Smart Podcast, Trashy Books, May 19, 2017

 

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello, and welcome to episode number 247 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. With me today are Melody and Julia from Romancepodden. Romancepodden is a Swedish-language podcast about romance, and as they will tell you, it is the biggest romance fiction podcast in northern Europe. First, I’m going to embarrass myself with my extremely elementary Swedish, which I tried to learn in, in anticipation of their interview with me. We also talk about language, and we hear from Julia first. Then Melody joins us in the middle of the episode, so you’ll hear one voice, and then you’ll hear Melody come in. We talk about romance in Sweden, specifically romances that have been published in Swedish, and how those books and the reputation of romance in general have been changing. We also touch on how social policy in Sweden affects the performance of romance tropes that we’re pretty used to in American romance. And of course we talk about how they discovered romance and some of their favorite books.

Now, I am still working with the new equipment, and this was recorded at RT, so much like you learn your work-life balance, I am also working on my left-right balance, and I’m trying to make sure that it sounds like everyone is on the same microphone, as opposed to one person being in your left ear and the other person being in your right ear, so I did my very best. I so appreciate the feedback on the last episode. I am still working with this equipment, but, dude, it’s so much fun! And it’s super professional, and it’s really intimidating. So thank you for the kudos and for the suggestions.

And speaking of suggestions, I want to give some ample and bountiful thanks to my Patreon supporters because without them these interviews would not sound so good. If you would like to support the show for as little as a dollar a month, head on over to patreon.com/SmartBitches, and you can help keep the show going and generally offer a little bit of assistance in making sure that the show has transcripts and the equipment stays gnarly – gnarly being good, not bad. I also want to say that I’m building fun new bonuses and thank-yous for Patreon supporters now, so you guys can watch for that coming soon, and if you’ve had a look, thank you very much!

This podcast is being brought to you by Audible. Audible has an unmatched selection of audiobooks which I listen to while walking my dogs, and if you travel, let me tell you – or you’re walking or you’re just doing something – having someone tell you a story is so much fun. Now I have more narrator recommendations, because I heard from you that my last set were really good, so I’ve got more. I’ve got treats for your eardrums. You ready?

Okay, first of all, Joe Manganiello narrates Dragon Bones and Dragon Blood, the Hurog duology from Patricia Briggs, so if you like Patricia Briggs and you like Joe Manganiello, you should totally check that out.

I have also listened to Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari, and when you are reading something that you also wrote it can be a bit of a challenge. I have tried to narrate my own work, and it’s really very difficult; however, he’s really good at it, and it’s fascinating and very funny.

Now, another treat for your eardrums: “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving performed by Tom Mison who played – I hope it’s My-sun; maybe it’s Me-sun; now I should look it up – either way, he played Ichabod Crane on Sleepy Hollow, which was finally cancelled, but the first season was pretty rad, and his narration is terrific.

Two more to recommend to you: Stephanie Daniel narrates the Phryne Fisher series, and you know how much I’m a, I am a fan of the books and the TV series, so her narration is awesome, especially considering how many different core characters there are in that series. She does a brilliant job.

And finally, if you’re thinking, no, no, no, more romance fiction, Rosalyn Landor narrates so many excellent books: Julia Quinn, Courtney Milan – you’re not going to run out of books from Rosalyn Landor, and she’s brilliant. It’s like the audio equivalent of sitting in the most comfortable chair. It’s great.

So if you’re thinking, now I want to try, you totally should! You can get a free audiobook and a thirty-day trial at Audible.com/smartpodcast. That’s Audible.com/smartpodcast. If you use that URL, you will get a thirty-day free trial and a free audiobook, plus you’ll get exclusive programming from Audible, including Authorized, which, as I’ve been saying in other podcasts, is all about sex and romance, and it’s brilliant this season; it’s a really great job. So if you use that URL, Audible.com/smartpodcast, you’re letting them know that advertising on podcasts like mine is effective, and then you get all the good narrators! And if you want more suggestions, you can always email me. I will totally provide more audiobook suggestions. My dogs will also tell you we take really long walks ‘cause I’m still listening.

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. I’ll have information at the end of the show, as well as links to all the books and things we discuss.

But, in the meantime, without any further delay, on with the podcast!

[music]

Sarah: Here’s what I would like to try to do; don’t laugh too hard. I’d like to try having a very rudimentary conversation with you in Swedish –

Julia Skott: Go ahead.

Sarah: – because in preparation for this interview I started doing language training through my local library, ‘cause I speak English and Spanish, but I do not speak Swedish. Swedish is a little weird, linguistically speaking.

Julia: You’re weird.

Sarah: No, English is difficult, ‘cause there’re too many fricking words.

Julia: That’s ‘cause you steal all of them.

Sarah: Yes, we do! Shamelessly. So, the thing that tripped me out about Swedish was the, the different forms of the word “you”?

Julia: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: And the fact that there are no helping verbs, so, like, “is doing,” “is going,” there’s just “go,” and it’s, it’s like, oh, it’s just, it’s fascinating.

Julia: Yeah, we, we conjugate the verbs for the – I mean, I should say, I speak Russian as well –

Sarah: Oh, dude!

Julia: – and that’s where we get complicated. So –

Sarah: Yeah, that’s a whole other thing. So, hi.

Julia: Hej.

Sarah: Hur står det till?

Julia: Det bara bra. Hur –

Sarah: Bara bra tack. Okay, I, I just learned this one this morning; hang on. Oh, I can’t remember how to say nice to meet you!

Julia: Trevligt att träffas.

Sarah: Yes! Trevligt, trevligt –

Julia: Att träffas.

Sarah: – att träffas det nice to meet you?

Julia: Yeah, close enough.

Sarah: Okay.

Julia: Det samma! It means the same. Likewise.

Sarah: Oh! Vad heter du?

Julia: Jag heter Julia.

Sarah: I’m so excited!

[Laughter]

Julia: I am very, very impressed.

Sarah: Okay, this was like, this was lessons one, two, and three with a little mango who teaches me things, and the mango wears glasses that he – and there’s, like a –

Julia: Duo-mango? [Laughs]

Sarah: No, Duolingo, I’m trying to learn French. Duolingo is going to teach you how to say individual words –

Julia: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – but Mango is very focused on conversational language training?

Julia: Nice!

Sarah: So, there’s, like, a whole conversation. Hur står det till? Bara bra tack. Jag heter Eva, and vad heter du? Jag heter Kurt – so Kurt and Eva talk a lot. They’ve got a lot to say. But the conversational Swedish was super fun, and then there was one other, one other thing that I learned this morning when I was on the treadmill: excellent is utmärkt –

Julia: Utmärkt.

Sarah: Utmärkt, and then you’re welcome, I forgot. What is you’re welcome?

