546. Love and Mayhem with Ali Hazelwood

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Sarah Wendell: Hello and welcome to episode number 546 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell. My guest today is Ali Hazelwood! Ali has a new anthology out in print called Loathe to Love You, so we are going to talk about, well, the anthology and the novellas inside it, but also we talk about her becoming a full-time writer and the pitfalls of a creative outlet that you love becoming your job. Then Silly Questions. I decided that 2023 is the year of Silly Questions, so I hope you enjoy them.

I have a compliment this week. Makes me so happy!

To Abby G.: Biologists have discovered a new bird. It is rare, it is beautiful, its song makes the whole forest be quiet for just a moment, and they are naming it after you.

If you would like a compliment of your own or you would like to support the show, please have a look at our Patreon at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Every pledge means that the show keeps going every week, and I have a finely crafted transcript from garlicknitter, and you get bonus episodes and a really lovely Discord that is now one of my favorite places on the internet.

Hello and thank you to our Patreon community. You are absolutely fabulous today and every day.

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Are you ready? Let’s do this! On with my podcast with Ali Hazelwood.

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Sarah: I love that Nicolas Cage looks over your shoulder?

Ali Hazelwood: Thank you. Yes.

Sarah: You’ve crammed him into a little box.

Ali: Yeah, it’s a – look how well he fits! And he came before the bookshelf. Like, I’ve had him for years, so –

Sarah: Wow!

Ali: – it truly was only – we were meant to be together. Yeah.

Sarah: It’s, it’s really, it’s really just incredible how perfectly his head –

Ali: It’s true.

Sarah: – fits in the shelf.

Ali: Truly, yeah. It was a whole meant-to-be thing, or I, I can only assume that IKEA knew that one day people would want to cram him inside their bookshelves.

Sarah: They, they must have known. They –

Ali: I mean, who, how could they not?

Sarah: I mean, the needs of your Nicolas Cage sequin pillows. I mean, I imagine there was a meeting, right? Like, at IKEA HQ?

Ali: I’m, I’m sure; I’m sure. It was a very urgent meeting.

Sarah: Very urgent.

Ali: Everyone was like, are we addressing this very important issue?

Sarah: Yeah. These are the things that shoppers are looking for right now; we know this from the internet.

Ali: Yeah.

Sarah: Any questions for me?

Ali: Ahhh, no, I don’t think so!

Sarah: Okay. Much quizzing. Much hard questions here.

Ali: I, I, I’m going to, I, I’m ready. I have studied; I have prepared.

Sarah: You’ve done events with me; you know I bring weird questions.

Ali: I know. It was amazing, by the way. I, I think, I don’t know if I ever told you, but after our event with Christina and Lauren in DC, I was moderating my friend’s launch – it was Ali, Ali Brady’s launch for The Beach Trap –

Sarah: Ooh!

Ali: – and I did it, like, I did it like you did it? I did like a Jeopardy! type of thing? I totally copied it from you!

Sarah: Oh, that’s so great!

Ali: It was amazing. I also kind of did the thing that you did, where you kind of hid unexpected questions behind the cards? It was, I had so much fun creating those questions, I, I want to moderate in that style until the day I die. Amazing!

Sarah: Oh, that’s so cool! I had so much fun putting it together too? Mostly because when you’re, when you’re on stage – and there were four authors; it was you, Christina and Lauren, and Kate Clayborn. That’s a lot of voices? And –

Ali: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and it was a lot of people, and having lots of different questions and making it sort of like interactive trivia is really fun. I’m so glad it worked for you!

Ali: [Laughs] I know!

Sarah: All right, this is the only awkward part here. Would you please introduce yourself and tell the people who will be listening who you are and what you do.

Ali: Hi, everyone! My name is Ali Hazelwood, and I, I guess I am a writer. I, I’m still –

Sarah: I think so. I think so.

Ali: I’m still coming to terms with it. I, my impostor syndrome is, is really high, and I recently left my other job to just write full-time, and it’s been really weird. Like, my, my neighbors ask me, What do you do? And I’m like, I just, my impostor syndrome is too bad to say I’m a writer, so I’m like, every time I’m like, I, um, I dunno, I don’t know what I do.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Ali: Well, yeah, I am a writer!

Sarah: I think you, I think you qualify!

Ali: Okay, yeah. I mean, I do write, right?

Sarah: Yeah!

Ali: So yeah, I’m a writer of mostly rom-coms, well, romance novels, and my first book was The Love Hypothesis. It came out in September 2021, and then my second book, Love on the Brain, came out in Summer 2022, and they’re both rom-coms about women in STEM, and yeah! That’s who I am.

Sarah: Congratulations on becoming –

Ali: Thank you.

Sarah: – a full-time writer!

Ali: Thank you. It’s, it’s actually, it’s just like a one year trial period, I have to say. We’ll see what happens.

Sarah: I remember very clearly – I can tell you the date that was my last day of work before I quit to run Smart Bitches full time, and that was in 2010. It’s been almost –

Ali: Ohhh!

Sarah: – thirteen years now. And I, I, I remember so clearly, like, being at home like, What, what do I, what do I do with myself? What am I supposed to be doing right now? Because writing was something, and running the site was something that I had crammed into every spare moment around my job –

Ali: Yeah.

Sarah: – and then suddenly the job wasn’t there anymore, and I was like, Well, what do I, what do I do? What do I do all day?

Ali: I know. This is just generally terrifying because it go- –

Sarah: It is very scary.

Ali: – it goes from this fun hobby to this thing that you simply cannot do as well as your full-time job and to this thing where like now kind of my livelihood depends on whether I do well in that, in that fun hobby thing?

Sarah: Oh yes.

Ali: So it’s, it’s really, there is a lot of anxiety here. [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh yes! And every year, like right now it’s December, so for my business I’m starting to, like, do all my year end annual reports and stuff like that, and every year there’s a moment where I’m like, still here! Still running a blog! Which is a very old technology, but I’m still here. You are going to do great. It’s going to be amazing.

Ali: Oh, thank you!

Sarah: You’ve got this.

Ali: Thank you! This is really inspiring, though. It’s, it’s really inspiring to get, like, positive stories of people who were able to go from, you know, just a hobby to – not just a hobby, but, like, from hobby to –

Sarah: Livelihood.

