Lillian Feisty is a San Francisco Bay Area native, a tattooed woman, a brilliant writer, an incredible creative force with an art degree to back her up, sexy, smart and funny as hell. She's also my best friend.

Her first novella was published in March 2007 and she’s been hard at work ever since. She is the president of Passionate Ink, a special interest chapter of Romance Writers of America, and is also a moderator for the award-winning website, Romance Divas . Ms. Feisty currently resides in Northern Nevada. When she’s not writing you might find her conducting "research" at brothels, staring out windows, or making Martinis. Her words, and the pure truth!

It's still tattoo month on my blog since I'm celebrating the release of my novella, THE ART OF DESIRE, in the Bantam anthology, HOT NIGHTS, DARK DESIRES. Let's see what the fabulous Ms. Feisty has to say about tattoos...

I’ve spent a lot of time in tattoo shops.

My fascination began when I was a teenager, and associated tattoos with rebellion. I was a bit of a rebel myself , back then, and I was always looking for ways to enhance my image as a dissenter.

Back then (late 80s), tattoos were somewhat rare. Most of the work I saw was on bikers and sailors (two groups of men I still find myself quite attracted to) and I loved the rough aspect of all the tattoos I saw. Faded birds and anchors, dragons and tigers. And flames. There were always flames. I loved them. Then, tattoos were a kind of secret handshake. I’m cool, see? I have this tattoo to prove it!

So, when I was seventeen, I went down to Pinkie’s in downtown San Jose. It was the summer. I picked a cross and had it permanently drawn onto my right shoulder. There was no waiver to sign, no assurance that the shop was clean. No one cared that I was underage. No one cared that I smelled like Bartles and James wine coolers. And so thirty minutes later I emerged with a fresh cross inked onto my skin.

I must have wiggled. The base of the cross came out crooked, a fact my best friend Robyn loved to point out over the years that followed. Even when I got that cross covered up she still made fun of me. Such is life. Even bad tattoos have a story.

Anyway, I continued to be obsessed with tattoos, especially traditional, old school designs. And so I covered up my cross with nothing less than a MOM tattoo. I mean, my mom died, so I thought it was an appropriate thing to do. Also, it was done buy a really hot guy, so the pain was not bad at all. (I have found that tattoo pain is much more pleasurable when the artist is a hot guy.)
So then, last year, I started with the flowers. I wanted to have roses on my back, like an entire vine of them. And birds. And twigs. So I went to Mary Joy Scott in San Francisco and it turns out she loves vintage flowers. She drew up this design and we were off. It took two sessions, of about four hours each. I absolutely loved the final product. Besides the roses, I have two swallows, a mama with twigs in her mouth, and a baby bird. And the clovers are for my Irish grandmother and my mother.

I loved the roses so much, I decided to continue them onto the front of my chest. I blogged on it HERE actually.

I also have a peony on my left ankle, and my most recent tattoo is morning glories on my right calf. I also wanted a bee because I just think they are cool. Sometimes that’s reason enough for a tattoo. J T o be honest, I have a lot more tattoos planned, and for no other reason than I just like the designs. Now, every time I sell a book, I’m getting a tattoo to celebrate it. I got the morning glories and the bee with my first advance from Grand Central Publishing.

Nowadays everyone is getting tattoos. Hell, my dentist, a woman who had no problem telling me on several occasions that she did not like tattoos, is now getting one. They are not the secret handshake they used to be. But that’s okay. Because as the popularity of tattoos has grown, so has the quality of work. In fact, nowadays, many tattoo artists are traditional artists in their own right. And so I see a lot less of those crudely drawn designs that were common just twenty years ago. And that’s a good thing because, for me, there is nothing better than checking out an amazing tattoo on someone else.

And if just happens to be on a biker or a sailor, so be it.

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Lillian's Bio:

Lillian Feisty expected to write typical boy-meets-girl tales. But so often the girl wanted to be tied up by the boy, Lilli had to oblige. Her love of writing spicy romance evolved, and next thing she knew, she was published. Her first erotic novella was released in March 2007, and she’s been consistently pursuing her passion ever since. She is published in several genres of romantic fiction including contemporary, screwball comedy, and light paranormal.

Lilli was born in the San Francisco Bay Area. She spent the majority of her twenties working just enough to pay for extended trips to Europe. Some of her fascinating employment titles included makeup artist, secretary, and perpetual student. She owned an art gallery for several years, holds a degree in Creative Arts and was just a thesis short of her MA when she decided to drop out of school to write romance.

For more fascinating Feisty information go to lillianfeisty.com