150. Read More Romance, Drink More Tea: An Interview With Sassy Outwater

Dear Bitches, Smart Author Podcast, July 17, 2015

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello, and welcome to episode number 150 of the DBSA podcast. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and with me this week is Sassy Outwater. We’re going to get an update on how her surgery went, all of the books she’s reading during her recovery from brain surgery, and a sample of what books sound like for blind readers.

This podcast is brought to you by New American Library, publisher of The Collar, the sizzling-hot new Submissive from New York Times bestselling author Tara Sue Me, available now wherever books are sold.

And this week we have a podcast transcript sponsor. Our transcripts are compiled by garlicknitter, and our podcast transcript is being sponsored by Wattpad, a community where over 40 million people from around the world are reading, writing, and connecting over stories. Whatever you’re into, there’s a story you’ll love on Wattpad. Join today and find your happily ever after.

The music you’re listening to was provided by Sassy Outwater, and we talk about the Peatbog Faeries during the podcast, so there’s information about that too.

I will have further information about all of these things, plus information on where to find all of the books that we talk about – this is an expensive podcast, and I apologize – at the end of the podcast and on the podcast entry. And I’ve said podcast, like, nine times, so if you weren’t sure what you were listening to, now you know.

And without any further delay, on with the podcast!

[music]

Sarah: Hey, girl! How’s your brain?

Sassy Outwater: My brain is here and functioning. It’s good. How are you?

Sarah: Well then, what more could you really ask for?

Sassy: [Laughs] Not a thing. Oh, and the tumor’s gone, so yay!

Sarah: Fuck yeah!

Sassy: [Laughs] Fully functional brain, no tumor. Brain is, is rewiring itself, so there’s some interesting things going on. But it’s here.

Sarah: Do you have to have, do you have to have rehabilitation work?

Sassy: I do. I’ve had three weeks of it, two weeks of it now, and it’s going really well.

Sarah: What do you have to do? Do you have to try to, like, move spoons and bend forks and stuff?

Sassy: With my mind, yes.

Sarah: That would be so rad, dude.

Sassy: Uri Geller’s key thing. Yeah, no. I, so I do some physical therapy with my left hand. That sounds really – [laughs] – really wrong. Trying to get some of my left hand coordination back, and then I’m also doing some speech-related and memory and task – so, I have trouble with multitasking sometimes, and –

Sarah: Like, what, you forget what you’re doing in the middle of doing it?

Sassy: Yeah, so I’ll be doing something, and if I get distracted, like if I start a conversation with somebody while I’m in the middle of, you know, writing an email or shopping online, like, pick-, you know, picking out groceries, I’ll forget what the next item on, on my list was for groceries and I’ll have to go back and look or, you know, I’ll forget it completely if I don’t have it written down. Things like that.

Sarah: Yikes.

Sassy: But that’s been before the surgery. It just is more pronounced after the surgery. When I got home from the hospital, I could do one task at a time. If you interrupted that or if, if I got stopped, I couldn’t complete the task. I couldn’t focus. I would have to sit down and kind of reboot for a second or stop and reboot for a second and then continue on with what I was doing. So that was hard, and poor Pratik had to deal with me going, wait, hang on! Don’t talk to me! Wait, let me do this!

Sarah: What was I doing? I was doing a thing. What was I doing?

Sassy: I was folding a shirt. That’s why I’m holding it in my hand. [Laughs] It was, it was an interesting few days, and then I’ve had some speech stuff, and, and lately it seems like there’s a wire crossed and, and emotional stuff is getting mixed up in the multitasking stuff, so my brain – I’ll be watching something totally happy, and a, a comedy moment on TV, and my, my brain will say, okay, here’s where we push the sad button, and I’ll get sad, and I’m like, wait a minute.

Sarah: Ohhh, that’s so frustrating.

Sassy: It’s weird! It is, it’s like I’m renting somebody else’s emotional brain while my logical brain is watching from the back seat, and it’s going, that’s not what you’re supposed to do right here. Why are you doing that? And my emotional brain is like, I’m going to get mad now for absolutely no reason, or I’m going to get scared, or I’m going to get sad. It’s the big, big trigger emotions that it goes into, like, the main big emotions that you feel, and my brain just randomly starts doing these things, even though there’s absolutely no correct causation, and it’s, it’s good. It means my brain is rewiring itself –

Sarah: Right.

Sassy: – it means my brain is healing, but it’s also really weird to live through because you’re, you’re in a brain you don’t recognize for a while until your brain gets used to itself and settles down, so it’s – [laughs] – it’s a really weird experience.

Sarah: That is really weird. And –

Sassy: It is.

Sarah: – I mean, I’m sure that it helps to be able to recognize, okay, clearly this is my brain being weird, so you’re both aware of your feelings and also having them.

Sassy: It is. It’s –

Sarah: Very, your brain is very meta.

Sassy: It’s probably one of the weirdest experiences I’ve been through. Last night I got some really good news, and about an hour later, probably due to the fact that this was such shocking news, about an hour later, my brain got really, really sad, and I’m sitting there going, there’s absolutely no reason for this. Logically, I understand that, but that does not prevent me from feeling like –

Sarah: I need to go cry.

Sassy: – what on earth is happening to me? [Laughs]

Sarah: I wonder if, for your brain, any emotional outlet is an applicable outlet. Whether it’s crying or laughing, you are still releasing?

Sassy: Yeah.

Sarah: So maybe for your brain it’s like, you know, any output will do. If you sneeze, that’s fine too.

Sassy: It’s like there’s a little team of engineers in there, and they’re going, okay, wait, so this shouldn’t be wired to the sad button; this shouldn’t be wired to the angry button, so, hmm, let’s try wiring it to this button and see what happens.

Sarah: Right.

Sassy: Your brain is, has something called plasticity, which means that it can rebuild circuitry in there, and it seems like –

Sarah: Yes.

Sassy: – as it’s rebuilding the multitasking circuitry, it’s accidentally hooking up things to my emotional buttons, and my emotional side is going, no, that does not go there. So my brain is wise enough to recognize that there’s a problem, and it is actively trying to fix it, but it’s just –

Sarah: It’s a slow process.

Sassy: – it’s, my brain is under remodeling, and I don’t get to move out while the remodeling happens. I have to sit on the couch and watch it all, yes. [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh, dude. So, what, what do you, what do you do for therapy?