Ali: – this is my full-time – yeah.

Sarah: And there’s, there’s some danger there. I mean, I often struggle with the fact that I made my job out of the thing that I love? And so I have to stop and think, okay, you need to do something that’s not writing, that’s not reading, that’s not reviewing. You need to turn off your brain. What are you going to do? And I have a very specific list, because it’s really easy for me to just work all the time, ‘cause I love, I love my job! I made up my job –

Ali: Yeah.

Sarah: – of course I love my job! But I also need to not do my job? So my, my one piece of advice would be to have a list of things for you to do that are not work.

Ali: Totally!

Sarah: Because you need to rest to replenish all the creativity.

Ali: Mm-hmm. Totally, yeah. And, and I actually, I have the opposite problem. Like, I, I, because I used to write just in those, like, small times –

Sarah: Yeah!

Ali: – like, little times, and now that I have an entire day I will just not do anything for five hours, and then I’ll be like, oh crap, I just wasted five hours. I must, must write four thousand words in the next hour! It’s that panic moment.

Sarah: I understand completely. But no time is wasted: rest is important, and when your –

Ali: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – when your brain can’t produce the words, there’s a reason for that.

Ali: I hope so.

Sarah: My other, my other piece of advice, my other piece of advice, if you don’t mind one more?

Ali: Oh no, please give, give me all of them.

Sarah: I think, for me, when I was trying to run the site and do a full-time job and I had little kids, the thought for me was, Oh, okay, if I did this full time, here are all of the things that I could do in addition to writing and promoting: I could build this; I could, I could be on this social media platform; I could be doing all of these things. And when it was my job, I had to actually think very strategically, Okay, what do I actually want to do, and what’s going to be a good return on my time? Because, just because I have all of this additional time doesn’t mean I need to be present on every single platform out there. And this was, this was twelve years ago; we didn’t even have half the platforms that we have now. So –

Ali: Right.

Sarah: – I had to think strategically, What are the things that are actually going to help me build a livelihood that I enjoy and that I like doing?

Ali: Of course, yeah. Totally. It’s –

Sarah: ‘Cause you’ve got all this time! Okay, yes, but you still have a finite amount of energy.

Ali: Oh yeah, one hundred percent.

Sarah: Right?

Ali: Like, I, I totally get that. It’s – and, you know, with being an author and, like, the promo is always like, Oh God, should I be making a TikTok right now?

Sarah: Yes.

Ali: Should I be doing –

Sarah: Yes.

Ali: – that other thing? And at some point you just have to say, Okay, I’m not, I’m not going to be on Twitter. I cannot be on Twitter and be a sane person. You have to make a choice, and so –

Sarah: Yes! Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, you have to make a choice, but when you choose to put your, your creative job first?

Ali: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: It’s so fun. Like, I can tell you all of the things I struggle with and all of the things where I’m like, I don’t know how, how I’m going to solve this problem next year; what am I going to do? Like, I think about my business all the time, but I love what I do; I love my job? So welcome to the I Love My Job Club!

Ali: [Laughs] Thank you! It is, it’s such a privilege, and I, it really –

Sarah: It really is, isn’t it?

Ali: Yeah, and it’s very rewarding. It’s, it’s really, it’s just really nice to wake up in the morning and knowing that you can, like, dedicate your energies to the thing that you like the most.

Sarah: Yeah!

Ali: So I, it’s, it’s really exciting.

Sarah: Congratulations!

Ali: Thank you!

Sarah: So congratulations also on the Loathe to Love You anthology!

Ali: Oh, thank you! Yes! [Laughs]

Sarah: Novellas!

Ali: Yeah!

Sarah: Ahh! Tell me, tell me everything. Were these novellas that were written as you crammed into the little time around your day?

Ali: [Laughs] Yeah. Yes, most definitely. Written and copyedited and, and everything. So the novellas were actually originally really, really short fanfictions. Like, they were like, you know, three to five thousand words –

Sarah: Right.

Ali: – fanfictions that I wrote back in, in my fanfiction writing days, which are still not necessarily over, you know, but, then my agent and I kind of had the idea of taking some of the fanfictions and kind of like binding them together with a theme, and the theme was, you know, Enemies to Lovers in the workplace?

Sarah: Right.

Ali: And, and then, yeah, basically what I did was, like, I expanded them a lot, so they ended up being, now they’re like thirty thousand words each.

Sarah: Oh, that’s a bit of an expansion.

Ali: Yeah, it was a lot. It was – and of course I changed a bunch of detail; like physically what stayed was, like, the general trope and the general atmosphere –

Sarah: Right.

Ali: – and we, I, I bound them together by physically making the main characters be friends. They are friends who just got their Ph.D.s, and they are, all three of them are engineers, but they engineers in different fields, and what they have done is, you know, graduated, and then they have moved in different cities and, you know, each one of them kind of is, you know, trying to succeed at their job, and then they all end up, they all end up with, you know, either other engineers or other people who are doing, like, engineer-adjacent jobs, and yeah, it was, it was really fun to, to just kind of write it.

And so the novellas have been out in eBook for a while, in e-book and audiobook. It was this kind of weird experiment that my publisher Berkley was doing? They, they started with audiobooks; they put all of the novellas out in audiobooks, and then in e-book, and then, now in print together with an extra bonus chapter that’s just, that, that’s new. I think, I think it, I think it’s now in the e-book, but I don’t know; don’t, don’t, don’t trust me. [Laughs]

Sarah: Ah, who knows what publishers do?

Ali: Oh yes!

Sarah: It’s all a mystery! It’s all a mystery!

Ali: [Laughs] And – yeah! And, and, and now they’re coming out on January 3rd, I think.

Sarah: Yes.

Ali: Yeah.

Sarah: So did you find the novellas and the short fictions easier than a novel, or do you like having the spaciousness of a novel for your, for your stories?

Ali: It’s, it’s definitely, you know, there are different challenges –

Sarah: Yeah.

Ali: – for different media, I would say, or, yeah, I, I guess you can call them different media. With the novellas, like you said, there’s less room, so it’s a little bit hard to, like, take the character from the We Hate Each Other stage to the Oh Wow, I Love You, I Want to Be with You for the Rest of My Life stage. So there’s definitely, definitely part of it was just kind of playing with the timelines?

