243. Discovering Romance and Navigating Approval: An Interview with Faith Salie

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello, and welcome to episode number 243 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. With me today is Faith Salie! I’m so excited to share this interview. I had the best time editing it, not to mention recording it. Faith Salie, if you’re not familiar, is an author, speaker, and television and radio journalist. She is the host of Authorized, a new Audible program on sex and romance, in which many of our favorite authors are featured, so if you have an Audible subscription, you should totally check it out. She’s also the person behind the CBS Sunday Morning segment in which I appeared on Valentine’s Day weekend, all about romance. You know, the one that was, like, nice and not critical or condescending? I’ll have a link to it in case you missed it, so do not worry. So we are going to talk about her book Approval Junkie, which is out this week in paperback, and we also talk about measuring your own success and the behind-the-scenes details of what happens when you produce a television segment. We have a rather meta conversation about listening and interviewing, and I also want to tell you that if you’re at all curious about her book, it is very, very touching and a really interesting series of essays, but there is one chapter in there about interviewing and listening that is incredibly thought-provoking and so useful, and it really makes you think about how you talk and listen to other people? So based on that chapter alone, plus the one about her mom, I recommend this book with a great amount of enthusiasm.

Now of course, when I’m going to talk to a journalist who works for CBS and NPR and Audible, my cat prints a test page with his butt while the mic is on, and so if you had weird things that Sarah’s pets do on the podcast on a bingo card somewhere, you totally win a square.

I also want to mention that there is a slight discussion of eating disorders around forty-some minutes in, so if that’s going to be upsetting for you, you can just hit Skip a couple of times; it’s not a long conversation.

Now, couple of things – more things; I have lots of things. First the thing: in the podcast entry at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast, I’m giving away four copies of her book, so please have a look over there if you would like to win a copy – your choice, paper or digital.

And I have compliments! This is so much fun.

For Elizabeth P.: Sometimes when your friends are in a tough spot, they will ask themselves, “What would Elizabeth do?” because you always find a way, and you make it look easy.

And to Anne M.: Whenever you are in a group with people, each of them can relax a little more than usual, just because you are there.

Now if you’re wondering what’s going on or you would like a genuine, handcrafted, locally sourced, and environmentally sensitive compliment, heartfelt compliment written by me, head on over to patreon.com/SmartBitches. We are so close to hitting one of my goals, I have to say thank you! Thank you for that; that’s amazing!

And speaking of things that I’d like to say thank you for, I was doing some research about the podcast: we have more than fifty reviews on iTunes now! More than fifty of you have left a review! That’s so cool! And from what I understand and learned from my research, when you review and rank a podcast in the system with which you listen to it, whether it’s Stitcher or iTunes or whatever, you’re actually increasing the podcast’s visibility, and I am so grateful that you have left reviews and ranked and rated the podcast. Thank you so much for that!

I also have to say thank you to our sponsor. You ready? Here we go:

Fan-favorite Ella Quinn is back with her signature blend of humor, hijinks, and high-stakes romance for another Worthington adventure. Thanks to their large extended family and unconventional courtship, the Worthingtons have seen their share of scandal and excitement, but nothing has prepared them for what awaits Lady Louisa beyond the ballrooms of London. A handsome duke, perhaps? It Started with a Kiss by Ella Quinn is available now wherever books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com. Y’all know I love a good Regency-not-in-a-ballroom? I love Regency-not-in-a-ballroom. Like, I like them in the ballroom, ballrooms are great, but I love Regencies and historicals not-in-a-ballroom because it’s like, oh, there’re, like, all these other things out there!

And I also want to thank the transcript sponsor. Each episode gets a transcript handcrafted by garlicknitter, who is transcribing this right now. Hi, garlicknitter! Thank you for the transcripts!

[garlicknitter: Hi, Sarah and all you wonderful podcast fans! Thanks for the best gig ever!]

Sarah: The transcript this month is being brought to you by The Romance Reader’s Guide to Life by Sharon Pywell. As a young girl, Neave was often stuck in a world that did not know what to do with her. Her small town of Lynn, Massachusetts, did not have a place for a girl whose feelings often put her at war with the world, but through an unexpected friendship, Neave finds herself with a forbidden copy of The Pirate Lover, a steamy romance, and Neave discovers a world of passion, love, and betrayal, and it is to this world that as a grownup she retreats to again and again when real life becomes too much. As she gets older, life does not follow the romances she gobbled up as a child, but when Neave and her older sister Lilly are about to realize their professional dream, Lilly suddenly disappears, and Neave must take center stage, something she’s been trying to avoid her entire life, and turn to unexpected sources for help. Sharon Pywell’s The Romance Reader’s Guide to Life is one of the most original, entertaining, exciting, and chilling novels you will read this year. It’s a story inside a story within a story. There’s a pirate romance, there’s historical fiction, and a wonderful bond between two sisters. The Romance Reader’s Guide to Life is on sale now wherever books are sold.

And I just realized I forgot to give you our address at iTunes when I was talking about reviews! Oops! You can see us at iTunes.com/DBSA, and if you’ve left a review or you’re going to, that’s pretty rad!

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater, and I will have information at the end of the episode as to who this is and where you can find their fine, fine music!

And of course I will have links to all of the books we discuss, plus some of Faith’s projects in television and radio in the podcast entry at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

And now, without any further delay, on with our interview!

[music]

Sarah: I know you work with really professional equipment. I have a call-recording app that’s attached to Skype, and my microphone is inside an old Amazon box in which I inserted acoustic foam with spray adhesive that I last used for a Halloween costume. So this is this the kind of –

Faith Salie: That’s awesome!

Sarah: – professional operation that I am running over here.

Faith: Do you know the word kluge? K-L-U-G-E?

Sarah: Like the light?

Faith: Oh! I guess – isn’t that a klieg light?

Sarah: No, klieg! You’re right, sorry. So –

Faith: Yeah, there’s, so, kluge is your word for the day. It’s a great word, you will find it invaluable now that you know it, and you have kluged something together. It means an, an inelegant solution that totally works.

Sarah: You know what? This is my new favorite word. You’re right.

Faith: Yeah, my whole life is a kluge.

Sarah: I’m, I’m the Duchess of Kluge.

Faith: [Laughs] Lady Kluge!

Sarah: Damn right, Lady Kluge!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Okay, first of all, thank you so much for doing this. I am so excited to talk to you again!

Faith: Oh, thank you! Are we, are we going? Are we, is it happening now as we speak?

Sarah: It can!

Faith: Okay, great!

Sarah: Unless you need to warm up or anything.

Faith: No, I’m, I’ve been, I’ve been reading your book, Everything I Know About Love I Learned from Romance Novels, so – [laughs]

Sarah: Well, hot damn. I’m really honored. I reread the chapter in your book on listening and am now completely freaked out that I’m the worst interviewer ever.

Faith: Oh, my – oh, of course you’re not! Of course you’re not!

Sarah: [Laughs] So, I wanted to ask you questions about the CBS Sunday Morning segment, because the behind-the-scenes part was the most interesting part for me?

Faith: Yeah, because you were a huge part of it!

Sarah: Well, I mean, my house and my dogs were, like, completely ama-, like, there, there was so much stuff. So much stuff! It was amazing! What led you to pitch a story about romance to CBS Sunday Morning? Was it because of Authorized, or was it because you were, like, thinking, I need more book; let me go find some people to talk to about that?

Faith: It was, it was a hundred percent because of Authorized and how eye opening the experience of reading romance novels and talking, and equally talking to the people who write them has been for me. And I have to tell you, Sunday Morning, you know, sometimes when I pitch a story, I, they’re very busy there. Sometimes I get no response ‘cause they’re too busy. Sometimes I get a, let me think about it, but as soon as I pitched this story, I got an immediate, why, of course, from the executive producer, and, and we moved on it with unheard-of alacrity. Especially because, as you know, it was, it was news pegged to Valentine’s Day, which, which is always nice. So, yeah, a hundred percent because of the Authorized series that I’m doing for Audible.

