Bestselling author Sherry Thomas talks with Sarah about her new historical mystery series, featuring a gender-bent Sherlock Holmes, and her keynote address at RWA in 2016. They also discuss languages, learning English by reading romance, and writing in several genres. And of course, what Sherry’s reading and recommending lately – plus learning a word that will be tremendously useful for everyone.
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Here are the books we discuss in this podcast:
So many links for you!
- The audio of Sherry Thomas’ keynote from RWA.org (members only)
- The video of her keynote on YouTube!
- Jennifer Crusie’s blog, Argh Ink
- The NPR 100 Swoon Worthy Romances list compiled in 2015 – Sherry and I were on the judges advisory panel
And, of course, you can find Sherry Thomas’ Lady Sherlock books on their website, and more about Sherry at her website, on Twitter, and on Facebook.
And yes, polyorchidic is TOTALLY a word!
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This Episode's Music
The music you’re listening to was provided by Sassy Outwater, and you can find her on Twitter @Sassyoutwater. This is a band called Sketch, and this is “Bulgarian Shed” from their album “Shed Life.” There’s a lot of shed on this album, and it’s all good.
You can find it on Amazon, iTunes, or wherever you buy your most excellent music.
Transcript
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[music]
Sarah Wendell: Hello, and welcome to episode number 216 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. With me today is Sherry Thomas! We are going to talk about her new historical mystery series, which features a gender-bent Sherlock Holmes. If you are driving right now, please maintain control of the vehicle. We also talk about her keynote address at RWA in 2016. We talk about languages, learning English by reading romances, and writing in several genres, and of course we talk about what Sherry is reading and recommending, plus we are going to learn a word that will be tremendously useful for everyone on Earth.
We talk a little bit about her speech that she gave at RWA, and if you’re thinking, I really want to hear this or watch it, I will have links in the podcast entry to both the video and the audio – if you’re an RWA member for the audio part – at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast. That is also the link for all of the books and movies and things we talk about during this episode as well, so again, if you’re driving and you’re thinking, but, but, but I want to write that down! Do not worry; all of the books we talk about will be in the podcast entry. Also known as the show notes, but I still call it the podcast entry, ‘cause once a blogger, always a blogger.
The podcast transcript this month is sponsored by Kensington, publishers of Highland Chieftain by Hannah Howell. New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Hannah Howell delivers a dazzling new entry into her epic, sweeping, medieval Murray Family saga that will delight her longtime fans and readers craving strong, protective Scottish warriors and feisty leading ladies in a way that only Howell can deliver. With her signature sweeping prose and unforgettable characters, you can let Hannah Howell whisk you away to the castle-dotted hills and deep lochs, which is exactly where Bethoc Matheson finds Sir Callum MacMillan on the verge of drowning, so she does what every steadfast lass would do and rescues him. Give in to your kilt-y pleasure this fall and warm up under your favorite tartan blanket with Highland Chieftain. The Scottish Highlands are beckoning you. Highland Chieftain by Hannah Howell is on sale now wherever books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com.
The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. I will have information at the end of the podcast as to who this is and where you can buy it.
And if you’re thinking, I really like iBooks, and I really like the iBooks store, we have our own page; it’s so cool! iTunes.com/DBSA is where you can find recent episodes and links to the books that we talk about, should you be an iBooks store customer, which I imagine many of you are, because I know there are some things that Apple has, and brand loyalty is, like, top five.
So many of you have sponsored our Patreon campaign recently, and every time I get a new notification of someone having made a pledge, I really do do a pretty embarrassing dance of joy, so thank you for that. My cats are extremely entertained. If you are curious or you’d like to help support the show, you can make a pledge of as little as one dollar a month at Patreon.com/SmartBitches. And stay tuned at the end of the episode: I have compliments, and they’re so fun! Your support means a lot. Thank you so much for having a look at the page, for supporting the show, and for tuning in and listening every week. That is just incredible to me.
I am super excited about this interview, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. And now, without any further delay, on with the podcast!
[music]
Sherry Thomas: Okay, I am Sherry Thomas, and I write many different things. I started in historical romance, and then I added Young Adult fantasy, and now I am moving into historical mystery with the first book in the Lady Sherlock series coming out that features a gender-bending female Sherlock Holmes. So, Charlotte Holmes, using Sherlock Holmes as her nom de guerre, as one lady online pointed out. [Laughs]
Sarah: Okay, that’s awesome. You, so you’ve moved from writing historicals –
Sherry: I haven’t moved. I always like to emphasize, I haven’t moved. I have added.
Sarah: You have, you’ve expanded.
Sherry: I have added, yes.
Sarah: You’ve expanded your literary horizons to include historical and YA fantasy and now historical mystery.
Sherry: Yes.
Sarah: Okay, (a) that’s awesome. (b) Is there any romance in the historical mystery?
Sherry: There will be a long arc romance.
Sarah: Ohhh. I am – you can’t see me –
Sherry: So it, it will be –
Sarah: – but I’m rubbing my hands together right now. [Laughs]
Sherry: It, it will not be, it will not be done in one book, so.
Sarah: Oh, darn. That’s just, that’s just completely acceptable. So –
[Laughter]
Sarah: – I’m very excited to hear that. So can you tell me about the Lady Sherlock series? Is, is it a spinoff or, or a, or a parallel of existing stories, or is it a whole new universe?
Sherry: It’s a, it’s a reimagining. It’s a reimagining. So, so I am a big fan of the, of the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes books by Laurie King, and, and when the BBC Sherlock came out I was like, this is so cool! They’ve, you know, completely put a new spin to it! And then I thought to myself, I wonder how it would be if Sherlock was a woman, because they have done various kind of updates over the years, right? So, Sherlock is now modern, and on CBS you have a modern Sherlock with a female Watson –
Sarah: Yes.
Sherry: – but then I asked myself, and, and with, Laurie King gave Sherlock a, a partner, a female partner who’s just as smart and wacky as himself, but, and I always wondered, has, has anyone ever, you know, just really went ahead and gender-bent Sherlock Holmes? And I look around, and I was like, actually, there hasn’t been! I was surprised! I was like, guess I’ll have to do it!
Sarah: It would seem kind of like that would be a thing that someone would do!
Sherry: Yeah! Yeah, you’d think – there are so many, so many Sherlock adaptations, and I was like, okay, well then, I’ll do it! [Laughs]
Sarah: Well, if no one’s done it, I mean, why not, right?
Sherry: Yeah, yeah! Yeah, so I, so I pitched the idea to my publisher, and they were at first a little bit confused. They thought, they thought it would be a romance. I think even when I turned in my first draft they were like, where is the romance?
[Laughter]
Sarah: There is not enough kissing while they solve crime; what’s happening?
Sherry: Right, so it was like, uh, no, we actually sold you a mystery series with romantic elements, not the other way around. [Laughs]
Sarah: Ohhh, dear.
Sherry: But now they are, now they are completely aboard, on board, yeah.
Sarah: So this is A Study in Scarlet Women.
Sherry: A Study in Scarlet Women, and if you are any kind of Sherlock aficionado, you know that the first Sherlock book is A Study in Scarlet. Yes.
Sarah: Very, very, very savvy. You have a terrific cover.
Sherry: I do like that cover a lot.
Sarah: Wwwow, is it gorgeous.
Sherry: And, and the thing is, that focal point, that, that door opening an inch with the light coming through?