Sarah: Yeah.

Ali: All three novellas have these alternating timelines that felt kind of necessary to me to be able to tell, like, a complete story. I, I really like slow burn, and I know it’s hard to do slow burn with a novella, but, like, I kind of want to, wanted to show the passage of time, even, even in this, even in the novellas in which there is this – I would say the second one, the second novella, Stuck with You, is a little bit insta-love –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Ali: – in the sense that they meet and they have a date that night, and they immediately fall for each other, and then they have a falling out and they, the get back together when they get stuck together in an elevator. And there is a little bit of insta-love, but I kind of wanted to have the room to show why they’re getting so much into each other, you know? And to, to be able to do that and still, like, have rhythm in the novellas, I kind of end up getting a little bit creative with the, with the timelines?

Sarah: Yeah.

Ali: I hope it works. I have to say, it’s, it’s definitely nice when you have, you know, a hundred thousand words, which is how long usually a, a novel, a full-length novel is.

Sarah: Yep.

Ali: You get a lot more opportunities to just, you know, kind of explore the relationship within the characters and explore the world that they live in, and you can –

Sarah: Yes.

Ali: – you know, give them activities and have them do stuff that is not necessarily related to the romance but still gives you insight on what they are doing in their lives.

Sarah: Oh, for sure!

Ali: And that, I definitely miss that. But it’s, it’s nice to alternate the two things, because I remember, the novella is in between I think my book two and my book three?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Ali: And it was, it was – and then my Young Adult book, too; like, I think I, I was, you know, kind of alternating between short form and longer form, and it’s really nice to do both.

Sarah: Yeah.

Ali: It’s, it’s a different feeling, you know?

Sarah: It is. And with so much of fanfic being exploring the mundane parts of life that aren’t in the main piece of media, whatever the canon is, so much of fanfic is exploring those mundane moments? Like, there’s a reason why –

Ali: Yeah.

Sarah: – if there was a town of fanfics, there would be like nine million coffee shops with all of the characters in them.

Ali: [Laughs]

Sarah: Can you imagine, like, Fanfic Land, how many coffee shops there are going to be?

Ali: I would love that! There would be a lot of coffee shops, a lot of flower shops, and some of those flowers have, like, weird sex pollen stuff?

Sarah: Yes!

Ali: It would be amazing!

Sarah: Sex pollen flower shop. And then there’d be like a couple of bookshops, but one of them is a little creepy; you don’t want to go in there.

Ali: [Laughs]

Sarah: There’s probably some woods –

Ali: Yes!

Sarah: – maybe a playground, but there’s going to be ninety million coffee shops, because the, the, the mundane aspect –

Ali: Yeah.

Sarah: – of being a person is often missing from the main story because the story –

Ali: Mm-hmm, yeah.

Sarah: – has a narrative to progress, and fanfic fills in that mundane, familiar –

Ali: Absolutely.

Sarah: – comfort part sometimes.

Ali: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s, that’s definitely what I got the most training –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Ali: – when it comes to write, and so, yeah, I definitely have to, like, make myself pace the books, and it’s like, okay, now something has to happen. Right? Like, make something change –

Sarah: I mean –

Ali: – in this scene that they’re going to do, do something!

Sarah: I could just write two hundred and fifty thousand words of, you know, every, every coffee shop, right? Every coffee shop.

Ali: I, I love it. Like, I, I definitely would love it. I, I would have no objection to that. If my editor is okay with it, I’m okay with it. [Laughs]

Sarah: That could be your next anthology: coffee shops, nothing but coffee shops.

Ali: Oh yes, I, I, yes.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Ali: This is a great idea; I’m going to, I’m going to pitch it. I’m going to pitch it.

Sarah: Sounds great.

So I have a question. I have some quiz questions here.

Ali: I’m ready.

Sarah: You have fifteen seconds to find a fanfic to read. What do you look for first? Not what, not necessarily the fandom; what tag are you going for first?

Ali: I mean, omegaverse for sure.

Sarah: Okay.

Ali: [Laughs] Ten thousand percent! It’s, it’s my thing. I also have to say, most recently the most thing I’ve been, like, the, the, the fic that I’ve sought the most in the last, the, well, the last show –

Sarah: Yeah.

Ali: – I want to say that made me look for fic was House of the Dragon, and I don’t know if you’ve watched it, but it’s –

Sarah: I, I cannot watch that much violence, but I am familiar.

Ali: Yeah.

Sarah: I have –

Ali: It’s a lot.

Sarah: So, I can’t put a lot of violence in my brain. It’s not good for my brains. But what I do –

Ali: Yeah.

Sarah: – is I watch shows through GIF sets on Tumblr. So I have all of the GIFs –

Ali: Perfect!

Sarah: – on Tumblr; I get the gist of the show. The only one where I’m wrong is there’s that movie that’s super violent – I want to say it’s Kingsman with Mr. Darcy and Taron Egerton in a track suit?

Ali: Yes, yes!

Sarah: Pretty sure that’s a, that’s a love story? Pretty sure –

Ali: Ahhh –

Sarah: – just based on the GIF sets that I’ve seen, that’s a really hot romance? I haven’t seen it.

Ali: [Laughs] I, I love that. It’s, Tumblr is very good at, like, spinning that narrative –

Sarah: Oh, right! I –

Ali: – and I am, I am there for it.

Sarah: Yeah!

Ali: I am so there for it. [Laughs]

Sarah: So I have watched this show through GIF sets. I am sure that –

Ali: Okay.

Sarah: – my interpretation of the show is a bit different from the reality –

Ali: [Laughs]

Sarah: – but if that was the last show that you were like, I have to find some fic, I have to find some fic, what were you looking for?

Ali: I was, actually, you know, I was just looking for, like, what do you say? I wanted, because I, I was looking for a canonical couple –

Sarah: Yeah.

Ali: – that’s very problematic – let us not, let, let us not go there – but I really just wanted, you know, scenes of them in their, their daily life, because –

Sarah: Yep!

Ali: – they were together in the show, so it’s not like I needed that, but something like, you know, we call it fluff –

Sarah: Yes!

