Celebration of Community: TA Moore, Rhys Ford, and K.C. Wells

TA Moore on Rhys Ford and K.C. Wells

OK, 2017 in Paris was not only my first visit to the Salon du livre, it was my first trip to France. By the last day, between the Salon and my aggressive sightseeing, I was pure knackered. So me, Rhys Ford, and KC Wells (who were all in the same hotel) decided that instead of going out to get something to eat, we’d just order in.

This involved ten minutes of arguing over whether or not rice would be included with the tikka masala, ordering it, lounging around the hotel room for half an hour while we waited for delivery and they DISRESPECTED my genius (a shifter romance about a were-lobster and the seafood chef he falls in love with—called In Hot Water—would 100 percent be a genre classic!), and then me leaving them in darkness while I went down to get the delivery because I stole the key card and turned all the lights off.

So there the three of us are, sitting on a bed and eating the runniest tikka masala in the world, with only one carton of rice between us (no, it doesn’t come included) while I argue that Danny Dyer is clearly the only choice for the seafood chef character. Bear in mind, this is the second time I’ve spent more than five minutes in KC’s company, so she thinks I’m insane.

It’s okay, though, because we have mango shrikhand to look forward to for dessert. We have to look forward to it, because we’ve somehow managed to order three litres of it. So we finally crack open the first carton, and it’s... mango milk? I’ve never had it before, so I’m all “yum?” but apparently that’s NOT how it is meant to go.

So basically this is the story of how the poor cleaner came in the next day, after we’d checked out, and found three massive litres of pale orange, room temperature milk lined up in the hotel bathroom. Sorry about that!

TA Moore on Rhys Ford

Okay, so years and years and years ago five people, including me and Rhys Ford, met in an online RPG and promptly left (got thrown out) because we wanted to write more than RPG. So off we go to our little writing group corner and chill out there.

Years and years later we’re all still friends. So a few years ago Rhys came over to see the UK contingent, which is me and we’ll call them Penny and Lea to protect their privacy and because it’s also their names. It was cool. There was some confusion over arugula (turns out, rocket) and Rhys will one day murder us all for tapping on her bedroom door when it is “nearly time to get up!” Apparently that’s just a British thing? Everyone else just sleeps until it’s time to get up?

Weeeeird!

Anyhow, Rhys decided to make us... chilli! We went “Sure,” handed her a jar of Uncle Ben’s chilli sauce, and waited. She “hah’d!” and the next morning we took a list and went shopping for supplies. If you ever want to see the funniest face Rhys is capable of making? Take her to a midsize Morrisons in the UK and lead her to the rice aisle.

She rallied, though! I can’t remember what else we needed now, but I think she subbed in gravy browning?

The chilli sat on the stove brewing majestically for most of the day.

It sounds ungrateful, but we must be honest, we all thought the Uncle Ben’s would have been quicker. Then Rhys finally served it up and holy crap! It was good.

She was so offended! Because we were all “This is actually really good!” which we meant as a compliment because it was, like, the best chilli we’d had. Rhys thought we were all just surprised she’d made nice chilli, cos she thought it was just standard chilli.

So she’s “ I can cook! Why do none of you believe I can cook!” And we just shrugged and gorged on chilli.