229. Romance, Dating, and Very Real Expectations: An Interview with Alisha Rai

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Sarah Wendell:  Hello, and welcome to episode number 100 – no!  200!  Heh, all right! – 229 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books.  I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.  With me today for a long, meandering, and very funny conversation is author Alisha Rai.  We did a live recording in person, so we start by talking about my relative professionalism as a podcaster, and I show her the set up I have for live recording in person, which is pretty rad.  We talk about sexytimes in romance, her new series with Avon, how writing and romance informs and influences her dating life.  We also talk about the pressures on women to meet various expectations, the idea of unrealistic expectations from romance, and as a bonus, we talk about inclusivity, sensitivity readers, and diversity, and my cat totally interrupts by yelling about it.  It’s always great when my pets interrupt the podcast, right?

This episode is brought to you by Kensington Publishing, and they would like you to know about USA Today bestselling author, New York Times bestselling author, US Navy veteran, and genre pioneer Lindsay McKenna’s new book.  She is bringing readers the second book from the Wind River Valley series, Wind River Rancher.  With her signature military heroes and Western romance settings, this distinguished author’s finest talents combine in an engrossing series about searching for the true meaning of love and freedom within the wild expanse of the American West.  Battling PTSD, as Shaylene Crawford attempts to turn around the Bar C ranch as a home for wounded warriors, she finds an unlikely sympathetic ear in former Marine commander Reese, who is battling demons of his own.  Wind River Rancher is available wherever books are sold.

And I have some compliments in this episode!  This always makes me so happy.  I have three compliments to give out today!  Man, these are fun!  Okay, here we go:

Olivia:  People around you know that when they need you, you will always know and say exactly what they need to hear when they need to hear it.

To Kathi:  The best parts of your personality, and your smile, are contagious in the best way, especially the part where everyone around you has a good hair and makeup day without even trying.

And Jennifer G:  If your personality were a blend of tea, it would be everyone’s favorite, it would sell out constantly, and it would be called ‘straight up awesome.’

Now if you are wondering what’s going on or you were thinking, I could totally use a random, heartfelt compliment, this can totally happen!  Have a look at our podcast Patreon at patreon.com/SmartBitches.  With monthly pledges of as little as a dollar, there are various rewards, but most of all you would be helping me keep the show going, keep it most awesome – or as awesome as I can possibly make it with pet interference – and help me upgrade equipment and commission transcripts.  And if you’ve had a look or you’ve pledged to help the series, I really appreciate it!  Thank you very much!

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater.  I’ll have information at the end of the show as to who this is.

And of course, as usual, every book that we mention will be in the podcast entry at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast or at our iTunes page at iTunes.com/DBSA, where you’ll find the most recent episodes and books to the iBooks store, so if you are an iShopper you will like the iTunes page for the site, or the, or the podcast, or both!

And now, without any further delay, on with the podcast!

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Sarah:  I look like a professional, but I am super, I am super not –

Alisha Rai:  You look like a, this is, like, super professional.

Sarah:  – super not a professional.

Alisha:  This is super pro- –

Sarah:  I’m super not.

Alisha:  – like, I know it’s an Amazon box, but it looks super professional.

Sarah:  Well, it’s an Amazon box that I stuck foam in –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and sprayed adhesive –

Alisha:  Very cool.

Sarah:  I got so high!  Oh, my God.

Alisha:  Very cool.

Sarah:  The spray adhesive?  Oh, yeah.

Alisha:  Okay.  I will not be nervous.

Sarah:  Better than a whippet.  So don’t be nervous; it’s really easy.

Alisha:  Let’s do it.

Sarah:  All right!  You want to introduce yourself?

Alisha:  Sure.

Sarah:  You can be Sarah, if you want.  I’ll be Alisha.

Alisha:  Oh, okay.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  That works.

[Laughter]

Alisha:  All right, all right!  Let’s, let’s do this!

Sarah:  Okay!

Alisha:  Hello.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  Try again!

Alisha:  Okay.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  The levels on this are hilarious.

Alisha:  Okay.  So, I’m Alisha Rai.

Sarah:  Are you sure?

Alisha:  I’m pretty sure.

Sarah:  Okay, that’s good.

Alisha:  Pretty, pretty sure.  I hope so.  I write contemporary erotic romance or –

Sarah:  The devil you say!

Alisha:  – or sexy romance.  I don’t know.  I, it might be erotica.

Sarah:  Isn’t it weird –

Alisha:  It’s weird.

Sarah:  – how it’s hard to define it?

Alisha:  Yeah.  It’s super hard to define it now, and I don’t know why, but, so I write, I write something with good sex in it.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  That’s good!

Alisha:  Yeah!  And, and that’s what I do.

Sarah:  Super sexytimes.

Alisha:  Some super sexytimes and –

Sarah:  Lots of sex.

Alisha:  – lots of sex.  And I, I’ve written a couple of other things, but right now I’m, I’m mostly focused on contemporary, and I’m on Twitter a lot!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Yeah.  Yeah, me too.

Alisha:  That’s, that’s about me.  That’s about me in a nutshell.

Sarah:  So, the cover of your book just came out –

Alisha:  It did!

Sarah:  – and it’s super hot.

Alisha:  I know!

Sarah:  Seriously super hot –

Alisha:  I know.

Sarah:  – and as usual, Zeb is digging a hole in the carpet while I record.  That –

Alisha:  That’s cool.

Sarah:  I, someday somebody’s going to do –

Alisha:  How do you, can you edit that out?  Like, what do you do?  [Laughs]

Sarah:  No, I just leave it.  Like, I would worry about it, and then I got email from people who were like, no, we like it when your dog messes up the show!  You know, okay.

Alisha:  It’s kind of, like, it’s kind of soothing, that, like, digging noise.

Sarah:  It’s really – yeah, you know, and sometimes I’ll get the cat, like, headbutting the, the, the microphone guard that – at some point, somebody’s going to do a bingo game of, you know, weird shit that happens during my podcast, like cat takes a poop –

Alisha:  ‘Cause of your animals, yeah.

Sarah:  – dog digs a hole in the carpet.  Thank you, Zeb.  He’s going to get somewhere at some point, but yeah, dog digging a hole in the carpet.  So your cover –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm?

Sarah:  – is amazing.

Alisha:  I know.

Sarah:  Super hot.

Alisha:  I know.

Sarah:  Gorgeous.

Alisha:  I love it.

Sarah:  Like, I hate her for her upper arms, ‘cause they’re super toned.

Alisha:  They are super toned, aren’t they?

Sarah:  It’s not fair.

Alisha:  I’ve got to write that into the book.  Someone’ll hate her for her upper arms, I think.  [Laughs] She’s got a really, and she’s got a beautiful neck.  Like, that girl’s pretty!

Sarah:  That’s a beautiful cover.

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  So give us the, the synopsis.  This book comes out in April?

Alisha:  No, it comes out in, this book comes out in July.

Sarah:  Ah, I was early.  Damn it.

Alisha:  You were a little bit early, yeah.  But it’s a, so it’s a summer book.

Sarah:  Stupid time.

Alisha:  I know.  I’m really looking forward to it.  I think it’s going to be, you know, really great, and people seem really excited for it, but –

Sarah:  And we have brownies.

Alisha:  Oh, we do have brownies, so we’re going to chew while we talk.

Sarah: I don’t know if the microphone is going to pick those up, but we’ve got brownies.

Alisha:  Oh, yeah, it’s good.

Sarah:  Anyway.

Alisha:  You know, somebody asked me for the elevator pitch for it a little while ago, and I, I said – I have weird elevator pitches for all my books, but I said it was contemporary, grownup Romeo and Juliet without all the sad stuff meets “Hot Line Bling” without all the sexist, gross stuff.

Sarah:  Okay!

Alisha:  And I feel like that conveys the book really well!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  That – you have, ‘cause you have a family feud –

Alisha:  So there’s a family feud.

Sarah:  – two people who are attracted to each other but shouldn’t be –

Alisha:  Uh-huh!

Sarah:  – ‘cause their families don’t like it, and they hook up.

Alisha:  Mm-hmm, quite a bit.

Sarah:  Nice!

Alisha:  So – [laughs] – it’s, right?  Doesn’t that convey the book to you?  I think so.

Sarah:  Is there sexy food?

Alisha:  There is some sexy food!  Yeah, my, my, my –

Sarah:  [Laughs] Make this cinnamon bun sexier.

Alisha:  Yeah!  Well, like, I, this, this one has a cannolo, I think.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Ooh!  Nice!

Alisha:  Yeah!  I think – someone was telling me, I think at Avon or, you know, somebody was, it was in, they wanted to do, like, a cannoli giveaway or something else.  Like, that sounds perfectly appropriate for this book, or –

Sarah:  Hell, yeah!

Alisha:  It was, I think it was, like, a marketing person.  They were like, oh, like, some, some blog or something.  Maybe you could do a cannoli giveaway, and I was like, yeah, that sounds good for this book.

Sarah:  I mean, on one hand, from the blog perspective it makes it hard to make it international –

Alisha:  Right!  I was like, how are you going to ship the cannoli?  Like – [laughs] – over to?

