Meet Anny Taylor, author, minister, and fascinating woman. She has a wide variety of interests, and fortunately for us, a love of writing. Here is a little from Anna, and an introduction to her exciting novel of intrigue and romance, Haunted Serenade.
From Anna Taylor…
Since I’ve retired and moved to the Southwest, my favorite place to write is my back patio. Hearing the birds, feeling the warm breeze, watching a bunny I’ve named Brownie breakfast on a birdseed cake. These sights and sounds fill me with a sense of calm that oddly enough I used to get writing on the subway or the Long Island Railroad to and from work. I think it’s both nature sounds and the hum of the rails put me in a world of my own. Cocooned by both I was and am wonderfully productive.
The things that inspire me as a human being inspire me as an author: people who persevere despite the odds, who encourage others, who live pay-it-forward lives. Generosity, compassion, the good guys, and gals winning, in the end, inspire me as an author.
I see writing romance as an extension of my work as a minister. In church, I worked to bring hope and justice and peace of mind to many people in troubled circumstances based on our shared belief that the love of God can heal all wounds. John 3:16 & 17 shows us love is meant to heal and save. Romance shares the same idea, i.e. everyone deserves a happily-ever-after. The genres I chose help me to share this from different angles. I write inspirational because I want to include issues of faith and doubt in my characters’ journey to love. I write gothic romance because I want to deal with the issues of good and evil and their interaction with the supernatural, the things not dreamt of in our philosophies. I write erotic romance because I’m with Audre Lorde’s concept of the erotic as power and how that force shapes us and our relationships. Finally, I’ve begun to write women’s fiction because I want to tell stories about resilience and self-love to inspire my readers to be resilient and self-loving too.
I’m working on the stories in my Haunted Harlem series, A Little In Love With Death, I’m Just Wild About Harold and Don’t Get To Lie Much Anymore. I’ve just gotten the cover created for A Little In Love With Death which I’m planning to make available around Halloween. I’m Just Wild About Harold I hope to have ready by Valentine’s Day 2021 and Don’t Get To Lie Much Anymore in May.
If I couldn’t write, I’d have a lot of time on my hands. I think I’d either set up a Pinterest account and go back to an old love: photography or volunteer in a library. I can definitely do the former now and the latter post COVID-19. Right now I split my free time between checking in on people I know live alone and watching my favorite old movies.
I listen to music before or after but not while I’m writing. I listen to WQXR’s holiday channel. The message of hope that is Christmas flows through every selection, from classic renditions of carols to symphonic versions of I’m Dreaming of A White Christmas. The musical creativity stirs my spirit and gets me writing then soothes my spirit and helps me transition from wired writer to soothed scribbler.
Haunted Serenade by Anna M. Taylor
All the women in Anora Madison’s family have lived as “Poor Butterflies”: women still longing for but deserted by the men they loved. Determined to be the first to escape a life of abandonment, Anora fled Harlem for Brooklyn, severing her ties with her mother and with the man who broke her heart, Winston Emerson, the father of her child.
Six years later, she comes back to Harlem to make peace, but a malignant spirit manifests itself during the homecoming, targeting her mother, her aunt, Winston and their little girl. Determined to stop the evil now trying to destroy all she loves, Anora must finally turn to Winston for help. But will their efforts be too little too late?
Buy link: https://amzn.to/3aXifyu
An Excerpt from Haunted Serenade
“I never understood how you and Elizabeth could stay here after Diana…” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word. My mother didn’t finish my sentence for me. Apparently she couldn’t say the word either.
Suicide.
We waited in the shared silence, unable more than unwilling to offer terms of peace.
“A person can will themselves to die,” my mother said. Her gaze drifted to the album cover in my hands. “It’s not so hard where unforgiving spirits reign.”
My gut clenched. “Do you really believe you’re dying, Ma?”
“According to my doctor I’m sound as a dollar. But when you’ve got more days behind you than in front of you, that’s not saying much.” She directed her gaze to me. “That’s why Cammie is so important. She’s the future. I feel better just having been in her presence a little while.”
“I should have known.” I gripped the album cover with fingers trembling with anger and disappointment. “All that display of affection…you’re only using her to make you feel better.”
“No, Anora.” My mother came over and grabbed my arm with an earnestness that surprised me. “It’s not like that. I—I want the ghosts keeping us apart to die. Don’t you?”
I wanted it so much it hurt. I grimaced, but nodded.
“Cammie took one look at this house and asked if it was haunted.”
My mother snorted. “Out of the mouths of babes.”
“Exactly what I thought.” I returned the album cover to its resting place.
Resting place.
The term troubled my mind. Can the spirit of anyone who dies the way my aunt died ever rest?
The question went unanswered, interrupted by my daughter’s screams.
Meet Anna Taylor
A recent transplant to the Southwest from New York, Anna M. Taylor is the women’s fiction and gothic romance pen name of Anna Taylor Sweringen, a retired United Church of Christ and Presbyterian Church USA minister. Anna has been writing seriously since joining Romance Writers of America in 2003. She also writes inspirational romance as Anna Taylor and erotic romance as Michal Scott.
- Website: www.annamtaylor.webs.com
- Twitter – @mscottauthor1 @revannable
- FB – @annamtaylorAuthor
- Amazon Author Central amazon.com/author/annamtaylor
Thanks so most for hosting me. Your questions were thought-provoking and fun to answer.