Sarah: So I want you to know, in my professional studio, my cat is sitting on the printer and has printed a test page and is now freaking the hell out.

[Laughter]

Sarah: So I’m waiting, I’m waiting for the audio file, when I edit it, I’ll hear all these weird noise in the background. [Laughs]

Faith: What’s your cat’s name?

Sarah: That one is, that would be Wilbur. The other one is Orville. We didn’t name them, but –

Faith: Wait, you have cats and dogs.

Sarah: I have two cats, two dogs, and two boys. My house is loud, hairy, and sticky.

Faith: [Laughs] Wait, where does the sticky come from?

Sarah: The boys, most of the time.

Faith: [Laughs] Okay.

Sarah: ‘Cause we just had Valentine’s Day, and the amount of candy is really a close second to the amount of candy on Halloween. Like, it’s ridiculous. I don’t know if you got a sense of this after the segment aired, but we in the land of romance are very, very used to mainstream media coming over and being like, oh, it’s Valentine’s Day! Let’s talk about those romance people! And nine times out of ten, the segment is often very condescending or alienating.

Faith: Mm!

Sarah: I wrote about this on my, on my site, that you have two sort of perspectives that seem to come out: you have someone who goes into the romance community and comes out and does a sort of perspective of, I just went into Romance Land; you would not believe how crazy those ladies are. I barely made it out alive! It was terrible! They all read porn! Here’s a picture of Fabio, and that’s my segment. And then we had yours, which was like, lit-, one, one novelist named Bree Bridges was like, this was a literal fucking unicorn, this segment.

Faith: Aw!

Sarah: Like, you came in, and you were like, y’all, this is so great! Let me tell you all about it! And we don’t usually get that? So I just have to tell you –

Faith: I, I can’t understand –

Sarah: – thank you.

Faith: – why not! I mean –

Sarah: Thank you so much!

Faith: – I mean, I guess I’ll say you’re welcome, but that gives me way too much credit, because all I –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Faith: – all I did was, was, you know, you know, find someone to help me literally shine a light on it and, and turn on a camera and, and record what you all have to say, which is a hundred percent true and, shockingly, not amplified! For as, as important – I mean, let’s just talk business, right?

Sarah: Right.

Faith: Like, as, as important as the genre of romance is to the entire publishing industry, which is really not in a place to, you know, thumb its nose at anyone –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Faith: – I, I just, I’m, I guess I can’t understand why any kind of coverage of romance would not be positive and almost amazed. I mean, I’ve never, I’ve never been involved with such an open-minded, welcoming community, not to mention feminist.

Sarah: It is all true, and yet so often we get the, okay, so tell me about those horrible books that you read. Tell me about the sex scenes. As an example, before I spoke to your producer, I had received press inquiries, because it’s Valentine’s Day and that’s what happens, from reporters who were like, oh, billionaires are a thing in romance, and Donald Trump is a billionaire –

Faith: [Gasps!]

Sarah: – so he must have started that, and I was, I was like, I can’t even reply to this. I don’t have enough time in my life to correct this angle. Like, I, I don’t have the energy to manage that inquiry because it’s so incredibly wrong and horrible! And –

Faith: [Laughs]

Sarah: – I, I, then I, when I spoke to your producer I was like, please, please, please, don’t let this be the third, ‘cause these things always come in threes! Don’t let this be the third! The ques-, okay, so the questions that you asked and the questions that your producer asked were such from a different angle, I can’t tell you how rare that is.

Faith: Aw!

Sarah: Like, seriously, it was wonderful, so thank you for that.

Faith: Well, it is tru-, it is truly my pleasure and my honor, and I’m humbled by your thanks, ‘cause really, I, I feel like I did so little, and honestly, on, on Sunday Morning, we shoot a lot as, as you know –

Sarah: Yes.

Faith: – ‘cause I talked to you for well over an hour –

Sarah: Oh, yeah.

Faith: – and it gets, just because that’s the way the show works, it has to be edited down to, to such a minimal amount, so what, what was hard for me was knowing all the stuff that we couldn’t put in there! I mean, you know, I, I, as you know, I talked to Eloisa James in that segment, and, and hearing from her about how romance novels are, like, have huge audiences in, like, battered women’s shelters?

Sarah: Oh, yes.

Faith: And, and for women who are learning English as a second language –

Sarah: Yep.

Faith: – and just how important – and hospices!

Sarah: Oh, yeah.

Faith: For both, both the people who are dying and the nurses who are taking care of them and, and just how much, how big a role the, the genre plays in people’s lives at, at their most vulnerable or most meaningful times. I, I wish we had had time to include that as well.

Sarah: It’s very true, and when we as readers have books that we want to give away, the places that we give to are hospices, the homes where families live when children, children are receiving hospital treatment – like, sometimes it’s a Ronald McDonald House or a Kohl’s House – those have –

Faith: Yeah.

Sarah: – huge romance libraries. Nursing homes, both the staff and the women and, and some men who live there. It’s, it’s very much a genre of taking care of people, both in the people who write it and read it, and also what the books themselves do. Like, they have a job, and they do it really well.

Faith: So I didn’t even know this until I posted on my Facebook page, you know, posted a link to the story, that my oldest friend – and, and by that, she and I are the same age, but we met when we were six years old in CCD, which for people who aren’t Catholic, that, that is basically Sunday School – and she wrote her son was born with a congenital heart defect and I don’t know how many open- – he’s, I think he’s seven, and he’s had just countless open-heart surgeries, and after I posted this she said, I don’t know if you know this about me, but I, I read romance novels, and I became addicted to them during, I don’t know, Michael’s fourth or fifth open-heart surgery. I went through all of Julia Quinn, just those late nights sitting by his bed in the hospital, and –

Sarah: Oh, that’s lovely!

Faith: It was lovely, and it was so, it was so meaningful that, that she shared that. And then it’s also, I just have the coolest job in the world, because it was so cool that I, I got to talk to Julia Quinn, that I’ve gotten to, I’ve gotten to be introduced to this genre at the same time at the same time that I’ve gotten to be introduced to the people who write it. And in fact, tonight I’m lucky enough, I’m going to have a drink with Damon Suede, because when I interviewed him we totally hit it off because how can you not hit it off with Damon Suede? And, and so, you know, we’re, we’re meeting away from a microphone to, to chat.

Sarah: I love that! That’s awesome!

Faith: Do you think most of your listeners know who Damon Suede is?

Sarah: Yes, very likely.

Faith: Oh, good. Okay, you ought to.

Sarah: Oh, I absolutely do. Now, you told me that the first draft of the segment for CBS Sunday Morning was longer.

Faith: Oh, yeah! Always. They’re always long.

Sarah: And I love this, because, like, eight minutes is, on television is long, and you know, we’re all novel readers, so, like, wow, an eight-page novel would not make us happy, but that’s a long time in television.

Faith: Yeah, eight, it, it was about, it, it timed out to about eight minutes, and then as it aired, I think it was, I think it was about five. Yeah! It’s, it’s a terrible metaphor, but in, in television and in comedy, people call it killing, killing babies. You take, you take your favorite stuff, and you have to edit it out! So –

Sarah: In, in writing that’s kill your darlings.

Faith: Yes, exactly. I, I think I prefer kill your darlings better than – thank you, thank you for telling me that. [Laughs] I’m going to use that from now on.

Sarah: Yeah, it’s a little scary. I can understand not wanting to talk about killing babies.