Sarah:   You ship them very quickly – but on the other hand, I do chocolate giveaways for, I’ve done chocolate giveaways for Laura Florand before –

Alisha:  Oh!

Sarah:  – and it depends on the season.  Like, sometimes I have to wait till it’s less hot where the recipient is –

Alisha:  Right.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  – but, yeah –

Alisha:  – you could totally, totally do a cannolo.

Sarah:  I mean –

Alisha:  But it’s, it’s –

Sarah:  – if you can do Blue Apron –

Alisha:  – I think I could do –

Sarah:  – you can do cannoli.

Alisha:  – I think I can manage this.  But –

Sarah:  Big old chunk of dry ice.

Alisha:   – you know, and it, and it’s funny that, like, I can usually tell where someone is in any of my books depending on, like, when they tweet me, like, oh, my God, I’m craving, like, XYZ –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Alisha:  – and I’m like, oh, I know exactly what book you’re reading and what part of that book you’re at.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  So I did an interview with Loretta Chase, and she was talking about building sexual tension.  So there’s the small smoochie –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – builds to the medium smoochie, builds to the big smoochies, and then you have to escalate the tension, so for you, it’s escalating food tension.

Alisha:  Apparently, yeah!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  You start out with, like, some cookies –

Alisha:  Yeah, yeah.

Sarah:  – and then we move into brownies –

Alisha:  Yeah, you move into, like, the, the, the more –

Sarah:  – and then you have the cannoli.

Alisha:  You’ve got to move into the more complicated desserts, I think, and then you get naked.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Right, the ones that are on Instagram –

Alisha:  Yeah, right.

Sarah:  – sped up.

Alisha:  Right, right.

Sarah:  The recipe takes, like, twelve hours.

Alisha:  Like, then, damn, like, oh, that is, like –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  – that is some payoff there.  [Laughs] But, yeah, so there’s some, there’s some sexy food.

Sarah:  Nice!

Alisha:  There’s – so, the actual, the book is about a hero and heroine from, from two warring families, basically.  The families used to be very good friends, and they were business partners and everything.  Something happened, you know.  It sort of all went upside down, and the two of them, who were dating as, as young people, young lovers, were torn apart.

Sarah:  Right.

Alisha:  They couldn’t be together anymore.

Sarah:  Is the thing that tore the family apart something that’s discovered, or do you talk about that in the first book?

Alisha:  It’s in the first book.

Sarah:  Okay, so it’s not like, we don’t know what happened, but we hate each other!

Alisha:  Nonononono, you –

Sarah:  They know why they’re supposed to –

Alisha:  Oh, they’ll, they know.  Like, you’ll know by, like, chapter three – [laughs] –

Sarah:  All right.

Alisha:  – exactly why they – maybe even chapter one.

Sarah:  ‘Cause it’s harder to do the other thing, to sustain a reason why people can’t talk  and sustain a –

Alisha:  It is really –

Sarah:  – mystery across books.

Alisha:  – it is really hard, and for something like this where it’s big enough that it, it split them up –

Sarah:  Right.

Alisha:  – I think you need to sort of know in advance, so.

Sarah:  Right.  ‘Cause otherwise they look stupid for being, like, okay, whatever you say, Mom.

Alisha:  Right, like, why are you – no they have, they have very valid reasons for, for breaking up and, and –

Sarah:  Ouch!

Alisha:  – yeah, so, it’s, it’s, like, heartbreaking, right?  But they can’t really stay away from each other, so every year they get together for one night.  They will not talk to each other; they just, wherever, you know, they happen to be in the world, they’ll get together for that night, and they’ll have sex.  That’s it.  They hook up.

Sarah:  Is it always the same night?

Alisha:  Yeah, it’s always, it’s always the same night.  It’s always, like, the anniversary, like, of her birthday, basically.  You know, they, they, it’s, it’s her birthday.  They, you know, do it on that day.  So he –

Sarah:  [porn music sound effects]

Alisha:  Yeah!  And so, you know, they have some fun, and, but that’s, that’s all they do, like, and this has gone on for, like, a decade, and then she sort of has to come back to town, and that’s where the book picks up is, you know, her, her back in town in his life and –

Sarah:  Where does it take place?

Alisha:  It’s a fictional town.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Oh, so it’s not, like, an actual city; it’s a fictional town.

Alisha:  No, no, it’s, it’s a fictional town in, in New York.

Sarah:  Cool.

Alisha:  In, like, upstate, western-ish New York, so.

Sarah:  Cool.

Alisha:  Yeah!

Sarah:  So it’s Buffalee?

Alisha:  Nope!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Buffalie?

Alisha:  It is, it is, it is a, it is a fictional town.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  In upstate western New York.

Alisha:  In a cold, in a cold New York city.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  And that, and that part of western New York and western Pennsylvania, which is where I’m from, a lot of that has a lot of very Midwestern –

Alisha:  It does. [Laughs]

Sarah:  – attributes.  Like, it’s a Mid-Atlantic state with a whole lot of Midwestern –

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – culture in it.

Alisha:  Yeah, I was telling someone, like, a, a lot of western New York is sort of Midwestern in feeling, yeah, yeah.

Sarah:  Oh, yeah, western Pennsylvania is like that too.

Alisha:   But it’s, you know, and so, like, you know, the whole sort of town kind of knows their business and stuff, and, but, and he’s like, you know, they were prominent citizens in this town.  They were both extremely wealthy and, and, you know, before the whole thing happened, and, and now he’s very wealthy and, you know, their family’s well known, and they, everybody knows about the feud and what happened and what tore them apart, so it’s, you know, it’s, it’s a lot of, like, discomfort on a lot of levels for her and –

Sarah:  Right.

Alisha:  – she sort of has to navigate, like, you know, she’s got an estranged mom and, you know, her, like, best friend is still there, and it’s, it’s a lot to her, for her to get through and –

Sarah:  Why does she come home?

Alisha:  That part’s sort of a spoiler.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Okay, never mind.

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Never mind!

Alisha:  She, she comes home, she comes home basically ‘cause, you know, there’s sort of a, a, a, something –

Sarah:  Something happens.

Alisha:  Something happens, and she –

Sarah:  So, whatever it is –

Alisha:  – she decides that she needs to come home to deal with, non-related to him, like, stuff non-related to him, like –

Sarah:  Right.  So, whatever it is that’s happening is enough to get her over all of this bullshit that’s going to be –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – so unpleasant for her to be there.

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  Totally get it!

Alisha:  And to, to sort of lay to rest this other part of her past, even if she can’t lay him to rest, even though she’s laid him quite a bit!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Well, you know.  It happens that way.

Alisha:  And she really does think she can, like, you know, just maybe ignore him or, like, you know, not see him too much or something.  So it’s, it’s, it’s sort of like a coming home bit, reunion, “Hot Line Bling,” Romeo and Juliet – [laughs]

Sarah:  So it’s two people who, so it’s two people who are super intimate physically but are utterly not intimate emotionally.

Alisha:  But have not been, yeah, emotionally intimate in a very, very long time.

Sarah:  Interesting!

Alisha:  But the emotions are there!  They’re just, like, you know, they’re not robots.

Sarah:  Because it seems to me that in a lot of, especially contemporary romance, and in other subgenres too, you have the, it’s the inverse:  you have emotional intimacy that leads to physical intimacy –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and the physical intimacy doesn’t happen until the emotional intimacy is established in some way.

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  Whereas with this book, the physical intimacy is always there, and the emotional intimacy is actually more difficult.

Alisha:  Right.  And it’s very complicated.

Sarah:  Because it’s not there.

Alisha:  Yeah, it’s, I mean, because it is there, it is there in a way that they can’t show it to each other.  Like, they’ve decided, they’ve made this rule, like, by themselves, you know, saying, if this is all we can have –

Sarah:  Then this is what we’ll do.

Alisha:  – this is what we’ll do.

Sarah:  But we both have to maintain these boundaries.

Alisha:  But we have to maintain boundaries.  Like, they can never – like, they can’t be in other relationships when they meet.  Like, that’s sort of the –

Sarah:  Right.

Alisha:  – ground rule, and so, like, they’ve gone ten years without getting into intimate relationships with other people because they want this one night –

Sarah:  Right.

Alisha:  – with each other.  So, like, you know, they might have, like, token relationships here and there, but they can never really allow themselves to emotionally commit to another person.  They just have this Band-Aid –

Sarah:  Because that means letting go –

Alisha:  Right!  ‘Cause it’s like –

Sarah:  – of this one night that’s important.

Alisha:   And it’s like a wound that never really heals then.  It’s just a Band-Aid they’re ripping off every year.

Sarah:  Oh, that’s just mean!

Alisha:  I know, isn’t it?  I’m a mean person.

Sarah:  You’re horrible!

Alisha:  I know!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  You’re terrible!

Alisha:  And then there’ll be a Happily Ever After!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Eventually!  Just got to get through the sex and the angst and the food.

Alisha:  You’ve got to get through the, you’ve got to get through all this angst now –

Sarah:  And food!

Alisha:  – and, like, their families are still, like, at war.  It’s, it’s very, like –

Sarah:  And it’s the worst when you have – in real life and in books – when you have the parents who don’t like whoever it is –

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – or the parents are trying to influence the choices you make?