Sarah: Mm-hmm?
Sherry: That actually wasn’t there in the initial drafts. In the initial drafts it was just this woman standing there, and we were all like, something’s missing, so none of us being graphic design experts, we’re all kind of like, can her dress be of a different color? Can –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: You know –
Sarah: Can she be taller?
Sherry: Yeah, yeah. Can, can she be holding something in her hands? We were just like, I mean, I think we wanted something dynamic, but we wouldn’t know how to get it if you, like, hung us upside down –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: – but this is like, leave it to the experts. They went back, and they figured out how to do it. They opened the door, and voila! It just suddenly had all the visual interest it needs for a cover.
Sarah: And it’s, it’s got the sort of play of light and darkness where everything draws your eye to her and what she’s doing?
Sherry: Right. Right.
Sarah: So you want to, like, immediately, you see the cover and you’re like, oh, well, I wish to follow her. That could be creepy or interesting; let’s go see.
Sherry: Right, right. And, and then I think it’s, it’s a very, it’s a figurative cover –
Sarah: Yes.
Sherry: – in the sense that you are following her into the unknown –
Sarah: Yes.
Sherry: – which is totally correct. Yeah. Because literally, in the book, she doesn’t really open any weird doors.
[Laughter]
Sarah: That’s all right. I think even, even among romance fans, we are used to the cover having nothing to do with the cover, with, with the content of the book –
Sherry: Yes.
Sarah: – so at list, at least this has a good amount to do with the content.
Sherry: Right! Right, yes.
Sarah: It’s, it’s at least related or in the same, like, ballpark state area.
Sherry: Right, right. And, and she does love a big dress, so.
Sarah: Well, who doesn’t love a big dress?
Sherry: [Laughs]
Sarah: So was it a challenge to shift to writing a mystery, or was that something that you’ve always liked doing?
Sherry: I, ever since I read the first Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes book I’ve always like, oh, I would love to write something like that, but I didn’t know whether I could, because it, because all these Sherlock-y bits –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Sherry: – namely, Sherlock takes one look at a person and tell, can tell you everything, including what they had for breakfast yesterday. That sort of thing is really, really fun to read, but really, really difficult to write.
Sarah: Yes, because you have to give just enough information to keep the reader going –
Sherry: Right, and, and, and –
Sarah: – but not make it too obvious what’s happening.
Sherry: Exactly, and, so, and then you have to go like, oh, wow! She noticed all these, awesome, and, and then you go in there going like, wait. What exactly can you tell from a person just by looking at them? [Laughs] Between you and me, I can tell nothing.
Sarah: Oh, absolutely.
Sherry: Right, so, so it’s all, yeah, so it’s all, those parts of the book are the slowest going. And another part is that, whether I can do a proper plot, because romance is character-driven –
Sarah: Right.
Sherry: – and mystery, although these days mysteries are more character-driven than they, they ever were, you still need a very important central plotline. But I felt much more confident, actually, after I finished book two of my Young Adult trilogy, because book two is actually, from beginning to end, a mystery, in a sense.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Sherry: Like, you know, the, the girl wakes up in the desert, and she’s going like, what the hell?
Sarah: Uh-oh. Uh-oh. This is bad.
Sherry: What happened to me? Why am I here? Why can’t I remember anything? Yeah. And the, then the whole, whole rest of the story is to find out, you know, how, how it happened, and I thought, everybody who read that book said, oh, my God, there’s a twist I never saw coming! So I thought, hmm, maybe I could do this! And that was when I said, let’s go ahead. I will tell Berkley I want to sell these three books and see if they’ll bite. Yeah.
Sarah: That’s fantastic!
Sherry: So, yeah! So I, I, I, I really, really understand readers when they don’t want their authors to move on. I really do, because I am that reader.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: You know, I’ll be like, yes, I like you, and I like it when you write these books, and I don’t know what the heck you’re doing with these other books.
[Laughter]
Sarah: Why, why is, why is her dress, why is her dress closed? There’s no buttons open on the back! We –
Sherry: [Laughs]
Sarah: She’s not half naked! I don’t understand.
Sherry: I know! And she’s not draped over a dude
Sarah: No, and she’s not lounging on a couch –
Sherry: Yeah.
Sarah: – like she’s about to get a pelvic exam in the Regency.
Sherry: I know, I know! And, and, and –
Sarah: Like, what’s happening here?
Sherry: – and the dress is not lifted up to, like, the very top of her thigh, and – so, so I am that reader.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Sherry: But as, as a writer, you do want to do something that excites you, and I think there are two kinds of writers: one who writes the same archetypal story. That’s just what they do.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Sherry: That’s the story that speaks to them the most.
Sarah: Right.
Sherry: They, I mean, that’s just what they love to do –
Sarah: Right.
Sherry: – it’s what their instinct tells them to do, and it’s what their readers want to read.
Sarah: Right, of course.
Sherry: And I think that is, like, awesome, and I think there’s another type of writer who couldn’t write the same story if you gave them, you know – well, I don’t know. I mean, I’m cheap, so if you gave me enough money, maybe I could.
[Laughter]
Sherry: But it’s just, it’s just naturally difficult for, I think, the rest of us. It’d be like, I’ve already done that before!
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Sherry: I don’t want to repeat myself. So, yeah, so I totally sympathize with readers who are like, why can’t you just write more historical romance? And I want to! I want to! I’m just like, just, I just haven’t come across any plot that excited me, that, you know, any conflict that excited me for a while, so, so maybe doing more of these other plot-driven stuff, after a while maybe I’ll go, oh, I would love to write a book where people do nothing but sit around in a drawing room and talk to each other.
[Laughter]
Sarah: Well, the thing about developing a romance over several books is that you get an enormously large amount of space in which to build the connection between the characters, and you can make it happen over several minute, tiny moments that carry a lot more weight because they’re so scarce.
Sherry: Yes, I actually enjoy that, and, and I –
Sarah: I like that a lot too.
Sherry: – and I, and I am the kind of reader who, you know, when I read a book with romantic element in it, I am always, like, waiting for the romantic element?
Sarah: Yes!
Sherry: Yes! So, so, and, and the thing is, when done well, you, you’re kind of satisfied too. It, it’s –
Sarah: Oh, yes.
Sherry: – it’s not like, it’s not like, you’re like, oh, they only went, you know, to second base in this book.
[Laughter]
Sherry: You, you –
Sarah: Oh, man, there’s only one boob! Just one! Not even both.
[Laughter]
Sherry: That gynecological exam is never coming, is it?
Sarah: No, no, he’s never going to get to home base. They’re, they’re just going to sit on second forever. [Laughs]
Sherry: Right.
Sarah: But see, I love, one of my favorite things in romance and in, in other genres is, I love a very slow burn, because in the end, that romance becomes character-driven, so if the, the plot over several books is them doing other things, and there are these tiny little moments of emotional connection, eventually the moments that continue past the first few, where they have to take a moment to acknowledge whatever’s happening, that becomes very character-driven in addition to the plot, so it’s like weaving in a really, really powerful emotional thread over several books, and when it’s done well it’s delicious, because then you go back and you read, like, those tiny moments, and suddenly it’s like, whoa!
Sherry: I know, I know! I think, I think we talked about it when we were doing the, the one hundred top romance of all time –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Sherry: – gig for NPR?
Sarah: Yes.