Julia: Var så god.

Sarah: Var så god. So, bara bra tack is very good, thank you –

Julia: Yeah.

Sarah: – so tack is thank you, and you’re welcome is –

Julia: Var så god.

Sarah: – var så god. Which is literally saying –

Julia: Be so good.

Sarah: – be so good. It’s all infinitive.

Julia: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: That was the part that tripped me out ‘cause I was like, so what parts of this word, what, what, ‘cause I’ve seen parts of this word before. I’m like, oh, it’s all infinitive!

Julia: [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s so cool! Okay, thank you. So now I feel super cool that I worked on my Swedish.

Julia: I, I think you’re super cool too.

Sarah: Oh, thank you! Well, I mean, I really think languages are amazing, and I also love that, you know, through my library I get free language training. I can learn Hawaiian, I can learn pirate, I can learn Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Hawaiian, yeah.

Julia: That’s really cool. Yeah, I, I mean, I grew up, I grew up with linguist parents, so –

Sarah: Oh! So you speak three languages?

Julia: I speak four languages pretty well: Swedish and – ‘cause my mother’s Russian, so I spoke Swedish and Russian, and I learned English on my own from TV when I was about six, and then Spanish in school, and then I speak sort of vaguely touristy conversational French and German and Italian-ish.

Sarah: Yeah, so is it true that you can understand Finnish and – ?

Julia: Not at all, because Finnish is its own language –

Sarah: No, Norwegian! Norwegian.

Julia: Norwegian, yes. Norwegian and Danish if I’m also drunk. Because they –

Sarah: I’m super fucking fluent in Spanish when I’m drunk.

Julia: [Laughs] Yeah, no, ‘cause, ‘cause Danish, Danish –

Sarah: You’re just multilingual in general when you’re drunk. [Laughs]

Julia: Yeah, no, ‘cause Danish is very sort of guttural and quick. So Finnish is its own language group. It’s the Finno- –

Sarah: Yes.

Julia: – Finno-Ugrian –

Sarah: Yes.

Julia: – and it’s only Finnish, Hungarian, and Estonian.

Sarah: Yes.

Julia: So.

Sarah: Which is why the Estonians and the, especially the Estonians believe that they are –

Julia: The Baltics are, believe they’re a Nordic, yeah.

Sarah: – a Scandinavia and they’re Nordic, and the other Nordics are like, not so much.

Julia: And Icelandic, you can sort of understand if you, if they speak very, very slowly, because that’s the way we all talked many, lo, these hundreds of years ago, and, but they’ve been so isolated that they haven’t evolved the same way.

Sarah: The, the same for me is true of listening to Cuban Spanish, ‘cause I learned Spanish in Spain with a very thick accent, and –

Julia: I learned, I, when I, ‘cause I went to high school in California and I had to unlearn my lisp, because I’d had a Spanish Spanish teacher in Swedish –

Sarah: Claro.

Julia: – so I had to unlearn my lisp, and then also, like, watching some Spanish and primarily Latino YouTube content, it’s also funny because I remember talking about both different parts of Spain and South America where they drop their Ss and all the different, so –

Sarah: Yep.

Julia: I love it.

Sarah: I had an Argentinean Spanish teacher, and I was like, what the hell did you just say? Because when you get an Argentinean going at full speed, they – I mean, every language sort of has a cadence and a song. The Argentinean is just, it’s like listening to someone speaking a language at regular speed, but the tone and the notes that they actually use is like, [sings the cadence of Argentinean Spanish], and I’m like –

Julia: It’s like Tom Lehrer doing ”The Elements” song.

Sarah: Right! You, I’ve had, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, what?

Julia: Yeah.

Sarah: I know that was Spanish. What?

Julia: And to get this back on, on podcast topic, Melody and I were joking before that we should, for RT next year, email the organizers and offer to do a workshop on Vikings for romance writers –

Sarah: Oh! Ohhh! Oh, please!

Julia: – to be like, this is, this is, come on, let’s, let’s talk about actual –

Sarah: Ohhh! Oh, my gosh, that would be so amazing, yes!

Julia: Which would also be hilarious, since both Melody and I look like the, the very archetype of Swedes.

Sarah: You super –

Julia: Tall, blue-eyed, blonde, slim, and silent, whole thing.

Sarah: Yeah. Not purple hair at all, no.

Julia: Yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: So let me back up, ‘cause we’re still waiting for one person.

Julia: Yeah.

Sarah: Would you be so kind as to introduce yourself to the people who will be listening –

Julia: Yes.

Sarah: – and tell us about your podcast.

Julia: My name is Julia Skott. I’m a –

Sarah: Jag heter Julia?

Julia: Jag heter Julia.

Sarah: Yes!

Julia: But I’m not going to do the rest for your poor listeners. I’m a journalist and writer in Sweden, and [Swedish accent] if you want to, I can do the accent, because sometimes people are disappointed that I don’t have the sexy accent. [American accent] Melody and I, along with three other friends, have a podcast in Sweden called Romancepodden, which is, we joke that it’s northern Europe’s largest romance podcast, which is true, but partly because we’re the only one.

Sarah: Dude! Take that and run.

Julia: Right?

Sarah: Right? That’s great promotion!

Julia: And, so what we do is we, generally we do, we rotate, so every other episode is what we call a book club.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Julia: So we’ve read a book, and we’ve told people about a month ahead what we’re reading, and then we talk about it. And every other episode is themed somehow. So we did an episode explaining how the British aristocracy system works or talking about –

Sarah: Are you saying that some people don’t get it right?

Julia: I know!

Sarah: What?

Julia: But just trying to explain it or talking about, I don’t know, underwear or, like, all these different things, both historical and contemporary –

Sarah: Right.

Julia: – and, and movies and stuff, and sort of, I think, what you have found is that romance readers are very happy to (a) find other romance readers and romance talkers and someone who talks about it with that certain combination of both respect and irreverence?

Sarah: Yep.

Julia: And who, who, I don’t know, we, we take it seriously, but we don’t take ourselves very seriously.

Sarah: Yes, I very much related to that.

Julia: Yeah.

Sarah: And, and when you really love something, you also have to acknowledge the parts where it’s ridiculous.

Julia: Yeah, and, and it’s, it’s, I think it’s also that thing where, you know, you can’t talk shit about my parents or my siblings.

Sarah: But I can.

Julia: I can.

[Laughter]

Julia: And because, and because, you know, it’s that thing also, I think, where it, you know, I love you and I know that you can do better. I love you, and for that matter, for that, because of that, I’m going to demand more of you.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Julia: And it’s, it’s also funny because the five of us, we joke sometimes that we are one of the few podcasts that aren’t two white guys talking about their phones sponsored by Squarespace.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Julia: But we are also actually, I think, both in Sweden and in the US, and, like, in the whole podcast – unfortunately, we’re in Swedish, so, I mean we can, we, we have some language, English language episodes, but we are actually one, I think, one of the more diverse podcasts in, in the Western world –

Sarah: Yeah.