Faith: [Laughs] So, so, yes, the, the, the story as it appeared on the page was much longer than as it appeared on the screen.

Sarah: Which is also pretty typical of any adaptation involving a novel for screen.

Faith: Yes!

Sarah: Pretty much. So with the behind-the-scenes process, do you spend a lot of time editing the segment, or do you hand that over to the producer and then look at the finished version?

Faith: I have very, very little to do with the actual editing. Sunday Morning has amazing edit-, amazing editors, and on that particular piece, you know, it depends on the piece and the producer and with whom I’m working, ‘cause there are lots of producers on the show. The producer of that story was Gabe Falcon –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Faith: – who’s wonderful and has, doesn’t he have a romance hero’s name? Gabriel Falcon? Isn’t that a great name?

Sarah: Seriously! Seriously, someone who is going to be listening to this is like, oh, I’ve got to write that down right now! Oh, my gosh!

Faith: [Laughs] Yeah. Gabe Falcon. And, and he –

Sarah: He’s definitely the Duke of Kluge.

Faith: [Laughs] Gabe Falcon, Duke of Kluge. I’m going to tell him to put that on his business cards.

Sarah: He’d better! [Laughs]

Faith: He, he did, like, he, he wrote the piece right away. He wrote the piece, and that gave the perfect skeleton off of which to work, and then I, I sort of went through – what I usually do is get all the transcripts –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Faith: – which are very long – it’s literally word by word of, of what you said and what I said – and I do what’s called selects. I just sort of highlight and, and cut and paste onto a new, onto a new document. These are the things that oh! I think everybody should hear.

Sarah: Right.

Faith: And when you tape as long as we did – because, as you recall, we taped for over an hour – there’s a, there’s a lot of stuff that I know we’re never going to use. It gets really detailed or digressive, not just with you but with anybody who’s talking –

Sarah: Oh, of course.

Faith: – and so I can, I’ve gotten to the point where I can easily scan down, you know, twelve pages of a transcript and know that, oh, we’re going to use these two sentences here and these two sentences on the next page, and so I sort of polished what Gabe put together, and, and we massaged the language a little bit, and then it went into editing. It was, it was very, it was a very quick process, which I, I have to tell you again, it’s, it’s unusual, at least from my participation in Sunday Morning, for something to move so fast. I mean, the story writes itself, and it was also such a nice story to hang on, you know, the sort of dual life of Eloisa James?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Faith: Because, because the fact that when Eloisa James started, you know, that is not, that, that is her pen name. You know, she is Professor Mary Bly in real life, and the fact that when she started becoming a bestselling romance novelist and couldn’t tell her colleagues and had to have this double life –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Faith: – I think that’s so emblem-, emblematic of the way that romance is, has been treated in our society, you know. Obviously less and less so, but women, women feeling ashamed or hid-, hiding what they’re reading –

Sarah: Oh, yes.

Faith: – is analogous to, to, to Professor Mary Bly having to hide what she’s so successful at doing for a living, which of course she doesn’t have to hide –

Sarah: Yep.

Faith: – and doesn’t hide anymore.

Sarah: It’s, it’s very true, and even when I introduce myself to someone and end up having the, you know, what do you do? conversation, I usually say I run a website about romance novels, and I get one of several responses, but most often from women I get – [gasps, whispers] – I read those all the time! [Normal voice] But it’s a whisper because they don’t want anyone else to overhear! With, with the Authorized segment, that was your introduction to romance, right?

Faith: Yes. I mean, unless you count Pride and Prejudice, with, which everybody who has a brain in her head, you know, read in high school and fell in love with.

Sarah: I do love that book, I have to say.

Faith: Oh, yeah.

Sarah: Although a lot of people don’t necessarily think of it as a romance, and you kind of have to argue with people. Like, nope, no, that’s a story of courtship and it ends happily, so structurally it has a lot in common with what you think of now as a romance novel.

Faith: I want to pursue that. I just also want to tell you there’s drilling four floors underneath me, so if –

Sarah: Fabulous!

Faith: – five floors, so if you hear that, I’m, I’m sorry. It’s not like I’m using a vibrator while I’m talking to you, or an electric toothbrush.

Sarah: If you were, I wouldn’t mind!

Faith: I know, you wouldn’t judge.

Sarah: Never!

Faith: Why would someone say Pride and Prejudice is not a romance novel?

Sarah: Oh, because it’s approved –

Faith: Because they’re being snobby?

Sarah: Yeah, because it’s approved as literature, and romance definitely isn’t.

Faith: Do you believe that romance is not literature?

Sarah: You know, it’s really interesting, ‘cause we talked about this when you were interviewing me, and then we talked about how Eloisa James had discussed it –

Faith: Yeah.

Sarah: – and she says it’s not –

Faith: Yeah.

Sarah: – and I say it is, but I think that what, what that means is that we are defining literature very differently between the two of us. I think it is. I also think that examining pop culture of any time period, now or historically, is a very important aspect of studying history?

Faith: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: So if you want to know what people were thinking or what people were really worried about or what they valued, look at what television or what radio program or what books were super popular. This is what, this is what drives me nuts about Entertainment Weekly Magazine? So they’ll have endless coverage about movies and then reality television and which reality show is most like this other British reality show? What happens when you put a bunch of people in a house and lock them in for five years? Like, the television section and the movie section reveal what, partially what, what has been placed in the magazine for whatever reason, plus what’s really popular.

Faith: Yeah.

Sarah: Here’s a thing that everyone’s talking about. We’re going to talk about this –

Faith: Yeah.

Sarah: – but with books, it seems like they have a very narrow definition of what –

Faith: Yeah.

Sarah: – to publish, because they’re not talking about what people are reading and talking about and discussing. They’re –

Faith: Yes.

Sarah: – they’re looking at a very, very specific and, I think, too narrow segment, whereas the television and movie coverage, and even the, the, I think once a month they do plays? That coverage is –

Faith: Yeah.

Sarah: – huge and broad, and they cover all these different things, and I’ve learned about so many cool movies that I never would have known about otherwise because it’s so broad, but with books, it’s so narrow! Like, they don’t look at what’s popular and what people are talking about. They look at a very specific segment, which to me comes across as, here’s what we think you should be reading. [Laughs] And if there’s anything that’s going to get my back up, it’s being told what I ought to be reading, because that’s the criticism that I think readers get most often. Oh, you shouldn’t be reading that! You should be reading this. Like, no!

Faith: I to-, I totally get it now. Yes, and –

Sarah: Yes.

Faith: – so your point is they, they profile what you should be watch-, consuming and what people are consuming –

Sarah: Yes.

Faith: – but when it comes to books, they’re not profiling what people are consuming, which in this case is romance.

Sarah: Yes, or they talk about what movie stars are reading, which I have to imagine when you ask a movie star what they’re reading, that’s not what they’re reading.

[Laughter]

Sarah: But that would be me being too cynical, probably, ‘cause I’ve had a cold. [Laughs]

Faith: Right, no, of course. For the next three months, every movie star’s going to be reading the new George Saunders, you know –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Faith: – novel that just came out, right.

Sarah: Totally. Oh, it’s amazing. I can’t wait to option it. Oh, okay, dude.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Sure, okay! So –

Faith: Actually, why aren’t more romance novels turned into movies?

Sarah: I honestly don’t know? I –

Faith: This is just, just popping into my head: why wouldn’t every single one of Julia Quinn’s novels be turned in, into a movie?

Sarah: I don’t know, because the period pieces that you see are romances, are most often Jane, Jane Austen. Like, even the most recent one with Kate Beckinsale, Love & Friendship, is based on a Jane Austen piece of writing, and whose name has just escaped my brain. I don’t see a lot of contemporary or historical romance, but then romantic comedy has sort of died a terrible sad death in Movie Land.