Sherry: The Harriet Vane and Lord Peter – my God, his name is escaping me.
Sarah: Lord Peter Wimsey?
Sherry: Yes, yes!
Sarah: Mm-hmm?
Sherry: The, the Dorothy Sayers books? Yeah, those are delicious! Just absolutely delicious, like –
Sarah: Oh, yeah.
Sherry: – in, in the little bits that they get together, yeah. Mm-hmm.
Sarah: And there’s, there’s another romance series that grabbed a lot of romance readers by Julia Spencer-Fleming, which started with In the Bleak Midwinter, where the, where the –
Sherry: Right, she, she is a, she is a, the new deacon? What is she, the –
Sarah: Yeah, she’s the new rector of the Episcopal church –
Sherry: Ah. Right.
Sarah: – and he’s the chief of police, and he’s older than she is, and they both served in the army, but in completely different times. He’s married. They are trying very hard not to acknowledge their attraction to each other, but, you know, as, as you do in a, in a mystery series, you get together and you solve crime –
Sherry: Right.
Sarah: – because that’s why you’re in the book, so over time, they have to navigate this attraction that they absolutely do not wish to deal with, and they don’t want to feel it, and they don’t want to acknowledge it, and they know they can’t, and so it’s, like, super, super angsty by the time things start to happen in, like, you know, book nine, book ten.
Sherry: [Laughs]
Sarah: You’ve, you’ve earned it! You’ve earned all that angst!
Sherry: It, it’s like, it’s like, it’s like, it turns us all into ‘shippers.
Sarah: YES! Thank you! [Laughs]
Sherry: You know, even, even when we, even when we didn’t start as ‘shippers –
Sarah: No-oh!
Sherry: – it turns you into ‘shippers. That’s what a proper –
Sarah: That’s a very big boat you’re building there, Sherry.
Sherry: – proper long arc, slow-burning romance does, so.
Sarah: [Laughs] Yes! You are building an enormous ark, enormous boat for your, for your ‘shipping with your series, I suppose.
Sherry: [Laughs]
Sarah: So, I wanted to ask you about your speech at RWA this year.
Sherry: Yes!
Sarah: So it was reprinted in the Romance Writers Report, which is for RWA members –
Sherry: Right.
Sarah: – and I don’t think I can link to it outside, so if someone who’s listening isn’t a member of RWA, didn’t hear it or didn’t get to read it, could you give, like, a, a micro version of your speech? ‘Cause it was a really powerful, it was a really powerful message about how romance had an enormous effect on your life.
Sherry: Right, and, and I think it’s, the audio is available for free from RWA –
Sarah: Yes! Excellent!
Sherry: – so if anybody, so if anybody’s already, you know, listening to this, obviously you can access a podcast –
Sarah: You can access audio stuff.
Sherry: Yeah, I, I’m not exactly sure where they have it, but I think they –
Sarah: I’ll find it. I will find it and link to it.
Sherry: Yeah. Go to RWA, and I’m sure, because I, several times I have retweeted messages about the, them being free. They are on YouTube, also. They are on RWA’s YouTube channel, but who has time to sit down and watch, right? You are on the treadmill or you’re walking your dog right now.
[Laughter]
Sarah: Exactly!
Sherry: So, yeah! That’s the thing! It, it kind of does not become obvious until you look back –
Sarah: Yes.
Sherry: – to see what impact something had on your life. So, my, my main – and, and most people’s, most people’s speech at RWA’s at least somewhat autobiographical. You’ve got to, you know, tell people a bit about yourself and how romance came into your life, and, and for me, it kind of, like, almost literally saved me in a sense, because I had – so, so it played two very important roles in my life. One, I learned English reading a lot of romance and a lot of science fiction. But I pro- –
Sarah: I always feel like I should apologize when you say that. Like, I’m really, really sorry that that was your introduction, ‘cause you must have the most florid purple vocabulary when you –
Sherry: I do! I do!
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: When I, when I was, you know, when I was a young woman, like, not a teenager anymore, when I was, like, say, eighteen or twenty-one, I had the vocabulary of a Victorian old lady. Like –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: Like, I did not know such words as pee and poop until I had my kids.
Sarah: Oh, well! [Laughs]
Sherry: And, and I was looking at what’s in my son’s diaper and asking myself, asking my husband, what do you call that? And he says, and, and he says, ca-ca, you know, so – [laughs] – it was like –
Sarah: Well, okay, that’s one word!
Sherry: I was like, I never heard that before! You know. [Laughs] Oh, yeah, and for people who don’t know, I was not born in the United States or any western country. I was born in China, born and brought up in China, and I didn’t come to the States until I was thirteen. That was when my mother was a grad student here in the, in the States then, and I, I was living with her parents, my grandparents, while she was studying here, and my grandmother passed away, so my mother brought me and my grandfather here to live with her so she could take care of us, and that’s how I came to the United States all of a sudden. Kind of like, without much psychological preparation on my part, and I found it a really magnificent but really bizarre place.
Sarah: Uh, yeah!
Sherry: Yes. And I was always a reader, and I found American teenagers terribly strange, so – [laughs] –
Sarah: I, I think –
Sherry: – I read even more after I came to the States.
Sarah: – I think most people, including other teenagers, find American teenagers very strange.
Sherry: Yes.
Sarah: I cannot imagine the, the –
Sherry: That’s what I later realized.
Together: Yes.
Sarah: But the depth of the cultural differences must have been completely jarring.
Sherry: It was, it was, like, completely disorienting. It was actually less jarring to read historical romances.
[Laughter]
Sarah: Oh, at least these people make sense. They’re consistent.
Sherry: Yeah. So, and I was like, you know, you’re at that age where you are – and I came from kind of a repressive, a sexually-repressive culture, so, very little contact with the – I mean, you sit next to the opposite sex your whole life, but there’s actual, very little actual contact. It’s always like, girls play with girls, guys play with guys, and, and kind of things like that. So, and I basically had no knowledge of sex whatsoever, and to come here and see these, like, clinch covers. Like, it was, it was –
Sarah: Oh, yes, ‘cause they were –
Sherry: – at the supermarket you went to, and, and this was late ‘80s, you know –
Sarah: I was going to say, they were super clinch-y back then.
Sherry: Yeah, yeah, and, and it was still, like, the height of the historical – I mean, maybe not the height, but we were still somewhere in the historical romance boom, and all these – books, there were, there were lots of heaving bosoms.
[Laughter]
Sarah: Yes, there were.
Sherry: To quote, quote the title of your book.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: And, and that, that’s the title of your book, right?
Sarah: Yes, Beyond Heaving Bosoms.
Sherry: Right, right, yeah. So, so I was, like, really, really super curious, and I, you know, nothing spurs you to read up like sexual curiosity, I’m going to tell you –
Sarah: Oh, yes.
Sherry: So, so, yeah, I was, used, used to read those big old heavy, you know, ‘70s, ‘80s historical romance with a, with a dictionary in hand, and, and yes. I –
Sarah: That’s how you learned English.
Sherry: That’s partly, but a very important part of how I learned English. I did, I did have to go through this process with English as Second Language where they, they ask you to read little booklets that’re about somebody’s duck or a dog or walk in the park and things like that, and that felt deeply insulting to be reading things like that.
Sarah: Oh, of course, ‘cause they’re, they’re, they’re completely not meant for teaching –
Sherry: Yeah, that’s, they’re for two-year-olds, they’re for two-year-olds.
