Where Desire, Dysfunction, and Courage Intersect

Meet D.K. Silver,
aka Dana Schwartz

D.K. Silver is the author of The Weight of Flowers, the first in a genre-bending saga. The series explores themes of sexual exploitation and dalliance, greed in its many guises and the quest for self-worth.

D.K. Silver is fearless in her determination to explore taboos, using her gifts to relentlessly dig below the surface. As a costume designer, she’s been trained to visually reveal a character’s truer nature—as a writer, she takes it to another level, passionate to unmask the deliciously decadent, the deviant, and the downright misguided aspects of our collective humanness. Her stories are paced like a slow-motion car crash that’s difficult to look away from.

When not at her kitchen table in Carmel-By-The-Sea writing her next project, Signal Hill, you’ll find her teaching yoga or walking the beach. She often divides her time between her own thoughts and the clamoring of characters who vie for her attention. She celebrates long, well-penned sentences with cooking and gardening, and irons her sheets for meditation. On Sundays, you’ll find her letting go on a World Ecstatic Dance Zoom site.

How I Became a Writer

A Palm Reading, a Dream, and Standing Naked

On a whim, I’d hired a palm reader as part of the evening’s joint birthday celebration for my husband and me. When she arrived, prim as a Midwest librarian, I led her to the quiet seclusion of my bedroom which afforded her privacy. A line quickly formed outside the room. Barbie waited next to Lou Costello. Jesus swiped a glass of wine from the tray held aloft by a passing waiter. After checking with caterers, I had a few words the Queen of England and Hugh Hefner, who encouraged me to cut the line and have my palm read. I hesitated to take a turn because the palmist was there to amuse our guests, not me. Colonel Sanders exited the room, Tina Turner pushed me inside and closed the door behind me.

The palm reader put her water down and smiled as I settled myself on the oversized chair beside her.

“You’re quite the draw,” I said picking a fleck of lint of my black velvet Jessica Rabbit dress; I was playing GiGi, as Leslie Caron and I are both July babies. “There’s a lot of people waiting out there.”

“That’s great news. Means you have a solid crowd here. Reading hands is art and science. It changes people’s lives.”

I nodded, hoping that she couldn’t also read faces. “Cool, I’m just happy to be sitting down.” I slipped my heels off.

“I see.” She took another sip of water. I could tell by the precise way she put down her glass and cleared her throat that she pegged me as a skeptic. I offered her my right hand. “No, I need the left,” she said, taking my other hand in hers. While she traced her finger along various lines on my palm, I relaxed and allowed my mind to wander. I wondered if we’d ever throw such an elaborate party again. I wondered if my husband would dance with me.

My Writing Journey

A Swim, a Scorpion, and the Sting of Transformation

The last breeze of that Indian summer glided over my sunburned skin. My boyfriend’s green VW Bug had a Daffy Duck sticker on the glovebox that would fall open whenever we’d hit a bump, or if he’d turn too sharply. Salt water sluiced from our stringy hair down our bodies, imprinting our shapes onto the bucket seats. We’d skirt the broad sandy beach on Ocean Blvd, passing summer rentals built shoulder to shoulder in a variation of stucco, wood shingle, and modern glass. With our windows cranked open, the engine’s puttering accompanied the sonorous Billboard hits that blared from apartment stereos. After rounding the corner gas station, it was up Belmont, to the Heights, and then my home.

As usual, the drive home from the bay wasn’t long enough; it was another perfect date with my dreamy boyfriend. He was my haven, my ideal of perfection—handsome, creative, sweet, and reliable. He always brought me a bouquet of stock, an antebellum flower I would come to associate with the innocence of a pure soul. For as long as the drive lasted, I was warm and content, my body weighted against the seat.

And then I saw my father’s old Mercedes parked in front of the house, about as welcome as a cockroach in the sink.

My father’s car hadn’t been on our block for seven years. Our decorator’s Cadillac was parked behind my mom’s car. I had a surge of adrenalin seeing other familiar cars, but the silence imposed itself on me more than anything else.

When we walked from the car and stood on that lawn, the arched stained-glass window didn’t reveal anything. I opened the door, my boyfriend put his hand in mine, and we walked in together. I saw my mom in profile—her back rod straight with her arm limply dangling. Her body seemed like a container with nothing inside. I could hear a murmuring in the kitchen, a hushed yet urgent tone. My mother’s light blue eyes were lined in red; I don’t think she truly saw me, even as I stood directly in front of her.

Packed Like Sardines

It’s standing room only in my head; as one inspiration leads to a story or new project, another takes its place in the waiting room of my mind. Here is where you’ll be able to peel back the lip of my imagination and peek inside. Enjoy!

Unusual romances bloom, and fantasy sometimes makes its way to reality in The Weight of Flowers. The story is much more than a genre-bending read, it is a psychological and sensual experience. Exuberant, descriptive prose enlivens each page, and complex relationships are deeply explored. Coupled with passionate, incendiary opposite and same sex exploration, amidst its unexpected twists and turns, this debut novel catapults into a category of its own.

—Stacey Donovan,

New York Times Bestselling Editor, author of Dive and Zalman King’s Red Shoe Diaries book

D.K. Silver has created a powerful weave of drama in The Weight of Flowers, a tale of a fierce young woman’s striving to break from an overbearing father in the south of the 1920s.

Thoroughly engaging in capturing the deep complexities of family and the destructive brutishness of men.

— Jeff D Buchanan

Author of The Carnal Education of Miss Vicky, The Reader, Earthrise

D.K. Silver’s exquisite prose draws you into a lush, vivid tale of intrigue, power and passion. The Weight of Flowers transports readers to 1920’s Switzerland, where a young American woman has taken a job as a companion, hoping to break free from the schemes and manipulation of her abusive father. But family drama follows her, forcing her to confront her past, claim her independence and explore the true nature of her own desires. Intensely emotional conflicts and sensual descriptions conjure images that will linger in your mind long after you’ve finished reading this unique, unsettling, beautifully written novel.

— Claire Haiken

Award Winning author of the Sierra Legacy Series

The Weight of Flowers

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Signal Hill – Three Families Series

Short Stories

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