Good Evening guys, tonight I asked J.F. Silver to join us!

T:  Good Evening J.F. thanks for joining me tonight. I know you like wine so grab a bottle.

J.F: Good evening, Teresa. I appreciate the opportunity and I just poured myself a glass of white wine. Let’s have fun with this.

T: I promise for this set of questions I’m going to keep things fun and light (well light for me) so let’s get started.

T: Do you guys trade off writing?

J.F: Ours is an interesting process and I’ll do my best to explain. I do all of the actual writing but my wife, and muse, gives me many ideas. She’s very imaginative. Also, each day when I’m finished writing, I read it to her immediately. We have very fun characters and a lot of dialog so she may suggest changing a word or phrase which we’ll discuss. Her most important contributions come in the form of storylines and especially, sexual scenarios.  She’ll push the boundaries further than I probably would.

T: I know you wrote a story for F’s birthday but what made you guys keep writing erotica?

J.F: That first story was written solely for the purpose of getting her in the mood. If she hadn’t liked it, there may have never been more. But, it did what it was intended to do and she loved it. She asked me to write another one, offering a new idea for the first time. I wrote that next one and many more for about five years, just for the two of us to share. We created fantasies centered around holidays, vacations and of course, birthdays. It became a secret hobby for the two of us.

T: What authors influenced your writing?

J.F: I love so many authors so this is a tough question. We try hard to put our own spin on the sex scenes but we also strive to depict everyday life and humor in the stories. Two of my favorites have been known to look at things in irreverent ways, too. So, in that spirit, I’m going to go with long time idol Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and a more modern voice, Christopher Moore. I highly recommend, A Dirty Job.

T: How often do you write?

J.F: Not as much as we’d like! The last month has seen little writing with a new release followed by a busy real life work schedule and the holidays. Normally, I try to either write or edit a little every day. I’m a couple of chapters into the fifth Mr. and Mrs. Average Joe book and have given myself a deadline. The next two months will be productive. It’s winter in Wisconsin, a good time to write.

T: Is it hard writing as a couple?

J.F: No, we work well together and won’t submit or publish before we both agree on everything. Our series is Mr. and Mrs. after all. We even go over final edits together in case something is missed. She catches more things than I do.

T: What did you do prior to writing?

J.F: I’ve been writing the stories for almost nine years but published the first just two years ago. We’ve been together nearly 40 years and have seemingly had many lives and adventures. We both love music and art. I’ve playing the drums since, well, forever and my wife is extremely crafty, especially with stained glass. Long ago, however, we discovered a knack for cleaning things. Today, we clean nice, suburban homes for busy families. Working together also gives us time to talk about story ideas and, believe me, we do.

T: Who writes which parts?

J.F: While I do the actual writing, it’s her ideas that often shape the story. She suggested bringing another couple into it right away and it’s just evolved from there.  Another good example of her input is the central theme of our latest, Life’s Too Short. She wanted the two female characters to write a book together and we had a lot of fun with it.

T: Do you do anything special for release day?

J.F: I did get a lot of help with our latest in November but we haven’t really done anything special for our releases. I guess we were just grateful to have them out in the world. I have a wonderful PA, Teresa Adams and a small Street Team, so, who knows? They just might put something together for the next one.

T: Where do you write?

J.F: I always write exactly where I am right now, at a desk in my living room. I use a desktop with a full-size keyboard and big monitor. I can see the TV, rarely on, and listen to music, which is nearly always on. Every one of our books was put together right here.

T: How did you come up with your characters? I know you used your middle names but are the based off you guys?

J.F: Yes, Joe and Elaine are definitely based on the two of us. It fun to put ourselves in the positions of the title characters as we create the stories. But, I want to stress that it’s all just fantasy. Most of it, anyway. It was my wife’s idea to use those names but the others happened by chance. When she suggested the second couple, I found an actual ad that featured an Asian woman. I was intrigued and Mika was created, giving the story a multi-cultural element. I loved researching things like Japanese holiday traditions.

T: Who’s idea was it to publish the erotic stories?

J.F: We had hundreds of pages that I’d spent more than five years writing. One day in the fall of 2012, I was sitting in a waiting room and picked up a Time magazine. Inside, I found an article on “Fifty Shades of Grey” and the exploding popularity of erotic romance. We talked it over and decided to go for it. It took a year of re-writes and research before I started submitting to publishers. We are so grateful to be able to share our stories with the world.

T: What comes next?

J.F: We have a good start on the fifth Mr. and Mrs. Average Joe and have a few more adventures to take them on. We also have an idea for a sci-fi novel that we’ve been discussing for a long time. Might also be biographical but in a whole different way. It would be nice to get to that one sometime in the New Year.

T: Well J.F. that’s I have for you today? Until next time thanks again for joining me, now get back to work and write your next book.

J.F: It was my, I mean, our pleasure, Teresa. We’re on it!