Alisha:  Yeah, yeah.

Sarah:  Especially if you’re close to them?

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  That’s tricky.

Alisha:  Right.  And especially, I mean, you know, and for the hero too; he’s got a very, like, well-developed sense of responsibility and –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  – you know, he feels responsible for the company and for his sister and for, you know, everything that goes sort of around him, and, and, you know, he just figured, like, it was, it was selfish for him to try to, you know, keep her, and –

Sarah:  Right.

Alisha:  – and so he didn’t.  And, and he just sort of grasped whatever he could in the meantime, so, there’s that.

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  It’s going to be high angst!  It is high angst.  So we’ll see.

Sarah:  Ooh.

Alisha:  I, I do like writing these angsty, sexy books.

Sarah:  Well, you, you often write one character who is super, super angsty –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and the, and the other character is their intimate, intimate, the, the inspiration –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – impetus, that was what I was trying to go for – the impetus to figure out how not to be the curmudgeonly, cranky, reclusive, crank-ass –

Alisha:  Yeah!

Sarah:  – person.

Alisha:  You know, I, and I think I do tend to do that, and I was actually telling someone, like, I had a lot of trouble writing this book to begin with, ‘cause – and I realized finally what the problem was, because I was starting the first chapter with him, and I almost always start, I think, you know, almost exclusively I’ve started my books with her –

Sarah:  Huh!

Alisha:  – like, point of view, like, ‘cause I alternate, but I alwaysh, usually – sorry I’m eating a brownie.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  It’s all right!

Alisha:  I, you know –

Sarah:  I’ll have to, like, give away brownies with this episode.

Alisha:  I think you might have to!  The brownies are delicious!

Sarah:  Sign up, sign up, have some brownies.  Or at least, you know, if you’re abroad, some brownie mix.

Alisha:  Yeah, I’ll send you some, we’ll send you some Ghirardelli.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  The big Costco box; it’s got, like, six trays of brownies in it.

Alisha:  Ooh!

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  But, yeah, no, so I usually tend to, I, I think I, usually I identify really well with heroines.  I think they’re, not that they’re me, but they’re easier for me to sort of get into their heads a little bit.

Sarah:  I think that’s true for a lot of writers, though, that they –

Alisha:  I think so.

Sarah:  – write one gender or one side or one particular –

Alisha:  Particularly well, yeah.

Sarah:  – one particular emotional complication –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – better than the other.

Alisha:  And, and this hero in particular is very, he’s very emotionally distant.  Like, he’s not, like, he tries to, you know, maintain significant control over himself, and he’s sort of, like, obsessed with keeping order and –

Sarah:  Right.

Alisha:  – and patterns and, you know, making sure everything’s sort of in a row and, and starting with him was hard because it’s like, you have to start with someone who’s not emotionally vulnerable or, like, open or anything.

Sarah:  Who, he thinks he’s got it all under control.

Alisha:  Right, he thinks he’s got it all under control, and he does not!

Sarah:  And then it all goes to hell!

Alisha:  Yeah, exactly!

Sarah:  Welcome to the romance novel!

Alisha:  Yeah.  So, so it was, it was difficult in that way, but I, I think that – but, yeah, this book is, is, it’s a, it’s a departure for me in a lot of ways in that, like, I haven’t really – like, I write families, but this is sort of a big, sweeping story and –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  – every book is going to have basically the same char-, you know, like, the same characters are, it’s very tightly interwoven.

Sarah:  So the, is it, these two get their happy ending in the first book –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – and then they have siblings?

Alisha:  Well, yes, they each have one sibling, so –

Sarah:  Convenient!

Alisha:  – it makes a convenient trilogy.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  It’s the best when they’ve got a convenient trilogy!

Alisha:  Doesn’t it, doesn’t it?  And so, so the second book will be her brother and her – she and her brother are twins, the heroine and her brother, Livvy and Jackson, Jackson’s her brother – they’re twins, and he has been just gallivanting around the world – or it looks like he’s just been gallivanting around the world; he’s actually been doing stuff – and he comes back home as well, basically to help her, ‘cause he’s –

Sarah:  Right.

Alisha:  – also estranged from the mom, but he just comes home because he’s worried about her, and he realizes that he still has feelings for his widowed sister-in-law –

Sarah:  Ohhh.

Alisha:  – who was their best friend growing up.  Like, the twins, you know, Livvy and Jackson’s best friend growing up –

Sarah:  And she’s –

Alisha:  – and she married, she married their deceased, now-deceased brother.

Sarah:  Ohhh!

Alisha:  So, [whispers] forbidden!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Just a little.

Alisha:  Just a little, so, so that book is going to be the second book.

Sarah:  And you know, it’s funny, I had two reader requests in the last, I want to say six weeks – I have a terrible sense of time – from people who wrote to me and said, I am a young widow –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and I’m looking for romances where someone is widowed and their, their former spouse is not horrible?  They just –

Alisha:  No!

Sarah:  – are no longer alive, and I’m going to move on with my life –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and it’s going to be okay, and I’m, I’m having a hard time finding –

Alisha:  No.

Sarah:  – romances where there’s a person who’s been widowed and they start over.

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  And I, and I realize that part of the problem is that romance has this incredible emphasis on The One.  Like, there’s The One –

Alisha:  Right, yeah.

Sarah:  – person for you, which, you know, there could be more than one.

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  It is possible –

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – to, you know, have two profound relationships with people –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – or, like, more than two!  But to have young people going through –

Alisha:  Yeah, like, in, they’re, like, thirty.

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  Like, you know, like, they’re young, and, and she, you know, she had ups and downs with her, like, her marriage and, you know, their brother was, you know, well, their brother will get explored in the, in the stories too –

Sarah:  Right.

Alisha:  – but, yeah, like, she’s a young widow.  She’s got a kid.

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  Like, and, and she loves her kid and, you know, it’s, it’ll be – and she’s just, like, a, she’s just, seems like a very pragmatic, practical person who’s not –

Sarah:  Right!  Well, you’ve just got to get on with it.

Alisha:  Yeah, and who’s just, like, ready to get on with it and, you know, it’s, it’s – but I think I, I’m, I’m writing that book now.  I’m really, I’m excited for it.  I think it’ll, it’ll be a really good followup, so.

Sarah:  Because that’s sort of like, that deals with grief as a conflict.

Alisha:  It does!  It deals with grief and anger, you know, like, leftover feelings that never really got resolved and –

Sarah:  Right.

Alisha:  – and also, like, all these feelings for someone who you didn’t really see as a love interest.  You know, like, this was her, like, Jackson was her best friend growing up, and then –

Sarah:  Right.

Alisha:  – her brother-in-law.

Sarah:  Right.  Which is not a, a –

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – which doesn’t add sexytimes easily, you know.

Alisha:  Right, doesn’t add sexytimes, and then he just, he was just gone.  Like, she didn’t see him forever, and, you know, she was, she’s mad that she didn’t see him forever –

Sarah:  Right.

Alisha:  – ‘cause they were best friends and, you know, he just sort of left her.  And she doesn’t know why he left her, so it’s, you know, it’s, it’s a lot of, a lot of –

Sarah:  Any angst?

Alisha:  A lot of angst!

Sarah:  Angst!  Oh, my God.

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.  So, that’ll be, I’m, I’m ex-, I’m really, I, I think that’ll be, that was the book that I was sort of like, when I conceived of this whole trilogy, I was like, I, you know, there’s always one book where you’re like, [whispers] I can’t wait to write that book!  [Laughs]  Like, you know, I, I love the first book –

Sarah:  Oh, I’m going to cry; it’s going to be great!

Alisha:  I love the first book a lot, but the, you know, the first book, it’s, it’s, a lot of it was, like, laying the ground and stuff, and, but I, like, you know, and I love the couple in the first book, but I was always like, man, I cannot wait to write, like, just this trope, like – [laughs] – falling free, like –

Sarah:  Well –

Alisha:  – falling for someone you shouldn’t, you should never even think about –

Sarah:  Right!

Alisha:  – in that way is, like, a really cool – I, I like that idea.

Sarah:  And there aren’t a lot of things in contemporary settings that keep people –

Alisha:  Where it’s kind of taboo-ish, you know?  Or –

Sarah:  Right!  There aren’t a lot of taboos left –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – and some of the ones that are being explored and published in books now kind of give me the skeeves –

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – but you, you, you don’t have a lot of boundaries between two people who want to bone.

Alisha:  Right, you could just bone!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  It’s all right!

Alisha:  It’s like –

Sarah:  Like, just swipe right and get on with your life!  Go on, it’s fine!

Alisha:  Yeah, yeah, no!  But it’s like, when it gets, like, emotional and complicated, and you’ve got, like, all these intertwining histories, and then –

Sarah:  Right.

Alisha:  – you know, it can make it, and you’ve got a kid.  You know, there’s a lot of things that can make it –

Sarah:  Yeah, makes it hard.

Alisha:  Yeah, and it’s, it is –

Sarah:  No pun intended.