Faith: I guess it has. Yeah.

Sarah: So with Authorized, how are you liking the show? Are you done doing all the interviews, or is that still ongoing?

Faith: No, we’re, it’s still ongoing. So usually, I think the, this is the second season of Authorized. I did not host the first season. I think the idea is to have a different host every season, so –

Sarah: Yes.

Faith: – I was lucky and I got season two, which is sex and love in, in literature –

Sarah: Yay!

Faith: – or in, in writing, and I think they were planning on doing ten episodes, but we have found the topic so fecund that we are –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Faith: – that we are doing fifteen.

Sarah: Fabulous!

Faith: And as, as you know, it’s, we are not just covering what would be considered romance, but that was where we started, and that is turning out to be the, the heart, the heart of the season. But, you know, I just, an episode just aired where I interviewed Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet Sharon Olds about her, her new book Odes, which is a bunch of poems that have titles like “Blow Job Ode” or Ode to My Withered Cleavage [“Ode of Withered Cleavage”], “Douche-Bag Ode,” and, and she, she writes touchingly and, and very humorously and meaningfully about, about sex and, and intimacy. But, but, you know, it’s also been, as I, as I do this season of Authorized, it is interesting to me what, how, how elastic the, the word romance can be and, and where it bumps up against someone saying, well, no, this isn’t a romance, this is a love story, like Nicholas Sparks –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Faith: – who is, who is very clear that he does not want to be, he does not want his books to be considered romance.

Sarah: Yes.

Faith: [Laughs] Yes, do you have thoughts about that?

Sarah: I have many thoughts about that! How did you guess? This is actually a thing I’ve seen in a couple of male authors whose books have been about relationships or courtship or it, or, where the, were written variations on romantic comedy: they don’t want to be associated with romance, because they, I think, the sense is that it’s limiting, that once they’re put into the romance category they will never get out. And I’ve heard that among other authors. I can see why they feel that way. I wish they didn’t say it, but I’m not in control of that, so I have to just sort of say, okay! And also, I don’t think his books are romance either, because somebody’s going to die.

Faith: Yes, that’s true, and he, I mean, that’s, of the many reasons he gave, that is one of them. Like, that he is not, he is not writing towards a Happily Ever After.

Sarah: Oh, no, he’s writing towards happily ever cancer.

Dog: Woof, woof!

Faith: [Laughs] Oh, God! Although it is Happily Ever After at the box office for all of, all of his books, it seems.

Sarah: Oh.

Faith: And, and your dogs agree.

Sarah: Yes, my dog always agrees.

Faith: Big Nicholas Sparks fans.

Sarah: Apparently! I had no idea about this. I’m going to have to talk to him. [Laughs] With, with your CBS Sunday Morning pieces and with, with Authorized and with the other work that you’ve done, you have done a lot of interviews and a lot of conversations, and one of the things that I loved about your book Approval Junkie was when you talked about how everyone has the same internal insecurities and that famous people and powerful people who you look at and think, seriously, do you not have pores –

[Laughter]

Sarah: – will, will ask you, oh, my God, was I okay? I hope I was okay. And I had that same feeling. Part of it is, I have no memory of our interview. I know that it happened, and I know I was there, but I don’t remember what I said, ‘cause I was super nervous! That happens with everybody! Everyone turns to you and says, okay, was I all right? Did I do okay?

Faith: You, first of all, you did not seem nervous at all. At all, really. I mean, also because there’s just, there’s no question that you knew all the answers. You know what I mean? This is –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Faith: – this is your passion, and, and we of course came to you because you, you have an irreverent and eloquent way –

Sarah: Aw!

Faith: – of, of talking about what means so much to you and why it means so much to, to so many millions.

Sarah: Oh, thank you!

Faith: So you’re, so you’re very good at appearing self-possessed, and you looked amazing.

Sarah: All credit goes to the amazing makeup artist who came and did my face, ‘cause I can’t do that. She made me look –

Faith: [Laughs] I want you –

Sarah: – she made me look like I’d gotten, like, great sleep for the last ten years! It was amazing! [Laughs]

Faith: And you looked beautiful, and I wish she had just stuck around for me. But to answer your question, yeah, it’s very – I mean, look, there are, there are some people who, who don’t seem nervous at all and, and probably aren’t, but, you know, as, as I write in my book, you know, every-, I mean, if you’re human and if you’re honest and if you’re not, like, a psychopath –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Faith: – knowing that you did a good job, feeling, feeling like you were heard or understood, you made somebody laugh or you, you made someone applaud or you made someone say, wow, that was amazing! I never thought of that! That feels good, and so if, if someone doesn’t ask me how, I, I try to make sure that whomever I’m interviewing, be it somebody famous or someone who’s never been interviewed before – I often interview scientists; I have a show called Science Goes to the Movies, and many scientists have never been interviewed with a bunch of cameras in their face before.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Faith: And I, I try to make sure that they have no doubt that they’re doing a great job, and, and that’s, that’s part of the really engaged listening process so that at, at the end of, of our talk, they know that I heard them and, and they forget that there are cameras there and it, and it feels like a real, just a real conversation, so that they don’t have to ask, was that okay, ‘cause they know it was, you know?

Sarah: I also found it really interesting that when you interviewed me, you didn’t have questions written down. You sort of knew what you wanted to ask. Is that prep? Do you have a really good checklist in your brain?

Faith: Yeah.

Sarah: Or was that listening, because the thing I have learned from doing a podcast is building the question on top of what someone else just said.

Faith: Yes! That’s active listening. That’s exactly right. First of all, I, I should go back. I, thank you for reading my book; that means a lot to me. Thank you.

Sarah: I have many things to ask you about your book. I have, like –

Faith: Oh!

Sarah: – I have a whole, like, I have a list of things that I, I keep on my screen that I want to make sure I ask you about? But a lot of it has to do with your book, so get ready: I’m going to quiz you.

Faith: Oh –

Sarah: I’m just kidding; there’s no quiz –

Faith: – oh, gosh, okay, thank you.

Sarah: – there’s no quiz. Don’t worry. [Laughs]

Faith: But, but to answer your question, you, you have, you have figured out the art of interviewing. Not, not like I’m, not like I’m, you know, the, the master of it all, but, but you, you do, you come at it with preparation. I, I, I had a running start, right, with the romance thing, ‘cause I’ve been doing Authorized, and on the train ride down to D.C., I was, you know, I had looked at your website and read some of, some of the things you’d written a few days before, and I wrote down – the act of writing things down, I kind, I have a slightly photographic memory – I wrote down questions I knew I wanted to get to, but then, yeah, I have to listen to what you’re saying so that if you say something provocative or interesting or something I don’t quite understand, well then I must ask a question about that next, you know.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Faith: I can’t just look down at, oh, well, next – I’m not supposed to pursue that, that thought; I need to look down and go to my next question. That’s not, that’s not the art of interviewing, right?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Faith: I mean it’s kind of, it, it’s kind of – I don’t know if you ever did – you’re a very funny person. I don’t know if you ever did any improv comedy.

Sarah: No, I have not. Never.

Faith: Well, you, you intuitively understand how it works, which is, you know, listening and affirming what somebody says. Everybody calls it Yes, And… –

Sarah: Yes.

Faith: – and, and adding to it, right? So that’s what, that’s what a good interview, that’s what a good conversation is. I mean, you mentioned that chapter in my book; the, the reason I write an entire chapter in my book about what I learned by being a professional interviewer is because all of those skills can just help you be just a better person, a better friend, a better listener, a better parent, partner in, in real life.

Sarah: That’s very true.

Faith: I also feel like, I also feel like if I were looking, if I were looking at you as you answered my questions and in between questions looking down at a piece of paper on my lap every time? It would feel, it would, it would stop the flow of what feels like a genuine, organic conversation.

