Judith: I want to laugh wildly here. What spare time? Recently I was chastised by a reader when I posted to a listserv "what I was reading." I read too much, she told me. I should write more and read less. Ha. So I guess I read a lot.

I love to travel. My next trip is to Yorkshire, England, where my brother lives. I love movies, plays - opera is a fairly recent passion that I enjoy a lot. I have two beautiful dogs and a sweet kitty, whom I adore playing with. I take for granted, I guess, my rather large family and extended family of friends. Spending time with people I love is the best "free time" activity of all and I indulge as much as possible!

Vic: Tell us about your family. I know you have two children but I don't know their ages. Would you like to do a little "Brag Time"? We'd love to hear about them!

Judith: My kids are OLD. My daughter graduates from college this month - with nearly straight A's; I think she's made two B's her entire college career. So smart, this girl. She will start graduate school next year in audiology. Her undergraduate degree will be in speech and audiology, so she was very much a major consultant on Mick's speech training in THE PROPOSITION.

My son is likewise a clever young man. He is back in school, studying computer programming, after having taken a sabatical to produce his own CD. He found a band, put together an album of their original songs, did all the mixing, sound recording (he began his college career in sound engineering), did the CD case from the band's original art, walked the disk thru production, financing it entirely on his own by tending bar at night. It was amazing to watch his energy and commitment. I was very proud of him. The CD was reviewed quite favorably a number of places. His love is music. But his second love is computers, so he's hoping to finance the one with the other - the bartending wore on him. The musician's life - or independent producer's life - is a bit too materially austere for him. For me, too, I'd have to say.

My children are both gorgeous, bright, friendly, and loving. I admire them both. Oh, brag, brag, brag. I'm ridiculous. I adore them, but they're mine, so what can I say?

Vic: I would say you have some real bragging rights! They are young people to be proud of! Give yourself a pat on the back!!

How do they feel about your being a romance author - how old were they when you started writing and what were their reactions when they realized what type of fiction you write? How did/do they react to that "spicy stuff" mom writes?????

Judith: Well, you asked for it. *GGG*

In a serious vein: My kids were little when I started tinkering with writing. My daughter was just eighteen months, my son about barely five. To them, it meant Mom had this new preoccupation where they weren't always the center, which was a shock. As they got older, they both watched how hard I worked, how I coped with rejection and set-backs - of which there are plenty in publishing, let me tell you - then watched my successes begin to happen. I like to think this helped them both. My son has very realistic expectations in his chosen love, the very difficult business of making money from music. My daughter is a die-hard worker, too, quite the student. I think the way I've pursued writing has been an important legacy to my children: that to work hard at what you love has its own rewards, and if there is a pay-off down the line, it comes from putting in time that only love of what you're doing can generate. Sound motherly enough for you? Man, I sound downright preachy. But I do think there is some truth to all this.

As to their awareness of the "spicy stuff," they pretend it isn't there. It's quite funny really. Just today, I said something racy to my daughter - there is a fine line of joking with her, where we kid and sometimes it's okay and sometimes it's not. I can't figure out where the line is, and I make mistakes. Today, I segued into something bawdy after she called me to complain that she'd eaten some bad sushi, and she said, "Please, Mother, my stomach is already upset. Don't make me wrestle with the nauseating idea of my mother knowing all about sex." My son (a young adult) has been known to put his hands over his ears upon hearing me say something risque. So, yes, for my children's sakes, I'm saying here and in print, they were both immaculate conception. I know nothing, absolutely nothing of the physical pleasures of life. I make it all up. I'm just a very good guesser.

Better still is my own mother. With my first book, when she read it, I asked her, "So are you all right with the idea that your daughter writes 'those kind' of books?" She said point blank, "Are you all right with the idea that your mother LIKES 'those kind' of books?" I was shocked. She really turned the tables on me. Later, I asked, "So did you read the sex scenes?" "No, honey," she said. "I skip those. It was a very good book without them." And to this day, she still has me. I don't know if she reads the sex or not, if she likes reading it or not. I do know, she is an avid supporter and pushes my books everywhere. She walks into bookstores and demands they carry them. She has put my books into the hands of her minister's wife and many ladies at her church (and they all profess, at least, to love them and ask when the next is out - occasionally one even brings one for me to sign when I visit at my folks' church).

