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| Tia Williams "The Perfect Find" |
ATN:
First of all, congratulations on your latest novel, “The Perfect Find.” It’s always nice when a new novel touches on a subject, or subjects, that transcend the “color line,” so to speak. That said, was there a particular incident in your own personal life that was the catalyst for the book?
Tia Williams:
Thanks! Yes, I wrote this book during a really difficult point in my life. I’d had everything I’d ever wanted – the magazine career, the book career, great home life, dream apartment– and then I lost everything. I got laid off, and very sick (for a very long time), and divorced. I was in a lot of pain and couldn’t really keep a full time job for a couple of years – so I shut the world out and invented Jenna Jones! She was sort of my alter ego, a character who was going through her own reinvention. Jenna’s a 40-year-old superstar fashion editor who gets fired by her magazine, dumped by her fiance, and loses all her money in one week! Writing Jenna’s story as she navigates a huge, scary career comeback in the new digital world, fights to get a hold of her life again, and deals with falling wildly in love with a totally unlikely soulmate – it was so cathartic. I lived vicariously through her. And she inspired me to chase my own comeback!
ATN:
How hard was it for you to break into the world of beauty, as a woman of color, and what were some of the barriers and stereotypes you had to overcome?
Tia Williams:
I was definitely an anomaly when I was a beauty editor at magazines like Elle, Glamour, and Lucky. There weren’t a lot of us in the room, and certainly not in beauty. There were definitely some challenges! I had to know everything about white beauty, while educating everyone on black beauty. I was sometimes mistaken for a dresser when reporting backstage at fashion shows. And then there were the publicists you only communicated with on the phone (this was the 90s and Aughts!), and then when they met you in person and saw you were black, suddenly you’d start hearing the “homegirls” and “girlfriends.” But I never saw this as anything deeper as being the silliness that comes with the territory of being an “only.” The upside is that you’ve gotten in the room, so you have the opportunity to make change.
ATN:
I grew up on Seventeen, Glamour and Essence as my “go-to” magazines for beauty and style advice. And I’m talking paper. I still subscribe to both print and digital editions of magazines and newspapers. How has the digital age changed the fashion and beauty industry for the better and for perhaps, the worst? How has social media played into the job market for print journalists?
Tia Williams:
It’s changed everything. I grew up in the print magazine industry, and now digital rules. It’s a learning curve, definitely, when all you know is print. When I went from being a beauty editor at magazines to Essence.com, I had no idea what I was doing. What was a “clicky” headline? “SEO”-friendly key words? I was lost. And so is Jenna! After twenty years in print, she’s so in over her head at her new job, at a street style online zine. Everyone’s 23, and social media savvy, and she doesn’t even have Facebook. She thinks gifs cause strokes. She’s a rookie at 40, which is where a lot of my magazine editor friends have found themselves, with the industry changing so much.
ATN:
They say “40 is the new 30.” Are “they” telling the truth? And do you think that the older woman/young man relationship is still scrutinized more heavily than vice-versa?
Tia Williams:
40 is the new 27, girl. But only in terms of energy and spirit (and, in my case, musical taste – because all I listen to is Drake, Kendrick, J. Cole, and whatever, that Bieber album is fire). The value of being 40 is having the wisdom you didn’t have at 28. And yes, older women with younger men is always scrutinized more heavily. Which is a huge theme in The Perfect Find! Jenna falls into this wildly passionate, soulmate thing with Eric, who is almost half her age. Everyone is scandalized – and it’s because we live in a patriarchal society! Men are supposed to be the alphas, the ones in charge, the teachers, the leaders. So, it makes sense when older men are with younger women. When women are the older ones, it usually looks like a predatory thing, or sexual desperation. Which is ridiculous. Love is love. By the way, younger men absolutely adore older women. It’s kind of nice to be worshipped, now and then ☺
ATN:
Jenna “crosses the line” between her professional and personal life. In your opinion, is that still a line you don’t cross or has society relaxed its feelings about that in the same way we embrace “business casual?”
Tia Williams:
I don’t think workplace romances are encouraged. It reads as unprofessional. Like, you can’t control yourself in the office? There are zillions of men out there, you really had to pursue a thing with the dude in the next cubicle over? Control yourself! Jenna and Eric try to fight her feelings for as long as she can, but then they just explode. And it was so much fun building up that tension!
ATN:
Lastly, Anna Wintour has endured through the decades. And for that matter, so has Iman. Are they the exception or the “new norm?”
Tia Williams:
New norm! Women only get older, more interesting, sexier and richer (in experience and wisdom, not financially, though in many cases the latter’s true, too!) as they get older. I feel more self-possessed at 40 than I ever did in my 20s. I wouldn’t trade it. Though I would like my 1998 ass back.
More About Tia:
For fifteen years, she was a magazine beauty editor (at YM, Elle, Glamour, Lucky, and Essence.com), and in '05, created one of the first beauty blogs, Shake Your Beauty. She's the best-selling author of THE ACCIDENTAL DIVA and the IT CHICKS series, and co-wrote Iman's THE BEAUTY OF COLOR. Currently the Copy Director at Bumble and bumble, she lives in Brooklyn with her diva daughter - See more at: "ShakeYourBeauty"
"The Perfect Find" published by Brown Girls Books Publishing