Sarah: Yes, because the paper is a party in the conversation that you can only talk to.

Faith: Yeah!

Sarah: Yeah.

Faith: And you, and you, on the other hand, I mean, you, across from me, would feel like part of a checklist.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Faith: You know.

Sarah: One of the things that I’ve been asked a lot when, you know, how do you figure out what to ask somebody, how, how do you, how do you create an engaged community on a blog? How do you constantly get comments? Because a lot of bloggers will measure their success based on the number of comments, and –

Faith: Hmm.

Sarah: – I’m always telling people, don’t do that, because for every one comment, there are at least ten to fifteen people who read it but just didn’t want to say anything. So you have to measure by some other indication.

Faith: [Laughs] Oh, yeah.

Sarah: The comments are not a measure of your success, and even the measurements that you do have are flawed. Facebook shares are controlled by an algorithm you have no access to. Twitter retweets and all of that Twitter attention: also controlled by algorithms you’ve no control over. The number of comments does not indicate the success or how you reached someone with a blog, but when I’m asked, you know, how do I develop a conversation, I call it the Valerie Plame rule? So –

Faith: [Laughs]

Sarah: – after Valerie Plame was outed as a CIA operative and everyone was like, how did you stay undercover going to nonstop D.C. cocktail parties with your husband? How did you do that? She said something along the lines of that there is nothing more addictive and intoxicating than saying to someone who’s talking to you, that is so interesting! Tell me more!

Faith: That’s right!

Sarah: And I’m like –

Faith: That’s right.

Sarah: – oh! That works perfectly, so if you’re in a conversation with somebody and you don’t know what to say, just ask them for more, and when you’re writing a blog post and you want people to, you want people to respond, the call to action is usually a question: well, what about you? What do you think?

Faith: Yeah, yeah! People, people are, people always want to be heard, and it’s so, it’s – you know, it’s funny, because my, my kids know now, they don’t, I have, like, five different jobs, and I don’t, I don’t think they know exactly what I do on all of them –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Faith: – but they do know that mommy interviews people, and they have, they have a doctor’s kit, and it has a real stethoscope in it, so they like to put the stethoscope on and then if you talk into the part, you know, that you put on your heart, they can hear themselves, so they use it as a microphone. And so they like to, they like to play interview, ‘cause that’s what mommy does, and it’s funny, ‘cause I was just explaining to my son, who’s four, the other day, he loves to ask questions, but he doesn’t wait for the answer –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Faith: – and I was saying, I was saying, Augustus – my son’s name – Augustus, you know, part of what, the, the really important part of an interview is after you ask the question to really listen. You have to li-, you have to stop and listen to what the other person says and not interrupt them with your next question. Now that’s a lot to ask of a four-year-old, but that’s exactly what you’re saying. We’re all so hungry to be, to be heard. We’re all so hungry to have some kind of, to be invited to share what we think. And I want to, I want to thank you, ‘cause I literally, I’m sitting here with my lavender legal pad in front of me on which I love to take notes, and I, and I just wrote success =/= number of comments, because when I, whenever I do anything on, especially on Sunday Morning, if I do a commentary, which obviously involves having an opinion – [laughs] – I, I, basically, the people who bother to write comments in that kind of venue –

Sarah: Oh, God.

Faith: – are the people who hate you!

Sarah: Oh, God.

Faith: So, right, yeah, the people who agree with me are probably not going to take the time to write, you go, girl! Or you, you nailed it, right?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Faith: It’s, it’s the people who – and I, and I think this is so misogynistic – I, the people who want to write and tell me, like, how ugly I look or, you know –

Sarah: Yep.

Faith: – how my voice is too high – I mean, how many men who have opinions on, on television or in media do you think get responses that, that take down their looks? I mean –

Sarah: Like, not ever.

Faith: Hardly ever, right? I mean, we all make fun of the way our president looks, but you have to. That’s patriotic.

[Laughter]

Sarah: So true.

Faith: But anyway, but you’re, but you’re right. That is, I mean, one does want to start a conversation, so it’s nice to see a bunch of comments, but you’re right, the number of comments cannot be a measure of your success.

Sarah: Weird, because in a lot of ways, you have to figure out how to measure success on your own rubric, on your own sort of scale.

Faith: [Gasps!] That’s my book! That’s my book!

Sarah: It is!

Faith: That’s Approval Junkie. That’s f-, yes, exactly, and, and, and people who are wiser than I figure out how to do it sooner in life, but, yeah, you have to come to a place where, where you know, where you’ve tried your best and, and done a good job, you know, according to your own definition.

Sarah: Yes. That’s absolutely true. There’s a, a wonderful book that I just read called Pretty Face, which is the sequel to a book called Act Like It, and if you like contemporary romance, you would love these books. They take place in the London theatre scene? So –

Faith: Oh!

Sarah: Oh, they’re –

Faith: So, I haven’t, I don’t think I’ve read any contemporary romance now –

Sarah: Oh, my God. I will send you –

Faith: – with all the – okay.

Sarah: I will send them to you.

Faith: Well, you don’t have to. I’ll write it down!

Sarah: Okay.

Faith: Pretty Face and Act on It, okay.

Sarah: Act Like It and Pretty Face.

Faith: Oh, Act Like It.

Sarah: So, the hero of Act Like It and his now-wife show up in the sequel, Pretty Face, and Pretty Face is about a woman who is blonde and buxom and has a really high, breathy voice, sort of like Marilyn Monroe. She, she got an acting job, and it was as the drunken, home-wrecking floozy on an evening soap in Britain, so she’s been hideously typecast, and she’s trying to get out of that. So she auditions for a, a very prestigious play as one of three Tudor queens. She’s auditioning for Elizabeth, and she gets the part, partially because the press of hiring that actress is going to bring attention to the show –

Faith: Hmm.

Sarah: – but then she starts to really have this wonderful and powerful, not even attraction – in the book they call it recognition? Like, they recognize each other almost immediately as –

Faith: Ooh, I love that!

Sarah: – fitting together, but he’s older, he’s the director, he owns the theatre. There’s, like, all of these reasons, and so there’s a lot of negative press about her and him and the play, and she’s always had negative press, and she’s always dealt with fans who will walk away and say things like, wow, she’s so smart! I thought she was just a dumb ho! You know, that kind of thing. And during the, during the book, the hero of the previous book, Richard, says to her – and I loved this so much, I had to write it down – play to the public, not your critics. The public has paid a lot of money, they’re there for a good time, and once the curtain is up –

Faith: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and they’re caught up in the plot, most of them are backing you. And I had to write –

Faith: That’s wonderful.

Sarah: Right? I had to write that down because it’s really easy to hear the people who are confident and able to speak up about how much they don’t like what you do, but most of the time the people who don’t comment, who don’t say anything to you, who just come back every day and read your website which is how you make, you know, a living, those are the people who are in your corner, and they’re glad you’re there.

Faith: That’s wonderful. Will you send me that quote, that quotation?

Sarah: Dude, totally.

Faith: Yeah, no, that’s –

Sarah: And speaking of quotations, may I please tell you I’d like to cross-stitch two things from your book?

Faith: Oh, yes, what are they?

Sarah: Okay. So the first one is, approval of your own life is called gratitude.

Faith: Ah.

Sarah: Okay, so that hit me right in the feels? All the feels.

Faith: [Laughs] Oh!

Sarah: It was like a direct punch to my deepest feels.

Faith: Mmm!

Sarah: Because it’s so true!

Faith: And, you know, it’s, for me it was, it took a, it took a long time to get there.

Sarah: Yes!