Sassy: I –

Sarah: Tell me you bend spoons. That’s all I want to know.

Sassy: [Laughs] No. So these –

Sarah: I’m going to see you at RT, and you’re going to be like, Sarah, watch, I can lift the guide dog with my mind! And I’m going to be like, YES!

Sassy: [Laughs] They have you do a lot of cognitive exercises. So you’re doing memory tasks. They give you lists of words, and you have to memorize the words, and then they’ll distract you with another multi-, another task, and then you have to go back and remember the words. Basic psychological cognitive tests like that, and then with my, my hand, I’m doing hand exercises and re-teaching my hand how to measure weight before it picks something up, by volume, by density of the bottle or the, the, the weight that they’re having me lift. So it’s just teaching my nerves to talk to each other again. It’s just teaching my body to respond to itself the right way, and –

Sarah: Logically.

Sassy: Yeah. And it’s not, this particular tumor was not anywhere near any of those –

Sarah: Areas of the brain?

Sassy: – particular – right, but it still has an effect on your overall brain. When you, when you have brain surgery, it’s elective brain trauma. You, okay, you didn’t elect to have the tumor, but you –

Sarah: You’re going in and –

Sassy: – you have to get it out, so you are –

Sarah: Right, it’s, it does affect your brain.

Sassy: It does, and it affects it as a whole, and so you have situations where things happen and you don’t, you know – okay, so it was nowhere near there, but something happened; let’s fix it. And that’s kind of where we’re at right now, and it’s just, okay, whatever! [Laughs]

Sarah: Yep. Okay, fine.

Sassy: We deal with it. Yeah, we deal with it. And it’s – I am very, very luck in that I know what my, my brain injuries are from seven years of dealing with, with these things and having them happen. They weren’t expected, they weren’t anticipated, but they happen, and I have a lot of neurologists who would look at me and, and kind of just go, well, that’s nowhere near that, but then I have a lot of neurologists now on my team who are like, we get it. You know, it happens, and your brain is weird anyway – [laughs] – so we’ll deal with it. As a person who lost her sight young in life, my brain reorganized itself into – so, the occipital lobe, which is your lobe that processes vision, is probably being designated to do something else in my brain, because I don’t need it, so it’s just sitting there empty, and my brain is like, oh, unused space. Let’s go stick your function for how you read or how you speak. Let’s go put it back there, ‘cause we’re not using it for anything else, so blind people’s brains can be, or anybody with, somebody with a, a missing sensory or, or physical disability can have a lot of rewiring in the brain, and let’s face it, we really don’t know that much about the brain anyway, and then when you have somebody who doesn’t fit the rest of what they classify as normal human brain activity, you have some pretty strange things come up, and it just happens. So we’re trying to map how my brain works and how it thinks, and so a lot of time in therapy is spent doing what they call fMRI, which is functional magnetic resonance imaging. Like, they’re looking at how my brain processes things and what, where the blood flow goes so they can see, while I’m doing a task, what is my brain doing? What parts of my brain are activated? So that they can get a better idea of how my brain is, is handling different tasks and if there’s anything they need to do or can do to help change that.

Sarah: Right. So, do you think this is somewhat similar to how people who have synesthesia, how their brains work? Because they have, you know, all kinds of cross-wiring like, you know –

Sassy: Yes! It’s exactly the same thing.

Sarah: Right.

Sassy: Your brain just has different circuitry. It’s, it’s –

Sarah: Brains are funky, man.

Sassy: [Laughs] It’s, it’s all wiring; it’s all electrical wiring. This button does this, so let’s hook this wire up to this. Think of your sixth-grade science class where you –

Sarah: Right.

Sassy: – you know, hooked the doorbell up and, to the little electrical battery that you made and rang the doorbell. I mean, that’s exactly what your brain is doing. It goes, oh, so this happens when I do this, and your brain just rewires itself that way. That’s why when you have, like, football players who get concussions –

Sarah: Right.

Sassy: – their brain –

Sarah: It rewires your brain.

Sassy: It does, and then maybe it rewires incorrectly, but the football player has no idea that its brain has, his brain has had to redo that, so that’s why you start having huge TBI issues later on in life, ‘cause they just weren’t aware that things could be happening. At least with, with a neurosurgical patient, they know there was trauma inflicted. They can step in and help with that rewiring, but for somebody like a veteran or somebody with a, a football player, when you don’t know that there has been injury to the brain, you can’t step into it enough to help with that rewiring process, and the brain can have some pretty bad wiring and, and problematic things happen by the time they actually realize what happened.

Sarah: Are people, like, studying your brain while you’re recovering it? Are there people who are like, oh! Well, Sassy’s brain is neat; let’s, let’s map that!

Sassy: [Laughs] They’re looking at it right now, yeah, but they’re, I mean, it’s –

Sarah: You can’t really see the wiring firing. Like, you can’t –

Sassy: Right.

Sarah: – see brain cells and nerve endings talking to each other.

Sassy: Not yet, no. We can see brain waves?

Sarah: Yep.

Sassy: When you do an EEG, we can see that. We can see blood flow to different parts of the brain with an f-, fMRI. We can see what parts of the brain are activated with an MEG –

Sarah: Right.

Sassy: – scan, but we can’t see what neuron is talking to what neuron. We can’t hear what they’re saying to each other, and we can’t watch an electrical impulse travel down a nerve, so, yeah, we’re missing a lot still. We’re getting a lot, but we’re missing a lot. We’re there, but we’re not. [Laughs] It’s still a huge mystery. I had some pretty major stuff happen after surgery with my heart, and they have answers, but not all of them. They’re still not sure brain-wise what happened, but your brain talks to your heart, and if your brain is going through some sort of trauma, swelling, or other recovery-related things, it can’t tell your heart what to do, it’s so busy taking care of itself, and your heart goes crazy, or, in my case, slows to dangerous levels, and your brain can’t step in and, and regulate that because it’s so focused on taking care of itself. So we’re still missing a lot of the connections that we need to know to really have neuroscience all figured out. I am just a patient! I have no neuroscience degree; this is all just stuff I’ve picked up as I’ve been a patient.

Sarah: That you’ve learned, right.

Sassy: Yeah.

Sarah: So what else are you doing while you let your brain do its thing and learn how to use your hands and do physical therapy? Are you re-, are you able to read?