Ali: – fluff in the sense of, like, just literally what you were saying: these two people, you know, having coffee, and –

Sarah: Or going to IKEA, yeah.

Ali: [Laughs] Yes! Or going to IKEA! I had some, I, I was definitely, like, looking for an alternate universe, AUs, with, you know, characters with that dynamic, so kind of like two very powerful, very angry, very kind of – I don’t even know how to say it – just, just two people who are really, like, combustible together –

Sarah: Yes.

Ali: – but at the same time clearly are into each other.

Sarah: Yeah.

Ali: That’s, that’s what I was looking for. But in their daily lives.

Sarah: I get it! I completely get it! ‘Cause if you are with somebody who, who is a combustible comparison for you and then you go to the cereal aisle in the grocery store –

Ali: Amazing.

Sarah: – you’re going to fight about something! I mean, it could be Cap’n Crunch –

Ali: I know!

Sarah: – but you’re going to fight about something.

Ali: Oh my God. Yeah, it’s, it’s amazing. I remember one of the first fanfictions I ever wrote was about Spock and Bones first – from Star Trek – having to buy a house together because they were together.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Ali: It was so random, and it was literally just a bunch of, like, place, it was them looking for, for houses. Like –

Sarah: That’s awesome.

Ali: – it was, nothing happened, and then they bought a house. [Laughs] Like, that’s it; The End; they bought it.

Sarah: Yes, but, but that’s the kind of thing where there’s going to be a lot of fights. Like –

Ali: Yeah, yeah, it was fun.

Sarah: – you know, when you’re up at three in the morning changing a diaper, when you’re trying to buy a house, when the hot water heater goes out and your family is visiting.

Ali: Yeah! [Laughs]

Sarah: Like, this is when you’re going to have conflict that’s –

Ali: Yes.

Sarah: – revealing! Yeah, I get it.

Ali: Yes. Totally.

Sarah: I have one fandom that I’m in online outside of romance. My little, my little brain candy fandom is the How to Train Your Dragon universe, which is –

Ali: Ohhh!

Sarah: – deeply wealthy in terms of actual, like, canon? There’s three movies, there’s three different television shows, there’s two spinoffs, there’s a videogame; like, it’s just massive. But the creators of the movie – so the first one came out when my kids were little, and then the next one came out about four years later. And in the first movie there’s two, there’s a main character; there’s Hiccup and Astrid. The second movie starts, and they’re already together, and they’ve been together for five years, but there’s nothing filling in that time until after the movie comes out. Then they do a TV show, and I’m like, that was so mean? It was so mean. You just gave me the happy ending without any of the stuff beforehand, and oh my God, the fanfic.

Ali: I know.

Sarah: Ugh!

Ali: I know! We, we want to know the journey of it.

Sarah: Yes! Thank you!

Ali: That’s what…

Sarah: I was like, I, I get it: you’re kissing; you’re happy. But how did you get there?

Ali: [Laughs] It’s also really fun because the How to Train Your Dragon is the – is, is his name Toothless?

Sarah: The dragon is Toothless, yeah.

Ali: Right, so the, the two dragons, there is like a white dragon and a black dragon –

Sarah: Yeah.

Ali: – and a lot of GIFs from that show are used in the Reylo fandom…

Sarah: Yes!

Ali: Oh, this is just like Reylo because that, you know, the black and the white –

Sarah: Yes.

Ali: – and kind of enemies at the beginning, the dragons –

Sarah: Yes.

Ali: – or something?

Sarah: Yes.

Ali: That’s very cute. That’s, that’s all I know!

Sarah: Yes, she doesn’t like him. Yeah, he’s domesticated –

Ali: Yes!

Sarah: – and she’s like, ew. And he also thought, they all thought he was the only one of his kind left, and then there’s this white dragon, and she doesn’t want to be around any humans!

Ali: Ohhh, I need to, I need to watch those movies, clearly.

Sarah: Okay, they’re so sweet. They’re like – and, and I have all this nostalgia wrapped up in them, but they’re one of my favorites.

Ali: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: All right, so –

Ali: I bet, yeah.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

So, next question: What is your go-to cocktail or drink order when you go out?

Ali: You know, I, I don’t have a go-to, but, like, anything that’s kind of fruity? And very sweet.

Sarah: Yes!

Ali: Like, usually I’m, like, if I am in a place that I don’t know I will ask what’s the sweetest cocktail you have? And –

Sarah: Oh, that’s a very good question!

Ali: Yeah. I actually had, it was really sad, because yesterday, or two days ago, I, I went to the doctor, and then I got my blood work done, and apparently my cholesterol is high? And –

Sarah: Nooo!

Ali: – therefore I got told, so just try not to drink very much, and I was like, what? [Laughs] I love my cocktails! I was, my heart was broken, and –

Sarah: Nooo!

Ali: – so, and I’m going to have to, like, just, I think, I think there won’t be very many cocktails in my future, and I am very sad. But yeah, usually something very sweet, very fruity. I actually was just in Mexico for, for, like, a book thing –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Ali: – and I had one of the best cocktails that I’ve ever had. It had tequila, I think – oh no, I think it had gin –

Sarah: Ooh!

Ali: – and then, like, strawberry puree and, the weirdest thing ever, but amazing, strawberry ice cream in it.

Sarah: Oh!

Ali: It was fantastic, truly a fantastic cocktail. Highly recommend. [Laughs]

Sarah: I do have something for you if you’re trying not to drink but you want to have like special drinks? All right, so this is totally a celebrity product, but I have seen so many great reviews of it? There’s a company called Betty Buzz? I will put a link in the chat for you. This is from –

Ali: Thank you.

Sarah: – Blake, Blake Lively, who’s married to Ryan Reynolds?

Ali: Oh, I, I love her.

Sarah: Right?

Ali: She’s also Taylor Swift’s best friend, so that’s kind of – [laughs]

Sarah: Yes, and like, and like, Taylor writes songs and uses her daughter to, and they’re all BF.

Ali: Yes! [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s like, wow! That’s, that’s the fanfic. I want to know about, like, the four of them doing laundry.

Ali: Oh, yeah, one hundred percent.

Sarah: What’s it like when Taylor Swift and Blake Lively have, like, dry clean only clothes and they can’t go to the dry cleaner? Like, what do they do?