Faith: It took a long time. I mean, I lost my mother; I, my, my, my acting career wasn’t what I wanted it to be; and I was in a terrible marriage; and I didn’t know if I would ever – terrible first marriage – and I didn’t know if I would ever become a mother, which I desperately wanted to be. I didn’t even know where home was! And, and it sounds super Oprah, and interestingly, I was writing a, a column for O magazine at the time. I really –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Faith: – started cultivating, I really started thinking about gratitude. I really, it was, it was in my, it was in my, I’d say, my mid to, to late thirties –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Faith: – where I just started, and I had to be conscious about it. I’m like, felt, you know, they say, Teddy Roosevelt, I think, said, comparison is the thief of joy. And I –

Sarah: It’s so true.

Faith: It is so true! And I, and I just had to fo-, I kept making myself focus: here’s what you have. Here’s what you have. You, you are lucky, and, and the, and the more I focused on being grateful for what I had, the more I got.

Sarah: Oh, it’s so true.

Faith: And, and, and when I look back at what, what I was grateful for when I was in my late thirties, it’s amazing what came to me since then! I mean, since then I’ve had my, my career has, has blossomed, taken a new turn and totally blossomed. I have, you know, my, I call him my mensch in shining armor, my, my second husband, and, you know, as you know since you read my book, at forty-one and forty-three, I had the kids that I always dreamed of having. So thank you. I’m glad that resonated with you. I remember, you know, the – [sighs] – writing is so hard. It’s so hard. I mean, like –

Sarah: God, isn’t it? Holy hell.

Faith: – it’s so hard, and my hat is off to these romance novelists who turn out, like, one a year or more? How do you do that? But –

Sarah: Just wait till you talk to Nora Roberts; she’ll finish a novel during the interview.

Faith: I – [laughs] – I can’t, I just don’t know how, but writing my first book about my own life –

Sarah: Oh, God.

Faith: – and, and, and thinking also about what you just said, which was – and my husband was very good at reminding me of this, even though he didn’t want to read what I was writing – was, you know, think about what you want to say and to whom you want to say it.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Faith: Don’t, don’t, silence the critics in your head and, and the imaginary critics, you know, out there, that are, that are inev-, inevitably going to greet your book. And I did often think while I was writing my book, what, what do I, what do I want to share with, say, the, the, the early-thirty-something me who’s out there, maybe looking for a book that will, that will give her hope? That seeking approval won’t undo her, and someday she will win her own approval.

Sarah: Yes.

Faith: So anyway, I, I remembered the moment when I wrote that sentence. It kind of, it kind of came to me; it wasn’t something I’d been carrying around. It, it kind of came out of me: approval of your own life is called gratitude, and, and, and it’s, and it’s not something I’ve mastered. I mean, I still, I think we all, we, you know, I, those days when I’m most exhausted, I have to stop and think, why am I tired? Oh, I’m tired ‘cause I have the two kids I wanted so bad! I’m tired because I have four jobs, but do I love my career? Yes!

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Faith: You know, so.

Sarah: I also love the idea that you have to sort of take a look at your, the things that you have and ask yourself, well, does this make me happy? Am I happy about this? Okay, if yes –

Faith: Yeah.

Sarah: – then I should appreciate it, and if no, then maybe I can change it.

Faith: Yeah.

Sarah: And women, I think, more than anything, whether it’s, whether it’s because we’re reading a romance novel or we cut off our hair or we made a huge life change and decided to do what we wanted? Women are the recipients of so much messaging that you’re not supposed to do that. You’re supposed to be this one very specific narrow thing –

Faith: Yeah.

Sarah: – and if you are deviating from that, you’re doing it wrong. And I think that when you get towards your late thirties and into your forties, I have this theory has a give-a-fuck card, and with each advancing age, you get, like, ten less fucks.

Faith: [Laughs]

Sarah: So, like, I’m forty-one. On my renewal this summer, when I turn forty-two, I’m going to get, like, three whole fucks for the year, and I have to use them wisely about what I’m going to give a fuck about, so as you age –

Faith: [Still laughing] Oh, my God!

Sarah: – the fucks you have to give decrease substantially.

Faith: Oh, my God, you just nailed it!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Faith: It’s so – that’s your, that’s your next book! That’s so great! It’s so true! And I have to say, I mean, and I write, in, in my book I have this, the last chapter, well, the paperback version is about to come out in April and it has a new chapter, but the, the last chapter in the hardcover, I write a letter to my daughter, and I say, this, this letter is to my daughter and not my son because, you know, unless he identifies as a girl, this, this applies to you, Minerva, my daughter, because in, in this world we live in –

Sarah: What a beautiful name.

Faith: – women are subjected to so many different more ways to win or lose approval.

Sarah: Yes! We really are.

Faith: And, and you’re right, as I’ve gotten older, I mean, I, I’m also, I also think once you, if you become a mother, you, you just, you will undo yourself if you give too many fucks, right? ‘Cause –

Sarah: Oh, gosh, yes.

Faith: – that just opens up a whole range of things, new things on which you can be judged.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. I like to joke that it takes a village not to raise your child but to tell you how you should be raising your child.

Faith: [Laughs] Oh, my God! Wait! Hold on, I have to start cross-stitching everything you say.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Faith: I feel like you’re my therapist!

Sarah: And this is needlework with Faith and Sarah. [Laughs]

Faith: But I, I, I want to tell you, when I was, when I was reading, when I was reading your book, Everything I Know About Love I Learned from Romance Novels, I – I hope this doesn’t sound self-aggrandizing or self-satisfied, but you were talking about the heroine of a romance novel, in order to achieve her HEA, she has to, she has to come to – this sounds so simple, but it, for some of us it’s so hard – she has to figure out what she wants!

Sarah: Yes.

Faith: She really has to figure out what she wants, and she has to know she deserves it –

Sarah: Yep.

Faith: – and then she has to also ask for it –

Sarah: Yep.

Faith: – and when I was reading that, I thought, it made me think of my own life and, and the way I’ve written about my life in, in Approval Junkie, which is, that’s when my life changed.

Sarah: Yep.

Faith: I mean, when I, when I figured out what I deserved, which was to be loved for who I, who I am, that’s when I knew I had to get out of my first marriage. As, as painful as it was, and as addictive as it had been trying to seek someone’s approval, my ex-husband’s approval over and over?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Faith: ‘Cause we got into a really good fucking dysfunctional groove there –

Sarah: It was a bad cycle?

Faith: – and once you’re in a groove, even if it’s dysfunctional, you want to keep it going, right?

Sarah: Yep, bad cycle is still a cycle.

Faith: Yeah. And so once I, once I got out of that, now I wasn’t reading romance novels at the time, but maybe if I had been this, this would have happened with more alacrity, and also that, that put me on the path to, it didn’t happen right away, but it put me on the path to, to meeting a man who, who wanted me, miraculously, I don’t know why, just as I was and just as I am, and, and also – and of course you know this from my book – my first date with John, who is my second and final husband, God willing –

[Laughter]

Faith: – was the night before I started the process of freezing my eggs, and I, I think that, that’s not a coincidence. I had decided. I had taken life by the horns, and I had decided, I’m going to be a mother. I’m going to make this – this is what I want –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Faith: – and I’m going to ask for it; I’m going to do it. And so I was going to be a mother no matter whom I met, and then it just so happens that this man comes into my life when I, when I had the momentum of, of my own approval, right, behind me. So I kind of felt like, look, life’s not perfect, but I, I do have an HEA, and I, I kind of feel like, it made me look back on my life and think it’s a little bit of a romance novel!

Sarah: Well, part of, I think, being happy is liking yourself. The other thing that I want to cross-stitch from your book is, I started hating my body for being something that was growing without my permission.

Faith: Hmm.

Sarah: Oh, my God, the feels. So I am –

Faith: [Laughs] Did you have your period at eleven years old as well?

