older and more stressed, I have more and more trouble staying on task, and a cup of coffee or a Diet Coke assists me. Rather than food or drinks, music is really important to me when writing. If I’m at home at my desk, I play music on YouTube or iTunes. If I’m on the subway, I listen to my iPod and write. If I’m in my car, I listen to music that triggers me to think about my current project. Each project should ideally have its own playlist. For my current series, Bay Ridge Romance, I have a playlist on my iPod called ‘MJ Brooklyn’. When I’m working on a project, the music in the playlist feels especially vivid to me; once I’ve finished the project, the music is kind of burned out and I don’t want to hear it anymore.

6.     Do you have a favorite spot to write?
 I don’t have a favorite writing spot, either. I have a large desk at home with a big monitor and such, but I’m accustomed to writing in a notebook in random spots, like a subway train or a classroom. I used to write in the bathroom a lot – because usually no one bothers me when doing certain things! -- but these days I’m too busy to hang out there long enough!

7.     If your fairy godmother waved her wand and whisked you away to the location of your choice, which place would you choose, and why?
My fairy godmother seems to wave her wand and whisk me away to places where I get additional work or traffic tickets. But the truth is, I like to travel overseas, and there are lots of places in Europe I’d like to go. I’d like to spend a month walking around in the Paris art museums, the Louvre and the Musee d’Orsay, so let’s start with Paris, followed by a complete tour of Italy and a month in Spain just hanging out.



8.     What are writing projects are you currently working on?
 I’m currently working on Bay Ridge Romance, a four-novella series set in Brooklyn in the shadow of the Verrazano Bridge. Three siblings in their late twenties are all single, and their widowed father longs to fulfill his wife’s dying wish and have them all married by Christmas. But is it possible? Well, HEA is my thing, but it’ll be fun to go on the journey with them. The last of the four novellas deals with how their parents got back together in the 90s. I’m writing the first of these now, and it’s going well. For the newest updates, readers should connect with me in my fan group, MJ’s Reading Squad, here:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/432743907149227/. I take friend requests from readers, too.

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