Alisha:  Right.  And that book in particular, like, I was thinking about it.  So the heroine in that book is, is Pakistani, and the hero is Japanese and, and, you know, native Hawaiian and, and his grandfather was in, you know, was in an internment camp and, you know, and so all that stuff is sort of going to come out in the book, and I was like, man, like, what a timely –

Sarah:  Oh, just a little!

Alisha:  – what a perfectly timely – [laughs]

Sarah:  Unfortunately.

Alisha:  Terribly unfortunately, but –

Sarah:  Unfortunately.

Alisha:  Like, it’s, it’s helping me sort of, like, work through some of my, my thoughts and, you know, feelings about our current climate, so hopefully when people read it they’ll, you know, it’ll, it might help anybody at all.  I’d be – [laughs] – I’d be very pleased, ‘cause it is very, you know, I didn’t plan it that way, and I never, you know, you don’t really think about all that stuff when you’re – I mean, I did think about it, but I didn’t, I didn’t think that all this other stuff would be happening in the world.

Sarah:  It wouldn’t be such a, it wouldn’t be such a present –

Alisha:  It wouldn’t be such a –

Sarah:  – present idea that people are talking about as opposed to a thing that happened.

Alisha:  Yeah, yeah, right, right, and you know, and the kid is, is, you know, Japanese and, and, and Pakistani and, you know, he’s got sort of all that history on him, and you know, so it’s just a lot that I think that, you know, my books are, are almost never about, like, like, the race or, like, you know, all that stuff, but it’s always sort of there, you know –

Sarah:  Well –

Alisha:  – and it’s, it’s almost impossible to ignore it.

Sarah:  If you are part of a, a culture that is a minority –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – especially in the US, it informs a lot of the things that you do, even in very small ways.

Alisha:  And that’s what it is, yeah.

Sarah:  So, you’re working on book two.

Alisha:  I’m working on book two.

Sarah:  Do you know about book three?

Alisha:  I do know about book three.  It’s going to be – I can’t tell too much about book three, ‘cause it would, I think, get into book two a little too much, but –

Sarah:  Ah.

Alisha:  – but it’s, it’s, it’s his, the hero of the first book, Nicholas, it’s his sister Eve, and you know, this –

Sarah:  Her –

Alisha:  – her, her –

Sarah:  – story.

Alisha:  – her story.

[Laughter]

Sarah:  Nice!

Alisha:  So, but that’ll be good.  That, that’s a little bit out still.  But, yeah, so, so book one and book two will be, I think book two will still be out in 2017?

Sarah:  Possibly?

Alisha:  Possibly.  May-, maybe might go a little bit into 2018, but I think, but I think it should be – what is it, July, July or September, I don’t – yeah, it’ll be, it’ll be, like, around the new year at some point.

Sarah:  Ooh, so this time next year –

Alisha:  Yeah, probably.

Sarah:  – there will be more books.

Alisha:  There will be more books.

Sarah:  Oooh.

Alisha:  This has been, like, a heavy writing year for me.

Sarah:  Just a little, yeah.

Alisha:  Yeah, so –

Sarah:  I just turned the heat on.

Alisha:  Oh, okay!  Yeah.

Sarah:  ‘Cause the thermostat’s over there, and I didn’t want to walk –

Alisha:  That is so cool that you have, like, the – that is very cool.

Sarah:  Yeah, it’s, what’s really cool is when we’re coming home from being out –

Alisha:  Oh, you can set it!

Sarah:  – I can turn it, I can turn it on before we get home –

Alisha:  That is very nice.

Sarah:  – and the heat comes on?  Yeah, it’s –

Alisha:  Very nice.

Sarah:  – it’s a little bit of nerdery that my husband’s like, oh, I can’t wait to get this thermostat, and I’m like –

Alisha:  That is very cool.  Is that the Nest?

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  It’s very cool.

Sarah:  He’s like, [whispers] I love this thing.

Alisha:  Yeah, very cool.

Sarah:  It’s pretty cool.  Okay.  So you had a very heavy writing year.

Alisha:  Extremely heavy writing year, so I haven’t been releasing a ton, and, and I think that’s okay, particularly because this has been an insane year for everybody.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Just a little.

Alisha:  It’s been, it’s been a weird year, you know, I think for, for everyone.  It was a rough year for me for sure, you know.  Just great professionally, you know.

Sarah:  Difficult personally.

Alisha:  Difficult personally, you know.

Sarah:  They don’t usually sync up.

Alisha:  They never sync up it seems, and you know, so it was, it wasn’t easy, I think, to, to hit – you know, it was sort of all I could do to get, keep, like, my bare deadlines together – [laughs] –

Sarah:  Right.

Alisha:  – when it came to writing, and it was like a, you know, it was, you know, family, family stuff and, you know, like, I’m a woman in my thirties who’s dating, so that’s traumatic always, and – [laughs] –

Sarah:  Oh, just a little!

Alisha:  – so there’s all, there’s always lots of stuff going on.

Sarah:  And the thing I, and I do not have the, the luxury of this experience, because I met my husband in high school, but –

Alisha:  Very lucky!

Sarah:  I know, I –

Alisha:  Lock him down early!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Honest to God, like, the both of us look at, like, our friends who are single, and we’re like –

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – we would be so bad at that.

Alisha:  Yeah, you, everyone is bad at that.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Oh, we would be so bad at it.  I mean –

Alisha:  It’s terrible!

Sarah:  But at the same time, you tell stories about the guys you meet –

Alisha:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  – and, like, within ten minutes, somebody’s like, oh, my God, I read that guy.  I know that guy!  I know this guy!  I read about him in three different books!

Alisha:  The number of times, like, sometimes I go out on dates with men, and I’m like, in my head I’ll go like, oh, yeah, like, you’re the man whore.  [Laughs]  I’m like, oh, yeah.

Sarah:  Ohhh.

Alisha:  Oh, you’re the, you’re the New Adult hero.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  You’re the hero who has no emotional fluency whatsoever.

Alisha:  Right, yes!  Like, I, and they’re kind of like, I think, like, there’s this, you know, there’s, like, a, you know, there was some guy, like, you know, said something like, you don’t seem fazed by, like, the, like, whatever weirdness he was putting out, and I was kind of like, in my head I was like, well, ‘cause I’ve read you.

[Laughter]

Alisha:  I read you.  I’ll probably write you at some point, but –

Sarah:  I’ve –

Alisha:  – but I’ll do it better.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Yeah, what’s more, what’s more interesting is that you’ve read that hero, so you’ve read their journey to happiness, and you have to decide, do I want to put in all that labor?  Uhhh, maybe not!

Alisha:  Well, that’s what they, I, you know, you think about it for a second and you go, am I the heroine who could do this?  And most of the time the answer’s no.

[Laughter]

Alisha:  Because it’s like, like, look, I can’t.  Bless that woman, whoever she may be, but –

Sarah:  This is not, no, I’m not taking that on.

Alisha:  – yeah.  It’s not me.  So –

Sarah:  I’ve got my shit together.  I don’t –

Alisha:  And especially, I mean, especially, look, look, listeners, never ever fall for, like, the New Adult hero.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Oh, my God!  He’s good to read about.

Alisha:  He’s good to read about.  You’re not, you’ll never be the heroine, and that’s –

Sarah:  It’s an unattainable.

Alisha:  It’s an unattainable.  Like, that is totally unrealistic.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  And it’s, and it’s funny.  I’ve, I’ve met two varietals that I’m equally baffled by when I’ve read New Adult –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – which I admit is not much.  You have the young person who is incredibly emotionally mature, like this young dude –

Alisha:  Oh, yeah.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  – who has the full emotional understanding of himself.

Alisha:  Like a forty-year-old man.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  He is just emotionally whole, complete, like, everything is perfectly in order, and he is emotionally whole, and I’m like, okay, Come.  On.

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  I have not met a single man of this age range who can – I mean, come on.

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  If he is, he’s probably like the Dalai Lama.

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  Come on.  And then you have these women who have incredible patience and just, this, this person treats you like utter shit, but you truly believe in the good in him?

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  And I’m like, I, I can’t.

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  I can’t, I can’t!

Alisha:  I mean, and that’s the thing, and I don’t mean to pick on, like, New Adult.  Yeah, right, and like, and, and –

Sarah:  Old Skool romances?

Alisha:  – and even in general, like, you know, you don’t want the alpha-hole.  Like, and I tell young women this quite a bit.  Like, listen, take it from me.  [Laughs] Let me be your exam.  Like, you don’t want the alpha-hole.  You don’t want, like, you know, you don’t want these guys, and that’s the thing:  I think I have, like, I’ve been reading romance since I was thirteen, and I know, like, people think like, oh, that makes you, like, all hearts in your eyes and, like –

Sarah:  No!

Alisha:  – and I’m like, no, it actually makes you so practical and pragmatic when it comes to men, ‘cause you’re like, in my head I slot them into a category, and I’m like, yep, that’s what you are, and this is what I’d have to do to fix this.  I can’t do that.  [Laughs] I don’t, I don’t know if it’s me, but I’m like, maybe I’m just really lazy but, like –

Sarah:  No!

Alisha:  I think, I think it really is like –

Sarah:  No, it’s always –

Alisha:  No, yeah.