Julia: – because we’re not all sort of white, Swedish born. We’re all –

Sarah: Aren’t you all DJs?

Melody: Hi.

Sarah: Hi! Hur står det till?

Melody: Bra! [Laughs] Tack.

Julia: We start-, we started the episode –

Melody: Okay.

Julia: – in brief conversational Swedish, so I was very impressed.

Melody: Oh, really! Wow! Wow!

Sarah: I learned very, ‘cause I knew I was going to do this –

Melody: Yeah.

Sarah: – I learned basic Swedish from my local library.

Melody: That’s awesome!

Sarah: Hur står det till? Jag heter Sarah.

Melody: [Laughs] That’s amazing!

Julia: It’s actually something that I remember living both in, in Massachusetts when I was a small kid and then in California is American libraries, as much as we sometimes mock American public services, I remember the library in Ocean Beach in San Diego where I lived, they had those rotating racks –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Julia: – of paperbacks.

Sarah: Spinners, yep.

Julia: Yeah.

Sarah: That’s where my romances were in my library.

Julia: Exactly, and they had this adorable thing where hardcover books you checked out, but the, the paperbacks, they just did, like, a little notation –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Julia: – on, like, a piece of, of index card, like the –

Sarah: They didn’t track them. They didn’t track them or circulate.

Julia: And I could, like, just take home ten or fifteen romances –

Sarah: Yep!

Julia: – be back four days later, return them, bring out ten or fifteen more, because that wasn’t accessible at my library in Sweden, and my mom didn’t really read romances, so I didn’t have access. I had, I started reading romances with, my, my sister’s a little bit older than I am and had, and she had romances that I think that she had, like, inherited from our aunts or something.

Sarah: It is –

Julia: I remember you talking about older, older female –

Sarah: It is always our literary inheritance –

Julia: Yeah.

Sarah: – that we inherit from older women around us.

Julia: Exactly, because I –

Sarah: Or steal from them without them knowing. 

Julia: Yeah. So either, either our aunt or our cousin was, I think, part of one of those, like, Harlequin book clubs, or I, I don’t even remember exactly how it was, but that’s where I found them, and then the library in, in San Diego is where I really fell in love with them because I had access to tons, and then what is kind of sad in Sweden is that when they translate Harlequins, they will often very much, like, simplify or cut out, like they’re translated very, very quickly, very, very cheaply, but they will also condense them, so –

Sarah: Yes, they, to fit to a smaller word count.

Julia: Yeah, which means that –

Sarah: The story is shorter.

Julia: – Harlequins, Harlequins have even worse of a reputation in Sweden, because a lot of times they actually are bad, which, which is –

Sarah: Oh, man! ‘Cause key moments have been taken out.

Julia: Yeah! And, like, just story development, character developments, and –

Sarah: It’s all gone.

Melody: They’re also censored to a certain extent, and –

Julia: Yeah, that’s part of it as well.

Melody: Which is weird, ‘cause we don’t have the same sort of sexual censorship in Sweden at all. Maybe –

Julia: Maybe they’re like, well, this isn’t going to be titillating to Swedes, ‘cause –

Melody: Yes.

Julia: – we, we sauna naked, so.

Melody: Or maybe it’s because they’re catering to, they think they’re catering to an older audience, and they think they don’t want to read –

Julia: Yeah.

Melody: – graphic sex scenes.

Julia: But again, they’re, they’re translated very quickly, so the language isn’t as good and stuff. Should we maybe introduce or – [laughs]

Sarah: I was just going to say, we’ve been joined by yet another person. Can you please introduce yourself?

Melody: [Laughs] Yes! My name is Melody Lovelin.

Sarah: Hello!

Melody: I’m a part of Romancepodden, the podcast I assume where Julia has introduced you guys to. [Laugh]

Sarah: Yep. And you, you are a Swede as well.

Melody: Yes, I am a Swede as well, though I have parents who are not.

Sarah: Sweet.

[Laughter]

Julia: Yeah, I was, I was telling her about how we are one of the most diverse podcasts in the Western hemisphere.

Sarah: She was saying, yes, we, we all look very Swedish. We’re all tall and blonde and blue-eyed.

Melody: [Laughs] Exactly.

Julia: Yeah.

Sarah: It’s a kind of narrow definition to try to adhere to.

Julia: Exactly. But that, that we have actual different backgrounds; we’re not, we’re not all straight, we’re not all – it gets, it’s a – I know!

Sarah: The devil you say!

Melody: [Laughs]

Julia: So, which is, which is funny. We’re all, you know, working in middle-class professions and all that sort of thing, and we’re all –

Melody: We do have the unfortunate matter of the fact that the only two non-white people in the show are related.

[Laughter]

Julia: They’re cousins.

Melody: Yes. We all know each other. How we –

Sarah: Well, there’s, like, nine total Swedes, right?

Melody: Yes.

Julia: Yeah.

Sarah: You’re both Swedes, and your, your podcast is in Swedish –

Melody: Yes.

Sarah: – and you talk all about romance.

Julia and Melody: Yes.

Sarah: Okay.

Melody: And it was – how much did you talk about how we started out?

Sarah: We haven’t actually gotten to that –

Melody: Okay.

Sarah: – ‘cause I have two questions that I wanted to ask you: (1) how did you come to start a Swedish podcast about romance? And (2) what is romance, the fiction, like in Sweden? What books do you get? What language do you read in? Because I’ve read a number of email messages that I’ve received from people in very far Eastern Europe who then apologize for their English, but they learned English purely to read romance, because it’s not translated into their language, and we were just talking about translation. So I’m really curious: what is romance as a genre like in Sweden?

Julia: Well, if we start with the podcast –

Melody: Yeah.

Julia: – it actually started as a regular book club.

Melody: Yeah.

Julia: Melody and I were in the same –

Julia and Melody: – French book club –

Julia: – so we read books about France and Algeria, just, like, France thematic –

Melody: – or translated –

Julia: Yeah.

Melody: – translated from French.

Sarah: Francophile.

Julia: Yes.

Sarah: Have you guys read Laura Florand?

Julia: No.

Melody: No, but I have her on my TBR.

Julia: Yeah.

Melody: So, after your podcast. [Laughs]

Julia: And then, and then Melody, and I think it was, we read Madame Bovary –

Melody: Yeah.

Julia: – and started talking about romance tropes, and Melody –

Sarah: There’s only a few in there.

Julia: Eh, just a, just a couple.

Melody: [Laughs]

Julia: And Melody and I started talking about the, somehow we discovered that we both read and like romance novels –

Melody: Yes.