My dad, too, is a great supporter, though he claims he has never read any of my books. "They don't look like a book for a man," he says, and of course his logic is sound. He buys my books, though. Once he went into a bookstore, bought their last copies of my newest, then went to the store owner and told him he better order more because he'd run out. The guy looked at him and said, "You're her father, aren't you?" My dad was flabberghasted, since he believed himself to be posing as an interested reader. "How did you know?" he asked. "Do you know how many men we have who come in here, buy five copies of a romance, then demand we reorder it? None. Except you. You have to be related to the author, and I'm guessing her father." The bookstore owner was very nice about it. He did reorder, because, as my dad tells it, he told him that the author has a lot of aunts and uncles in the area, which I do, who would want the book, when he had bought all the copies. My father felt quite good about it in the end. But it was funny. He loves to tell this story.

I'm very lucky. I have a marvelous family that includes many aunts, uncles, and cousins as well. My father is one of eleven, my mother one of six, so blood relatives abound. I could go on with stories for pages. I have one aunt who likes to act as a shill at any signing she is close enough to attend. Watch out for her. She's the one who is "too shy" to come up to the author, but shrieks periodically, pointing in my direction, nearly fainting from fan frenzy. Then she literally grabs people who might otherwise walk by me, telling them I'm the best writer alive and they simply must read my book, so buy it now. Ah, you gotta love her. Even if she is a tad embarrassing.

I do love her. I love them all.

Vic: What is your "Grand Passion"? What makes Judith Ivory's heart sing?

Judith: Ha. Writing, silly. *G* The written word. Reading, too, I suppose. Ideas. A great, fun read that somehow also makes me think - entertainment reading that touches me on a number of levels. And friends. I adore long nights talking into the morning with stimulating, warm-hearted people. I'm amazingly social for a woman who works primarily alone.

Vic: Are you an avid reader like the rest of us? What do you enjoy reading?

Judith: Oh, I read just about everything. Lately, I've been reading a lot of psychology, how the human mind works - or at least various theories as to how it works. I like fiction best, though. I'm famous for reading a third of a book. I start hundreds of books a year and finish maybe two dozen. If it doesn't grab me, I have no compunctions about tossing it. A friend of mine goes crazy over the idea that I don't read to the end of every book I buy or borrow. It's one of the few places where I'm not obessive, though. Not finishing a book does not leave me with any sense of incompleteness. If I didn't like it well enough to finish, I'm done. I read a good bit of romance, a dash of sci-fi, some bestseller mainstream, some literary stuff. I also enjoy plays and poetry, and go on binges. And, of course, I read tons of history, mostly for research, but I enjoy it, so I guess it counts.

Vic: How in the world does one go from acquiring two Math degrees and teaching, to being a Romance Writer? What was your inspiration to make such a drastic change?

Judith: SWEET SAVAGE LOVE. No kidding. That book was just so much fun when it cropped up in my pile of books. I was already teaching math by that time, and it took a few more years before I gave writing a historical romance a try. By that time I'd also very happily discovered Woodiwiss. Also, from one trip to the library (my source for reads for years), in among my historical romances, I brought home a book called THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN, thinking it was like the others. Well, I thought. THAT was an interesting historical romance. I realized I preferred some character and structural elements as well as some stylistic things in Fowles's writing, even if I didn't always like the way he handled things as much as the women writers - though I did and do still love that book and pretty much everything else John Fowles has written. The math, I think, has always helped me organize a book. Plus a novel is rather like a long mathematical proof. You start with your givens, proceed logically in the direction you hope will work, then get to the final conclusion. Q.E.D., as the mathematicians like to say.

Vic: How long did it take you to get your first book published, and do you remember how you celebrated that event?

