We’re recapping all kinds of stuff this week, and today: our top five podcast episodes from 2018!
These are the top five most listened to Smart Podcast, Trashy Books episodes of the year – and thank you to everyone who listened, recommended, shared, and posted about the show. Special thanks to all our Patreon community members, who helped shape this season and keep the show going each week!
5 – 286. The Importance of Friendship, Writing, Great Lipstick, and Romance: An Interview with Jasmine Guillory (February 16)
Today, I’m chatting with debut author Jasmine Guillory. Since we recorded this interview, The Wedding Date has come out, and it was a USA Today bestseller – congratulations, Jasmine! We talk about the excitement of pre-release and the stress of balancing book releases with real life, and what brought Jasmine to reading and writing romance. Some of her favorite books involve characters who lead busy lives and love their careers, which informed her own writing as well….
This was a fun interview. Jasmine talks about writing her own catnip, and her first book. Since this episode, her second book, The Proposal, came out and hit bestseller lists. Congrats, Jasmine! My favorite part of this episode: Jasmine solves the mystery of why and HOW I always get lipstick on my glasses, AND the source of one of my reading catnips, and she recommends lip stains in brilliant reds that always work for her.
4 – 285. Labyrinth, Girl Scout Cookies, and Good Book Noise: An Interview with S. Jae-Jones (February 9)
Amanda and I interview S. Jae-Jones, also known as JJ, about pretty much everything. Ready to learn? JJ was kind enough to answer all our nosy questions and our conversation was a LOT of fun. We cover a bunch of topics, including:
How being an editorial assistant prepared her for a career as an author – and what secret knowledge (not really secret) she shares with fellow writers.
How Labyrinth, Phantom of the Opera, the myth of Hades and Persephone, The Magic Flute, fanfic communities, and fandom terms influence her writing.
How she navigates the issue of sexxytimes in YA with her own writing.
And, in a key portion of this interview, we discuss the parameters of identifying Which Girl Scout Cookie Are You? Spoiler alert: Amanda has very strong opinions about peanut butter, Girl Scout cookies, and oatmeal.
Amanda is SO much fun to podcast with, and her love of S. Jae-Jones’ books made this interview tremendously enjoyable – to say nothing of the debate about Girl Scout Cookies, which got rather intense. Our conversations this year in several episodes touched on fanfic and fandom communities, shipping and pairings, and those conversations are always so interesting.
3 – 282. Sleuthing, Victorian Women, and Dick Jokes: A Conversation with Deanna Raybourn (January 19)
A Treacherous Curse, the third book in the Veronica Speedwell series is out, so I chat with Deanna Raybourn about the book, the series, and more. We start with dick jokes because obviously, but we also talk about writing mysteries, research, dealing with grief in characters, and the perils of sleuthing. We also discuss similarities and differences between mysteries and romances, and the spaces that are created by women-centered stories in both genres.
Dick jokes! Victorian lady sleuths! And more dick jokes! If you’ve never heard Deanna Raybourn, she’s hilarious, very sharp, and always a pleasure to interview. There’s a lot of overlap in my reading this year between romance and historical mystery, and the centering of women in both genres is something we talk about as well.
2 – 281. Alyssa Cole and Alisha Rai: Romance and the Resistance from Politics and Prose (January 12)
Thanks to Politics and Prose on the Wharf, I have the audio of the November 29, 2017, panel with Alisha Rai and Alyssa Cole, Romance and the Resistance. We talk about their favorite scenes in one another’s books, and which character is an homage to Alisha’s dating life (heads up for the Alisha Rai Dating Story Fans, we have a great one in here). We also discuss joy, romance, and the ambition of happiness as elements of resistance, how to persevere with happiness when things around you are bleak, and what happens when you Google “sexy grilled cheese sandwiches.”
Live show, live show! Live recordings of the podcast are always fun – and if you’d like me to host more of them, please drop me a note in the comments. This was made possible by the lovely folks at Politics and Prose on the Wharf in DC, and this conversation covered a lot, all in front of a full house of romance fans on a very rainy and cold night.
1 – 290. The Art and Magic of Designing Book Covers: An Interview with Regina Flath (March 16)
Today I am speaking with Regina Flath, Designer, Illustrator, and book cover designer at Random House Children’s Books.
This podcast was suggested by a listener named Hannah, who heard Regina Flath speak at a panel at NY ComicCon. Regina is a designer who specializes in YA covers – and her bio is adorable. It says she’s “100% constructed from witchcraft, yarn, sewing needles, and snacks. She’s a friend to imaginary creatures everywhere.” Regina is also the designer behind some very popular covers, including When Dimple Met Rishi.
We had a LOT to talk about. You’ll hear behind-the-scenes details of cover development, the fun parts and the awful parts, and the jobs a cover has to do beyond looking alluring on a digital or physical shelf.
If you like behind-the-scenes insights on how your favorite books evolve into the finished visual product you see on the shelf, this episode will be very appealing! Regina shares the process of developing the cover for some of our favorite books, and her work as a designer in the YA genre. There’s so much and so many people behind-the-scenes who work on the books we love, and it’s always a pleasure to talk with those who are equally passionate about books.
What do you think of the top five? What episodes were your favorites this year? Let us know what you’d like to see next year!
I don’t listen to all the podcasts, but the one with Victoria Dahl (aka, Victoria Helen Stone, author of JANE DOE) was very interesting, touched on a lot of important topics, and discussed a number of good books.
The general book discussions between the Bitches are alway my favorites. 🙂
You know, I loved the interview with Talia Hibbert. It didn’t deal with heavy subjects, but she and Sarah were just having so darn much fun. Just sayin’
Your “Yuri on Ice” episode was such a shock; it was two of my favorite things coming together. Please do more episodes about anime!
The Courtney Milan / Yuri! episode was my favorite of the year, but so many good ones!
I too loved the Talia Hibbert interview! Thought it was the most interesting author interview on the podcast ever (and that is saying a lot).
My very favorite though are the episodes with the Bitches.
Third-ing the Courtney Milan/Yuri on Ice episode. I’d listen to either of those separately, let alone together (seriously, at this point I would listen to Courtney Milan talk about just about anything because I love pretty much everything she says on twitter). AND ICE ADOLESCENCE IS COMING OUT IN 2019, so MORE YURI ON ICE OK. In general I really like the episodes where people talk about somewhat random stuff rather than sticking closely to their own books–I especially love historical tangents.