Julia: – and we –

Sarah: Isn’t that always how it goes?

Julia: Right? And so we started talking about, like, we should just have, like, a romance, like, was it Learned Ladies Frilly Fiction, just, like, to –

Melody: Yes, ‘cause we kind of –

Julia: – talk about – yeah –

Melody: – borrowed – [laughs] – shamelessly stole your formula.

Sarah: That’s brilliant!

Julia: And –

Sarah: I love that name!

Julia: And so our first sort of book club meeting, we couldn’t find a time that worked, so we did it over Skype?

Melody: Yeah.

Julia: And so we were joking about how this is hilarious, we need to share this, and I think because we were all on headphones it probably triggered the thought –

Sarah: Oh –

Julia: – because I already, I already had a podcast and stuff –

Melody: Yeah.

Julia: – about knitting and, and we were like, we, we should try this.

Melody: Yes. And the thing was, too, that Julia is, she is a so-called self-taught romance lover, and I, the thing is, I was, my romance, my, my return to romance, ‘cause I wrote, I read a lot of romance when I was a kid, but I didn’t know they were romance, they were just the dirty books that I found at the second-hand shop – [laughs] – but I –

Sarah: A very common experience.

Melody: Yes. And I was looking for smutty fanfiction, and this was about maybe seven years ago. I was looking for smutty fanfiction, and I Googled smutty fanfiction where to find. [Laughs] Awesome Googler here. And I came on, and I found this site where there was a list of different fanfiction, fanfiction review sites, and one of those sites was like, this isn’t fanfiction, but it’s romance novels, and it’s really, really good, and that was your –

Sarah: Get out! Really?

Melody: It was Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and then I went in there –

Sarah: That’s crazy!

Melody: – and I, and I saw that you had sorted, sorted the, the reviews by grade, so I went to the A+ ones, and I think the first one, I just, ‘cause when I, when I got to the site I was like, [gasps!] my people!

[Laughter]

Melody: And I think, I think the first, the first book I read, I don’t know if it was, I think it was something by Tessa Dare. It was Before Sunrise, no, Before Midnight Something – I don’t remember, and –

Julia: ‘Cause there, there’s her whole hours of the day series –

Melody: Yes.

Julia: – which also I can never get the names right, which is which.

Melody: [Laughs] But I, I remember reading it, and I was like, I like this. I like it. This is all the stuff that I’ve been looking for, you know, ‘cause a lot of people that are on your podcast talk about it too, that they read fiction, and they kept magnetizing themselves to the romance plot, and they kept looking –

Sarah: Yes!

Melody: – for other books that also had a fleshed-out romance plot.

Sarah: Yes.

Melody: And when I read that I was like, this is all of that! I don’t need to look for the chocolate in the trail mix, I just, I have it all here!

Julia: And what, what I think is also fun about our podcast is that we are – I mean, again, in some, some ways we’re all, you know, educated –

Melody: Yeah.

Julia: – middle-class women, but also we have come to romance differently and at different points –

Melody: Yes. ‘Cause –

Julia:  – because Melody has infected people with romance.

Melody: Yeah, ‘cause that was my reaction to seeing that. It’s like, this is, I need, I need other people to know about this! [Laughs]

Julia: And to talk about this, so the other three have, I think, to various degrees, read, like, more classical ro-, like, well, you know, Jane Au-, like the things that we’re all –

Melody: Yeah.

Julia: – taught to read, but have come to romance as adults, and it’s also, something that we talked about that I find fascinating is that Melody has had a lot of shame about her romance reading –

Melody: Oh, yeah.

Julia: – whereas I was like –

Sarah: Oh, yeah, when someone has shamed you –

Melody: Well, I think it was –

Sarah: – you just internalized it.

Melody: I, I was, I – this is, this is a weird story that I’ll just keep really short – I used to be a part of the Church of Latter-Day Saints? I was a Mormon, and I was a Mormon until I was sixteen, and then I left the church. And during that, you know, that really, really important time, like, between twelve –

Julia: You’re a Forman.

Melody: – to sixteen – yeah, when I was, when I was becoming, getting to adulthood somehow, there was a lot of shame about, about sexuality –

Sarah: Yes.

Melody: – in general, and, and I was, I was really, I thought that all this – and I really, really liked romance when I was twelve. I mean, it was, I mean, yeah, it was – and, and I kind of felt that, no, this isn’t, this isn’t the right thing to do, this isn’t righteous, this isn’t what God wants me to do and all that crap. So, yeah.

Sarah: That’s really a lot to overcome!

Melody: So what –

Julia: It’s unfair that you can’t go like, I have, I have born witness to, to sex.

Melody: [Laughs] Yeah. But the thing was that when I was twenty, in, in my twenties and I discovered you guys, and I discovered these books, and I was like, [deep breath] this –

Sarah: You’re not alone!

Melody: Yeah, and I was, and I’d gotten rid of all that shame about my sexuality, and I felt like, okay, this time I’m not going to, I’m not going to go around hiding this and, and keeping it inside, so I spread it to Elin that is a member of our podcast and, and my cousin Nico and –

Julia: And Amanda.

Melody: And Amanda, yeah, ‘cause Elin spread it to Amanda. [Laughs]

Julia: Who is also a member of the podcast.

Melody: So this little –

Sarah: So you’re patient zero –

Melody: Yes.

Sarah: – in the infection of romance.

Melody: I have this –

Sarah: Well done! Good job!

Julia: Whereas I think I came in as the, I don’t know, the, the already-inoculated member –

Melody: Oh, yeah.

Julia: – because I think, whereas my experience is I grew up in a par-, in a family of, of academics, plus I was very, very ostracized and alone as a child, so I think, like, it’s not so much like, oh, I’m above the shame. I was just like, (a) I had the cultural capital to be like, well, I’m also fancy. (b) I was like, well, fuck it, I can’t do anything right anyway, but then I also have a Master’s degree in romantic comedies, and one of the things that I believe very passionately in is taking things seriously –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Julia: – and I do that as –

Sarah: The things that people love deserve serious treatment.

Julia: Exactly, and also part of it is that the things that people actually consume are more important to how society works and looks than the things that are art. Like, yes, it is important to get your Ph.D. in, you know, Bergman or Almodóvar or whatever, but the things that people actually watch is what also goes into their consciousness, and the stories that we learn about society, about men and women –

Melody or Sarah: Right.

Julia: – about love, about all these things, you know, the, the things –

Sarah: It’s popular culture.

Julia: The, and, and the very, like, the lowest of the low popular culture is also what you turn on when you need a break, when you need, like, you turn off your brain, and it just goes straight in, for better or for worse.

Sarah: Yes.