Judith: I had a publisher within 9 weeks of sending it out. And champagne. But I celebrate everything at the drop of a hat with champagne, so that isn't really memory but consistency. *GGGG*

Vic: You have written under the name of Judy Cuevas, and I am embarrassed to say I have not read those books by you - for the simple fact that I have not been able to find them. I hope to one of these days, but in the meantime and for others who may not have read books by Judy Cuevas, would you tell us what inspired the name change? Is there a big difference in the writing styles of Judy Cuevas and Judith Ivory?

Judith: Mostly the Judith Ivory books are marketed differently. They have been joyously and unabashedly marketed to the core romance reader, whereas, generally speaking, the Judy Cuevas books were marketed to the fringe, sort of uphill against the flow. I have to say, it took a while to figure out how to market my books, so it was all a learning process. I've learned from various editors and several houses now. Publishers have learned by looking at my numbers and covers and storylines, deciding what was workng and what wasn't. I have a particularly serendipitous match with my current editor, Carrie Feron, at Avon Books. She is a brilliant publisher of romance as well as a staunch supporter of my individuality as a writer, a combination that I think means the world to any writer. It was Carrie's idea to make the name change, and I credit her with the shift in marketing approach and ultimately the successful upturn in my career. She is a dynamo of fresh ideas, good analysis, and high energy.

Vic: As you know, your character, Coco Wilde from SLEEPING BEAUTY, is one of my all time favorite heroines. I adore Coco - I want to BE Coco! Could you tell us what or who inspired this character? Where did she come from?

Judith: Well, I can tell you I stole her clothes from Michelle Pfieffer in AGE OF INNOCENCE, a movie I really liked a lot. Other than that, I'm not sure where she comes from. From some pragmatic place inside me, I suppose. She was certainly a practical woman. I wouldn't say she is me so much as what I'd like to be - some of my better qualities amplified and with my lesser ones left out. *G*

Vic: Coco was a beautiful, elegant, sensitive and intelligent woman - she was a courtesan, and while I fell head over heels in love with her, there was, I remember, some (limited) "criticism" about her because of her profession at a site on the web. I personally was offended and went in with "gloves off." As Coco's creator, how did you feel about this criticism? Did it bother you that judgement was passed on her?

Judith: I never saw this, though I don't doubt it's true. I just shrug. You can't please everyone. I am thrilled to pieces that my books are discussed with such passion. What more could an author want, really? And I love to hear that you defended Coco! But, no, I expect judgment to be passed on my characters. (Especially by the judgmental, ha.) It means my characters have achieved a kind of life force. Hurray is all I can say. My guess, though, is that people who judge my characters harshly show a similar lack of compassion for their fellow human beings - and probably for themselves. It's just the way they are - you can't control people's response to your work; you can only control the work, the words themselves. C'est la vie.

Vic: I have adored and admired all three of the women you have written about as Judith Ivory; Louise (BEAST), an 18-year-old American heiress, Coca (SLEEPING BEAUTY), a 38-year-old French courtesan, and Winnie (THE PROPOSITION), a 29-year-old linguist. All three very different ages and characters, yet all three alike because of their depth of emotion and commitment to themselves as women. How are you able to write such depth to make a reader feel so connected to these women? Do you feel connected to your female characters? Is there a part of you in each of them?

Judith: Oh, I'm sure I'm in all my characters, male and female alike. It's interesting to me to explore my own emotions, exaggerating some, snipping others. Always, though, my characters are dives down into me. Who else's mind could I possilby know as well? The old Flannery O'Conner quote - "I don't know what I think till I see what I write."

Vic: Judith, you must have a fascination with fairy tales! BEAST, SLEEPING BEAUTY, and now THE PROPOSITION, which has a very "Cinderfella" flavor to it! Can you tell me where that comes from, and will you continue that theme for a while in your books?