Sarah:  – it’s so amazing to me how often this comes up now when I, when I look –

Alisha:  ‘Cause, yeah!

Sarah:  – women are expected to do the emotional labor –

Alisha:  We are always expected to do – like, I, and there have been a number of relationships where I’m like, you know, and I do the emotional labor.  Like, I, you know, I put it in –

Sarah:  Oh, you just default do it, you default do it!  Doing it –

Alisha:  I don’t even question, like, I, I do, I make sure that, like, you know, I ask him out constantly, I make sure that he knows that I’m really into him, like, you know, and you do all this work, and you just think, and at the end of the day sometimes it still doesn’t, like, it’s still not enough.  Like, I can go –

Sarah: Nope.

Alisha:  I have been in relationships where I have gone, like, you know, and I, and I know there’s one guy, like, when I broke up with him I said, look, I went eighty percent of the way.  You’ve got to meet me at least twenty.

Sarah:  Yeah!

Alisha:  Like, if you can’t meet me twenty, then I can’t do – Like, there’s nothing more –

Sarah:  No.

Alisha:  – I can do.  I cannot, like, go all the way with this, because, like, a certain point, like, I’m not getting anything out of it, yeah.

Sarah:  Right,  yeah.

Alisha:  So it is, it is, like, yeah, dating, dating is very strange and, you know, what, but I think it, it does help to have, have this, like, weird romance background where, like, you know, you can – granted, you meet things in people that you would, cannot slot into anything.

Sarah:  Oh, yeah.

Alisha:  And – [laughs] –

Sarah:  And then you just sort of like, oh, gosh!  I’m glad this just a coffee date.

Alisha:  Like, this is just weird.  Like, you’re just a weirdo.  I mean, just kind of like –

Sarah:  This is not going to gel.

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Let’s eat food and talk about sports.

Alisha:   Yeah, let’s eat, and let’s end this date in, like, ninety minutes and let me go home, you know, and –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  – and that is, and it is –

Sarah:  I’m ready to not wear real pants.

Alisha:  Yeah!  It, it, no, it’s a, it’s a, you know, I, it is very hard, and I was trying to explain to my older sister, who’s, like, been with her husband since she was twenty-one.  Like, they –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  – started dating when she was twenty-one, and they got married when she was, like, twenty-five, and now they’ve been together for, like, ninety years at least, I don’t know.  But they –

[Laughter]

Sarah:  How old’s your sister?

Alisha:  She’s, like, four years older.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Oh, my gosh!

Alisha:  I don’t know.  They’re, they’ve been together for a long time.  They’ve got a lot of kids.  I don’t know.  So, you know, I was trying to explain to her, and she was like – ‘cause I was trying to explain, I showed her, like, you know, dating apps.

Sarah:  Yeah!

Alisha:  I was showing her Bumble and Tinder, and I was like, this is, like, how you use them, and she was like, this is very stressful.  And I’m like, well, but I haven’t even, like –

[Laughter]

Alisha:  – I, look, I haven’t even told you about, like, going out on dates or anything, right.

Sarah:  Right, but, like, that’s the first hurdle!

Alisha:  I’m just showing you, like – yeah, she was like –

Sarah:  They’re there ‘cause their interested!

Alisha:  And she was like, there must be a better way.  She’s like, there’s a better way.  She’s like, I, I feel like you’re doing something wrong.  And I was like –

Sarah:  No!

Alisha:  – listen – [laughs] –

Sarah:  No, you’re doing it right!  Those people have already said, I’m interested in these parameters.  That’s why I’m on –

Alisha:  I understand, like, yeah!

Sarah:  – OkTinderBumble, BumbleMatchChristianMingleJDate.

Alisha:  Right.  Exactly, right, yeah, yeah, Farmers Only.  [Laughs] You know, like –

Sarah:  Have you tried Farmers Only?

Alisha:  I have not tried Farmers Only.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  I mean, I know we live in an urban area –

Alisha:  I did not –

Sarah:  – ‘cause I, I listen to the traffic report –

Alisha:  Okay.

Sarah:  – but I’m thinking –

Alisha:  I, I don’t think I’d do well on Farmers Only.  [Laughs] Unless it’s, like, some billionaire farmer who’s got, like, a house in New York.  I can just go live in while he, while he farms, I don’t know what.  Like, a gentleman farmer, right?  Do those exist?  If those exist.

Sarah:  Yeah, in, like, 1830.

Alisha:  Okay, then never mind.

[Laughter]

Alisha:  I think that’s the only farmer I could do, maybe, but, but no!  She was like, you’re, like, I’m going to figure this out.  I’m going to, like –

Sarah:  No.

Alisha:  And I was like, listen –

Sarah:  No.

Alisha:  – you figure this out, we’ll monetize the hell out of it, because –

[Laughter]

Alisha:  – there’s literally, like, eight million women in my position right now.

Sarah:  Oh, my gosh.

Alisha:  Literally millions of us who are, you know, and it’s like –

Sarah:  Have you read All the Single Ladies?

Alisha:  All the Single Ladies?  No, I have not.

Sarah:  Oh, holy shit.

Alisha:  Okay.

Sarah:  I’m actually going to break my rule and, while I’m recording – actually, no, I’m not going to do that, ‘cause it’s going to make my memory card go, what?  What are you, crazy?  We’re not doing that!

Alisha:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Okay, so this is one of the – yeah, my, my, my recording software is like, what are you doing?  Crazy woman!  All right, so All the Single Ladies is easily one of the best books of the year –

Alisha:  Ooh!

Sarah:  – and it is Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation.

Alisha:  Mmm!

Sarah:  New York Times notable book, Boston Globe, NPR Best of 2016.  It is an investigation into the sexual, economic, and emotional lives of women.  The journalist who wrote it, Rebecca Traister, figured out, realized that the proportion of American women who were married below, dropped below fifty percent –

Alisha:  Mmm.

Sarah:  – and the median age of first marriages, which had remained between twenty and twenty-two for nearly a century, rose dramatically up to twenty-seven.

Alisha:  Mmm!

Sarah:  And so she did a ton of research examining how ,when women are given options outside of early, heterosexual marriage –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – the results, through history, have been massive social change and massive changes –

Alisha:  Mmm!

Sarah:  – and so now that we have a generation of women who are skewing older as they start to look for partners –

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Yeah, you need to read this book; it’s going to blow your mind.

Alisha:  Okay, all right.

Sarah:  It’s going to be awesome.  Basically, what it means, what it says is, there is nothing wrong with you.  You are not alone.

Alisha:  That’s nice to hear!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Dating is, dating is fucking hard and freaky, and it’s very difficult to meet people.

Alisha:  Yeah!  Yeah, it is very diff-, and you know, the older, not even the older you get, but like, you know, the more you leave school behind and, you know –

Sarah:  Forced proximity with people.

Alisha:  – forced proximity with people, like, you know, I –

Sarah:  The way the world is right now, you don’t have to leave the house or put on shoes or pants –

Alisha:  Right!  Right, like –

Sarah:  – ever.

Alisha:  And that’s the thing:  I don’t.  Like, I work from home quite a bit, and you know, I, I, like, my sister said, like, just go to coffee shops!  Like, you’ll meet someone!  And I was like –

Sarah:  No!

Alisha:  – everyone’s got their headphones in at coffee shops, and like –

Sarah:  Everyone’s working on their novel!

Alisha:  – my, my sister goes, just tell the guy to take his headphones out.  I’m like, what are you?  [Laughs]

Sarah:  No!  She’s, is she going to the write the opposite of that article, how to get a guy to talk to you when he’s got his headphones on?

Alisha:   She’s, she’s – I’m going, what are you, like, you’re like that magazine article, and she’s like, yeah, just, like, mime taking them out, and I’m like, you’re like that guy!

Sarah:  No!

Alisha:  But it is, it is very different for, like, you know –

Sarah:  Which is completely counter to the emotional labor you’re supposed to do, ‘cause you’re supposed to read the signal and say, oh, clearly, he doesn’t want anyone to talk to him.

Alisha:   Right, like, like, yeah, okay, he doesn’t, he’s got his headphones in; it’s cool.  But I’m like –

Sarah:  Why would I bother you?

Alisha:   – but I’m like, and I was like, you know, you don’t understand.  Nobody does that at, like, coffee shops.  You don’t just go up to someone and say, hey, like –

Sarah:  Coffee shops are –

Alisha:  They’re not like what it used to –

Sarah:  They’re not proximity.

Alisha:  Nothing is what, nothing is what it used to be.

Sarah:  No.

Alisha:  Like, everything has changed dramatically in the last even two years.

Sarah:  I have a theory that part of it is that interacting with people is hard –

Alisha:  Yes.

Sarah:  – and difficult –

Alisha:  Yes.

Sarah:  – and you don’t naturally know how to do it –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – and so there are surgeon, certain circumstances where you do learn, like, you’re in college or you live in a dorm –

Alisha:  Right!

Sarah:  – or you go to school every day.  Like –

Alisha:  You’re in proximity to people.  Yeah, you see the people every day –

Sarah:  – my son’s in sixth grade.

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  He is learning some hard-ass social lessons –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – because middle school is awful.

Alisha:  Yeah.  Oh, it is.