Julia: But I, I very much, like, I believe in taking trash culture seriously as literature, as film, not just as entertainment –

Sarah: Uh-huh.

Julia: – and I believe very much in taking the things that women consume that are therefore the trash of the trash –

Sarah: Oh, yes.

Julia: – seriously.

Sarah: Yes, please!

Julia: But I also love talking trash.

[Laughter]

Julia: I love just, like, you know, talking about things bo-, again, like, we talk, we, we take the subject seriously, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously.

Sarah: Yes.

Melody: And it’s liberating. I think our podcast, and our book club before that, is a form of, of, like, mental liberation in a lot of ways. ‘Cause I often want, when we guys meet, I feel like, I feel a little exhausted afterwards, like I’ve –

Sarah: Oh, yeah!

Melody: – like I’ve expended a bunch of energy by, by, this, all this pent-up energy that I’ve been holding on that I can’t really talk about at my job where I, I work –

Julia: Yeah.

Melody: – I work as a radio, I work as a journalist for a pop culture radio show, and strangely, we can’t talk about romance.

[Laughter]

Julia: But my, my original point was also that it’s –

Sarah: Whaaat?

Julia: – it’s funny that the other three, because they’ve come to romance as adults, they’re sort of, they go into it beyond the shame –

Melody: Yes. Yes.

Julia: – ‘cause they’re just like, hmm, whatev-, like, because they’ve had the chance to evolve and, you know –

Melody: Yeah.

Julia: – as you say, get down to the number of fuck cards, they actually have any –

Sarah: You get, like, two.

Julia: – like, they’re already there. Yeah.

Sarah: You get, like, two.

Melody: [Laughs] Exactly.

Sarah: You’re not going to go anywhere with those.

Julia: But, yeah, no, and, and, I don’t know, also, like, there’s something very powerful about women talking to women without apologizing for it.

Melody: Yeah.

Julia: Like, it’s, it’s –

Sarah: Oh, so true.

Julia: Like, just, you know, support your local girl gang.

Sarah: Yeah.

Julia: To be like, you don’t have to apologize for liking to hang out with women and for liking to talk about –

Melody: Yeah.

Julia: – women things.

Melody: [Laughs] We, we also had a similar experience that you guys have with your, your blog that I, well, personally, I didn’t think anyone would listen to us, because I didn’t –

Sarah: Oh!

Melody: – think we were that many, and then –

Sarah: Who’s going to take, who’s going to listen to this?

Melody: [Laughs]

Julia: Yeah, anyway, it’s, it’s been fun to have, you know, the, the book column of Sweden’s, Sweden’s largest newspaper talking about how –

Melody: Oh, yeah.

Julia: – you know, she wants to spend the rest of her life on a fainting couch eating bonbons and listening to us, and you go, oh, okay, okay. [Laughs]

Melody: Us, really? [Laughs]

Julia: And, and it’s just, I think it’s, it was like this collective, I don’t know, like combination of a, of a sigh of relief and a sigh of pleasure and a sigh of, like, contentment and safety, just like everyone went, ohhh! Yay!

Sarah: Yes.

Julia: Because –

Melody: I kind of get the impression that a lot of people that listen to us were like, I, I didn’t know I wanted this. I didn’t know this was, this was something that could exist –

Sarah: Or I –

Melody: – in a Swedish context, at least.

Sarah: And I didn’t know that, that the thing that I loved had a name and that there was so much of it, and there were other people –

Julia: Yeah.

Sarah: – who could tell me about it? Like, that’s another discovery I think people have a lot too. Like, oh –

Julia: And what I think is fun is that also people listen to us who don’t really read romance.

Sarah: Yes, I’ve had that same experience!

Julia: Because they’re like, well, it’s, like (a) you can listen to smart and funny people talk about a thing they love and it’s just like, this is fascinating, but again, it’s literature.

Melody: Yeah.

Julia: Like, I might not listen to a sports podcast, but I can listen to a generalized TV podcast and still listen to the episodes about the shows I don’t watch.

Sarah: I can listen to a conversation about just about anything if the people who are having the conversation are into it. I could know –

Julia: Exactly.

Sarah: – absolutely less than anything about it. There’s a lot of sports talk radio in the United States where it’s one guy yelling in a room. Like, One Guy Yells at Self is so boring to me. Like, I just don’t give a shit, and I’m like, this guy’s just yelling at himself, but when you have two people who are having a conversation, well then that’s just legitimate eavesdropping, and that’s totally fine!

[Laughter]

Julia: Yeah, like my, my – this is funny. I, I, we’ve been married for almost seven years, and I still – no, wait, six years – and I still call him my boyfriend, and I have friends who go like, that’s not – and I’m like, but I’m sorry! But he will sometimes listen to some of the podcasts I make. He’s not a knitter; he’s not a romance reader –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Julia: He likes the one I make where I just talk to people who, I have one that literally is about talking to people who are super into a thing, and it can be anything.

Sarah: I love that.

Julia: And they just get to talk, ‘cause I also love people who are –

Sarah: Enthusiasm is wonderful!

Julia: Exactly. But, like, he will sometimes listen to an episode or two and be like, well, I don’t get any of this, but it’s hilarious!

[Laughter]

Julia: And he’s like, you guys –

Sarah: I have the same reaction if my husband says –

Julia: – you guys talk –

Sarah: – he listened.

Julia: – you guys talk about weird Vikings, and you said funny things, and also you said penis, tee-hee!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Isn’t it a little alarming when your spouse listens to your podcast?

Julia: Not at all.

Sarah: Well, for me, every time my husband’s like, oh, I listened to the last episode, I’m like, why? Why? Why?

Julia: I think, I think –

Melody: My boyfriend is forbidden. He can’t, he, I don’t, I won’t allow him.

Sarah: Aw.

Melody: ‘Cause he will, he will bring that stuff up in other conversations, and I’ll be, I’ll get super, super paranoid about, when did I tell you that, that – ? [Laughs]

Julia: I know, I think one of, one of my, one of the facets of my, I don’t know, package of social dysfunctions is that I just go, meh!

Melody: Yeah.

Julia: Like, my –

Sarah: Oh, well.

Julia: – my, my –

Sarah: Your give-a-fucks have run low.

Julia: My give-a-fucks have run low. I, I think it might even be that, like, I have them; I just don’t see them? I’m like, they’re in another purse; it’s fine!

Melody: [Laughs]

Julia: So I’m just like, whatev-, ‘cause some, I think I just feel like my husband – always when I give speeches at weddings, I tell them about the thing that my parents sort of gave me within their own marriage. They will say to each other, you knew who I was when you married me, and, which you can say either in a fight or just, like, as a joking thing –

Sarah: Yeah.

Julia: – and he knew who I was. He knew that I like penis jokes –

Melody: [Laughs]

Julia: – and bad puns –

Sarah: Yeah.