Sarah: Yes!
Sherry: Yeah. And, and I was –
Sarah: Did you ever, did you ever run, did you ever run into words where they weren’t in the dictionary and you were like, well, now what do I do?
Sherry: It was a pretty big dictionary I got.
[Laughter]
Sarah: All of the euphemisms were in this one!
Sherry: I mean, not, not, not huge, not huge in size, because Chinese is much smaller. We, we print anything, it, like, tends to take up much less room?
Sarah: Yeah.
Sherry: But it was my grandmother’s biggest dictionary, and I brought it, and if my medium-size dictionary that I carried to school didn’t have it, I take out the big one. So –
[Laughter]
Sherry: Between the two of them, I actually, like, don’t remember – there must have been. There must have been, but I don’t remember, like, anything, like, really, really, that the dictionary couldn’t get to, although the sometimes the dictionary would define it, and I still wouldn’t know what it was?
Sarah: [Laughs] I imagine there were some very, very florid terms where you were like, okay, still this doesn’t make any sense.
Sherry: [Laughs] Right, and, and, but overall, it was, it was a, it was a pretty good and pretty speedy way to learn English, to read books and to read books you really want to read, because doggone it, I mean, those, those romances were like crack. They were like crack.
Sarah: Oh, they, there are some early books in, from that era that, like, I pick them up and I, I, that’s it, three hours are gone.
Sherry: Yeah, al-, although – my apologies to Rosemary Rogers if, if, is she still around?
Sarah: I don’t know, but I don’t think she listens, so I think you’re okay.
Sherry: Oh, yeah, yeah, but, you know, my apologies – I’m not sure whether I can read her books now.
Sarah: No.
Sherry: Like, being, being in my early forties instead of, you know, fourteen. Just because, you know, I’ve grown up. I’ve grown up.
Sarah: It’s a whole, yeah, it’s a whole other perspective.
Sherry: Yeah, and, and, and it’s, it’s like, and romance has become a lot more sophisticated. Yeah. But, but my goodness, it was like crack to me, to my teenage soul. Yeah.
Sarah: Well, I, I just actually need to tell you that Rosemary Rogers is still alive. She’s eighty-three.
Sherry: Okay. You have had the most profound influence on my life, Ms. Rogers!
[Laughter]
Sarah: Yeah, I know that feeling. It’s, it’s weird how we, picking up romances and developing a seriously passionate habit for reading them changes a lot of things in your life.
Sherry: It does, it does! I mean, most primarily it gives you a lot of fun! [Laughs]
Sarah: Yes, it does! And it’s, it’s all very affirmative. Like, oh, yes, your sexual curiosity? Totally normal and a good thing! Here! Let us answer your sexual curiosity with images of waves cresting. That’ll confuse you, and you’ll keep reading!
Sherry: Yes, but you know, those waves cresting were good stuff.
Sarah: Oh, yeah! If there were waves, it was all good!
Sherry: Oh, yeah. It, it, it wipes out, it, it wipes out all the asshole behavior that had come before.
Sarah: Oh, absolutely!
[Laughter]
Sarah: So I have a question for you, as I’m totally nosy, which is why I have a podcast: you speak two languages. Is it two or three?
Sherry: I speak, I speak bus-stop French. How ‘bout let’s put it that way.
[Laughter]
Sarah: Yeah, I think I speak about that level of French. I can buy earrings and order breakfast –
Sherry: Yeah.
Sarah: – in French, but that’s about it.
Sherry: I, I actually spent a year in France, so it’s probably a little better than bus-stop French, but right now it’s been twenty years, so, yeah.
Sarah: Yeah. So when you’re writing, do you think in English or do you think in another language?
Sherry: I haven’t thought in anything except English for a long time. I, I, I can think in Chinese, but normally, normally I think in English. Yeah.
Sarah: I noticed when I traveled, ‘cause I was an, I was an exchange student to Spain when I was pretty young, when I was fifteen, and then again when I was twenty, and the first time I went I had a, a slightly similar experience to you. I moved in with a family where there was supposed to be an English speaker, but Spain had a really high unemployment rate at that time, and the English speaker got a job as a professional basketball player, so understandably, he was not home, and I moved in with my ninth-grade Spanish into a home full of people who spoke no English, and I went to a Spanish Catholic high school, and I failed all my classes except English. I got a really good grade in English class, because like you said, they’re like, and here is your duck that you’re taking for a walk, and I’m like, are you serious? This is how – and it was British English too, so I was like, you’re not even spelling things right! What is this? But anyway, through total confusion and immersion I came out pretty fluent, and I’ve noticed that if I was, if I’m in Spain or if I’m surrounded by Spanish language, I start to think in Spanish, but I have to hear it and be surrounded by it before that part of my brain sort of wakes up.
Sherry: I –
Sarah: It’s almost like two separate parts of my brain.
Sherry: I speak much better Chinese after three days in China.
Sarah: Or how ‘bout after a drink? ‘Cause I’m super fluent in Spanish after I drink.
Sherry: [Laughs]
Sarah: I am the most fluent I have ever been after, like, two, two shots of tequila. I could talk to anybody.
Sherry: After, after, after a half shot of tequila I’ll be under the table –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: – unable to say anything. [Laughs]
Sarah: So it’s, if, so when you’re surrounded by that language, that part of your brain sort of wakes up too.
Sherry: Yeah, yeah, it does, absolutely. Like, like, like if I am in the United States, the only person I speak Chinese to regularly is my mother. She lives, she lives in the same city as me, so we talk every day, and we see each other fairly often, so I do speak Chinese on a regular basis, but it’s like, I can, I cannot speak well.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Sherry: Like, I cannot use, like, our idiomatic usages. You know, I’m, I’m speaking on a fairly basic level.
Sarah: Right.
Sherry: But when I, when I go back to China all of a sudden I’m, I’m speaking like an educated person.
[Laughter]
Sarah: [Coughs] ‘Scuse me. So, when you are writing, and you’re writing in English, and you’re thinking in English, one of the things that I love about your books, and I apologize in advance for, you know, putting you on the spot by giving you a compliment, because that’s always really awkward? I –
Sherry: That’s okay, as long as I don’t have to look at you. [Laughs]
Sarah: No, you don’t. No, no video. One of the things I really love about your books is that when I read them I feel like I’m being reintroduced to English, which is my first language, because you have a way of phrasing things and building images that is really unique, and I’ve always wondered, does that come out of the way in which English and Chinese are different from an-, from one another? Are you sort of blending idioms when that happens, or is that just your style, and it’s awesome, and it has nothing to do with bilingualism?
Sherry: Okay, it’s, it’s, it’s, I think it’s ten percent my Chinese background in the sense that sometimes I will actually borrow a very hackneyed phrase –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: – you know, from Chinese, which, which is like, you know, like you would say raining cats and dogs here, the equivalent of.
Sarah: Right, of course, some strange idiom.
Sherry: But then, and, and translate it directly into English, and, and that would be, you have not heard it before. [Laughs]
Sarah: No, nope, we sure haven’t.
Sherry: That doesn’t happen a whole lot, though, because, you know, there, there, each culture only has so many stock phrases for me to borrow from.
Sarah: It’s true.