Judith: I was a fairy tale freak as a kid. I saw the movie "Cinderella" eleven times! Fairy tales are mythic with wonderful meat to them, to me. I think, as an adult now, I'm interested in rewriting the old myths, looking at them from the perspective of many more year's experience, turning the universals into more proactive tales for women.

Jennifer Crusie does a marvelous job of debunking some of the insipid tracts fairy tales - and Victorian literature in general - fell into in the last century. Earlier versions of these tales were often more violent, with the women more powerful and active; the Victorians rewrote women's roles into the then-more-acceptable passivitity. Jenny's essay (on her website) is very much worth reading. Once was, says good ol' Crusie, a woman gained love by looking pretty when comatose. Think of Sleeping Beauty or Snow White. Think of the original Woodiwiss tale, THE FLAME AND THE FLOWER, in fairy tale terms - it is so startlingly Cinderella, yet the female is fairly powerless except for her sexual draw and her ability to love. So interesting.

Romance started there, to me, and has been rewriting these myths ever since, giving women more and more power and control over their lives. For me, exploring those old views, digging back into the fairy tale's origins, playing with what I imagine in humankind has brought the tales about, are a bliss of discovery and fun. I love doing it.

Vic: Now, lets talk about your "New Baby" - THE PROPOSITION, which is due out today! (December 1st) I know the release date was held up by Avon because it was put into a position called "Super Lead" - (nearly killed me to have to wait!). Could you explain to us exactly what a "Superlead" is?

Judith: THE PROPOSITON is due out Dec 7th, but close enough. A "Superlead" means, in effect, the publisher is putting more money behind the book and its author than a non-lead. It means they see a way to increase their profits on the book and the author, by expanding her readership at this particular time with more advertising, fancier packing, etc. A lot of it is a game of timing and numbers. And the book itself. Avon is very much behind the words themselves in THE PROPOSITION, really high on the book. They did an unbelievable number of Advanced Reading Copies to get people to actually read it, which I find very supportive of my work. Also, to label it a Superlead calls attention to their support of the book to booksellers. It increases orders, gets more books on the shelves, and hopefully sells a whole lot more books ultimately to readers.

Vic: THE PROPOSITION is the story of Lady Edwina Bollash, an impoverished heiress supporting herself as a linguist, and Mick Tremore, a London ratcatcher in Victorian England. Now there's an unlikely pair! Where in the world did you come up with occupations like linguist and ratcatcher for your hero and heroine????

Judith: Winnie was always going to be a linguist. I love language and wanted a heroine who did, too, so as to play with it. Mick was always going to need help with his accent. But the ratcatcher business came up a bit later in the development. As his character grew, I knew he could carry off a really low profession, and I thought he could do it with humor. One day, I was reading some history book, I can't remember which - thinking Mick would be a chimney sweep or something - and I read the word ratcatcher and stopped. Oh, yes. Much better. The coup de grace was when I read about what a problem mice and rats were in Victorian England with regard to all that understructure of ladies' dresses. Mice would get inside their bustles and have a regular field day! The notion became irresistible!

Vic: THE PROPOSITION, in my opinion, is a real departure from your other work. It is much lighter than what you have written before. As I read it, I thought, "Judith had fun writing this book!" It was such a joy to read, you must have had fun writing it! I loved the subtle humor in SLEEPING BEAUTY, but there are some real "laugh out loud" moments in this book. How did this switch from dark to light, and from subtle to all-out humor, happen? Does this reflect a change in your future writing style, or simply a frame of mind you had with these characters?

Judith:It just happened. I was in a particularly up and happy time. I fell in love with Mick myself as he began to take shape on the page. I loved Winnie. Such a sweet, vulnerable human being. The book was a joy to write, and I'm not surprised that it shows. It was fun. Probably the best time I've ever had writing a book. But each book is different. The current book is one of the toughest I've ever written. Go figure. I don't seem to have control of what "frame of mind" strikes me. I just explore what happens to come out. It's nice to know I have this big old happy piece to me. THE PROPOSITION is a happy book. I love it for that alone.