Julia: – and that I read a lot and all of these things, and we, we were talking before the podcast about how Finns are at the very extreme of introversion, and my husband, his parents are a Swedish elementary particle physicist and a Finnish woman who also has a degree in physics, so they are not like me? They’re a bit more –

Sarah: Quiet.

Julia: – reserved. I mean, they’re, they’re very nice, and they talk. They’re not, it’s just like they’re –

Sarah: They’re very reserved!

Julia: They’re more reserved. They warm up, but –

Sarah: Extreme introverts.

Julia: – but they have also accepted me. They, you know, they went like, okay, so she is loud, and she has tattoos, and she has a degree in something very weird, and I mean, sometimes, sometimes it’s hilarious where, you know, my, my, my father-in-law, he finds proof of the Big Bang in measuring devices in the ice in Antarctica, and I will go, I talked about anal in history today!

Sarah: Wow!

Julia: Or, like, I wrote a column about this thing. But they’re, they’re wonderfully supportive, and I think also my, my mother – again, I grew up with academics – my mother is a children’s and young adult literature scholar. She has her own research center at Cambridge University, as one does, so –

Sarah: As you do.

Julia: Yeah. So I grew up also having a lot of discussions about low culture, about things that, you know, aren’t taken seriously or that aren’t, you know, that, that people think –

Sarah: Yeah.

Julia: – anyone can do as well, because that’s a very interesting parallel. People figure that anyone can write a kid’s book, and people think anyone can write romance, and, like you were saying, the, the main difference is that this is culture created by and for the same people. Somebody before at the breakfast this morning, somebody was walking around handing out promotional cards and stuff. Well, it was like take a picture with this quote posted; have a chance to win. It doesn’t say what you can win, which is weird?

Sarah: Yes.

Julia: But, and she said, ‘cause I have my, my green doohickey on which says Published Author, and she said, oh, you’re a writer; I don’t know if you want this, and I was like, this, if anyplace, should be the place that they know that is the same thing.

Sarah: Yep!

Julia: I am a reader as well. This –

Sarah: Well, I don’t know very many romance authors who aren’t also romance readers. I only know, I can think of, like, three total.

Julia: Exactly, and it’s, at a place like this, there are certain, certain, like, weird safe spaces like this. I joke that it’s wonderful to not have to see a man for three days unless you want to, except the, the cover models. We don’t have cover models at yarn fairs, but here we do, so there are men.

Melody: [Laughs]

Julia: But it’s also the fact that even though there are, obviously there’s the famous people, the people who make lines, the people who do all the things, but those people will also squee at each other. You know that Alyssa Cole has someone she really wants to meet here, and Alyssa Cole probably, you know, has someone she follows on Instagram who maybe has a blog, maybe, like, it’s the, it is a slightly more even playing field. There’re still the stars, but those stars will hug people –

Sarah: Yep.

Julia: – which is, it’s not like a, a, you know, a sci-fi convention where you, like, you have the stars, they sit behind the table, you pay fifteen dollars to take a picture with them. So –

Sarah: Yeah. That’s not the case here.

Julia: – the readers are the writers, and people really, really love the genre, even, even the people who some would claim are just like, you know, hacks, or not hacks, but just, like, churning out stuff, or even the people who are professional writers in the most literal and boring sense, like bread writers, are still like they love the genre, so it was really funny that she was like, I don’t know if you want one of these cards, and I’m like –

Sarah: Yeah, of course!

Melody: Course!

Julia: – dude, bro! Lady! What?

Sarah: Of course!

Julia: And, and that’s something that I just think is so amazing, to have a community that is so very much, like, insular in the best way!

Sarah: Yep!

Julia: That is of, for –

Sarah: We are all caring for each other.

Julia: – by, and – I don’t know.

Melody: We don’t – and just to turn, like, that to your other question about Sweden, ‘cause we don’t really have those kinds of forums in Sweden, not when it comes to romance, because the industry isn’t, isn’t as big, isn’t as big there.

Sarah: Is most of what you see American authors?

Melody: We, I mean, we read mostly American authors?

Julia: Yeah, I, I think what it is is – and I think part of that, that is that the Harlequin thing has sort of not necessarily tainted, but there’s this idea that that’s what romance is, so we’ve had a very, very large chick lit industry?

Melody: Yeah, right.

Julia: Both importing tons of British, primarily British but also a lot of American chick lit, but also we have had a lot of Swedish chick lit, and the way that, that we separate out, like, chick lit/women’s fiction, the way we generally separate it out, in the podcast but also when you looking at publishing, is romance, in, in romance the Happily Ever After is the coupling. In chick lit or women’s fiction, the Happily Ever After the development of the character.

Sarah: So, like –

Julia: There’s often a dude, but the, the goal isn’t a –

Sarah: That’s part of it.

Julia: Exactly, like –

Sarah: It’s not the only thing.

Julia: Exactly, so –

Sarah: So, Kajsa Ingemarsson –

Julia: Yeah.

Sarah: – is chick lit.

Julia: Exactly.

Sarah: I read that as Yesterday’s News, but I think in Swedish it was “Little Yellow Lemon”?

Julia: Yeah.Små citroner gula.

Sarah: That’s it! Yeah, so, small citron.

Julia: Yeah. And so, so –

Sarah: I frigging loved that book, but that is –

Julia: Yeah, no, and there’s, but it’s chick lit. Like –

Sarah: – about the heroine. It’s not just the romance.

Julia: – and – exactly. So we’ve had a lot of that, you know, the, the shoes and purses books. The, the pink, the pink and pale blue, and I don’t mean that – I’ve read so many of those books, and I often love them. They can be amazing.

Sarah: No, that’s how you describe the genre.

Julia: Exactly.

Sarah: It’s not pejorative at all.

Julia: And, it’s funny, again, this is the place where I shouldn’t have to do that, but I still want to make sure that people don’t think that I’m the snooty, but, but –

Melody: Yeah.

Sarah: You, you’re using language in a nonjudgmental fashion –

Julia: Yeah.

Sarah: – that other people might use in a judgmental fashion –

Julia: Exactly.

Sarah: – but what we’re, what, what you’re doing is identifying pieces of a genre –

Julia: Yeah. And –

Sarah: – and how it’s marketed towards women.

Julia: – and what is kind of, what is kind of funny now, because HarperCollins is making large pushes over the last year or two in, into Sweden and to, so, who owns both Avon Books and Harlequin in Sweden and stuff, and so you see they’re making a push both of translations and they’re working with Swedish authors. We have Simona Ahrnkvist, who has –

Melody: Ahrnstedt.