Sassy: I am reading like crazy. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes! Tell us about the books! ‘Cause, I mean, I, is it possible for you to play a sample of what a book sounds like to you, because when you and Pratik –

Sassy: Yeah –

Sarah: – did that at the session, I was, that we did at RWA, I think it was three years ago?

Sassy: Yep.

Sarah: I was like, I don’t even know what that thing just said. Can you, is that possible to play a sample of what a book sounds like for you when you’re reading?

Sassy: Sure. Hang on. He’s making tea. I’m distracting him. This is a problem for him. [Laughs] No, he’ll, he’ll be here in a minute, he’s just –

Sarah: Cool.

Sassy: – he’s going to get that. So, yeah, books, I am reading, Julie Rowe’s Deadly Strain just came out, and I’ve just read it, and I was, like, crazy for it.

Sarah: Really.

Sassy: It’s dark. It is very, very dark, but it’s dark in a good way. It’s dark in a really –

Sarah: I have to, I have to be a horrible human being and say that the, the title makes me feel like a nine-year-old baby.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Deadly Strain. Heh-heh –

Sassy: I, I know.

Sarah: – heh-heh – Shut up, Butthead! Anyway.

Sassy: [Laughs] So, it’s about a doctor in Afghanistan who’s trained to handle viral outbreaks and –

Sarah: Right.

Sassy: – and contagious diseases, and she gets called into a village where everyone has died, and she figures out that it’s anthrax. They are trying to contain this thing, and there’s, there’s intrigue, and there’s romance, and there’s just not-romance sex – [laughs] – and there’s, there’s backstory that is very dark, and there’s just constant action, and every time you go, no, don’t go there! She goes there. She takes every plot twist that you’re like, that would be the worst possible thing to happen to them, and yep, it happens. But it was an incredibly great book, and it’s part of a series. I think the next one comes out in October –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sassy: – if I’m not mistaken, and I really – I roomed with her. I roomed with Julie and her daughter at RT, and we had never met each other before, but I found out just randomly a week before RT that my neurosurgery date had been moved so I could actually go to RT.

Sarah: Yes.

Sassy: Originally my surgery was supposed to happen right in the middle of RT, and so I needed a roommate last minute, and they needed a roommate last minute, and it was perfect.

Sarah: It’s lovely when that works out, because sometimes –

Sassy: It did.

Sarah: – you could be like, wow, this is so awkward for the next four days. Aaah!

Sassy: It was so cool that they loved Ferdinand, and we got along really well, and yeah, but one of the things, like, when I saw that I was rooming with an author, I’m like, oh, go check out her books, and I read the, the blurb for this book and I went, actually, that sounds like something I’d really like. I love thrillers, I love suspense, I love romance, obviously, and so sure enough, I picked up the book, and I went, oh, my gosh, this is amazing!

Sarah: Woohoo!

Sassy: So, yeah, but – [laughs] – she has just this way of, of going into really dark territory so it, it is probably something that people who don’t want to read about war or violence or – there is some, some childhood trauma in the book, so it’s not –

Sarah: Yeah, this is not a book for Sarah.

Sassy: No, not for you. This is not for you.

Sarah: [Laughs] I love how everyone knows, like, no, Sarah, this is not for you.

Sassy: Yeah, this is not for you.

Sarah: Step away from the book.

Sassy: The book, do not read this. But –

Sarah: Yes, okay, I understand, thank you.

Sassy: – but, that being said, I like, I don’t like all the violence and the horrible stuff, let’s get that straight –

Sarah: Of course.

Sassy: – but I like dark, realistic, gritty kind of books, and it was just a great read.

Sarah: Cool!

Sassy: So I’m reading that one. I’m reading Rainbow Rowell’s catalog, I’m going back through all of it and reading Landline for the first time.

Sarah: Ooh, how do you like it?

Sassy: I actually love it. I’m right in the middle of it right now, so I haven’t finished it, but I love it.

Sarah: You’ve read her other books, though, right?

Sassy: I have, yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: Which is your favorite?

Sassy: Landline, I think, is going to be my favorite. Surprisingly.

Sarah: Wow! Really!

Sassy: Surprisingly. But I like just the blatant, up-front, no-bones-about-it way she walks right into the character’s head and sits down as if – the character’s just very blunt, very honest, very trying to figure herself out –

Sarah: Right, of course.

Sassy: – and I think all of us can relate to that. All of us –

Sarah: Just a little.

Sassy: – are not completely self-aware and, and self-possessed, and this character is not, and she doesn’t need to be. I like reading a book where the character doesn’t have it all figured out. [Laughs]

Sarah: And, and when she writes characters, they are flawed with good intentions –

Sassy: Yep.

Sarah: – but visible flaws.

Sassy: Visible flaws, and I think very human, very common flaws that we can all find something in to identify with, or to empathize with, and I think that, you know, especially right now, I put myself on a good feelings read for a couple weeks, but –

Sarah: That’s a, that’s a good thing.

Sassy: [Laughs] Yeah, I wanted my favorite reads, I wanted my, my good comforts reads, and hers –

Sarah: Were these new books or books that you knew that you loved?

Sassy: First, right out of surgery, they were books that I knew that I loved. There were all old comfort reads. I made a list of just stuff that I know makes me feel good from start to finish, and then I went on and I made a list of books that are a little bit farther afield, and then I, I started getting into the deeper, darker stuff like Deadly Strain – [laughs]

Sarah: Yeah.

Sassy: – just to see if I could do it, and yeah, she was in the middle. She was kind of on one of those where, yeah, there’s conflict, there’s stuff, there’s emotional issues, but it’s, it’s good. It’s, it’s all good because the character’s figuring her way through the world, and who doesn’t want to do that?

Sarah: Of course! So what is on your list of books that make you happy start to finish?

Sassy: Well, hang on just a second. I’m going to pause for just a minute, randomly. I’m going to play the sample. Pratik just walked in.

Sarah: Oh, please do. Please do.

Sassy: He handed me a fresh cup of tea, and I’m going to also, he handed me his phone, so –

Sarah: So what does a book sound like for you?

[Automated voice speaking very fast.]

Sassy: So that’s, that’s a sample, and it’s – clearly, he’s listening to sci-fi. What is that? I want to read that! Apparently he’s got a book that needs to go on my TBR pile. James S. A. Corey?

Sarah: And is that your normal speed, or is that slow for you?