Ali: And, and, like, the husbands, I mean, you can imagine Ryan Reynolds and that Joe is just, like, there –

Sarah: Yeah.

Ali: – looking at these Americans being weird…

Sarah: What are you, what are you all doing?

Ali: [Laughs]

Sarah: So Betty Buzz is her drink mixer company, but there are different mixers, and you can drink them without alcohol or you can add alcohol to them. So they have, like, a Meyer lemon club soda and a ginger beer and a sparkling grapefruit drink that’s supposed to be really good. So that might be –

Ali: I’m excited!

Sarah: – you know, get yourself some of those, and then you can have, like, sparkly, special –

Ali: I’m going to! It’s, it’s, it’s going to be my, my cholesterol supplement, or whatever.

[Laughter]

Ali: So sad! [Laughs] Thank you!

Sarah: You’re very welcome!

All right. So what is your favorite thing to cook with no recipe? I know you’re Italian, so this is like a, a, a heresy question.

Ali: No. I mean, I’m actually not a very good cook. I, I, I can make tiramisu without even checking the recipe by now, because before –

Sarah: Wow!

Ali: – yeah, before leaving Italy I was like, there is, there must be something that, like, I need to be able to do something of my people.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Ali: Unfortunately, I come from a family where my mom is the kind of mom who’s like, I’m going to do it. Like, she, she’s a very good cook, and, like, with me and my sister she was always like, when we were growing up, she’s like, no, I’m, I’m going to do it. Like –

Sarah: Yeah.

Ali: – you guys don’t, don’t bother. And it’s not like she was teaching us in the meantime, or maybe she would have liked to teach us, but we were just like, yeah, whatever. Bye. So we, unfortunately, have not learned anything from our amazing cook of a mother, but before we moved to US I was like – actually, I think I did it before moving to Japan, because that was my first moving to somewhere that was, like, very different. I was like, I’m going to make tiramisu for everyone who’s nice to me – [laughs] – because I really, really wanted to have one recipe that I was able to make and –

Sarah: Yeah!

Ali: – to this day, I make it, like, I went to Thanksgiving, to Friends-giving, and I made tiramisu, so that’s my, my recipe, my go-to.

Sarah: Ooh. Do you, do you buy the ladyfingers, or do you make them?

Ali: No, I, I cannot make the ladyfingers. I buy them, but you know what –

Sarah: I can’t make them either! They never come out! I don’t understand!

Ali: I, yeah, I mean, but what’s really funny is that in Italy there are two schools of thought: one is you use the ladyfingers, and the other one is you use, like, these other cookies that are more like shortbread kind of?

Sarah: Huh!

Ali: Like, these other cookies – yes, and I am of the ladyfingers school of thought, but there are a lot of Italians who’d be like, no, this other brand is better, and it’s a fight. It, everything is a fight in Italy, you know? [Laughs]

Sarah: Well, yes, I knew that!

Ali: You know how we are!

Sarah: I do; yes, I do know. [Laughs]

So what is your go-to karaoke song?

Ali: Oh my God. It would have to be something by Taylor Swift because, you know, Taylor, but I, I, I don’t, I’m not a very good singer.

Sarah: That’s okay; that’s not the point.

[Laughter]

Sarah: That is never the point!

Ali: It isn’t! I feel like it would probably be “Cruel Summer” by Taylor Swift.

Sarah: Ooh! Good one!

Ali: Right! And it’s, it’s a very emotional, intense song, so.

Sarah: Oh yeah. I was in the car the other day, and I am guessing that the person who was in the car next to me also had Sirius XM on the exact same channel. I look over, and we are both belting “Anti-Hero”? Like, dead on having a simultaneously, simultaneous concert at the red light, and I was at the –

Ali: Yes!

Sarah: – I was, one, on one part I was deeply thrilled, and on the other hand I was like, This is the most embarrassing thing that will happen to me today. [Laughs]

Ali: No! No, no! This is the best moment of your life! You are in communion with the universe!

Sarah: Yes, and we’re all singing the same song at the red light! I was – and thinking about it, like, Sirius is literally hundreds of channels, and this person and I are both rocking out to this one song at the same time.

Ali: I love this for you.

Sarah: Yes!

Ali: It’s, it’s the alternative to Taylor’s concerts –

Sarah: Yes!

Ali: – since no one can go to Taylor’s concerts!

Sarah: Yeah, you – I, I don’t like crowds or loudness, so I was never going to be in that ticket line, but yeah. I, that was my concert!

Ali: It’s, exactly. You got it. [Laughs]

Sarah: So what food do you crave the most?

Ali: It’s, it’s chocolate. Like –

Sarah: Yes.

Ali: – I, I just, everything with chocolate. My, my favorite kind of chocolate is Kinder chocolate? Which you guys don’t have a whole lot here in the US.

Sarah: I am familiar with the Kinder; it’s very smooth.

Ali: It’s so good. It’s so good!

Sarah: But it’s a milk chocolate, right?

Ali: It’s milk, and then inside it has that, like, white thing that they say it’s milky. They sell it to you, in Italy they sell it to you as a healthy thing. You basically drink it.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Ali: It’s like drinking a glass of milk, and that’s how we do it! [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah. My chocolate candy bar is, is healthy! I love this! This is great!

Ali: We, in Italy, also we think that Nutella is a good food to have, like a healthy food to have for breakfast –

Sarah: Of course!

Ali: – because it gives you a lot of energy, and I am going to find whoever says that this is not correct, because I have seen many Nutella commercials, and I have been fully indoctrinated. So yeah. And, so yeah, definitely chocolates, chocolate. [Laughs]

Sarah: I, I think that’s an excellent choice.

Ali: I also just remembered that I have not opened my Advent calendar this morning while talking about this, and I’m so glad that when we get off I’m going to be able to go get my Advent calendar!

Sarah: Is, is it chocolate?

Ali: It is!

Sarah: Woohoo!

Ali: I have three, actually – [laughs] – so.

Sarah: Well, I mean, you’ve got to do it right.

Ali: Yeah! Two are presents, to be fair, so.

Sarah: Fine! Fine, fine, fine! We make a homemade pizza on our grill sometimes, and we have started taking a, a, a crust, just the crust, grilling the crust, and then bring it in and put, like, get an offset spatula and just smear Nutella on the hot pizza crust?