Sherry: The majority part is because I happen to be a, I write blind in the sense that I am not a visual person. When I write I can’t see anything.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Sherry: It, it’s like, it’s like a cartoon panel, if you can see what’s in my head. It’s like a cartoon panel and just two stick figures with speech bubbles above their heads.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: That will not do, so –
Sarah: No.
Sherry: – so I have to do something about it, so I write until I can see myself what, what is it I’m describing. So it’s a –
Sarah: So the illustrated versions of your books are going to be really interesting.
Sherry: [Laughs] Well, I’m still holding a hope somebody should buy my YA and turn it into a comic strip.
Sarah: That would be pretty amazing.
Sherry: So, yeah, so, so it’s, it’s mainly to compensate for, for this, for my own difficulties –
Sarah: Yes.
Sherry: – because I can’t see what I’m writing, and, and, like, my brain is completely blank, so, so then it has to, so I have to write until I can see myself what I’m doing.
Sarah: Right.
Sherry: Okay, this is, this is what the house looks like, this is what the landscape looks like, and this is what, you know, these people – although no matter how I describe people I still don’t, don’t have a face for them in, in my head. They’re just like –
Sarah: Wow! That’s really interesting!
Sherry: Yeah.
Sarah: So you just hear or, or see the dialogue. You’re, you’re focused on what they say to each other.
Sherry: Right, right. Yeah, I probably said I should be a, a, a screenwriter because then, you know, you don’t have to describe anything! [Laughs]
Sarah: They’re, they are in a room. Him: Hello! [Laughs]
Sherry: Yeah! Yeah, it, it was quite a shock to me. I love reading Jenny Crusie’s blog.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Sherry: I think must have been reading her blog for however long she’s had her blog. But, but whenever she talks about writing, she’s, like, speaking Greek to me.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: Like, our processes are, like, the opposite ends of the spectrum, ‘cause she’s all about doing, like, the collage, you know.
Sarah: Yes.
Sherry: She visualizes her book as a collage –
Sarah: Yes.
Sherry: – and I’m like, I, I wouldn’t know, if you give me a magazine I wouldn’t know what anybody look, who, who looks like my hero or heroine. I wouldn’t know what their house looked like. I –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: Yeah. So, so maybe after I finish writing the book I might be able to do the collage, but definitely not before it. You know, even, even my own book I wouldn’t know where to tell you where act one, you know, begins and ends or, you know, where any of the turning points are – [laughs] – so like every writer has a different process, and for me that’s just – yeah, so, to, to get back to your very wonderful compliment, that’s, that’s the reason. It’s not, it’s not, it’s a little bit borrowing from Chinese and a lot just writing to make sure I can see what I’m, what, what the book, how, how it will read to the reader.
Sarah: That’s very cool. In my very limited experience writing fiction, I am also a dialogue person. Like, I hear people talking, and I write it down, which sounds completely freaky unless you’re talking to another writer, and then they’re like, oh, yeah! Absolutely, that’s what happens. So I hear voices. That, that’s totally normal.
Sherry: [Laughs]
Sarah: No, I, I am, I am a dialogue reader and I’m a dialogue writer. When I do write, it’s all, I have to fill in, like, oh, I’ve got to tell people where they are and, you know, maybe where’s the sun and maybe there’s a tree. I don’t know. Let’s, let’s go back to the part talking, because I’m so nosy I love listening to people talking. I love listening to people’s conversations, so my favorite part of a book is, is, like, if I see a long paragraph of exposition I’m like, yeah, yeah, yeah, ooh, dialogue! Let’s go read that now.
Sherry: [Laughs] Yeah, and –
Sarah: I’m horrible.
Sherry: – and, and, and the thing is I, that’s how I write. I, I write a ton of dialogue and –
Sarah: And then fill in.
Sherry: – just action and dialogue. The, the problem for me with writing only action and dialogue is for, after a while I lose what the character might be thinking.
Sarah: Right.
Sherry: Yeah, and in a romance that’s very, very important!
Sarah: Yes, especially when what they’re thinking and what they’re saying are too totally different things.
Sherry: Yes, exactly, yes.
Sarah: Annoying characters. So, could you tell, tell me a little bit about your YA series, the, the fantasy series? ‘Cause I know there are many, many podcast listeners who are big fans of fantasy and fantasy YA, and this series, this trilogy is really cool.
Sherry: I like to think so, because it’s, it’s what I call a reverse Harry Potter with cross-dressing.
Sarah: As you do.
Sherry: As you do.
Sarah: As you do.
Sherry: So, it’s not the, it’s not The Lord of the Rings kind of high fantasy. It’s, it’s like, it’s one girl and a boy –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Sherry: – and they are both going to a Muggle school. They’re going to a Muggle boarding school for boys, and this is a historical, so it’s actually set in the 1880s, and the only good schools worth going to were boarding schools for boys back then, so they were actually at Eton College, and she’s cross-dressing.
Sarah: And hiding the fact that she’s a girl.
Sherry: And so instead of, instead of, instead of being, instead of, like, unlike Harry Potter where they’re at a magical school and they’re plotting the downfall of the Dark Lord, you know, my, my kids are at a Muggle school plotting the downfall of the Dark Lord. [Laughs]
Sarah: You know, that, that would, that’s generally something you can squeeze in with your boarding school curriculum.
Sherry: Right, right. Yes. I mean –
Sarah: So she –
Sherry: – in, in fact, in fact, any boarding school that does not allow you to squeeze in that is not a school worth going to. [Laughs]
Sarah: Oh, well, why even bother going to boarding school if you can’t, like, plot over several books to kill some big, bad thing?
Sherry: Yeah! Yeah!
Sarah: What’s the point of even going?
Sherry: It’s the whole point of being, like, living right next to each other all the time!
Sarah: Forced proximity, no parents, killing the big bad. Duh!
Sherry: Yes. It’s the best thing ever!
Sarah: So the, the heroine of this one, it, has, has something in common with Harry Potter in that she’s, you know, she’s predicted or prophesied to be the most powerful, who’s going to do massive things, and she’s like –
Sherry: Right, and –
Sarah: – yeah, no.
Sherry: [Laughs]
Sarah: How about not at all?
Sherry: And, and the thing is, and the thing is, minor, minor spoiler: I will be playing with that trope in later books.
Sarah: Dun-dun-dun!
Sherry: Yeah, it’s, it’s, she’s, it, it’s only, like, for book one that she’s the Chosen One, and – because the Chosen One is such a tired trope.
Sarah: Yes!
Sherry: You know. I mean, no, it’s, it’s not always tired if, when you do it well, like, I think The Matrix was, you know, well, the first book, first, first movie, at least, was awesome in how they, how they play with it.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Sherry: But, you know, at some point you go raise like, how the heck do people know? What if they made a mistake?
Sarah: Yeah, what, what, what if she’s not? What if she’s, like, you know –
Sherry: Yeah, what if she’s – yeah.
Sarah: What if instead of, like, being the most powerful, she’s really good at, you know, magically eradicating dust?
Sherry: Yes, yes! So, so, yeah, it, it, it kind of, like, book two will turn that Chosen One trope on its head, and book three will see how everything tied together.
Sarah: The whole trilogy is out.
Sherry: It’s out, yeah.
Sarah: What –
Sherry: It’s out and bingeable, yeah.
Sarah: Oh, bingeable is good. Bingeable is very good.
Sherry: Bingeable is awesome. Who wants to wait? My God.