Sassy: That’s, how many words per minute is that? 280. So that’s, that’s low for us. Like, I’ve listened to it at about 500 words a minute?

[Pratik Patel speaks in the background.]

Sassy: Yeah. Wait, give me it. So, let me play it like the, the speed we’d actually listen to it at.

Sarah: Wait, you listen to almost double that speed.

Sassy: Yes.

Sarah: Man! Y’all are cool! No wonder you’re churning through books. You’re going to, like, run out of them.

Sassy: I know.

[Computer reporting commands. 500 words per minute.]

Sassy: Okay.

Sarah: Oh, gosh. Okay, here we go.

[Automated voice speaking very, very fast. Thank you, Sarah, for telling me I didn’t have to transcribe this. – garlicknitter]

Sassy: So that’s the same exact clip we just listened to, except it’s at 500 words per minute.

Sarah: Holy crap, dude! You’re actually going to run out of books.

Sassy: [Laughs] No, I don’t think there’s any fear of that happening. That’s what Amazon is for.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Wow.

Sassy: Yeah.

Sarah: Now, if I remember correctly, there are some books that you can’t do that to, right? Like, do some publishers place limits on the speed to which you can listen a book?

Sassy: No, it depends on what app you’re listening to it in, so you can’t record –

Sarah: Ah, so it’s not a, it’s not a DRM thing.

Sassy: Yeah. So I’m using an app called VoiceStream. We can import books from all different kinds of places, but not from everywhere yet. And in there, we can set the voices to read however fast we want, but in something where we’re reading the book in, like, a Kindle app or an iBooks app, we are limited to how fast the, the speech synthesizer there goes, and it does not go that fast. So it really depends on what platform you’re using to read the book and interact with it.

Sarah: Cool!

Sassy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: So, thank you for the sample.

Sassy: Yeah! [Laughs] It’s kind of fun. It’s, it’s definitely weird if you’re not used to it, but we’re used to it, ‘cause this is what we do all day. For work, for fun, this, we listen to automated speech. Everybody’s like, well, how do you understand that, and I’m like, ‘cause I do it all day long.

Sarah: ‘Cause you get used to it!

Sassy: Yeah.

Sarah: And if you get, if it seems to slow, then you can speed it up.

Sassy: Right, and that happens. Like, gradually you’ll go, okay, now this feels too slow for me, and you’ll want it faster, because your brain is going ahead of it because it’s gotten used to that. You know, your eyes automatically start to read faster as you get better and better at reading as you’re growing up.

Sarah: Right.

Sassy: So do your ears.

Sarah: Cool!

Sassy: Yep.

Sarah: So tell me what is on your list of things that make you feel good.

Sassy: Oh, yeah, we were back to that.

Sarah: The feel-good recovery books of Sassy Outwater.

Sassy: Shannon Stacey was huge on that list. I love her Kowalski series, so that was on there. Megan, Megan Mulry was on the list. I love her – good grief, I’m trying to remember the actual name of the series – R Is for Rebel –

Sarah: The Royal Pains?

Sassy: Yeah, Royal Pains [Unruly Royals], that’s the name of the series, I believe, and I love that whole series. She also has a series out now that I’ve started that is all about, I think, passion. I want to say it’s called Passion Unbound [Bound with Passion] is the latest one? I picked it up, but I haven’t started it yet. But it’s, deals with polyamory, deals with different lovers from different backgrounds. It’s really beautifully done, and I like that, that series as well. I have to catch up on it, but I love that series.

Sarah: Is that historical?

Sassy: Yes, yeah. That one is historical versus the other one is contemporary.

Sarah: Right.

Sassy: And I love her style of writing. It’s just very familiar and warm and kind of welcomes your brain in versus other authors can kind of, I don’t know, there’s a, a definite distance between your brain and the author brain? I don’t feel that with Megan; I feel very connected, I guess, to, to her writing style.

What else is on my feel-goods? A lot of Mercedes Lackey’s older stuff was on there. I mean, we’ve all, if you like fantasy, we’ve all read the Heralds of Valdemar, so I went back and read some of those. I went back and re-read a bunch of Vivian Arend’s books and Heidi Cullinan’s books. Those were also on my feel-good list. Heidi’s stuff, it doesn’t do always feel-goods, but it feels good to me because it’s identifiable. Her book Carry the Ocean, I think that’s up for a RITA, isn’t it? Is that, I think?

Sarah: I think that it is, yes.

Sassy: Yeah, and I, I –

Sarah: Or no, it might be Love Lessons that’s up for a RITA.

Sassy: Love Lessons? She’s going to kill me for not getting that right. I don’t remember –

Sarah: Dude, I will be doing an interview with an author, which has actually happened, and I will say, you know, the one of yours that has the yellow dress on the cover.

Sassy: [Laughs]

Sarah: Like, I did an interview with Julie James, and I’m like, what was the one with the red dress, and she’s like, oh, yeah! The bandage dress! And I’m like, it’s really embarrassing that I’m interviewing you and I can’t keep names straight.

Sassy: And I can’t remember.

Sarah: So really, no shame.

Sassy: Okay, good. [Laughs] Carry the Ocean I absolutely love because it deals with disabled characters and disability, identity, and all of that, and it, it was really just nice to step into a well-done disabled character book and go, yeah, I so get that whole brain thing where your brain doesn’t work the way you want it to.

Sarah: Yep.

Sassy: [Laughs] And you see that every, everybody else’s brain works, but you still love your own brain, because it’s your brain –

Sarah: Yes.

Sassy: – and you want to respect it, but everybody else says you shouldn’t, but you still do. I loved that, and I went back and re-read that just for the fact that I could go, I’m so there right now.

[Laughter]

Sarah: There aren’t a lot of –

Sassy: I may not have autism, but dude, I have the, the brain issue thing – [laughs]

Sarah: Yeah.

Sassy: – so I get it.

Sarah: And there, there are not a lot of heroes and heroines that have brain issues.

Sassy: There are a lot now with the war and the soldier books on the rise that have PTSD.

Sarah: Yes.

Sassy: I’m seeing more and more of that, but I’m not –

Sarah: But I was thinking outside of PTSD, I mean –

Sassy: There’s really not. There’s really not, yeah.

Sarah: I mean, I think the first book that comes to mind for me when you mention autism is The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie.

Sassy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: And then The Rosie Project.