Ali: Oh my God.

Sarah: And then you drizzle fruit or honey or powdered sugar, or if you’re feeling really festive, get some Lucky Charms cereal with the marshmallows, sprinkle that on top, and then that is our dessert pizza.

Ali: I am ready to move in? So –

Sarah: Okay, come on over!

Ali: – I am really –

Sarah: Come on over. I have teenagers; we’ll have to make two.

[Laughter]

Ali: I, if you – yes, perfect!

Sarah: Yeah!

Ali: Like, I am, I am ready. I will make a tiramisu, and you will make me that pizza –

Sarah: I love this plan!

Ali: – because that sounds amazing, honestly.

Sarah: It’s so good. It is so good. And the thing about Nutella is that it gets everywhere. You can try to be careful; it’s going to be on the back of your hand; it’s going to be on your face; it’s going to be on my nose.

Ali: Yes.

Sarah: Like, it just gets everywhere.

Ali: It’s, it’s like sand; it gets everywhere. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes! It gets everywhere!

Ali: It’s so true. It’s, Nutella knows how to infiltrate herself in your life.

Sarah: Yes.

Ali: It’s a, it’s a skill. It’s, it’s a very Italian skill.

Sarah: Nutella – yeah. Nutella wants to be with you. [Laughs]

Ali: Exactly!

Sarah: Okay, last Silly Question: If you built a castle for yourself to live in, what would you name it?

Ali: Whoa! Ah.

Sarah: We’ve reached the I Live in a Named House phase of fame now.

Ali: [Laughs] Of, of our career!

Sarah: Yes!

Ali: Most pleasing! I would probably name it Cringe Land.

[Laughter]

Ali: Something!

Sarah: Cringe Land!

Ali: And it would be the tackiest, cringiest, weirdest place, and I would have so many cats, and everyone would be invited to cringe with us and, yes.

Sarah: I love it!

Ali: [Laughs] I am, like Taylor Swift said, I am learning to live alongside my cringe –

Sarah: Yes!

Ali: – so that is, I am reclaiming my cringe-ness!

Sarah: I just picture, if you had a castle called Cringe Land, there would be one room that would be nothing but Nicolas Cage –

Ali: Oh my God, yes! [Laughs]

Sarah: – and there would be another room that would be nothing but Adam Driver without a shirt on –

Ali: Oh my God, like, truly –

Sarah: – nips blasting.

Ali: – zero – like, there would be five Adam Driver rooms, at least. Like –

[Laughter]

Sarah: Well, you have to cover all the different roles that he’s played, right?

Ali: Oh yes, yes! Perfect! Look at you!

Sarah: You know, turtleneck glasses guy, I don’t have a shirt on guy.

Ali: You can come help me decorate Cringe Land.

Sarah: Sure!

Ali: You are the official decorator; you have been named.

Sarah: [Laughs] No, no, don’t do that.

[Laughter]

Sarah: You can see what I have in my office; I have an old romance cover on my wall.

Ali: That’s amazing. I want, like, I did, did you – I don’t know if you ever saw that, like, someone redid that or, like, a similar, like, body clinch cover as a, as a Reylo poster, like, written by Rian Johnson.

Sarah: I have seen it.

Ali: Stunning. Stunning.

Sarah: It’s gorgeous.

Ali: The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen! [Laughs]

Sarah: Fan art is so cool. Like, when you see a piece of fan art that not only captures the characters but actually captures the feeling?

Ali: Yes.

Sarah: That blows my mind, ‘cause I can’t do that. I’m not a visual artist person?

Ali: I know. I know.

Sarah: And I’m like, I don’t, I – how? How did you do that? That’s amazing.

Ali: I feel the same. Like, I have so much respect for fan artists. They – yeah. I, I know. I know! I’m right there with you.

Sarah: It’s incredible, right?

Ali: Yeah.

Sarah: Do you have fan art in your office? Have you, you’ve gotten fan art for your books, right?

Ali: So we really – yeah, a ton, and I actually have a pile of stuff that I am going to, to hang up, and I, I will actually, we also have really fun art of other authors that I love, like someone made a romantic cover for, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Land of the Beautiful Dead by –

Sarah: Yeah!

Ali: – R. Lee Smith.

Sarah: Yeah.

Ali: So it’s one of my favorite books that I have ever read, and so one from my fandom, from the Reylo fandom also loves that book, and she made an alternative cover because – and I say with the utmost love – the original cover is not, like, the prettiest thing ever? And – [laughs] –

Sarah: It’s, it’s like one of those, what was the name of that test where they would show you an inkblot and you’d have to say what’s in the ink? A Rorschach test. Yes, that’s what –

Ali: Yeah, the, the, the thing, and you know, it’s, I think it’s very much a, a stock photo. Like, I, I don’t think, it’s, it’s, it’s nice –

Sarah: Sure.

Ali: – but it doesn’t capture the beauty of the book at all?

Sarah: No.

Ali: And I have that right there. Because I just moved I haven’t hung up anything, but I’m going to hang that up first. I cannot wait because that’s how much I love that book. It’s so inspiring to me.

Sarah: Oh, that’s awesome!

Ali: Yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s a fantastic alternative cover, and I cannot wait.

Sarah: So –

Ali: And if anyone is interested, the artist who made it is, her name is Afterblossom, and her name, the, Afterblossom on Twitter [@_afterblossom_], and her name is Kelly Chong. She’s a Malaysian artist who is a genius. Highly recommend; go check her out!

Sarah: Ooh, I will! Ooh, they have a store!

Ali: Oh my God, they, yes! She’s amazing. She is fantastic, and she has the best art. Like, her art is so emotional, too? Highly recommend.

Sarah: Oh, it’s gorgeous!

Ali: I know.

Sarah: Oh my gosh. Oh, and they do OwlCrate versions. Like –

Ali: Oh yeah! And –

Sarah: – that’s incredible.

Ali: Yeah. She has done a lot of covers for, you know, authors, like book covers, and she’s, I know she’s going to do more too, so. She’s really fantastic.

Sarah: That’s incredible! I love it!

Okay. So. This is a big question. It goes back to what we were talking about before.

Ali: Mm.