Sarah: Oh, yeah, and I wore a bra in fourth grade.

Faith: Yeah! Me too!

Sarah: But when you talked about that, I was like, oh, my God, I remember that feeling that I’m, I’m not in control of my body and it’s doing things that I don’t like, whereas in your book, you went in a very different direction. You controlled what you ate to an extraordinary degree and got praised for it!

Faith: Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, I was, I mean, I had an eating disorder. I got my own praise mostly. I mean, I finally, once I, once I could make my breasts go away and my, you know, period go away, I felt totally triumphant, and, and surely there were, you know, I was under a hundred pounds, but surely there were people who were worried about me, but I never, as an approval junkie, I never got so skinny, like, I never reached eighty pounds. I didn’t have to be put in a hospital?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Faith: You know, I wanted to continue to make good grades and, and be fairly perfect and, you know, and frolic around in, you know, pre-teen clothes. But, yeah, it tells you a lot about our society that, that when someone gets really, really quite skinny, it’s, there’s not a lot of opprobrium there. There’s mostly –

Sarah: No.

Faith: – there’s mostly validation.

Sarah: In this – speaking of Entertainment Weekly – in this past issue of Entertainment Weekly, there’s an interview with Emma Watson, and she talks about how when she would put on a pretty dress and put on makeup and go to a premiere, she would get hundreds and hundreds of times the, the positive feedback and praise than when she read an article and did research and learned something and wanted to talk to somebody about that. That, that looking pretty and adorable and beautiful was way more, it would create much more praise and interest than when she learned about something and wanted to tell somebody about it.

Faith: Yeah.

Sarah: It’s so true.

Faith: This’ll be very interesting as I raise, as I raise my daughter. You know, she’s, she’s two and three-quarters now, but this is – look, I hope she reads romance novels.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Faith: I hope, I hope they, I hope they teach her what’s, what’s important and what’s empowering.

Sarah: The one thing I love the most about the genre is that it is, in a lot of ways, our literary inheritance, because most readers discover it from either being given the books by an older female relative or friend or by stealing them from the secret collection of an older female relative or friend.

Faith: [Laughs]

Sarah: So you get, like, almost like a fifty-fifty split: did you steal them from your aunt, grandmother, mother/babysitter, or did they give them to you openly? And you’ll get a little bit of both.

Faith: That’s so sweet. I don’t know, for some reason it reminds me of The Red Tent, right?

Sarah: Yes!

Faith: It, it’s so, it’s so female-centric –

Sarah: Yes.

Faith: – and I love, I love that, even though there shouldn’t be any notion of subterfuge, I love that it’s still there a little bit.

Sarah: Oh, it’s very much there, especially if you’re giving the book to someone who’s, on the surface, not old enough for the content? Yeah.

Faith: [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh, yeah. So, this is, this is the genre that we pass down to younger women and share with them because it’s going to say, this is about you in a lot of different ways, and you are important, and so is your happiness, and this is, all of the, all of the genre is centered on insuring happiness, which is not something women are told that they deserve.

Faith: Well, what about you? Would you, would you encourage – I mean, I’m sure you’d encourage your sons to read it, right? Are they interested yet in reading what you, what you love to read and write about?

Sarah: No, no, they’re, they’re very much not. I am always interested in what they’re reading, though, because the books that they read –

Faith: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – are all so, so good. So good! And then they get freaked out because, you know, I’m fluent in their fandom, and that’s like, okay, Mom, I just can’t, no. I can’t –

Faith: Back off. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah. I cannot talk about Percy Jackson with you. Like, oh, come on! It’s such a good romance! That’s – I always like the kissing parts best, and they’re like, that’s not why we’re here. I’m like, okay! That’s fine.

Faith: [Laughs] You know, it would be great if young men would read, or blossoming young men would read romances to learn how a man should treat a woman!

Sarah: [Laughs] Yes. So the question I always ask at the end of my interviews is what are you reading that you want to tell people about? Are you working on reading a romance right now?

Faith: Oh. Oh, my – I have to read so much for the Authorized podcast right now. The book I just finished is erotica. It is not a romance. And let me get the – I’m walking to my bookstand – I just read Fantasian by Larissa Pham which is a, a novella, which couldn’t put down and was extremely erotic and very disturbing. But here’s a book that I’m also reading that I think your listeners would love, and maybe you’ve heard it; it’s called Unmentionable?

Sarah: Yep.

Faith: The Victorian Lady’s Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners? You’ve read this? It’s so entertaining.

Sarah: It is so entertaining, isn’t it?

Faith: Yes, and I feel like Therese Oneill, who wrote it, I feel like you and she would be fast friends.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Faith: I mean, she has, she has the, the hilarious, cheeky delivery that you have? So, yeah, that is, that has been a nice sort of side dish to read alongside, you know, the, the, the Regency, even though Regency is a different time period than Victorian, I think. Isn’t that right?

Sarah: Yes. Yes, it is.

Faith: Has been – yes, thank you – has been nice to read alongside the, the, the very proper and sparkling romance novels I’ve been reading.

Sarah: Carrie, who writes for me, reviewed that for the site and gave it an A because she just had the best time reading it.

Faith: Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s disgusting and fantastic.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Faith: And it makes you – and talk about gratitude – it makes you very happy you’re alive in this century.

Sarah: Oh, right? There’s, you know, since Outlander there’s been a lot of, well, if you could go back in time, would you? And there’s a lot of women on Twitter who are like, no, I’d die.

Faith: [Laughs]

Sarah: Like, I would lose access to the things that keep my alive on a daily basis, so no! [Laughs]

Faith: Yep. First I’d smell; then I’d die. I have to tell you, I haven’t read Outlander. So I interviewed Diana Gabaldon for Authorized because I have been taxed with writing a sex scene, Sarah.

Sarah: Ooh!

Faith: Yes. So I had to write one. I put it off, I put it off, finally last weekend, while my daughter was napping – because that’s how romantic my life is, my son and husband were asleep in one bedroom of our two-bedroom, small Manhattan apartment, and my daughter was napping in the other, and I had the baby monitor in front of me and chocolate, and I wrote the sex scene.

Sarah: That’s how they, most of them get written, to be honest with you.

Faith: [Laughs] Which – really, with baby monitors too?

Sarah: Oh, yeah!

Faith: Oh.

Sarah: Oh, yeah.

Faith: Oh, for a room of my own. And I, I wrote the sex scene; it’s highly embarrassing.

Sarah: Yep.

Faith: But I had interviewed Diana beforehand, because she wrote this, this book that was on Kindle – I, I think it was just released as an eBook – called “I Give You My Body…”: How I Write Sex Scenes?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Faith: And she’s so good at it! So she gave me some, a primer, but I’m, I have to take my sex scene to a Harlequin editor –

Sarah: Oh, my gosh.

Faith: – next week named Patience Bloom.

Sarah: Yep.

Faith: That’s her real name!

Sarah: Yep!

Faith: Is that the best name you’ve ever heard?!

Sarah: I, yes. It is –

Faith: Yes.

Sarah: – it is so great.

Faith: So Patience Bloom is going to give me feedback on my embarrassing sex scene. This is more a, an exercise in learning how a romance editor edits romance?

Sarah: Yep.

Faith: You know, this is, this is certainly not me saying, is this good? ‘Cause It’s probably not, but, but if, it’s very short. It’s, like, it’s, like, two pages. If you –

Sarah: It’s difficult, isn’t it?

Faith: [Laughs] It’s so hard! No pun intended.

Sarah: [Laughs] It really is difficult!

Faith: Oh, my God! Yeah, writing about, writing about my own life and, and, and the, and the darkness and the craziness and, you know, the time I, I let somebody pee on me and the time I tried to make Bill O’Reilly fall in love with me and all those terrible moments was so much easier than writing a two-page fictional sex scene!

