Diana Holquist. fun. funny. sexy. smart.

(er, her books, that is...)

Top ten things not many people know about romance author Diana Holquist:

1. She has no idea how to work her cell phone.

2. She loves to write. I mean, really write. As in, calligraphy. Copperplate, Italic, and Bookhand are her specialties. When the other kids were babysitting to make cash, she was addressing wedding invitations. Her most “famous” envelopes went to Martha Stewart and Rudolph Giuliani.

3. She hasn’t had a T.V. since 1999.

4. She is so addicted to diet Coke, that she drinks it from coffee mugs to hide her excess from her children and husband.

5. She has a philosophy degree from Columbia University.

6. She got the call from her agent to say she sold “Make Me a Match” while she was at a PTA meeting. Because she couldn’t work her cell phone, the mother sitting next to her had to help her take the call.

7. She owns two pairs of earrings. Whenever she loses one pair, she wears the other until she finds the first pair again. She owns two pairs of dress shoes: summer and winter. Both black. Except that she somehow lost one of the summer shoes. She is fairly confident she can get through the summer without this situation mattering. She has only one husband.

8. She is a cat person.

9. She has never had a cavity.

10. She can bake an angel food cake from scratch. Okay, that’s a lie. She stinks at baking. Pathetic. Her 9-year-old daughter handles all the desserts for dinner parties. But one day, when her children are grown, she’ll figure out those darn egg whites once and for all. (She is fairly certain she will never figure out her cell phone.)

On Friday night at the Romance Writers of America national convention in Dallas, TX, all the Warner authors went out to dinner. We met in the lobby of the hotel, and the gorgeous Kelley St. John said:

"I got us a hummalimo."

Well, Kelley's from Alabama, so those of us north of, say, Georgia, were like:

"A what?"

Kelley:

"A hummalimo."

Well, this went on a while before we finally figured out that Kelley had rented all of us A HUMMER LIMOUSINE. Oh....

What fun.

I'm in the middle in the white and brown dress, and yes, I cut my hair, that's why I'm hard to spot and I look like my head's too small. Behind me is the amazing Elizabeth Hoyt and in front of me is the extremely talented Megan Crane.

Here's the crew from front to back:

Michelle Rowen

Annie Solomon (who later won a Rita!)

Karen Rose

(Um...not sure who that is. Geez, I'm a lousy networker...my memory lapse had nothing to do with excessive alcohol consumption.)

Susan Crandall

Megan Crane

ME!!! Okay, so the short haircut makes me look a little pin-headish. IT was an experiment...

Elizabeth Hoyt.

Sherryl Bodine

Samantha Graves

Kelley St. John

Shelley Bates

All these women are remarkable, so check them out.

--Diana