Vic: Among many things I love about THE PROPOSITION is that the heroine, Edwina, is not the "typical" gorgeous heroine. She is not 18 years old, she is 6 feet tall, wears glasses, is flat chested, and she thinks her nose is too long! What a great change of pace!!! (And Mick thinks she is the most beautiful women he has ever seen!) Okay, tell us how you came up with "Winnie."

Judith: Well, as I said before, she's a slice of me - only exaggerated a good deal. Everyone feels ugly at times. Everyone has their vulnerable, anxious days. I simply took all this in me and overlaid it on an interesting looking woman. It was a great way to lay to rest - for a while at least - some of my own insecurities. I gave Mick, my wiser, better adjusted side, to work it all thru with - a process that became strangely joyful in a way I didn't expect. I was so relaxed and happy when I finished that book.

Vic: And Mick - OMIGOSH, Mick! A hero to die for! As my friend Celeste told me, "There was so much joy to the character of Mick, you couldn't help but smile as you were reading about him." And she is so right! Everything about him makes one's heart sing! He is open, honest, gorgeous to look at, and one of the most loving heroes I've seen in a while. Just talk to us about Mick for a minute - tell us how you feel about him!

Judith: Oh, I love him. The idea of a sexually powerful man, a real man's man, who is also gentle and loving and funny, is just the best fantasy of all to me. And maybe not even that much of a fantasy. The nicest men I know have a bit of Mick in them. And his love of life, oh, that was what was such a joy to write about. He was realistic about life without being pessimistic. I think I was exploring what I want to believe: that reality doesn't mean believing in doom and depression, that "romance" doesn't dress life up in prettier words than life is, but merely reflects the basic joy of living and loving. Mick takes life by the tail, yet he accepts it very humbly on its own terms. He doesn't fight it. I wish I had more Mick in me.

Vic: As with all Judith Ivory work, this book is rich in great dialogue, and you did an incredible job with Mick's "mishmash of Cornish and Cockney" dialect. As Celeste also said, "You truly have a supurb way with language." Where did you get the knowledge of the verbal "oddity" of Mick's dialect? Is there a bit of Winnie in you? Are you also a "Linguistic Scholar"???

Judith: I got on a linguists' listserv on the Net and sent out questions. The real linguists on it were wonderfully generous, and I now owe several signed copies of the book, which I'll send out as soon as it comes out. On these linguists' recommendations, I bought six books on language and speech from Amazon. I also put out a question on a romance listserv, asking for British movies where I might hear Cockney and Cornish dialects. I watched, I guess, about six movies, making notes on words and pronunciation. Oh, and a friend sent me some Poldark books, then another sent me the entire Poldark series on tape. Very Cornish, this series. I made literally a hundred pages of notes, then reread the notes a lot, till I had an idea of what I'd use where. Then, occasionally, I surprised myself. The "widge in the rude" just suddenly came out one day, a byproduct of reading my own notes so much, I think. The two words, "widge" and "rude," were separated by a dozen pages, not connected at all, one from a movie, one from a book. Mick connected them - or rather, my subconscious somewhere. It was a really fun moment when I wrote that. I laughed out loud at my own mind. How silly! What wonderful fun!

Vic: Of course, I could not end this interview without asking for a little hint on what's bubbling in Judith Ivory's "cooker"! Maybe a little peek at a storyline or a bit of a description of your next "Hero To Die For"?

Judith: The next one has a light first half, and what is looking like a fairly dark second half to the book. It's about Sam Cody and Lydia Bedford-Browne. He is pure Texas, and she is pure upperclass London. They end up stranded together for four glorious days out on the Dartmoor, then spend the rest of the book trying to untangle what happened there - neither realizing that what happened is they fell in love. I'm enjoying writing the book, but as I said, it's been very tough going. I guess I get to pay for one easy book now by finding myself in the middle of one difficult one. I expected this one to go better, so it's a disappointment to be struggling with it. THE PROPOSITION just wasn't a struggle anywhere. It was a gift from the Muse, and I am grateful for it.