Sarah:  But I also explain to him regularly that there are grownups that don’t know how to deal with the things that he deals with –

Alisha:  Yep!

Sarah:  – and he’s not the only one, and he’s not, this isn’t something that just happens –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – when you’re eleven or twelve years old.

Alisha:  Right, right, right.

Sarah:  Interacting with other people who are different and awkward and have their own baggage –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – is really, really difficult –

Alisha:  Yeah!

Sarah:  – and the way technology has changed a lot of people’s lives, if you don’t have to, you’re not going to.

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  You know?

Alisha:  And that’s sort of where it is, where I’m like, well, I, I can interact with humans perfectly fine, but the problem is, those humans are not out and about where I can interact.  [Laughs] You know, so it’s kind of like, well, where are the humans?  The humans are here.  This is what I have to use in order to meet them.

Sarah:  Bowling alone.

Alisha:  It is very much like a, it’s, it’s a circle, right?  It’s like a circle of, like, you know, these are the people.  These people use this; I have to use this to get to them –

Sarah:  Yep.

Alisha:  – and you know, it is – and that has changed dramatically!  You now, somebody was asking me about, like, I seem to have become some sort of, like, guru on online dating, which I am not, like – I’ve become, like, an expert, like, people seem to think I am an expert.  I’m not an expert at all; I’ve just been doing it for a while because I’m a glutton for punishment, but I notice – [laughs] – I’m a, I’m a, and I’m a very optimistic person, which is like –

Sarah:  I thought the book was Glutton for Pleasure!

Alisha:  [Laughs] Yeah, that is true.  Oh, God, yes.  That is true!

Sarah:  Are you doing it wrong?

Alisha:  I am doing it wrong!  I’m not following my own book!

Sarah:  Come on now!

Alisha:  It is, it is, you know, I’m, I’m both terribly, I guess, just, like, masochistic and also incurably optimistic about love and, and, you know, relationships, so it turns into this thing where I’ve sort of tried everything, and anytime someone comes up to me and they’re like, oh, you know, they come up to me, like, online, whatever, like, what should I do?  Like, I’m, I’m thinking of starting online dating, and I feel like, like I’m like that old guy in the bar with, like, the long beared – [laughs] – Where, I’m like –

Sarah:  Don’t go near there!

Alisha:  – pour me a whiskey and we’ll talk about it.

[Laughter]

Alisha:  You know, I’ll tell –

Sarah:  I’ll tell you about the dark times.

Alisha:  – I’ll tell, I’ll tell you about, like, what’s going on.  And so, like, you know, I’ll be like, well, don’t, like, you know, it, it changes.  Like, you can’t do OkCupid and Match anymore.  Like, that is old school, because nobody uses those anymore, so you’ve got, like, weirdos on there sometimes.  Like, it’s, it’s, like, it’s changed so – every year it’s, like, something new.  Like, oh, like, now we have Bumble, now we have The League.  You can’t really get on The League, ‘cause it’s waitlisted.  I’m number six thousand, by the way, in DC to get on The League, which is, like, super exclusive?  If anyone has a VIP ticket they want to send me, they can do that.  [Laughs] It bumps you up the waitlist, so –

Sarah:  I am telling you –

Alisha:  Like, there’s, there’s all sorts of stuff!

Sarah:  So, the, look at the larger picture of irony there.  It’s an app for meeting people, and –

Alisha:  You can’t get in!  [Laughs] I know!

Sarah:  – they’re keeping people out, and so they’re selecting a very narrow group of people.

Alisha:  It is, it is weird, and, like, then there’s, there’s Hinge which, you know, sort of feeds off your Facebook friends.  Like, you know, it’s, it’s –

Sarah:  And then there’s, like –

Alisha:  And Tinder, which is like the, the universally accepted, like –

Sarah:  Hook-up.

Alisha:  – God only knows what you’ll get sort of.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Hook-up app.

Alisha:  Yeah.  I know people who’ve had, like, relationships off of Tinder, but, you know, it could be, it could go either way.  Like, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s like –

Sarah:  Oh, I, I –

Alisha:  Which is, which is all of dating, you know, like, especially for women.  You can –

Sarah:  You could, yeah!

Alisha:  I, I, I like to say, like, any time I go on a date, like, I’m playing the, you know, the game show, like, Is He Awkward Or Is He a Serial Killer?  Like, it could go –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  Which is the worst game show in the world!  You –

Sarah:  ‘Cause you’re playing by yourself.

Alisha:  You don’t really win either way.  Like, there’s no, like, maybe he’s awkward, oh, he might be adorably awkward, but it could be also just weirdly awkward.  You know, like –

Sarah:  Annoyingly awkward, yeah.

Alisha:  – it could be terribly awkward.

Sarah:  Oh, my gosh.

Alisha:  So it is, it is, it is the, the worst part of dating, like, as a woman, I think, if you’re, if it’s, like, you know, hetero-cis.  Like, it’s, it’s, it’s just this, you know, you, it’s, it’s like a grab bag of could be murderer.  Like, you know, like, your –

Sarah:  Yep.

Alisha:  – your, your –

Sarah:  Could be.

Alisha:  – consolation prize could be a murder.  Like, it’s, it’s –

Sarah:  Oh, yeah!

Alisha:  – very scary.  Like, it’s intensely –

Sarah:  And yet you have, you know, fifty, sixty years ago, you, you hear a lot of stories about people who met and married the person who lived around the corner –

Alisha:  Yeah!

Sarah:  – or lived in my building –

Alisha:  Yeah.  Right?

Sarah:  – she lived across the street, ‘cause your, your –

Alisha:  You’re in proximity!

Sarah:  – your universe –

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – was small –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – and for a lot of people it never really got any bigger.

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  Now the universe is huge!  Like, I can talk to people all over the world –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – right now.  That makes it much more difficult –

Alisha:  And I think for a lot of people, like, that makes it –

Sarah:  – to get close to people.

Alisha:  Right?  And I, you know, I’m, I’m very conscious, like, I read, you know, Aziz’s book and everything.  Like, I, I, you know, I know, like, I, I’m not one of those people who will just, like, serially date and not settle down or think that there’s something better out there for me or anything, but there’s a lot of those people out there, and –

Sarah:  Mm-hmm.

Alisha:  – you know, it, it makes it even more challenging then to –

Sarah:  Well, I mean, you have spent a lot of time building your career –

Alisha:  Uh-huh.

Sarah:  – getting your shit together –

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – and arriving at yourself.

Alisha:  And that’s the thing.  Like, I do have my, I feel like I have my shit together, and I just, you know, it is, it’s, it’s sort of – but it is just difficult to not only find someone who also has their shit together but also, you know, you’re compatible with.

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  Like, you know, it’s a lot.  Like, it is –

Sarah:  It’s a tall order.

Alisha:  It’s a tall order, and, you know –

Sarah:  You know what’s weird:  so many women get accused of harboring unrealistic expectations –

Alisha:  Right!

Sarah:  – due to romance –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – whereas it sounds like what you actually have is realistic expectations –

Alisha:  Oh, I have incredibly realistic expectations, yeah.

Sarah:  – that aren’t necessarily being met because meeting a fellow adult –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – in the spheres in which you’re looking has proven, an inc-, a, a, a compatible adult –

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – has proven to be very difficult –

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – ‘cause it’s difficult.

Alisha:  ‘ Cause it’s, it’s just difficult, and like, you think about it, it’s always difficult.  Like, it is –

Sarah:  Always.

Alisha:  – always going to be one of those things where it’s, like, sort of a –

Sarah:  It is always a surprise when you meet somebody –

Alisha:  It’s a surprise.

Sarah:  – of any gender where you’re like –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – oh, we get along!

Alisha:  Right, yeah!

Sarah:  Within two minutes!

Alisha:  I mean, I’ve –

Sarah:  Boom!

Alisha:  – definitely, like, gone on, I’ve gone on dates with, like, you know, and I’ve been in relationships with, with men, like, and, you know, I wasn’t really, like, super excited to meet them or anything, and I’ll, I’ll meet them and I’ll go, oh!

Together:  Okay.

Alisha:  Like, there’s, whoa.

Sarah:  We, we mesh.

Alisha:  Like, oh, that’s, that was unexpected.  Like, so, you know, it is, it could be anywhere, and, you know, you should be open and all that stuff, but it is, it is sort of like a, it’s like a lightning strike, you know.  Like, it’s very rare, even if you meet in, like, college and whatever, grad school, like, it’s hard to sort of make that work, and, you know, we put a lot of pressure, I think, on, on women especially, on their clocks and their bodies and their –

Sarah:  Oh, yeah, you’re supposed to do this by X time.

Alisha:  – you know, like, this is the time!  Like, you have to be married by next year – [laughs] – like, sort of thing, and it’s –

Sarah:  I, I remember –

Alisha:  – you know, I, I sort of, and I, you know, you have, like, it’s not, it is partially cultural, I think it’s partially –

Sarah:  Oh, it’s very cultural.  And it’s also –

Alisha:  It’s also just our society at large, you know, like, it is –

Sarah:  Yeah, and what our value is as females, so what we do –

Alisha:  Right, yeah, is, is to be married, and –

Sarah:  I remember, I graduated college when I was twenty-one, and I remember being terrified because I felt like, okay –

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – you got your degree.  That was the thing you had to do –

Alisha:  Yes.  Yes.