Sarah: Yep, it’s very difficult. In my first book, Beyond Heaving Bosoms, there’s a choose-your-own –

Faith: [Laughs] Course it was called that!

Sarah: Course it was called that! There’s a choose-your-own-adventure section in the back where, much like the choose-your-own-adventure books, there’re four genres. There’s romantic suspense – or maybe it’s three – romantic suspense, contemporary, and historical – oh, no, there’re four – and erotica, and in the erotica we, we rigged it. The, the scene has no exit, so no matter what happens, you’re going to end up having round robins of sex with these four creatures over and over because there’s no exit.

Faith: [Laughs]

Sarah: But I had to write a sex scene with a vampire; a guy who had tentacles; a tanuki, which is a creature from Japanese folklore who would lure its victims in by turning its testicles into a, a storefront? And so I had to write about tanuki sex, vampire sex, tentacle sex, possibly werewolf sex? It was the most difficult thing. It was so, so tricky.

Faith: Okay, I’m glad you didn’t just say it was the most fun thing, ‘cause I just –

Sarah: No!

Faith: – I don’t have that gene. I mean, I guess for some of these amazing writers, it is fun, and it is maybe easy for Nora Roberts? I don’t know. For me it was so hard.

Sarah: It’s very difficult, and I also noticed that for my own experience as a reader, there are some writers who I know do the sex scenes so well that I’m excited and anticipating reading them because they’re beautiful, and then there are other times where I’m like, skip this page, yeah, okay, they’re still doing it, skip this page, yeah, okay, now they’re done; back to the dialogue.

Faith: Wait, but you just said beautiful. Beautiful, that’s the first word that comes to mind, not, like, totally hot?

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely.

Faith: Okay.

Sarah: ‘Cause they’re, they’re written in a way that is both erotic and lyrical, and it’s –

Faith: Hmm.

Sarah: – and it’s – a really good sex scene in a romance novel, in my never-humble opinion, is one that both creates a, like, physical experience for the characters but also creates an emotional experience for the characters? Like, there’s –

Faith: Yes.

Sarah: – the, the momentum of the story is going to keep moving forward –

Faith: Yes.

Sarah: – with the scene. I think it was Lisa Kleypas who said that a good sex scene will both solve a tension in the story but also create a mess for them to deal with. It’s going to make things better, and it’s going to make things worse.

Faith: Oh, when you said a mess for them to deal with, I was thinking much more literal.

Sarah: That is really a poor charge of phrase.

Faith: I was like, that’s disgusting, Sarah.

Sarah: That’s a really poor charge, poor turn of phrase. Well, done, Past Sarah! Yes.

Faith: So I recently met Lisa Kleypas and she gave me her book. I haven’t gotten to read it yet, but she is so adorable! So Southern and lovely, and I cannot wait to read her book.

Sarah: Oh, she’s such a good writer, too.

Faith: So can you tell me who writes you favorite sex scenes?

Sarah: Okay, so Lisa Kleypas –

Faith: One writer, one writer.

Sarah: Lisa Kleypas writes beautiful sex scenes. So does Julie Anne Long –

Faith: Okay.

Sarah: – who writes historical and also contemporary, but far and away, whenever I’m reading a Lisa Kleypas novel and I get, and I get to a sensual scene, there’s always, almost always a moment where I’m like, this is just beautiful, and I’m so glad I get to read this. Because in some books, the sex sort of brings a halt to the plot because they’re going to, you know, resolve all the sexual tension. Now it’s part of the story in such an organic and intrinsic way, and it’s written beautifully. She writes really beautiful sex scenes!

Faith: Okay. I have her book, what is it, Finding Mr. Something? Mr. Witherbottom? I don’t know. What is it –

[Laughter]

Sarah: Marrying Winterborne?

Faith: Yes, that one! [Laughs]

Sarah: Finding Mr. Witherbottom?

Faith: I’m sorry, Lisa!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Faith: Yes, I have that by my bedside, so after, after I get through the things I, I have to read for my interviews, I can’t wait to read that.

Sarah: Oh, it’s wonderful.

[music]

Sarah: And that is all for this week’s episode. I want to thank Faith Salie for hanging out with me, and I want to remind you if you are listening, I am giving away four copies of her book Approval Junkie, which is out now in paperback. You get your choice of format: paperback or eBook. The entry form is on the podcast entry at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast, and the giveaway will be open until Thursday, April 27th, so please head over and enter if you would like to win a copy, ‘cause it would be really cool. I think you’d really like it. It’s pretty personal, and you learn a lot about Faith, but there’s also that, just that chapter on interviewing and listening is something I’m still thinking about. So please stop by and enter; all I’m asking for is your email address, and I would never give it or share it or show it to anybody. It’s just so I can contact you if you win.

This podcast episode is brought to you by Kensington Books, who would like you to know about It Started with a Kiss by Ella Quinn. Fan favorite Ella Quinn is back with her signature blend of humor, hijinks, and high-stakes romance for another Worthington adventure. Thanks to their very large extended family and unconventional courtship, the Worthingtons have seen their share of scandal and excitement, but nothing has prepared them for what awaits Lady Louisa beyond the ballrooms of London. A handsome duke, perhaps? It Started with a Kiss by Ella Quinn is available now wherever books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com.

And our transcript is brought to you by The Romance Reader’s Guide to Life. Chevy Stevens, who’s the New York Times bestselling author of Never Let You Go, says that “The Romance Reader’s Guide to Life by Sharon Pywell is a fascinating blend of genres that flows together seamlessly, creating the most original story I’ve read in a long time. Partly narrated from the afterlife, this riveting suspense story manages to be darkly comic…while dealing with complex family dynamics that can fester for years. The second narrative, an intriguing pirate romance, is deliciously entertaining, but the real love story in this book, is the one between these sisters, and their bond that can’t be broken in any life.” The Romance Reader’s Guide to Life is a story within a story within a story. There’s the pirate romance, there’s this wonderful relationship between the sisters, and a world that’s determined to hold them back. The Romance Reader’s Guide to Life is on sale now wherever books are sold.

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater! You can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater. This is Caravan Palace. This is from their two-album set, Panic and Caravan Palace. This track is called “Pirates.” Appropriate, right? I was super excited when I found it. I also really like these tracks. They’re really fun music to listen to while you’re working, so if you haven’t had a chance, I will have links in the podcast entry; you can check out this two-album set. It is a great deal.

I will also have links to all of the books that we discussed, plus a link to the CBS Sunday Morning segment, Faith Salie’s program Science Goes to the Movies, and Authorized season two, a program from Audible. If you are an Audible subscriber, you already have access to Authorized, and both season one and season two are terrific. You’ll see a lot, a lot of authors that you really like interviewed in Authorized, and I, oh, I have to tell you! I can’t believe I forgot to tell you this! Seriously. There is an interview with Sophie Kinsella of the Shopaholic series? The interview with Sophie Kinsella is so great. It is so interesting, and her perspective on what you call “chick lit” is brilliant, but you should totally listen to that one. And the one with Beverly Jenkins, and the rest of them too. Whom am I kidding? If you’re like me and you walk the dogs or you go out and take a walk every day, this is a great, great show to take with you while you go.

And I want to remind you, if you’re still listening – hi, you’re awesome! – you can support the show at patreon.com/SmartBitches. We are so close to hitting my goal, I’m just blown away. Thank you so much for supporting the show and for having a look.

And if you’d like to win a copy of Approval Junkie, head over to smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast. You can enter in the little Rafflecopter box on the page by giving me your email address.

And that is all I have for this episode. On behalf of myself, both of my cats, Faith Salie, everyone here, we wish you the very best reading. Have an excellent weekend!

[lively music]