Sarah: So this is for, like, older YA. This is like, like, grade eight and up.
Sherry: That’s what it says on the spine, but I think, I think, like, advanced readers at a younger age will have no problem with it. I, I, I –
Sarah: Is there a lot of sexytimes, or is it just intense kissing?
Sherry: It’s, it’s very, very clean –
Sarah: Ah.
Sherry: – but!
Sarah: Okay.
Sherry: But! There are dick jokes that will fly over the little ones’ heads.
Sarah: That’s all right! They’re meant to, and then can come back and discover how funny it was.
Sherry: It, it’s, it, and more than one reader has had that experience, reading a second time, going, holy smoke!
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: How come I, I in my innocence, way back when, did not notice that this, you know, that when they were talking about his wand they were actually talking about something else!
Sarah: [Laughs] Well, I mean, you know, if you go back and read Shakespeare, he’s, like, ninety-six percent dick jokes.
Sherry: Oh, my God! My, my kid had to do Shakespeare in, in his ninth grade – yeah, last year, it was ninth grade – his ninth grade class last year, and because he is not a strong reader, so I sat down with him, and we read the annotated version.
Sarah: Right.
Sherry: And I was like, was it Mercutio? Who was, who was the, who was the ribald dude? Who was the dude that got killed? Mercutio, right?
Sarah: Yeah.
Sherry: Yes! Every time he opened his mouth –
Sarah: Dick jokes!
Sherry: – he talked about nothing but sex and dick jokes, and it’s just like nothing but, like –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: Yeah, talk, talk about, you know – Shakespeare was probably the original, you know –
Sarah: Ha-ha.
Sherry: – language dude who used everything except – [laughs]
Sarah: We hid all the dick jokes! Ha-ha! Have fun!
Sherry: And I was like, my God, this, this, like, you know what? They only allow ninth graders to read this because ninth graders aren’t actually reading it.
Sarah: Yes, they’re not going to catch all the dick jokes.
Sherry: You know, they’re, they’re, they’re reading, they’re reading the, the SparkNotes or whatever, and they’re not understanding that they are, like, missing, like, a massive ton of sexual references.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: Sometimes they’re not even sexual references. Sometimes they’re, like, like – [laughs] – hitting you over the head with a dildo, that kind of obvious.
Sarah: Ka-poom! [Laughs] So, what are you working on right now?
Sherry: Right now I’m working on book two of the Lady Sherlock, Lady Sherlock mysteries. It’s due in, like, six weeks, and I have one-third of a book. Duh-duh-duh.
Sarah: Well, I mean, that’s better than zero thirds of a book.
Sherry: [Laughs] Yes.
Sarah: Do you have them all plotted out? Like, do you have it plotted out over a certain number of books, or do you have, like, major elements of the story that you’re going to see where they fit?
Sherry: No. At any point when I’m writing, I can only see about two or three scenes ahead. And sometimes, sometimes –
Sarah: Ah, so you really do write without any, without any foresight.
Sherry: I, I wouldn’t say completely that way, because sometimes I know what’s going to happen at the end!
Sarah: I see! You’re writing to get there!
Sherry: I just, I just don’t know how to get there in, in the –
[Laughter]
Sherry: So I describe it as like, I’m not flying in the mist.
Sarah: Right.
Sherry: Like, I am not a pantser-pantser, but I am, my process is more like, I can see the, the castle on the hill.
Sarah: Right.
Sherry: But between me and the castle, there’s, like, you know, this huge jungle and alligator-infested rivers and whatever, so –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: – and how to make my way to, from where I’m standing to that castle on the hill, that’s, that’s my problem.
Sarah: That’ll take a little while.
Sherry: Yes, yes, that will, like, you know, a lot of, a lot of hacking at thickets and sometimes going the wrong way and stuff like that. It’s not a complete unknown. It’s just a large unknown. [Laughs]
Sarah: It’s just a large unknown. You know where you’re going. You kind of have a destination.
Sherry: I know, I know where I’d like to end up. I just don’t know how to get there until I get there.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: Which makes it interesting, because it gives me time to think along the way, and it gives me, it gives me time to reject the very obvious things.
Sarah: Yes.
Sherry: Yeah. So. Like, like the twists. The good thing about writing a book is, writing a book is, is, is like working with clay.
Sarah: Yes.
Sherry: Nobody needs to know what it looked while you were in the process of doing it. They only need to see the final product. So I can always go back and add foreshadowing, add layers, add threads –
Sarah: Right.
Sherry: – once I realize what the book needs. It doesn’t need to start out right. It can fall into rightness as it progresses.
Sarah: And you can go back, once you, once you can see the whole picture of the book, like, you can see the entirety, you know where to put those little moments to add layers.
Sherry: Exactly. Exactly. And for me, that’s, that’s, that’s how I go. I’m in awe of those who can write detailed outlines. I tried. I have tried several times, and my final product will always end up looking nothing like the detailed outline so that I’m like, why do I bother? Yeah.
Sarah: [Laughs] So my one question that I always ask every interview is, what are you reading that you recommend? What books are you reading that you would love to tell people about?
Sherry: I am about to start A Curious Beginning by Deanna Raybourn, so I’m very much looking forward to it, and let’s see, what, what books am I reading now that – one book I like is a nonfiction book called The Etymologicon.
Sarah: Ooh!
Sherry: And it’s all about how words came about, and, and it talks about etymology in a really funny and sometimes very profane way, so.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: So – [laughs] – it’s like, I feel like it’d be right up the alley of, you know, Smart Bitches readers and listeners. And for example –
Sarah: Um, I’m buying that.
Sherry: – for example, for example, I recently went to a party, and by the time we were about to leave, ‘cause we still have, you know, kids who are at home; we don’t want to leave them too long.
Sarah: Yep.
Sherry: By the time we are about to leave, the, the non-kids people were just about to get going –
Sarah: Yep!
Sherry: – on a round of games, and one person was saying, like, okay, we should play for nuts, because there happened to be a bowl of nuts sitting on the table –
Sarah: Right.
Sherry: – so we should play for nuts, and so the person, as he spoke, pulled the whole bowl of nuts toward himself, and everybody was like, oh, hey, look at him, he has all of the nuts, you know, and somebody was saying that, hey, you have more nuts than you need, and I was like, hey! I was reading this book that’s actually about words, and I just learned a word that means having more nuts than you need!
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: And I will go ahead and educate the Smart Bitches readers. [Laughs]
Sarah: Okay, I am so excited by this. Please tell me this word.
Sherry: And this, this is, this is like, so many times you come across an interesting word, it’s hard to remember!
Sarah: Oh, absolutely!
Sherry: Yeah, as soon as you finish reading about it you forget about it, and, but this one is so easy to remember. It’s polyorchidic. Orchid, like in orchid, like the beautiful flower, orchid?
Sarah: Right.
Sherry: You put poly in front of it, you know, -ic or –ism after it, and it means having more nuts than you need!
Sarah: Polyorchidic.
Sherry: Polyorchidic, yes. Having, like, three or more testicles. Yes.
Sarah: That’s amazing! My entire day is so made!
Sherry: Yes, and, and, and, and you too can – [laughs]
Sarah: And you know –
Sherry: You too can bring a party to its feet!
[Laughter]
Sherry: Hey!
Sarah: And you know that once you know a word like this, you end up with reason to, to use it. It’s like the road arrives before you. You know the word; now the opportunity will come.
