Blog Tour Visit #4: Flip Flops & FABS

One of the most appealing blog sites I’ve seen is one created by Kathy Holmes, www.FlipFlopsAndFabs.blogspot.com. Maybe it’s the big hat. Or perhaps it’s the big blue umbrella facing the ocean. I wanted to go there, and knew right away Kathy would be a kindred spirit.

Sure enough, we’re both California Babes, though Kathy now calls Las Vegas home. (You can take the woman out of California, but you can’t take the California out of the woman.) We share a big love for many regions of California, and take with us wherever we go a sense of what I call the “edge-thinking” that makes us independent and creative.

Now an author herself, Kathy had professional experience in other genres along the way. First, she wrote in the advertising business in San Francisco. Next she was a technical writer in Silicon Valley. When she arrived at her ultimate destination as a fiction writer, she began the journey of finding her genre. (Wow, there’s a lot of shared roadway in our journeys!)

As a blogger, she started in 2005 by creating “Chicks Over Forty,” which made a good-sized splash, but her understanding of genre evolved, she realized two important things. One, a tsunami called Women’s Fiction was overtaking the country. After seeing her signature novel Real Women Wear Red become a top seller—outselling the romances she’d written, published by traditional romance publishers—she realized she was “home.” When it comes to Women’s Fiction, she wisely pointed out, “Women want it, and they look for it, even if the publisher doesn’t make it easy to find.” You can find her novel here http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004J4CMW2, and she’s working on the sequel.

And, two, she wanted to have FUN, and invite others to do the same. The result is her hugely popular Flip Flops blog. “FAB” stands for Frosty Adult Beverages—which was a new one on me. I thought it stood for her desire to find and share fabulous stuff, and I still say I’m right, because that’s what Kathy does. A voracious reader, she rattled off a long list of faves that included Laura Caldwell, who now writes mysteries; and Megan Chance, who writes historical fiction about uppity women who don’t fit in.

As you can imagine, Kathy’s questions for me were probing and insightful. We really kicked off our flip-flops, stuck our toes in the sane, had a real girlfriend conversation about fabulous reads and all the doors a good book opens. We also talked about how women prefer connecting over competing, creating not just energy, but synergy.

So now you have TWO reasons to visit the California coast! One is Kathy’s debut novel. And one is my favorite little town of Milford-Haven—glistening in the sun, waiting for you to walk the shore in your flip flops and read something fabulous.

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