10 Silly Questions with Elle Parker

This week, we continue our trek into silliness with Elle Parker, author of erotic mysteries and romances. She sat down with me over a cheeseburger at Seattle's Dick's restaurant (I loves me some Dicks!) and graciously answered the following:

1. If you could invite any famous person, dead or alive, for dinner, what would you eat?
We’d eat crab legs and lobster. Fine wine. Maybe something gooey and chocolatey for dessert. Some kind of fourteen course extravaganza that would take hours and hours to eat, with breaks for various kinds of liquors and a palate cleansing cheese. Because, if I’m going to get to have a meal with the famous person of my choice, I want it to last.


2. Who do you think you are?
I think I am a beer drinkin’, smut writin’, early onset wizened crone, with a penchant for humor, vice, and colorful language. Give me a running start, and I sometimes achieve full goddesshood.


3. What’s your problem?
Too many things I want to do, and never enough time to do them in. What I really need is to be disgustingly wealthy so I could hire a cook and a housekeeper. I die a little inside every time I hear someone say they wouldn’t want to retire because they don’t know how they’d keep themselves busy. (Hint: Do MY job! I know how to entertain myself)


4. If you could have one wish, would you give it to me?
We could negotiate.


5. Where you at?
The brink of middle-age and the very best part of my life, I just know it. My kids are teens, and will be out of the house in a few years, I’m well set at work and I have a spouse I love to be with. I have more confidence than I have ever had before and the freedom to enjoy it.


6. If you had to choose only one vice, what would it be?
I would choose to be a lush. I already know I’m good at it, and drinking is such a versatile and interesting vice. It can be social and festive, or very intimate, or even snobbishly highbrow…and yet, you’re not out of place in alleys and gutters, either. And there’s so much to choose from! You can spend your weekends swilling beer, then tart it up on weeknights and special occasions with fancy wines and mixed cocktails. Spending a week on the beach? Boat drinks! Fruity AND refreshing.


7. What’s your favorite brand of cereal?
Frosted Mini-Wheats. Sweet, yummy, fairly healthy. What more could you ask? (I used to really like this cereal called “Dinersaurs” that was like Fruity Pebbles, but dino shaped. It didn’t last long as I recall.)


8. When you wake up in the morning, what celebrity do you most resemble?
Kind of a cross between Roseanne Barr and an Ent. (RR: I don't know what an Ent is...anyone help me out here?)


9. Do you know your ass from a hole in the ground? And if so, how do you tell the difference?
On a good day? Oh hell yes. My ass is the cute one, runnin’ around. On a bad day, maybe not so much.


10. Do you have anything you’d like to plug?
This sounds like a trick question. In fact, I have a feeling there’s really no way to answer this that’s not going to get me into trouble somehow, so I’ll go with the most advantageous interpretation: I have a new novel! LIKE COFFEE AND DOUGHNUTS. This is an M/M erotic romance/mystery featuring Florida private eye, Dino Martini, and his best friend and mechanic, Seth Donnelly. Read about it here.

RR: Mmmm...coffee and doughnuts.

Elle Parker writes erotic romances with mystery and humor, and likes her heroes down to earth. She can be found in the wilds of Wisconsin, camping or brewing beer when she isn’t working on her latest novel. Visit her online.