Julia: Ahrnstedt, I’m sorry. Simona Ahrnstedt – feel free to edit that, ‘cause I’m not, I do know her name; I just have – Swedish names are, like, in, in two parts, and they’re, like, usually, kvist means, like, a twig –

Melody: Yeah.

Julia: – and it’s, so they’re nature pieces, and I can never, like, so it’s like –

Melody: Yeah, mountain best –

Julia: Stream.

Melody: – stream. Mountain twig, mountain tree. [Laughs]

Julia: And it’s –

Sarah: So Ahrnstedt is – ?

Julia: Well, Ahrn is a name, and stedt –

Melody: It’s, it’s German, I think.

Julia: Yeah.

Melody: It’s, it’s, it’s not, but it’s, it’s formulated in the same way.

Sarah: So pieces. So there’re repeated pieces –

Melody: Yeah.

Sarah: – that show up in a lot of –

Julia: Yeah, and they, and I, I have weird aphasia for that, so, sorry.

Melody: A lot of people have stedt –

Sarah: It’s okay! I don’t ever remember the title or the author.

Julia: Yeah.

Sarah: Okay, so the cover had a woman in a yellow dress. Go find it.

Julia: Yeah. So, Simona Ahrnstedt has, she started out writing historical romance set in Swedish history, which I thought was really fun and cool, and it’s more feminist and smart than a lot of English-language historical, like medieval romance.

Melody: We have this, we have this, like, total – do you guys say turkey in English? Like a, like a, there’s a series of books that’s written kind of like old-school romances, Grotbjornens Folk.

Julia: Clan of the Cave Bear.

Melody: Yeah, yeah. It’s the, but it’s got, it’s got a lot of, a lot of romance and nudity and sex in it, but it’s –

Julia: It’s, it’s American books.

Melody: Are they American books?

Julia: Yeah, Jean Auel is –

Melody: I – [gasps] – I’ve been –

Sarah: Clan of the Cave Bear is American, yeah.

Melody: Oh, my God, oh, my God, I’ve been thinking these are Swedish for years!

Julia: Oh, no, no, no, they’re huge.

Sarah: Oh, no, no, those are –

Julia: They’re huge.

Sarah: – those are some seriously –

Julia: Yeah. But –

Sarah: – pulpy fantasy/science fiction –

Melody: Okay, I feel really ignorant right now. [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s okay.

Julia: No, I love you, but –

Sarah: Don’t worry about it.

Julia: – so, Simona Ahrnkvist has been sort of pioneering first historical romance and then contemporary romance, sort of turn-, like, very much concentrating on romance-romance –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Julia: – and HarperCollins is now both finding Swedish authors and doing translations, but I, what I find fascinating is that a lot of the review copies that we have been getting, it’s like they’re trying to, I don’t want to say trick people, but the graphic language still feels very chick-lit-y, and sometimes, like, you’ll have historical romance that has to me a sort of sweet women’s fiction cover –

Melody: Yeah.

Julia: – which I feel you will not get the buyers who want historical romance, and if you buy it thinking that you’re getting sweet women’s fiction you’re going to be disappointed and annoyed, so I think that they’re still find-, like, the, the Swedish romance market is still finding its language –

Melody: Yeah.

Julia: – finding its courage –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Julia: – and Simona Ahrnstedt, actually, her contemporary romance novels have also come out with different covers. Like, it’s almost the Harry Potter thing –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Julia: – which I don’t – we’ve talked about this a little bit. It’s like, it’s like they’re even not entirely sure if they’re doing it so that people can read them without feeling shamed or to get people to pick them up and find them interesting.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Melody: Yeah.

Julia: And I, I, I think it’s fascinating to, to talk about covers, but it’s, it’s that thing where they’re still trying to figure out what are we doing, how do we reposition both, you know, the Harlequin –

Sarah: Right.

Julia: – concept and the romance novel in general, and part of that might also be just that we have a very different history of, of sexism and –

Sarah: Yes.

Julia: – marriage and, for that matter, even just like, to get super nerdy and stupid about it, to be like when you have social safety nets, marriage isn’t the same kind of Happily Ever After. To be –

Sarah: No, it isn’t.

Melody: Yeah.

Julia: – like, if you want to –

Sarah: Happily Ever After –

Julia: If you want to really pull it to it, to its extreme –

Sarah: Means something different.

Julia: – means something different and, you know, be, we don’t have the same kind of shame or complication for getting pregnant, getting ruined, all that stuff, and I don’t, I don’t know if I’m maybe reading too much into it, but I think it’s, when the structure is different, it’s the same as, like, historical romance is very satisfying to read and write because the stakes are massive, whereas in contemporary romance, you really have to find something else, ‘cause you’re like, it’s not like, oh, no, I was in the room with him! What shall I do? You have to do something else, and I think maybe, on, on that scale, from, like, historical or, like, Regency to contemporary American, and then even further along that is, is Swedish where you go, eh – [vague muttering].

Melody: ‘Cause I, I personally have a hard time reading Swedish romance. I’ve tried a few times, but for me it’s, it’s part of what Julia says, that it’s the tension that is existent in English/American contexts is kind of gone.

Sarah: It doesn’t exist in Sweden.

Melody: Yes, and there isn’t that sort of sexual shame and fear.

Sarah: So you’re not so super big about, like, secret babies? Not so much.

Julia: [Laughs]

Melody: Ah, no, no, nope, nope, not that many secret babies, and, and in a way –

Julia: Plus we have fewer billionaires, so –

Melody: Yes.

Julia: – there’s that.

[Laughter]

Melody: And, and –

Julia: And no cowboys. We have, we have farmers –

Melody: Yes, we have farmers.

Julia: – and they have cows, but –

Melody: Or pigs!

Julia: Or pigs, but we, we are not ranchers – [laughs] – in that sense.

Melody: We don’t have many romantic stereotypes to build tropes around in the, to the same extent. But it, that’s, there’s also the fact that, just as Julia says, the, the industry and the market is kind of finding its legs, and in that process they’re going through a lot of the same motions that you can see in the American romance industry from, like, thirty years ago in that a lot of the romance that you read right now rarely find, they rely heavily on the tropes, just like category romance does.

Julia: It’s, it’s a little bit like how romantic comedies and horror movies in the early 2000s were like, how do we deal with cell phones?

Melody: [Laughs]

Julia: Like, if you can either Google or you can text someone or you could, like – how, how do we work around –

Melody: Yeah.

Julia: – this, and I think it’s a little bit the same thing where you’re like, so, how, how do we find our tension?

Melody: Yes. And there’s a lot of, you know, you can either choose medical romance – there’s medical romance, there’s finance romance, and there’s – what’s the third one? There’s, like, or maybe it’s, like, countryside, ‘cause it’s the, it’s sort of the rancher/Western kind of –

Sarah: City/country.

Melody: – yeah.