Sherry: Right. The opportunity will arise, and you know –
Sarah: Okay, that’s amazing.
Sherry: – given that you are romance readers, of course –
Sarah: Oh –
Sherry: – there will be opportunities to –
Sarah: There will absolutely be opportunities to use this word. Oh, my gosh, I am so delighted.
Sherry: Right, so, so, and, and this being our current age, somebody immediately whipped out a phone and said, oh, my God, that is true!
[Laughter]
Sarah: Yes, you’ve been fact-checked, and you survived!
Sherry: I’m not, like, making up shit on the spot!
Sarah: Okay, that is hilarious. So are you still reading this book? Is it all as good as polyorchidic?
Sherry: I’m still reading this book. It’s, like, very dense with information, so I only read, like, a couple pages a night. And if folks are looking for a romance recommendation, I recently read – is it the, The Anatomical Shape of a Heart?
Sarah: Yes, The Anatomical Shape of a Heart by Jenn Bennet?
Sherry: Yes, yes, which recently won the YA, YA RITA, I believe, right?
Sarah: Yes.
Sherry: Yes, I enjoyed it a lot. It’s such a cute story. Yeah.
Sarah: That’s awesome! So when you’re writing, do you have time to read a lot, or do you have to sort of put reading aside and –
Sherry: Well, actually, actually, one period when I read the most books recently was when I was on, like, a hair-on-fire deadline, but I am, my brain kind of turns into a pumpkin promptly every night at ten –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: – so, so even on my hair-on-fire deadlines there’s only, like, so much I can do after that time, so I remember there was, like, a whole month when I would, like, every night I’d unwind by reading an old Agatha Christie book.
Sarah: Oh, those are lovely.
Sherry: Plus, I just realized, like, my library, my library had a lot of them online and I could just, like, you know –
Sarah: Click, click, click.
Sherry: Yeah, click, click, borrow one every night and, and, and read it and, and so, yeah. Reading and writing, I, yeah, I, I was surprised to learn that a lot of writers, they cannot read when they are writing because they’re afraid what, what they’re reading might bleed into what they’re writing, and I’m like, that’s what I live for! For what I read to bleed into what I write.
Sarah: Especially if you’re reading Agatha Christie and you’re writing mystery.
Sherry: Yeah.
Sarah: You want that complexity and that sort of feeling of disequilibrium and uncertainty in every scene.
Sherry: And, and I always, I think I feel enough confidence in, in my own voice, in my own storytelling, in that whatever I pick up, by the time it goes through the filter –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Sherry: – of how I see things and how I write, it will come out to be my own thing rather than, you know, rather than an exact copy of what they did.
Sarah: Yes.
Sherry: Because, like, for example, I would tell Meredith Duran –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Sherry: – who is a tremendous writer, one of the, probably the best prose stylist of our generation or romance writers, and she can write a heart-wrenching scene like nobody’s business, so –
Sarah: Oh, God, yes, this is true.
Sherry: – one, one, one, her debut book is called The Duke of Shadows, and there’s a scene in it called the globe scene. The globe scene, when –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Sherry: – for, for, for readers who might not have read the book – although, you know, you should stop this right now and go read it –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: – it’s, it’s set during the, a great mutiny of, in British India, like the 1850s –
Sarah: Yes.
Sherry: – and it’s a story of these two people who met right before the great mutiny and then got separated, and terrible things happened to the woman, and then they met again a few years later in London –
Sarah: Yes.
Sherry: – and, and one time they, they were finally alone in a room, and the room had a globe, and she was, I think she was recounting where he had been, or he was recounting where he had gone to find her.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Sherry: Basically, they were in all the same places, but they just had missed each other –
Sarah: Yes.
Sherry: – and it was, like, it was, like gut-wrenching, and so when I was writing Not Quite a Husband, I, I went to read that scene because, I told her, I want to write my own version of the globe scene. I want to write my own version of a recounting of the past –
Sarah: Yes.
Sherry: – where it’s, you know, you can see how people were trying to find their way to each other, but it was, they just kind of missed each other left and right, and, and that turned out to be a very good scene, and I think, I can’t remember whether Meredith came and even asked me, well, which scene was it? Which was the one that you based on my globe scene?
[Laughter]
Sherry: Because, because by the time I was done with it, it, it resembled the globe scene not at all, but, you know, except in spirit.
Sarah: And you were after the emotional resonance, not the plot.
Sherry: I was after the emotional resonance, yeah, so, so I, I am never worried that reading a good book will bleed. I’m like, yes, bleed more into my book! Come on! You know.
Sarah: You also have the awareness of what words are yours.
Sherry: I do! I have it so much, in fact, that sometimes I will go and, you know, do a search on my own manuscript and go, am I, am I plagiarizing myself?
Sarah: Yes! [Laughs]
Sherry: You know, have, have I used, have I used this –
Sarah: I might have used that before.
Sherry: – metaphor, have I used this description before? You know, so, yeah, so, so, I am quite aware. I am, I don’t believe people who say they accidentally, you know, regurgitate a whole paragraph of somebody else’s words. [Laughs]
Sarah: No.
Sherry: I cannot even, if I, you know, back in the bad old days when you would, like, sometimes lose a paragraph because your computer shut down or something before your computer was smart enough to save your words instantly –
Sarah: Yeah.
Sherry: Yeah! I, I would never be able to, to, like, re-, regurgitate my own paragraph from memory, let alone somebody else’s. [Laughs]
Sarah: No, only, like, a, like, a, like, a word or a phrase is going to make you go, oh, wait, wait, wait, no, no, I said that.
Sherry: Right. Yeah, I know which words are mine.
Sarah: Yes. Which, which is fascinating to me because I will bump into review quotes that are attributed to the site, and I’ll be like, oh, I wonder which one of my reviewers wrote that, ‘cause it wasn’t me. No, no, it was me. I have no – I don’t recognize my own writing. It’s very, very strange. Past Sarah’s writing is very strange to Present Sarah.
Sherry: I, I recognize, I do recognize my writing, but I will tell you what I do not recognize: sometimes, there, there, there were a couple years when I was writing both romance and Young Adult fantasy, so it would be just one deadline after another, and I –
Sarah: That sounds really fun!
Sherry: It was in a way, and, and the thing is, I write, I require many drafts to get the book right, so I will finish one draft and hand it off to whichever edit-, editor it’s due to and then go back to working something else, and then, and then when the, so when the, when this draft comes back with the comments and I go back to reading it I’ll be like, man, I don’t even remember writing this.
[Laughter]
Sarah: That was me? That, are you sure?
Sherry: Yeah, yeah! I don’t remember writing this, but –
Sarah: Are you sure that’s me?
Sherry: – hey, it’s not that bad. It served, served, served the purpose, you know.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Sherry: It’s like, it’s like finding money, finding money in your couch.
Sarah: Ooh, it’s my winter coat with a twenty-dollar bill in the pocket!
Sherry: Like, I don’t know where this came from, but I can use it, so, yeah.
Sarah: Woohoo! [Laughs]
[music]
Sarah: And that is all for this week’s episode. I hope you enjoyed that. I want to thank Sherry Thomas for hanging out and chatting with me. If you are curious about any of the books we talked about, and, oh, there were a lot, you can find them at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast. The most recent episode will always be at the top, but in case you’re looking, which one is this? This is episode number 216, and there’re a lot of books we talked about.
