Bitchin' Blog Posts
: DBSA Romance Fiction Podcast
by SB Sarah | July 31, 2012 | Tuesday at 10:26 am | 7 Comments
In this edition of Interviews from RWA, I interview Michelle Beidelspach, Serena* Selina McLemore, and Amy Pierpont from Grand Central/Forever about pitching, interacting with authors, and what not to do to an editor while she's in the bathroom. I talk with Donna Alward, who was a finalist for the RITA this year, as well as Taylor Reynolds, who comments here pretty frequently. Taylor is an aspiring author, veteran and RWA 2012 speaker. She did a panel with other romance-writing military veterans about alternate roles for romance heroes besides Navy SEAL. YOU MEAN NOT EVERYONE IS A NAVY SEAL?! The devil you say! Taylor also came armed with questions for me, so we interviewed each other.
*Please note: all gnome fiction should be sent to Serena McLemore at Grand Central. The actual editor, Selina McLemore, does not wish to acquire gnomes at this time (Sorry about that Selina!)
Here are some of the books we mention in this podcast:
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by SB Sarah | July 29, 2012 | Sunday at 9:07 pm | 0 Comments
Here is a complete transcript of podcast #29: Book Accessibility: An Interview with Sassy Outwater, Pratik Patel, Laurel Montgomery, and Kodak the Guide Dog.
Book Accessibility: An Interview
[music] Sarah Wendell: Hello, and welcome to a brief interlude in the RWA coverage of the DBSA podcast. I'm Sarah Wendell, from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.
And instead of a group of interviews today, I have a long interview with Sassy Outwater, Pratik Patel, and Laurel Montgomery as we talk about accessibility for blind readers. And I interview Sassy and I also interview her guide dog, Kodak. So, I hope you enjoy this interview about accessibility. [music]
Sassy Outwater: I am Sassy Outwater. I am a totally blind author. And I write contemporary romantic suspense and urban fantasy. And I'm here pimping out my books, which hopefully will be published soon. And I am also here presenting on becoming an accessible author, making your books accessible to blind and visually impaired and print disabled…
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by SB Sarah | July 27, 2012 | Friday at 8:56 pm | 6 Comments
I interrupt your regularly scheduled RWA interviews for a podcast interview with Sassy Outwater, Pratik Patel, Laurel Montgomery and Sassy's guide dog, Kodak. Kodak has many crucial things to say.
We talk a bit about why blind accessibility for books is important, how authors can advocate for their books and their blind readers - and fear not, the bulk of the presentation and the handouts we gave will be available online soon, too.
ETA: There is a transcript of this podcast available, should you wish to read it instead of listen. Be warned: it's long! We talk a lot.
The following books were mentioned in our conversation, should you be curious:
The music this week was provided by Sassy Outwater, and the track is called "Fiddler On the Loose," and that's Sassy performing. No word if Kodak also performs.
If you like the Podcast, you can subscribe to our feed, or find us at iTunes. You can also find us at PodcastPickle.
You can email us at sbjpodcast@gmail.com, or you can call and leave us a message…
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by SB Sarah | July 26, 2012 | Thursday at 7:14 pm | 4 Comments
The first day at RWA, I interviewed anyone who would let me talk to them with my portable mic. My day started over breakfast, when Patti Macdonald asked if the seat next to me was taken. Patti is from Texas, and has attended 7 RWA National conferences. She was kind enough to let me interview her, and I asked her about her writing, and her reasons for attending RWA.
Then I sat down with Danielle Jackson and Beth Caskie from Sourcebooks' publicity department. Danielle was the publicist for EIKAL, and I usually see her to talk about new romance titles at RWA each year. This time I brought a recorder and begged for an interview.
Sarah Morgan reveals the kinds of comments does she get about her books when her friends read them, and Karina Bliss talks about bringing characters back from the dead. I tried to interview as many people with long plane rides as I can in this podcast!