Sassy: I loved The Rosie Project. I picked that up on your recommendation…

Sarah: You liked it?

Sassy: I did, I loved it.

Sarah: Well, there’s a lot about brain in there. My favorite –

Sassy: There is.

Sarah: – my favorite scene in that book is that he’s, the narrator, Don, is explaining why he’s frustrated, because other people are inconsistent and don’t follow a schedule, and you can tell in the text that he’s getting worked up, and he says something like, and this is the world that I have to live in.

Sassy: Yes.

Sarah: And I was like, dude! I do not have autism –

Sassy: It’s not me, it’s you!

Sarah: – and I know that feel. [Laughs]

Sassy: I was reading an article – right now there’s two big conventions going on for blindness-related advocacy and membership organizations. They have the NFB, which is kind of like the blind version of Republicans.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sassy: You have the ACB, which is kind of like the blind version of Democrats, and they’re both – yeah, there’s a lot of different ways to deal with blindness and visual impairment, and I was reading an article the other day, and it pretty much clearly said it; it said, I may be disabled, but that is not my biggest problem. The world and the fact that it is not designed with me in mind is the biggest problem that I face as a disabled person. I constantly have to adapt to the rest of y’all, you know, and yet y’all think, seem to think that this is my fault or it’s my disability’s problem. Really, no. So, you know, and I love that. I think The Rosie Project does a great way of illustrating that. I love the scene where he’s got, like, this high-tech Gore-Tex raincoat on that he spent, like, a thousand bucks on, and it’s doing him absolutely no good in the situation that he’s in, and he’s like, I don’t understand this. Like –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sassy: – this is the raincoat everybody told me to buy, but this isn’t working.

Sarah: It’s not working.

Sassy: [Laughs] You know, and it’s so true. It’s like, my brain, your brain, when you have a hidden disability, your brain can operate in thousands of ways, and they’re definitely all ways that are not, you know, standard to the world, and the world’s like, what are you doing? And you’re like, I’m just doing what I normally do, and the world just kind of sits there and stares at you like, okay, but I don’t know how to process this, and you’re like, who’s the one with the problem now? So, yeah, I think Heidi, Carry the Ocean does an amazing job of, of demonstrating that. The Rosie Project. I’m trying to think of other books that have that. There, there’s a book by Elaine Hussey called The Sweetest Hallelujah, and there’s a character in there that is dealing with some disabilities, some hidden disability and processing issues. She never comes out and directly states it, but she does such a good job at character development that you can see it, and another one of the characters has cancer, and the book is dealing with race in the, the ‘60s and living in the South, and it’s a great book, but I like the way that she tackles disability without coming out and out saying the character’s disabled to give the reader that clue. The reader is so immersed in the character’s point of view that the reader becomes almost disabled in their point of view as well. It’s what I like best.

Sarah: Is that a difficult balance for you to manage as a reader, that some characters are disabled, and that’s the only thing about them?

Sassy: Oh, dude, it drives me nuts!

Sarah: [Laugh]

Sassy: I’m like, plot bunny! Yeah, I mean, if you are writing a character for this, the disability, then you’re doing it wrong. If you are writing a disability for the character because the character needs to be disabled because that is the character, then you’re doing it right, but if you are writing a character because you want to write a blind character, if the disability comes first, just don’t, no. I, I, I will DNF a book for that. Like, it bothers me to the Nth degree when the disability is the primary character trait.

Sarah: Have you read Carrie Lofty’s historical that is a retelling of, of-of-of-of Robin Hood from Will Scarlet’s perspective?

Sassy: [Laughs] No!

Sarah: The heroine is, I believe, a blind pyromaniac sorcerer.

Sassy: [Laughs]

Sarah: I pretty sure I’m remembering that –

Sassy: I need this now. Wow.

Sarah: [Laughs] Did this need to get in your brain?

Sassy: There’s a difference between I am writing a disabled character for serious purposes and I am writing it with satire, and that sounds like satire, and that sounds awesome! [Laughs]

Sarah: Well, part of it is, part of the reason I liked it is that it was about Will Scarlet and how much – the first line is, he hated trees. Will Scarlet hated trees.

Sassy: [Laughs]

Sarah: And, oh, my goodness, I have to find this book for you.

Sassy: Yes!

Sarah: I reviewed it a long time ago, but I remember the, the fact that, you know, the heroine is, or the, the hero is, you know, he’s Will Scarlet. There’s already some built-in information about him.

Sassy: Right.

Sarah: I believe that the heroine is, I don’t think she has magical powers, but she likes to set shit on fire, I know that.

Sassy: I like her.

Sarah: Yeah, I know, right? Like, who doesn’t want to just set shit on fire every now and again? All right, so you want me to tell you what book this is?

Sassy: Yeah!

Sarah: Okay. It is called What a Scoundrel Wants by Carrie Lofty.

Sassy: Right, yeah, I need to go find this.

Sarah: Yeah.

Sassy: I need – thank you, Carrie, for writing that. Yes, I need to go find this. Dude, I want to be her. I like her! [Laughs] That is so cool! Megan Hart wrote a book, and we talked about it at the RT panel –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sassy: – but she wrote a book, the book is Broken, and it’s about a, a husband who becomes disabled, he becomes a quadriplegic, and his wife is still becoming his, his primary caretaker –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sassy: – throughout the book, and she and her husband are both trying to place their sex lives, both together and separately, into proper context now that he’s disabled.

Sarah: Right.

Sassy: She’s trying to figure out what her sexual identity is now as the wife of a disabled man, and he’s trying to figure out how can I get laid? And I have this beautiful wife, and what am I supposed to do? And his self-worthy is all wrapped up in that, his self-confidence is wrapped up in that, his, all of this stuff is going through his mind. As he’s trying to accept his disability, he’s also got to accept what’s happened to his sexuality –

Sarah: Right.

Sassy: – and I don’t think a lot of people would have the, the balls to tackle something like that. Megan does, head on, and there are a lot of people with disabilities who, you know, had mixed views of this book, and, and there were a lot of people who said it was right, there were a lot of people who said there were good and bad things about it, but I liked the fact that she took that issue on.

Sarah: Cool.

Sassy: It’s a tearjerker, but it’s a really good book.

Sarah: A lot of Megan Hart’s books are.

Sassy: But I like, I love her. That was the first book I read from her, and I, I fell in love with her writing style. I loved it.