I have some compliments to give and a special greeting, so, first of all, get ready.
Suzanne, I have a message for you: I understand your birthday is soon, and a certain person, aka your husband, would like you to know that he thinks you are passionate and engaging, and you make his entire life better. Happy thirtieth birthday.
Now if you’re wondering what? Who? What? Suzanne and Matt were in a prior episode. They were part of our couple’s discussion of romance in episode numberrrrrrr 210. Yep, 210. Look at me with numbers. I never remember numbers. It is Suzanne’s birthday, and Matt really wanted to have her get a surprise compliment, so happy birthday! Hope your birthday is so totally awesome, and trust me, your thirties are pretty freaking fabulous. I am in the next decade, and it’s just as awesome, so happy birthday!
And additional compliments: here we go! I love this part.
Georgina S.: All of the owls have taken a survey, and you are wiser than all of them combined. I don’t think you can turn your head nearly 360 degrees though. But if you can, that’s also cool!
Teresa H.: Any top five list or top ten or top one hundred or top however many, no matter the topic, has you on it at the top!
And to Stacey B.: You are better than bacon and chocolate and cookies and really good blankets, and above all, you are better than free Wi-Fi.
And now if you’re wondering what is happening here, you can have a look at our podcast Patreon at Patreon.com/SmartBitches. For different pledges beginning at one dollar a month, you can support the show, help me commission transcripts, and at some levels receive a genuine, completely random, very goofy compliment from yours truly. Have a look at Patreon.com/SmartBitches, and if you’ve pledged to support the show, thank you. But most of all, if you are listening and tuning in every week, thank you for that too, ‘cause you’re awesome!
Our transcript this week is sponsored by Kensington, publishers of Highland Chieftain by Hannah Howell. USA Today and New York Times bestselling author Hannah Howell delivers a new entry into her epic and sweeping medieval Murray Family saga that will delight long-time fans and readers who are craving some strong, protective Scottish warriors and feisty leading ladies in a way that only Hannah Howell can deliver. With her signature sweeping prose and unforgettable characters, Howell will whisk you away to the castle-dotted hills and deep lochs, which is exactly where Bethoc Matheson finds Sir Callum MacMillan on the verge of drowning, so she does what every steadfast lass would do, and she rescues him. You can give into your kilt-y pleasures this fall and warm up under your favorite tartan blanket with Highland Chieftain. The Scottish Highlands are beckoning you. Highland Chieftain by Hannah Howell is on sale now wherever books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com.
And speaking of where books are sold, we have our own iBooks page, and it’s totally cool. If you’d like to check it out, it’s at iTunes.com/DBSA. I know, it’s the old name of the podcast. Things change, and yet, despite not being allowed to name anything, I still name things. But either way, if you go to iTunes.com/DBSA you’ll see the most recent episodes and the books that we talk about, and if you’re an iBook shopper, this makes the shopping part way easier. And like I said, our mission at Smart Bitches is to connect romance readers with one another and with the books they want to read and to make me feel less lonely about my own poor impulse control when it comes to book buying!
The music you’re listening to was provided by Sassy Outwater, and you can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater. This is a band called Sketch. This track is “Bulgarian Shed” from their album Shed Life. There’s, there’s a lot of shed on this album, but it’s all good. You can find this on Amazon or iTunes or wherever you like to buy your most excellent music.
I will have links in the podcast entry for this episode not only to the books but to the speech from Sherry’s appearance as a keynote at RWA in 2016. I will have links to the different entries she’s mentioned, including the NPR top one hundred, which she and I were both responsible for compiling, so if you really hated it, it’s all our fault; you can yell at us. And as of course, I will always have links to websites and Twitter and Facebook so you can find all of these fine people that I interview. Interviews are so much fun; you have no idea.
But if you would like to ask me a question, or you would like to suggest something, or you have a response, or you want to tell me about the book that made you a romance reader, or you just want to tell me something completely random, I am here for that. You can email me at [email protected], or you can leave a voicemail at 1-201-371-3272. You are all very interesting and cool and I love hearing from you, so thank you for any contact, except for the one where you yelled out your window, ‘cause I probably didn’t hear that one over the dogs barking.
And that is all for this episode! On behalf of Sherry Thomas and everyone here and myself, we wish you the very best of reading. Have an excellent weekend!
[rollicking music]
This podcast transcript was handcrafted with meticulous skill by Garlic Knitter. Many thanks.
Transcript Sponsor
The podcast transcript this month is sponsored by Kensington, publishers of HIGHLAND CHIEFTAIN by Hannah Howell.
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Hannah Howell delivers a dazzling new entry into her epic, sweeping Medieval Murray family saga that will delight her longtime fans and readers craving strong, protective Scottish warriors and feisty leading ladies in a way that only Hannah Howell can deliver.
With her signature sweeping prose, and unforgettable characters, let Hannah Howell whisk you away to the castle-dotted hills and deep lochs….which is exactly where Bethoc Matheson finds Sir Callum MacMillan on the verge of drowning. So she does what every steadfast lass would do and rescues him…..Give into your #KiltyPleasure this fall and warm up under your favorite tartan blanket with HIGHLAND CHEIFTAIN. The Scottish Highlands are beckoning for you.
HIGHLAND CHIEFTAIN by Hannah Howell is on sale now wherever books are sold and at Kensingtonbooks.com!
If you’re a fan of words, you all should listen to the Says You radio show. It is probably carried by your local NPR affiliate if you are in the U.S. I don’t know about other countries. Ms. Thomas’ nonfiction recommendation reminded me of this.
I’ve been eyeing that book since you started posting about it a few months ago. Gender bending Sherlock Holmes is basically a concept that’s going to make sit up like a happy otter.
@Crystal: I have a review copy, and oh, my gosh, it’s wonderful fun so far. I especially like how you discover Holmes through the eyes of other people, especially her sister, Livia. You’re going to love it, I think!
That was delightful–thank you! I also really loved her RWA speech. Sarah, I think it’s so true that hearing or reading the English of somebody who has learned it as a second language is a wonderful reintroduction to something that you start to take for granted when you talk to native speakers all the time. It really makes my brain happy to hear English used in a different way. (My husband learned English as a second language, but he’s mostly too good at it now for me to get that brain-teasing unfamiliarity and innovation when I listen to him.)
How wonderful to have Sherry Thomas as your podcast guest. I hate being pinned down on my favorite whatever, but I’d probably pick Sherry Thomas as my favorite romance writer if pressed. Certainly, Not Quite a Husband and His at Night are right at the top of my go-to reread books. And I was just finishing up The Luckiest Lady in London again when I saw the podcast. How is possible to love a book even more the umpteenth time you’ve read it? I know she’s got a lot on her plate right now, but I really hope she writes another romance since TLLIL was released in 2013 and I’m ready for another! (OK, enough gushing.)
I was really struck by her writing process–that she’s not visual, that she has a vision of the ending but not necessarily all the steps getting there, etc. Very different.
And thanks for mentioning her RWA speech–I checked it out on YouTube.
Thanks for an enjoyable interview and transcript. It was fun to read Ms. Thomas’ thoughts about writing and more. I’m a big fan of her book Delicious.
Thank you so much for this interview. I’m going to look for Sherry Thomas’ books now. In fact, I’ve downloaded several samples of the books discussed. They look pretty good.
Oh dear. 🙂