Finally, I accosted three most excellent people on the way into the Literacy Signing to ask them who they were looking forward to meeting most, and then I risk the background noise to chat a…
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by SB Sarah | July 19, 2012 | Thursday at 12:28 am | 14 Comments
Surprise, you're reading category romance! In this episode, we talk about the success of self-published romances marketed as single title contemporaries, and how many of them are very much like category romances. We also talk about aspects of stories that make us stop reading, and we discuss some books we're both enjoying - including Sarah's book club selection, Storm, by Brigid Kemmerer.
Here are the books we discuss this episode:
The music this week was provided by Sassy Outwater, and the track is called Pro Terezku (Reels) by Dún an Doras. You can find them on MySpace and on iTunes. Thank you, Sassy!
And big huge happy thanks to Harlequin for sponsoring the podcast!
If you like the Podcast, you can subscribe to our feed, or find us at iTunes. You can…
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by SB Sarah | July 05, 2012 | Thursday at 3:46 pm | 3 Comments
We're back! We sat down with author Sylvia Day in a very fuzzy soundproof room at Penguin, along with her editor, Cindy Hwang, and publicist of awesomeness, Erin Galloway, and had a grand time talking about Bared to You, Day's earlier novellas, and her goals for her presidency of RWA.
Here are the books we mention in the podcast:
You can also learn more about Sylvia Day's books and novellas at her website.
If you have content suggestions, tips on how to do this whole thing better, or general wtf-ery comments, email us. The email address for the podcast is sbjpodcast@gmail.com.
Thanks to Jane, Cindy Hwang, Erin Galloway and Sylvia Day, and to Sassy Outwater, who provided the music for this podcast. The track is called "Percolator" and it's by The Hanuman Collective from their album Pedal Horse. You can find them at iTunes as well.
If you like the Podcast, you can subscribe to our feed, or find us at iTunes. You can also find us at PodcastPickle.
You can email us at…
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by SB Sarah | June 06, 2012 | Wednesday at 12:51 am | 7 Comments
You'll note it's been awhile since the last podcast and that's entirely Sarah's fault. She recorded a podcast in the bar at RT - and can you believe the audio was really difficult to edit, because the speaker's voices got lost in the background noise? It's like the bar at RT is a noisy, busy place. That was a big, huge DUH on Sarah's part, so to those who sat down at RT and spoke into the big silver phallus, Sarah is so, so sorry.
In this podcast, we look at summer reading! Jane and Sarah sit down with Jane's ARC drawer (That's a real thing) and take a look at the books we're excited about coming this summer. Here are the books we mention:
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by SB Sarah | April 20, 2012 | Friday at 2:50 pm | 16 Comments
Surprise, surprise, Nalini Singh was in our hotel room, so we tied her to a chair and interviewed her. She's live, not on Skype, and it's a really fun and casual conversation because we didn't plan to do this. We had the microphone and a half hour to chat. We did attempt to get real answers out of her, and were totally unsuccessful, despite threats and stares of doom.
You'll hear about how Nalini approaches her writing and her series, and we talk about heroines, reality television, reading romance, and Gwen Stefani, too.
Here are some of the books, foods, and songs we talked about in the podcast:
And, here is…
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by SB Sarah | April 04, 2012 | Wednesday at 8:05 am | 25 Comments
Taking advantage of the ever-so-advanced technology of mp3 voicemail, this podcast features several of you who called in to share what you're reading, or were reading when you called. I also mention a book I recently finished - and, as a special bonus, I interview my mother-in-law, Charlene, about audiobooks she has enjoyed.
If you like the Podcast, you can subscribe to our feed, or find us at iTunes. You can also find us at PodcastPickle.
You can email us at sbjpodcast@gmail.com, or you can call and leave us a message at our Google voice number: 201-371-DBSA. Please don't forget to give us a name and where you're calling from so we can work your message into our next podcast.
This week's music was provided by Sassy Outwater, and this track is called "Bambous," by a Parisian group called Caravan Palace. You can find their album, "Caravan Palace," on iTunes, and you can find the band on MySpace and Facebook. You can also buy the song as an mp3 at Amazon.com.