Sarah: If you could go back in time to when you were writing your first book, or your first fanfic, what would you tell yourself? Do you think back to, you know, Back Then Ali and think, wow, you had no idea? [Laughs] You had no idea what was coming!

Ali: I often think that, like, so many things went well for me to be able to, you know, end up eventually publishing my book and, like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Ali: – having a, a publishing deal and, you know, having an agent and having the amazing editor that I have. I think, especially because I was just writing for myself and for fun for so many years –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Ali: – I think I’d tell myself, I guess I just would tell myself, Really try to enjoy this as much as you can. I think part of it, it’s because now that I’m publishing, there are a lot of things that have to do with creating story; like, there is the writing part, and that is difficult, but it’s not, it’s not by any means the hardest part of publishing? Like, there are so many –

Sarah: No.

Ali: – kind of like collateral things that happen and that are, are really, really difficult, and those things weren’t really there when I was writing fanfiction, and so I would just, like, I would just be worried, Is my writing good enough? Am I, am I – I don’t know – am I the worst writer ever? Is this bad? And I wish had had more fun in my fanfiction years and, like, when writing wasn’t, didn’t have all the expectations that come with publishing?

Sarah: Yeah.

Ali: I wish I had taken advantage of that, you know? So I –

Sarah: Yeah.

Ali: – I guess that’s kind of what I would tell myself: Just kind of be happy and, and have fun – [laughs] – you know?

Sarah: Yeah. That there’s a lot of joy to be found in the doing of the thing –

Ali: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – in the actual writing and, and –

Ali: Yeah.

Sarah: It, when it becomes your job, it can be hard to find –

Ali: Totally!

Sarah: – the aspect of play –

Ali: Yeah.

Sarah: – in the creative process, even though –

Ali: Yeah.

Sarah: – the creative process is, is partially play, it can, you could, it’s really easy for me to lose sight of, Wait, hold on, this is fun! This is really fun!

Ali: Totally. And you, you know, you have many eyes on you once, once, you know, you publish, and that is a, an absolute privilege, like, the ability to share your stories with several other people is fantastic, but –

Sarah: Absolutely.

Ali: – at the same time it comes with, you know, responsibilities, and we, like, fear of failing this opportunity that you have been, that you have been given. So I, I, I think, I, I took a, I don’t want to say I took fanfiction too seriously because fanfiction is not important, but I think I worried too much whether, you know, the thing that I was going to post was perfect or not –

Sarah: Yeah.

Ali: – when half the time maybe I should have just found, like, the joy of it, you know?

Sarah: Yeah.

Ali: And that’s something that, that I wish kind of, going back, I did a little bit better.

Sarah: So what books are you reading that you want to tell people about?

Ali: I read recently Bear with Me Now, which is an adult rom-com by Katie Shepard, and it’s the story of this guy who goes into – like, he has basically an anxiety attack, ends up, he’s in treatment for that, and he ends up in a rehab –

Sarah: Hmm!

Ali: – program in Montana, and there he meets this, like, wilderness guide and, who saves him from a bear attack, and basically now, you know, he, he’s immediately in love with her, because she –

Sarah: I mean, that’ll do it, right?

Ali: – she is fantastic and super kickass, but, like, there are some misunderstandings because she thinks he is there for, like, alcohol addiction, and she doesn’t fully understand why he’s there, and he’s not really forthcoming about it?

Sarah: Right.

Ali: So he ends up, to, like, keep her close to him, he ends up hiring her as his sober companion?

Sarah: Ah!

Ali: Yeah. And that’s, you know, it, it’s truly a comedy of errors, but it’s also, he has, as someone who has very bad anxiety, it has very, very good anxiety representation?

Sarah: Oh!

Ali: And I, I truly enjoyed reading it. Like, I, I was, like, laughing, but also crying? It was a lot of emotions.

Sarah: Yeah.

Ali: It was beautiful.

Sarah: That’s fabulous! I –

Ali: It’s a very good book.

Sarah: I love good anxiety rep in books.

Ali: Yeah.

Sarah: It makes me feel like I’m not as alone in my head with my anxiety –

Ali: Oh my God.

Sarah: – as I usually feel?

Ali: I know, I know. I was actually like, I, I was reading this book by Amanda Jayatissa. It’s a thriller; it’s called You’re Invited. But the main character has this thing where, like, she looks for sign, signs in the environment to tell her whether something is going well or not –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Ali: – and I was like, Wow, that, that’s, that’s me. Like –

Sarah: Yep.

Ali: – I was reading it and I was like, That’s me in peak anxiety! Wow! It’s amazing! Like, I, I, it’s me!

Sarah: Yeah!

Ali: I’m not alone!

Sarah: No!

Ali: It’s not just me! It was really fantastic to read because you feel less like you’re the weirdo, you know?

Sarah: Yeah! Like, Oh, I’m not the only brain that has these gremlins?

Ali: Yes. Yes, exactly!

Sarah: Yeah, my –

Ali: We’re all gremlins.

Sarah: – my anxiety is like a little gremlin on a hamster wheel, and then it just gooooes, and I’m like, Could you just chill? And it’s like –

Ali: I know.

Sarah: – 2:30 in the morning, and something woke me up. No, it is not going to chill.

Ali: Yeah, it’s, it’s, yes.

Sarah: Not a fan.

Ali: And at 3 a.m., awake at 3 a.m., must plan my future –

Sarah: Yes.

Ali: – nights are, are a struggle.

Sarah: Must solve all the problems that are in front of me, yeah. How did you like You’re Invited?

Ali: It was really good! And I, have you, have you read it?

Sarah: I have not!

Ali: Okay, well, I’m not going to spoil you the twist, but I was – you know what, though? I don’t know why I was so surprised. I mean, I was surprised by the twist –

Sarah: Yeah?

Ali: – but also, I also read My Sweet Girl by Amanda Jayatissa, which is also an amazing thriller, and also that had one of those twists that I’m like, No way! That’s not possible!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Ali: And so I don’t know; I should have expected a similar twist for the second one, and I did- – I mean, it’s not a similar twist, but, like, I should have expected to be shocked, and I didn’t, and then I was like, Amanda, how dare you do this to me every time? It was fantastic. I, I highly recommend it if you are into thrillers. It’s, it’s just like a very interesting book because it’s narrated in several different ways? Like –

Sarah: Oh!