Julia: But it’s more, but it’s more small town rather than country –

Melody: Yeah.

Julia: – which is, yeah.

Sarah: Right, small town, big city.

Melody: Yes, and, and that is kind of, when you’re, when you get spoiled like we do with American romance and the, and the, and the variation and diversity and the enormously creative ways that people have worked with tropes, it’s kind of hard to go back when you’re reading a lot of Swedish romance. Not to say that there aren’t amazing Swedish romance writers.

Sarah: But the tropes and the tensions –

Melody: Yeah.

Sarah: – and the obstacles are different.

Julia: Yeah, and so you, you have to, it’s not even a re-invention, it’s just like you have to find your speed and your thing, and it’s, it’s that thing where you have different languages – it’s, it’s not the love languages of, like, touch and stuff, but you have different languages of love, different languages of misunderstandings and, you know, communication and, and, and that whole thing.

Melody: And to be a little crass, I can’t read Swedish sex scenes. I, I, I cannot.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Melody: I, I can’t, hello, I start to blush, and I get that sort of secondary shame thing, like, oh, no, no, no, no! It’s like watching a –

Sarah: It makes you –

Melody: – an episode of Extras or The Office.

Sarah: It makes you cringe.

Melody: Yes.

Julia: [Laughs]

Melody: Oh, so much cringe. I’m sorry, but it’s – and it’s not the author’s fault. It’s just the fact that Swedish sex, sex words terrify me. [Laughs] It’s –

Julia: And we, and we use –

Sarah: But when you read them in English –

Melody: Oh, no, it’s fine, it’s fine!

Sarah: It’s fine.

Julia: And we, we will sometimes use –

Melody: I guess ‘cause English is the language –

Julia: – and we will sometimes use them on the podcast just to make her uncomfortable –

Melody: Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. It’s like –

Julia: – because we are bad people.

Melody: – it’s like people hating the word moist, and then people keep mocking them with it? It’s, that, that’s kind of what they do with me. [Laughs]

Julia: Yeah. Yeah, we, we sometimes have to almost –

Sarah: That’s hilarious.

Julia: – remind ourself during the podcast that we actually love each other –

[Laughter]

Julia: – because all five of us, you know, we, we know each other to this point, you know, all of our, you know, tastes and catnips and weird hang-ups, and so we mock each other, and then we have to go, wait, no, I – but I, I think, for instance, right now I’m, I’m working on a series of knit lit contemporary romance, very sort of cozy, small, small conflict, because I, I love almost all types of romance, but I do sometimes feel like I just want to read something that is not going to make me cry. Some-, or that is going to make me cry a little because, oh, you dumbasses, and then I go aw! And I’ve been sort of going back and forth, ‘cause I’m writing it in, in English, and I’m going back and forth between, like, should I – ‘cause right now it’s set in a small town in Oregon, because, you know, you want to sell it in America primarily, and then you go, but should it be set in Sweden, because then you get, like, ooh, this is exotic, but then they’d be super disappointed because they’re not all tall and blond. Like, you know what I mean? Like, ‘cause –

Melody: You, you kind of, yeah, ‘cause there’s a Swedish trope too. There’s a Viking trope, and there’s a, there’s a lot of clichés, and you kind of want to, in romance you have to play with them rather than subvert them completely.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. It’s true.

Julia: Yeah, and I think that that would be, that would be a different book. That would be, you know, like the –

Sarah: That would be a very different book.

[music]

Sarah: And that is all for this week’s episode. I want to thank Melody and Julia for hanging out with me. They did an interview with me for their show, and they did a whole bunch of other interviews at RT, so as those episodes appear on their podcast, I will make sure to link to them. Most of their podcast is in Swedish, but there are a few English episodes, and I will link to Romancepodden so you can check it out. It’s really kind of cool. I mean, not even kind of: it’s very cool.

I also want to thank Audible for sponsoring this episode, and I want to thank you, you, you for listening. If you have told somebody about the podcast or if you’ve left a review on iTunes or Google Play or wherever you get your podcasts, you are being super-awesome human beings. You’re just making the world a better place, and you’re helping other people discover podcasts, which apparently are the coolest thing. I mean, I’ve always known that, because I wanted to have my own radio show, so now I talk into an Amazon box with sound foam in it, and I got my own show! It’s pretty rad!

And if you would like to support this show, I’m not going to upgrade my sound box ‘cause the cats love it too much, but I am working with new equipment, and that is all thanks to Patreon supporters. So if you have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches, you can make a monthly pledge for as little as one whole dollar, and you are making a gigantic difference in helping me produce a better show each day. I really appreciate your support, and I really appreciate that you’re listening.

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. This is Caravan Palace. This track is called “Lazy Place.” I am entirely in favor of all lazy places; I presume reading happens there. This is from their double album, which includes Panic and Caravan Palace. I really like pretty much every song on this album, so if – double set, actually, two albums. So you can check it out at Amazon or at iTunes, and you can check out Caravan Palace on Facebook and on their website, caravanpalace.com.

I will have links to all of the books we discussed. I’ll also have links to Mango, which is the language software that I used through my library to try to learn Swedish, very, very elementary Swedish, purely for this interview. Now watch, I’ll end up in Sweden for an extended period of time and only be able to say hi, how are you, what’s your name? But if you have a public library who subscribes to Mango, that means you can learn languages through Mango. Mango is not paying for this placement. Mango has nothing to do with me, but I really enjoyed using it. I use Duolingo, and I used Mango, and I found both of them really fun. I’ll also link to Romancepodden and Scandinavia and the World, which is a terrific web comic that we talked a little bit about too.

If you would like to email me suggestions or ideas or questions, please do! It’s super awesome to hear from you! Our email address here is [email protected], or if you’re thinking that’s a little hard to remember, you can try [email protected].

Orville is now on the desk. He is here for sound engineering purposes and also flopping over on my keyboard! Oh, crap! Please don’t re- – oh, my God, he’s rearranging the sound files with his butt. Life is great! Okay, let’s rescue the equipment from my large cat’s butt. He’s totally on the mouse; I can’t stop recording now. Isn’t that great? Totally great! Give me my mouse. Give me – [sighs] – literally, the mouse is under his guts. I can’t, I cannot at this time. I can, I can only can. I cannot. Or, no. I can’t. Whatever it is, there’s a, there’s a cat, and he took my mouse with his, with his gut. I, like, literally can’t see it on my desk. So anyway.

On behalf of Orville, who’s now taking up sixty-five percent of my desk, and everyone here and the lovely ladies of Romancepodden, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a great weekend.

Now how am I going to stop recording? I need the, I need the mouse. Can I have the mouse, please? What, which part of you is it – give me the – [scraping noise] – all right, there. Finally! Got the mouse out from under the cat.

Have a great weekend.

[strolling music]