And, as per your requests, here's a list of the books…
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by SB Sarah | March 22, 2012 | Thursday at 2:45 pm | 60 Comments
This is a big ol' podcast: we start out talking briefly about novellas and short digital reads that Jane liked, but our main topic is the canon. What romances form the genre's canon for historical, contemporary, and paranormal? We talk in circles a good bit (sorry about that) and we discuss what a canon is, and why it means different things to different groups. Writers and readers, for example may have different ideas of what their romance canon would be.
I'm sure there's many writers you think have been left off, and so if you'd like to add or subtract from our list, you can email us at sbjpodcast@gmail.com.
Or, and this is new, you can call and leave us a message at our Google voice number: 201-371-DBSA. If you want to tell us why we're wrong (or right!) about something, leave us a message, and please don't forget to give us a name and where you're calling from so we can work your message into our next podcast.
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by SB Sarah | March 22, 2012 | Thursday at 11:40 am | 3 Comments
There's a new podcast coming soon (probably tonight or tomorrow) but we have a new feature to try for the podcast: voicemail!
I know. WE ARE ON THE CUTTING EDGE. Next I'll have a switchboard with giant phallic plugs to push into switches to connect your call.
Jane and I set up a Google voice number so you can, if you wish, call us and leave a message - one that we might include in a future podcast, so be aware! You're being recorded for us to broadcast. I promise not to edit you so you say the opposite of what you're saying, but I don't promise that I won't edit you so you say how much you love Elmo (I'm kidding!).
Let's give the voicemail a try, shall we? Please feel free to call, tell us your name (whatever name you want to use!) and where you're calling from (Bonus points if you're calling from Greenland!) and tell us: what book are you reading right now, and how do you like it?
The number to call is…
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by SB Sarah | February 21, 2012 | Tuesday at 3:00 pm | 14 Comments
We're back! And it's podcast time - wherein we talk about what YOU think the misplaced hymen should be called.
We also decided that you should pick the winner, so you've made your choice from the selection below and let us know what you think is the best entry. Please note: there were some late entries (heh heh) to the contest that don't appear in the podcast but do appear in the voting. Here are the results!
var host = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://" : "http://");document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + host + "sbtb.wufoo.com/scripts/widget/embed.js?w=2uqBtqtuslmVlf4WsleKoUB4uvWEKd9TznCzR6ErDzk=' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
OOPS! Forgot the list of books we discussed in this episode! Here you go:
This week's music was provided by Sassy Outwater, and this track is called "Dragons," by a…
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by SB Sarah | January 23, 2012 | Monday at 12:32 am | 9 Comments
This was recorded when I was coming down with the flu and pneumonia, and I'm slightly out of breath - and coughing. I edited out most of the coughing but if I missed one, I apologize.
This episode includes Sarah's nefarious plans for Romantic Times in 2012 in Chicago, reader mail from Sarah's inbox about buying books, picking self published books for review and how we do it, pitching books for review and how not to do it, and reacting and responding to reviews.
Jane also tries to recommend books to Sarah.
Here are the books we discuss in this episode:
And yes - more Peatbog!
The music this week was provided by Sassy Outwater, and the track is called "Nyup" and it's by the Peatbog Faeries from their 2007 album What Men Deserve to Lose. You can find them at their website, or at iTunes.
If you like the Podcast, you can subscribe to…
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by SB Sarah | January 11, 2012 | Wednesday at 2:52 am | 7 Comments
We are back with a new podcast! AND I have a new microphone that KICKS IN OMG about 4 minutes in, but after that I sound a lot better. Which is funny because I was coming down with the flu at the time we recorded. Heh.
This week we are all about Listener Mail. We're discussing our werewolf best-of, pack dynamics, happy drunks, books that make you cry, coltish legs, and the discomfort zone.
We've also got More Peatbog!
The music this week was provided by Sassy Outwater, who heard my plea, and your pleas, for MORE PEATBOG. This week's music is called "Room 215" and it's by the Peatbog Faeries from their new CD Dust. You can find them at their website, or at iTunes.
And here's the list of books we talk about in this episode:
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