Ali: – you have the point of view of the main character, and then you have these, like, transcripts of police interviews. You slowly get to know everyone who’s involved in, in the, in the story, and you slowly –

Sarah: Right.

Ali: – like, kind of, you slowly peel back everything and you’re like, you keep second-guessing yourself, and you’re like, Wait, I think this person did it; no, this other person did it; no, this –

Sarah: Yeah.

Ali: – other person did it. It’s, it’s very good. Fantastic, I would say.

Sarah: I love stories with really dishy family secrets?

Ali: Ohhh yeah, that, that, this is – okay, you, you want to read this one.

Sarah: Yeah.

Ali: It’s, it’s –

Sarah: Very dishy family secrets?

Ali: It’s, yeah, it’s, you know, it’s a family wedding, so –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Ali: – you have the family, and then – it’s one of those things when you’re like, Well, only this person would have a motive to kill her, and then you’re like, Oh wait, everyone would have a motive to kill her! [Laughs]

Sarah: Yep! I just love family drama, because when peop-, because for me the thing that’s always the most fascinating in a, in a, in any story, in any genre, is the distance between what a character’s pretending to be and what they really are, and once you start to figure out how far apart those things are, when that falls it’s, like, really delicious?

Ali: It’s, it really is, yeah.

Sarah: I do –

Ali: And it’s such a good part of romance, too, like when, when you’re like, Oh, now I see you as you are, and –

Sarah: Yeah!

Ali: – the other person sees you as you are and loves you for that, which –

Sarah: And likes you for that person, instead of being –

Ali: Yeah.

Sarah: – you needing to have a motive to kill somebody, you are loved and –

Ali: [Laughs]

Sarah: – and fine, and you don’t have to project this false image, because this person sees you.

Ali: Yes.

Sarah: That’s one of the things I love about fake dating: We’re both pretending, so there’s always that element of, But I’m also being my honest self here.

Ali: Absolutely, yeah.

Sarah: Yeah, that’s my favorite.

All right, so where can people find you if you wish to be found on the internet?

Ali: Really, these days, I’m, I’m, I’m just on Instagram, which is just my name, @alihazelwood. I have a website that I will, at some point, update, I promise.

[Laughter]

Ali: It’s alihazelwood.com. I have a TikTok, but it’s mostly about my cats, so. But yeah, if you, I have two very cute cats, so if you want to see TikToks on my cats it’s @alihazelwood on TikTok.

Sarah: Why, why, why else would one be on TikTok except to –

Ali: I mean –

Sarah: – look at people’s cats?

Ali: That’s what my FYP is; I literally have curated it so that I can only see like cookie decorating TikToks and cats and dogs. That, that is –

Sarah: Yeah!

Ali: Sometimes, like, I’ll see a, a, I don’t know, like a chinchilla, and I’ll be like, Oh, new! Cute! Nice!

Sarah: Okay!

Ali: But that’s it. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, when the algorithm gives you cuteness, just keep it coming, right?

Ali: Exactly. Just Like it, Like it and watch –

Sarah: Yep, yep.

Ali: – the entire video, so that’s, that’s how you tell the algorithm what you want.

Sarah: I also love watching people clean things? It’s so cathartic! [Laughs]

Ali: You know, my husband, like, I showed it, I showed – my husband isn’t on TikTok, but I showed him, like, this lady who was organizing her closet –

Sarah: Yeah.

Ali: – and he was like, Can I see more of that?

Sarah: Yes! It’s so satisfying! Why is it so satisfying? I do not know, but I love watching people clean things. I subscribe to a subreddit of people posting before and after power washing pictures, and I’m like, This is just, this is just porn. This is porn. I’m looking at porn right now. Dirt porn. That’s what I’m looking at.

Ali: [Laughs] I know. It’s, it’s really good; I know.

Sarah: It’s so satisfying!

Thank you so much for doing this interview. I really, really appreciate it!

Ali: Thank you! I had so much fun!

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you to Ali for hanging out with me. If you would like to find any of the books we talked about, they are in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

A small note of housekeeping: the HarperCollins union strike is still going for almost two months now, and HarperCollins has refused to negotiate with the union, and as I announced on the site, we are now flagging when we would have recommended a HarperCollins title but did not, so as not to cross the picket line. For this podcast, there was one HarperCollins title coming out in 2023 that I edited out of the dialogue. We support the HarperCollins union wholeheartedly and want them to be paid a fair wage, and we want HarperCollins to go to the negotiating table now.

As always, I end with a terrible joke, and this joke is from Ray in the Discord – thank you, Ray. This joke made me really happy. [Laughs]

Why are Christmas trees so bad at knitting?

Why are Christmas trees so bad at knitting?

Because they constantly drop their needles!

[Laughs] 

All right, I’ll tell you a funny story from my old job; you know, a little bonus. My last full-time job I was an executive assistant, and among the executives that I was supporting was an older gentleman who decided that he was going to write his memoirs, but he was going to write them by hand? And then he was going to hand me the notebook to make copies of those pages, and then I was supposed to transcribe them. Obviously, the overlap between professional and personal responsibilities was a little bit blurry at this place. So I would take his notebook, and I would put it on the copy machine, and I would make copies three hundred, three hundred and fifty times the size of the actual writing, ‘cause his handwriting was not easy to read. But it was actually a really interesting beginning to the memoir. He and his family had immigrated here in the ‘30s, they had escaped the Holocaust, and one of the stories that he told I still think about. He used to ride around in New York on a bike with his friends, and as people put their Christmas trees out on the curb, ‘cause they were so dry, they would flick matches on them and light them on fire, and so you would see these massive bonfires – and you know that dry Christmas trees burn very quickly – these massive bonfires on the side of the road, one after the other after the other, and so now every time I see a Christmas tree by the side of the road I think about him as a very small boy lighting them on fire in, in the ‘40s in New York City. I imagine his neighbors were not fans of this habit. [Laughs]

So there! A little trip down my professional memory lane.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode; thank you so much for listening. We wish you the very best of reading, and we’ll see you back here next week.

Smart Podcast, Trashy Books is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic.media/podcasts.

[end of music]