Sarah: Is that something that you can read right now, or would your brain be like, no, too much, too many, too many feels! Stop with the feels! That’s too much feels.

Sassy: I can read that right now because this is kind of my world. I live in, in the disabled world and have –

Sarah: Right.

Sassy: – a very different view of it than somebody else who doesn’t. I know it affected a lot of other people very profoundly and was very hard for them to read. I couldn’t put the books down! My dogs got really ticked off at me because their dinner was two hours late because I was stuck sitting in a chair reading the book.

Sarah: [Laughs] The Lady! The Lady! Feed us!

Sassy: [Laughs] Yes. But I couldn’t –

Sarah: Human!

Sassy: It didn’t make me have the, the tears that other people did. It, it, I kind of went, yeah, I, I get it. I know. But, like, The Fault in our Stars made me bawl, even though I’d been a cancer patient since I was six months old off and on. I mean, that book made me cry ‘cause it was, I totally identified with, with a lot of what was going on in that book, but I think it’s just how familiar you are and how comfortable you are and how, where you are in your acceptance process whether you can read a, a book or not. When you deal with books that deal with tough stuff, you, you get into your own head a little bit. I think everybody does, and you just have to decide where’s your acceptance line? Where’s your this makes me feel good, the makes me cry, and that’s okay, and this makes me cry, and that’s not okay? Or this makes me get mad, and that’s not okay, or this makes me get mad and makes me want to do something about it, or this makes me mad and I just want to turn the next page and see what happens. [Laughs] I think there’re different levels of responsiveness that we have to books, and that’s, that’s good, and I just was trying to find out, as I was going through my list of books, what is my responsiveness to these books, and you know, where’s my brain emotionally, and where am I mentally in all of this? ‘Cause my brain is there, but where am I? And it was a good barometer for me. Like, books are always my barometer.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sassy: Books and music are how I think, so after neurosurgery I went, is everything intact? I don’t know; let’s pick up a book and find out. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes. Can I read? Okay. Can I understand music? Okay.

Sassy: Then we’re good. [Laughs]

Sarah: Everything else is fungible.

Sassy: Yes. Exactly.

Sarah: So what about the new Peatbog Faeries album? Did you produce that?

Sassy: No. They did all the recording and everything for that over in Scotland.

Sarah: And they did not fly you in?

Sassy: [Laughs] No.

Sarah: What is that?

Sassy: They do their own thing, and they are, they are badass at their own thing. They do a lot of their own mixing and production, and they work with great people, but I’m just, I’m just pimping ‘em out.

[Laughter]

Sassy: I’m just saying go buy this in this particular instance. They are amazing guys, and we’re hoping, maybe, if we get enough yes to this album in the States that maybe they’ll come hang out with us a little bit.

Sarah: That would be pretty rad.

Sassy: ‘Cause they did in Canada! They like Canada better.

Sarah: [Snorts] Well, okay, I can actually –

Sassy: So, you know, guys, come on.

Sarah: – I can understand that, actually.

Sassy: [Laughs]

Sarah: To be completely fair, they do have poutine.

Sassy: I love Canada. I’m watching, like, a bunch of CBC shows, like, ‘cause, with the books, I’m Netflixing constantly –

Sarah: Yep.

Sassy: – ‘cause I still can’t go back to work yet.

Sarah: Yep.

Sassy: I have to have another surgery on Monday, boo-yah.

Sarah: Well, what’s this one for?

Sassy: [Laughs] Because of course, nothing just stops just because you have brain surgery. I have to have my gallbladder out, and they have to look at my liver while I’m in there.

Sarah: Oh, for God’s sake!

Sassy: [Laughs] Couldn’t this possibly wait? Yeah, Monday, which, okay, in the scheme of things, just, that’s a minor surgery. Whatever, but it just means another week off work. It just means more downtime. So, yeah, Netflix. So I’m watching a bunch of Canadian TV, and man, I love their TV! Yeah, the Peatbog Faeries love Canada, Canada loved them, and next, hopefully we’ll get them out to the States, ‘cause we love them too.

Sarah: I do love the new album. I think it’s so great.

Sassy: It’s amazing. I adored it. I, I sat down and listened to it for the first time, and I just went, yeah, nailed it! That’s, that’s it. Oh, my gosh. You just, you just keep getting better. You just keep getting more aware of what’s happening in both the pop and alternative, you know, hip-hop dance music scene and the Celtic scene, and you just so seamlessly put ‘em together. They know what they’re doing.

Sarah: So when you are going back to work, do you still work in music production?

Sassy: Yep. I still do some of that. I still do some accessibility. I’m kind of all over the place. And I’m still trying to publish romance novels too.

Sarah: Well, you know, as, as, as it should be.

Sassy: Like you do, yep.

Sarah: Yeah. What other books have you read and recommend lately?

Sassy: Jeffe Kennedy’s book Under Contract is coming out Tuesday. This is another one of her eroticas? We all know I love Jeffe Kennedy, but this one actually took me a while to get into. It was a scene that I wasn’t really into as a reader, but the author writes so well that I kind of went, okay, I’m going to stick with this and just see where it goes –

Sarah: Right.

Sassy: – and I wound up liking the characters and liking the, the actual layout of the book, but it, it took me a while. And it, it definitely was not something that I would have picked up if it wasn’t from one of my favorite authors. [Laughs] It’s a book where the, the woman is in the process of getting laid off when the book opens. Literally, she’s sitting in the office being laid off. Then she meets a, a prior client, and the client proposes, why don’t we set up a contract where you get to choose the sexual favors and I will pay you for them? And I kind of went, ugh. I don’t like that. That was an immediate, like, turnoff for me?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sassy: As far as readership. I, you know, those things that you just don’t want to read about, like you for the avoid Sarah top-, topics that you just don’t want to read. Like, that was –

Sarah: Totally!

Sassy: – one of mine. I’m like, I don’t want to do that. But I kept reading just to kind of see what was, what was going on, and I’m glad I did, because I slowly wound up really respecting and liking the characters, but it’s definitely one of those books where you, you see that there are different flavors of erotica, there are different flavors of romance novel, and you have to respect that for someone else, that would totally be their thing, and that would totally be a safe and comfortable way for them to explore that topic. Like we were talking about the last interview, you know, it’s a safe zone to read about something like that for somebody.

Sarah: Yes, ‘cause you explain, you could, you can explore it in your brain.