Sarah:  – at this time period.

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  Now you’ve got your degree.  You now, before thirty-one, you have to get a job, find your career, get, find a person to be with –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – get, maybe get married, maybe have kids, and I went to a very small women’s college in the South –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – so there were a lot of women who graduated and got married the same summer –

Alisha:  Right, yeah.

Sarah:  – and the following, you know, alumni news we had many, many, many babies –

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – and that, and that’s perfectly normal and awesome?

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  And I was terrified because I wasn’t there.

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  And I was like, ohhh – and I even had a boyfriend who I ended up marrying.

Alisha:  Right, yeah!

Sarah:  But I was still like, I –

Alisha:  You’re nervous, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarah:  – I have to figure all that out in ten years?

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  I just figured out my major, like, a year ago!

Alisha:  Right!

Sarah:  I can’t make these kinds of decisions!

Alisha:  You know, there was a, a great interview somewhere with Tracee Ellis Ross from, from Blackish, and, and she said in there some, I’ll paraphrase, but, you know, she said, it takes us forever to find the right pair of jeans.  Why do we put so much pressure on women to find the right man?  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Damn right!

Alisha:  I was like, yeah!

Sarah:  I still haven’t found the right pair of jeans.

Alisha:  Yeah!  I, like, I, I just kind of found a pair that I don’t mind, like, a couple months ago, but I’m like, that took me thirty-something years to do that, so, like –

Sarah:  Right?

Alisha:  – you know, why, why do we put all this, like, like this idea that, you know, okay –

Sarah:  And it’s, and it’s on the woman –

Alisha:  And it’s on the woman.

Sarah:  – so much.

Alisha:  And, and a lot of it, you know, like, they tell you, like, okay, well, if you’re single just sort of work on yourself, and, and , you know, and all that, which, which is, you know, somewhat okay advice.  Like, you know, you should, you should always work on yourself, but it is, you know, it ignores, it tells people, like, oh, don’t worry.  Like, when you’re in a relationship you won’t have to work on yourself, or like –

Sarah:  And the subtext is, you aren’t ready.

Alisha:  Right, you aren’t ready.  You’re like something, it’s you, like, you know, and, and –

Sarah:  Other than dating is really fucking hard.

Alisha:  And other than dating is hard, and it’s really hard to find someone who, you know, you’re compatible with in a lot of ways, and, and, and, you know, I, I tell people, like, you know, if you’re single, like, that’s cool, if you just want to stay single that’s cool, but don’t feel bad if you want a relationship too.  Like, you can have, you can have it all!  [Laughs] You can –

Sarah:  WHAT?

Alisha:  Like, it doesn’t, you don’t have to worry.  Like, if, if that’s what you want, like, whatever you want is valid.

Sarah:  What?

Alisha:  If you don’t want a relationship, that’s cool.  If you do, that’s cool too.  Like, and if you’re really sad that you’re not in a relationship, that’s okay too!  Like it is –

Sarah:  Yeah!

Alisha:  – it is, you know, it is nice to work on yourself and, and still have someone to cuddle with at night.  Like, I get that!  Like, that is – but it’s perfectly valid for you to, you know, and it’s, it’s, you know, this is what feminism’s all about is that you can have whatever you want, right?  And, you know –

Sarah:  Yep.

Alisha:  – you know, and so I think, just don’t, like – ‘cause I talk to some women sometimes and they’re like, oh, man, I feel, like, guilty that, like, you know, I’ve got a great life, I’ve got a great profession, and, but I still want someone.  I feel like, you know, I, I shouldn’t, like, I should be working on myself, and I’m like, yeah, but –

Sarah:  No!

Alisha:  – you know what?  It’s okay!  You can want someone!  Like, it’s feelings.

Sarah:  Much like having feel- –

Alisha:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  – much like having feelings –

Alisha:  It’s like I’m –

Sarah:  – desiring connection with humans –

Alisha:  Right, like, is a feeling, yeah.

Sarah:  – also normal, yeah.

Alisha:  It’s also a feeling, and, you know, and, and sometimes romantic love, you know, like, you could have a lot of great people in your life and maybe, like, if you crave romantic love that’s okay too. You know, like, you can, you can do that, and that’s –

Sarah:  Oh, yeah.

Alisha:  – okay, but it’s, you know, not enough people, I think, tell you, like, it’s okay.  Like, you’re, it’s okay; like, you can be really badass and awesome, and it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have whatever else you want.  Like, you know, and that doesn’t make you less badass and, you know, it won’t make you less awesome.  You should keep working on yourself, and, you know, like, and, and it’s nice sometimes to, you know, I, I read this book that, it’s fantastic, it was about different types of personalities and how they attract, and I can’t remember the name of the book, but if, if I find it I’ll try to give it to you, but it was about how, you know, you can, you can go have a relationship, but you can still do all this great stuff, like, you know, and everything and, and the nice thing about a relationship is that you have sort of like a secure base.

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  You know, like, that’s, like, you can go be badass and do all this great stuff.

Sarah:  Because you’re safe.

Alisha:   It’s like, it’s, it’s the Stedman to Oprah, right?  [Laughs] Like, you can be Oprah and still want a Stedman, and, you know, like – what an appropriately named man, by the way, like, right?  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Totally.

Alisha:  Like, you know, or great or, or, you know, what’s-her-front’s name, like – [laughs] – Oprah’s friend.  Gail!

Sarah:  Gail.

Alisha:  [Laughs] Be, like, whatever, like, you know.

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  Whatever, whatever you want.  Oprah’s really got it all, doesn’t she?

Sarah:  Well –

Alisha:  Or so it seems, but, you know, it, it is – so, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s just really hard.  It is really, really hard, and it’s, it’s harder now, I think – or maybe it’s just different kinds of hard because we have so many, you know – again, I was talking to my sister, and she’s just, it’s just like the perfect case study, like, the two of us –

Sarah:  Ah.

Alisha:  – of, of, like –

Sarah:  Two opposite cultural experiences.

Alisha:  Two, yeah, two, exactly opposite cultural experiences and, and life experiences, and she is, like, a badass doctor, right?  Like, she’s got, like, three practices and all sorts of crazy stuff, like, and she’s got it all together, but, and I’m a mess, but, you know – [laughs].  You know, but, no, no, I’m not!  I’m, I’m good too!  We’re, we’re both successful in different ways, but, you know, she’s, we are, like, polar opposites in, in a lot of ways, and you’ve got to –

Sarah:  So, wait, wait, hold on, you own your condo, you are in, you, you have an excellent profession –

Alisha:  [Laughs] Got a couple professions!

Sarah:  – and you’re a, a published author –

Alisha:  Yeah.  No, no, I’m good!  I, it’s, you know, you never really shake that, like, childhood, like –

Sarah:  Oh, totally!

Alisha:  – feeling of, like –

Sarah:  Older sis- –

Alisha:  – she’s so much better than me!

Sarah:  Yes, the older sister/younger sister.

Alisha:  At everything!  Like, you know, like, oh, man, like, wish we’d never had the same math teachers –

Sarah:  Yeah?

Alisha:  – ‘cause, like, that was always a problem.  But, but, no, like, it is, it is like that older sibling, like, oh, she’s so good at everything!  But no, she was saying, like, oh, man, if I had, like, if texting had been around when I had been dating, I would never be married or in a relationship – because I don’t know, and I was like, that is true!  Like, it is, you have to be, like, text-compatible now, like, that is a thing.  Like, it is…text-patible, if you will.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Totally.

Alisha:  You have to be – and, you know, and I was –

Sarah:  It’s a language!

Alisha:  It’s a language!

Sarah:  It’s a form of communication.

Alisha:  And I was telling someone, like, a couple months ago, like, man, if, if, like, contemporary romance writ-, authors, like, or books, like, if, if I wrote it, like, realistically?  Like, the black moment would just be, like, someone not returning a text fast enough.

Sarah:  It would be, it would be one little speech bubble with three dots.

Alisha:  It would, it would just like no, no –

Sarah:  Perpetually!

Alisha:  – what, or, or it would be like, it would be like the two blue checks and then no response.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Yes!  Oh, my God!

Alisha:  Like, that would be, that would be the black moment right –

Sarah:  That’s heartbreaking!

Alisha:  It’s heartbreaking!  I, I, some time, some guy was like, oh, are you on WhatsApp?  And I was like, nope!  Because I didn’t want to get those two checks!  I was like, I cannot know if you’ve read my texts.  You don’t understand.  I will go crazy!

Sarah:  It’s like the world’s worst version of return receipt requested.

Alisha:  [Laughs] Yeah, it is.  I’m like –

Sarah:  I know you saw my message.

Alisha:  But that’s the thing!  It’s like, how do you take, how does it take you two days to respond to somebody.  It takes you two minutes to type out a response, but it is like –

Sarah:  Oh, my God.

Alisha:  Think about it!  Like, that level of compatibility, like, you didn’t need to worry about that!

Sarah:  And because it’s a casual relationship, you don’t know how to read –

Alisha:  Right?  Like, in the beginning –

Sarah:  – there’s no cue.  None.