Sassy: Right. But for others of us, that’s like, oh, I don’t want to go there. I read a book, books with a ton of different kinds of kink in them, and some of it is comfortable to me, some of it is not. That doesn’t mean that I can’t respect it.

Sarah: Right.

Sassy: But there are some that definitely make me go, eww! You know – [laughs] – and that would be one of mine is the whole idea of being under contract and, and getting paid to do sexual favors. Okay, that’s fine, but that doesn’t mean I can’t respect and still read it and –

Sarah: Right.

Sassy: Find the good in it, and I really did. I wound up getting halfway through it and going, actually, I really like what they’re doing with this.

Sarah: Cool!

Sassy: So, yeah. Mad respect, and it’s a great book, and I love her other erotica. I liked this one. I love Going Under, which is the same series. That one was one of my favorites that she’s ever done. That’s a-, about gaming and hacking and web design and computer geeks, so, yeah, I liked it, but – [laughs] – I love the erotica in that book, and she does a really good job with bringing the characters together in that book and building that relationship, so it’s all the same series. Totally shift: Deanne Gist’s World’s Fair books? Yeah, I had just finished reading, several months ago, oh, I can remember the name of the character. I can’t remember the name of the book! Billy Jack Tate is a female doctor at the World’s Fair. I’m trying to remember the name of that book!

Sarah: It might be It Happened at the World’s Fair.

Sassy: Fair Play I believe was the name of the book. Yeah, I believe that that’s it, and the, the, she is one of the first female doctors, and there are a lot of men who she needs to treat, and the men are all like, I don’t want to be treated by a female! Are you kidding me? Girls can’t be doctors! And she has to overcome that, she has to overcome so much prejudice and stigma about the female and the medical profession. She winds up meeting the hero of the book because he’s sick, and I think it’s the only book where I’ve ever seen the heroine give the hero an enema for medical purposes – let’s just clear that up – but –

Sarah: Whoa!

Sassy: – they wound up falling in love anyway. [Laughs]

Sarah: Wow.

Sassy: I just had to go, how did you make that actually work? [Laughs] Mad respect to her for making that scene totally work. But the, the series is great, and I love Tiffany Girl. I really liked that book. I love her historical accuracy and her, her attention to detail. I think it’s really –

Sarah: RedHeadedGirl loves her.

Sassy: Yeah. I love that series more than some of the other stuff I’ve read from her? I like her other stuff, but I really love that series, because it’s so well-researched, and it’s stuff that you don’t normally read, doesn’t get paid a lot of attention to in history. I was reading – or watching, ‘scuse me – on Netflix the CBC series Bomb Girls, which is about the girls in the, the munitions factories in World War II making the bombs to go off to the soldiers, and you, you don’t see a lot about that in history books, the women’s effort during the war, and I love that show because it highlights a portion of history that doesn’t get über coverage from everybody else.

Sarah: Did you ever watch The Bletchley Circle?

Sassy: Yes, I did. I liked that.

Sarah: That, that seems in-, incredibly tailored to you.

Sassy: [Laughs] Yes. My brain does work like that. It’s all, like, logic and, yeah, I love that series. It was really good.

Sarah: What’s interesting is that for me, when I watched it – and it got a little too creepy and violent; like, I had to watch it on mute sometimes –

Sassy: Yes.

Sarah: ‘Cause it got increasingly creepy and violent as the story progressed, which, as you know, is not my thing –

Sassy: Right.

Sarah: – but the fact that these were all ferociously intelligent women –

Sassy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and they went from cracking codes to tasks that they were, they were really bored by –

Sassy: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and what I was, what, what, what I found so cool was how they found and used patterns in their daily lives.

Sassy: Yeah.

Sarah: Like, one of them was always knitting, because that’s a code.

Sassy: Yes.

Sarah: And then once you break the code, it’s a pretty simple code, so it was, it wasn’t going to be a sustaining level of enter-, entertainment for her, but the fact that she found all of these codes in her life was, I thought that was so cool.

Sassy: I sucked at math in high school, really badly, actually, and it wasn’t until college and I took my first audio engineering course and started learning about the physics of sound and the science behind sound waves that my brain actually made the leap from numbers drive me nuts and I hate them to wait, numbers are the key to how sound works, and I am a diehard crazy musician, and now I actually get it. Like, once I put music to math, it fully came together in my head, and I haven’t struggled with math since then, but it had to actually –

Sarah: Huh!

Sassy: – the physics and the science had to come first, and my brain had to find those patterns within the music and go, okay, so there’s this Hertz jump, and there’s this decibel sound, and there’s – that’s how all of this works! And my brain did math based on music, and that was it, it figured it out, but it had to put in a, a pattern that it recognized, and once I did that I went, oh, that code is easy to break. But your brain thinks in terms of, everybody’s brain thinks in terms of different things, and that was the key to unlocking, in my brain, was music and putting math with it.

Sarah: Yep. So, is there anything that you wish your brain would hurry up and get on with already? Or are you pretty pleased with how much it’s done so far?

Sassy: I’ve been doing amazingly well. I’m proud of my brain. I’m so happy that the cancer is done.

Sarah: Yay!

Sassy: I don’t have to deal with that anymore. I am super –

Sarah: And they got all the tumor; it’s out.

Sassy: They did. We’re waiting for pathology, but it looks like everything is good and – they’ll still have to keep scanning me to make sure that nothing comes back and all of that, yada, yada, yada, yada, but yeah. I’m done. For right now, there is no cancer in my body that we know of –

Sarah: Yay!

Sassy: – anywhere, and oh, my gosh, it feels so good.

Sarah: Woohoo!

Sassy: [Laughs] Yeah, I can’t celebrate that enough. Trying to maintain respect for my brain and all it’s been through is sometimes hard, sometimes easy, but it’s, you know, my brain will heal as it heals. I’ve done amazingly well so far. I’m very lucky that I don’t have more issues than I do, and I’ll get back to full charge when I do and when my brain decides that it’s ready, and that’s just –

Sarah: Yep.

Sassy: – going to happen when it happens. [Laughs] I can’t, I can’t rush genius, and my brain is genius because it survived all of that.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sassy: Not because it’s smart, okay? Let’s just clear that up, but because it just kicked cancer’s ass, I think my brain is pretty badass.

Sarah: I, I agree. I think that you are totally within line to take as much time as you need to bring back the awesome.

Sassy: [Laughs] Trying to give my brain a positive environment to heal in, and you know, complimenting it maybe will help? I don’t know.

Sarah: Well, romance –

Sassy:  Yes

Sarah: – romance will certainly help.

Sassy: Oh, hell yeah. Romance always helps anything. [Laughs] Tea and romance are my cures for anything in life.

Sarah: That, you know what, that pretty much does it.

Sassy: [Laughs] what else do you need in the world?

Sarah: It’s true. I have one last question for you, ma’am.

Sassy: Yep?

Sarah: Did you get a horn? Did you 3D print your skull with something cool?

Sassy: I think they implanted something in there, ‘cause the, the front fourth of my skull, like, the front quarter of the right side of my skull, it’s still numb. I still can’t feel much up there, so I think there’s still something growing in there.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sassy: I know they did a hell of a lot of reconstruction up there.

Sarah: Yeah?

Sassy: The surgery wound up taking about ten hours?

Sarah: Good God! That’s a really long time!

Sassy: It was. They did so much reconstruction – [laughs] –

Sarah: Whoa.

Sassy: – and they had a couple delays in surgery and stuff, but they got it all done, but there might be something hatching in there; I don’t know! There might be – you know what, I bet I’m going to show up to RT next year with, like, one devil’s horn, just because my surgeon was feeling, like, twisted that day. They probably put one horn in on one side, and I will have one devil’s horn and not the other one. [Laughs]

Sarah: Dude, that would be pretty cool, though.

Sassy: It’d be pretty quirky. I think that fits. [Laughs] I don’t know how well it’ll balance my halo, but –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sassy: No. I, I’ve got the lopsided unicorn thing going, right?

Sarah: That, I think, is a pretty saucy look.

Sassy: [Laughs] Lopsided unicorn. I’m going to rap it.

Sarah: That’s right.

Sassy: [Laughs]

Sarah: Well, see, then you can keep your hat at a jaunty angle.

Sassy: Half pirate, half unicorn? I like it.

Sarah: Totally! Yes!

Sassy: They, somebody needs, somebody needs to write unicorn/pirate porn. [Laughs]

Sarah: You know that someone already has.

Sassy: [Laughs]

Sarah: Just fire up the Google.

Sassy: [Laughs] Amazon, the things that appear there, I, I don’t even.

Sarah: Come on, you know it’s there somewhere.

Sassy: [Laughs] If not, it will be a result of this. I’m sure that there’s unicorn/pirate porn somewhere.

Sarah: Of course there is! Don’t be silly!

Sassy: That is, that hurts. That’s – [laughs] – just, no.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sassy: – thing. I have ice on my head a lot. There’s an ice pack that rides around on top of my head sometimes. [Laughs]

Sarah: Does your head, like, hurt?

Sassy: – sexy. No, not – I get headaches, but it’s not, like, hurting right now. It’s just kind of numb on that side, as all the bones and nerves heal, so I’m just waiting for feeling to return to my skull, which would be great. They did a really good job in not butchering most of my hair, so I can –

Sarah: You’ve got a lot of hair, too.

Sassy: I know! I still look pretty normal, and my hair is already starting to grow back where they shaved part of it, so it’s all good.

Sarah: Cool!

Sassy: Brain surgery done. What’s next? [Laughs]

Sarah: Relaxing and recovery?

Sassy: Woohoo! And then what?

Sarah: Well, worry about that when you get there.

Sassy: [Laughs] But I’m bored! I’m on sick leave. I, I am not the type of person who can sit around for, like, six weeks and do nothing. I’m like, I am bored! I need to go cause mischief. I need to go do stuff. I need to go drive people nuts.

Sarah: Well, you’ve got a lot of books to read, my friend.

Sassy: See, that’s driving people nuts. That’s good. That’s, that’s fun.

Sarah: Go read more books.

Sassy: [Laughs] Always. I need that T-shirt. Go read more books.

Sarah: Yeah! Drink more tea, read more books.

Sassy: Have more romance.

Sarah: Damn right!

Sassy: Dude, I want that shirt. Drink more tea, read more books, have more romance. That is, like, my life theme right there.

[Laughter]

Sassy: Motto. Yes.

Sarah: That’s a good motto, dude.

Sassy: It’s a good life, it’s a good motto, it solves all life’s problems, that’s for sure.

[music]

Sarah: And that is all for this week’s episode. I want to thank Sassy Outwater for hanging out with me. Her gallbladder surgery went marvelously well, so now she’s recovering from more surgery, because apparently that’s her job in July. And she has more books to read, so, yay!

All of the books that we mentioned are going to be in the podcast entry, should you be curious or wish to buy them for your very own.

And I am curious. I want to ask you, what’s on your list of feel-good recovery books? Are there books that you’ve read when you’re sick or recovering from surgery or post partum when you can’t do all that much? What’s on your list when you need a book to really help you recover and be happy? Please feel free to email me, ‘cause I’m really curious. Our podcast email is [email protected].

This week’s podcast was brought to you by New American Library, publisher of The Collar, the sizzling-hot new Submissive novel from New York Times bestselling author Tara Sue Me, available now wherever books are sold.

Each week we do a podcast transcript on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, which is a complete printed transcript of the podcast. We do this partially because some people don’t like to listen, and also for hearing-impaired people who don’t want to miss out on the funky fun stuff that we do. This week’s podcast transcript, which is compiled by garlicknitter, was sponsored by Wattpad, a community where over 40 million people from around the world are reading, writing, and connecting over stories. With Wattpad, you can escape into a story, express yourself creatively, and connect with people who love the same things you do, all from the internet-connected device you already own. Wattpad is an engaging and supportive community that brings stories to life and connects readers and authors in a totally new way. Join today to find your happily ever after.

The music you’re listening to was provided by Sassy Outwater. This is the Peatbog Faeries. I’m still enjoying their brand-new album Blackhouse. This track is called “The Ranch,” and you can find the Peatbog Faeries on their website, on Amazon, or on iTunes, or wherever you like to buy your fine, funky music.

We have more podcasts coming up where we talk about romance novels. I’m interviewing more readers. I’m having a really good time doing that, and we’re going to talk to people from NPR who are doing the Summer of Love, which is all the best romances for an entirely HUGE recommendation list.

In the meantime, on behalf of Sassy Outwater and Jane and myself, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a great weekend.

[Fine, funky music]