Alisha:  – think about it.  Like, most of your relationships, like, if you, if you’re starting them online, are written –

Sarah:  Yep.

Alisha:  – and –

Sarah:  Text has no nuance.

Alisha:  – and text, text has no nuance.  Like, you can use emojis, but how far can you get with them?  Like, after a certain point?

Sarah:  I don’t know, the bacon and the eggplant get me real far.

Alisha:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Just saying.  But, yeah.

Alisha:  The eggplant and the peach have gotten me, have gotten me far too –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  – but, like, you know, it’s, there’s a certain point where it’s like – and, and after a while that evolves and stuff, but that first, like, couple months where you’re, like, feeling each other out –

Sarah:  How do I read you?

Alisha:  – and, like how do I read you?

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  Why aren’t you texting me?  Like, I’m texting you.  Like, and, and, you know, I’m not putting genders on either of those things, ‘cause I have definitely been the person who either, you know, texts more or texts less, depending on –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  – you know, the guy or whatever, so it’s not –

Sarah:  I’ve read articles about people who are like, okay, well, if it took him six hours to text me, then I’m going to wait twelve to text him.

Alisha:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  So I take the amount of time, and then I double it, and then I do math, and I was like, you’re doing math!

Alisha:  And you know, and I’m, I’m, I’m never – I’ve, I’ve been with, I think, some guys where I’m like, oh, he, like learned that from a forum or something like that.

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  Like, he’s playing a game now, but, like –

Sarah:  There’s a pattern.

Alisha:  There’s a pattern to, like, what you’re doing –

Sarah:  I’ve seen the Fibonacci sequencing, like, one, two, three, five –

Alisha:  Yeah, I’m like, I feel, it’s like, yeah, it’s like –

Sarah:  – okay, the next time you’re going to wait –

Alisha:  – the equations in front of my eyes are flashing.  I’m like, I know what you’re doing.  But it is –

Sarah:  Fibonacci texting.

[Laughter]

Alisha:  But it’s like, I’m not like that.  I, I’ll, I’ll, like, text when I get it or, like, when I can respond to it –

Sarah:  Right.

Alisha:  – but, you know, sometimes it depends, like, how, or how busy I am or if they text a lot at first and I’m, like, kind of freaked out by that.  [Laughs] You know, like, it is, there’s a whole secret language didn’t that exist five years ago –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  – and, and it’s, it is weird.

Sarah:  And what’s interest-, well, it’s interesting for me ‘cause I’m raising boys, and –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – we constantly tell both of them, you know, having feelings is normal.

Alisha:  Mm-hmm!

Sarah:  You are going to get a lot of message that as a boy you’re not supposed to feel things.

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  That’s bullshit –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – and it’s damaging, and it’s overwhelming –

Alisha:  Yes.

Sarah:  – that, that’s going to be told to you, but I’m telling you –

Alisha:  It’s good.

Sarah:  – you’re normal, it’s good to have feelings –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and it’s good to know what they are, and it’s good to know what to do with them.

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  Because walking around having a temper tantrum like you’re two when you’re actually twenty-seven –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – is not appealing.

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  But my older son has a cell phone, and he’s now getting his own text language together.

Alisha:  Ohhh.

Sarah:  Like, he’s, I’m watching him learn it –

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – and so, like, I will text him things, and he won’t respond, and I’ll be like, dude?  And the first thing is, sorry.  Sorry I didn’t respond.

Alisha:  Right!  And, and it’s always, like –

Sarah:  Oops, sorry.

Alisha:  – you know, it’s like, oh, man, like, I just got busy.  Like, but –

Sarah:  Right!

Alisha:  – but in your head you’re like – [hisses, laughs]

Sarah:  Dude, I asked you an important question –

Alisha:  Like, yeah, you’ve got to respond!

Sarah:  – this involved my Amazon, involved my Amazon two-day shipping order, get on it.  So I’m watching him learn texting –

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – and I’m watching him learn to talk to his friends, and I’m like, at some point, he’s going to start talking to girls, and it is going to be – or boys; I don’t know –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – it’s going to be intense –

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – because that is a language that I don’t use for intimacy –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – whereas he will use it for intimate conversations.

Alisha:  Right!  Yeah.  I mean, my, I think my brother-in-law only, like, texts four people, and it’s, it’s, like, us.  It’s like, you know, it’s like – [laughs] – his wife and his in-laws.

Sarah:  How?

Alisha:  Like, that’s it.

Sarah:  And whereas all of my friends are all over the place –

Alisha:  Right, yeah.

Sarah:  – I text friends in California –

Alisha:  Right!

Sarah:  – I text friends down South, I –

Alisha:  I’m, I have, like, a, I have running, like, group texts that, that have, I’ll get, like, nine hundred texts a day, you know, like, and, and I, I respond to all those.

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  Like, I’ll read them and respond and, you know, that doesn’t even faze me now –

Sarah:  Nope.

Alisha:  – but, like, but it is, it’s a different, it’s just a different world.

Sarah:  It is a completely different world.

Alisha:  And so, and it’s very hard, and it’s okay, and you’re fine, and find the right pair of jeans, ‘cause –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  – you want your butt to look really nice.  I –

Sarah:  You want to feel good in your jeans.

Alisha:  You want to feel good in your jeans –

Sarah:  You don’t need yet another person, and maybe they’re weird.

Alisha:  Yeah.  Right.

Sarah:  But when you’re writing romance –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – does the disconnect, is there a disconnect between the world that you’re writing and the world that you’re living in?  Are you writing an idealized or better-constructed version of reality for your characters?  Are you –

Alisha:  Oh, what an interesting question.

Sarah:  Is there a disconnect?  I mean, it would be easy to say, oh, well, clearly they’re very different, but I think negotiating intimacy with new people is perpetual.

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  Like, everyone everywhere in the history of humanity has always had to figure out how to negotiate –

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  – varying levels of intimacy with people.

Alisha:  You know –

Sarah:  When you’re inventing people –

Alisha:  Yeah!  It’s, I don’t know if it’s idealized.  I, I think it is pretty true to life.  You know, I haven’t – I think there’ve been some dating apps in some of my books.  I feel like there have, you know.  I don’t think anybody’s met off of one yet, but I’ll probably write that at some point.  It’s too real.  Too real.  [Laughs] Too real!

Sarah:  You know what would be really fun?  A self-published short story anthology that is romance by text message.

Alisha:  Ooh!

Sarah:  Romance through text messages?

Alisha:  I mean, I do, I do have, I do have one, one of my books, like, a lot of books, especially now in this past year, I’ve, I’ve – and even my upcoming book with, with Avon, you know Hate to Want You, it’s, it’s, there’s a lot of texting in it.  ‘Cause, like, that’s how you –

Sarah:  Well, yeah, that’s a language!

Alisha:  It is a language, and it’s, it’s just how you communicate now.

Sarah:  I mean –

Alisha:  You don’t pick up the phone and call anyone; like, you text them, right?

Sarah:  Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger?

Alisha:  Right!

Sarah:  Brrring!  Brrrroop!  Boo!

Alisha:  Yeah, like, you know – Instant Messenger!

Sarah:  Nobody uses that anymore!

Alisha:  Yeah, you text someone!

Sarah:  I, when I was an adjunct professor and I was, I was teaching kids with learning disabilities, and I almost wrote my master’s thesis on the fact that so many of my students who had varying levels of disability when it came to writing –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – in Microsoft Word or writing on paper had zero problems texting me –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – through Instant Messenger.

Alisha:  Yeah, yeah.

Sarah:  Like, they could write me a perfectly organized –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – logical argument –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – and then when they tried to write it on paper it was not bad.

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  And I realized that, my theory, anyway, was that the instant messaging and the texting is activating a different part of your brain.  If there’s a speech part –

Alisha:  Oh, interesting!

Sarah:  – and a writing part, those two don’t always mesh.

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  This is, this, the, the research that I did was wildly out of date, but at the time I was having a real good time with this theory.  And so when, when you’re accessing the parts of your brain that manage speech, it’s a different set of inhibitions –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – which is why you’ll see people who say things that they would never write down or write things they would never say out loud.

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  There’s a, there’s an inhibition between those two.

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  So if you’re circumventing the inhibition or the problem that creates issues when you’re writing something down with something that is more like talking than writing –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – for many of the students I had, it bypassed all of their issues to the point where the spelling was wildly inconsistent –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – but the logical progression of argument that they could make on paper was very, very evident, and so now it’s like everyone is speech-talking.

Alisha:  Yeah.  And it var-, you know, I, I dated this one guy who was just terrible at texting, like, really, really bad at it.  Like –

Sarah:  [Laughs]

Alisha:  – so bad at, oh, my God!

Sarah:  It’s like you don’t even speak English!

Alisha:  And it was like, stop it.  Please stop.

Sarah:  [Laughs more]

Alisha:  Please stop texting me.  So, like, and it was funny ‘cause after, like, I was scrolling, you know, I had some messages, like, on my iPad, and I was scrolling through them, ‘cause I’m a glutton for punishment again, and so that was, I was reading through them, and I realized, like – [laughs] Glutton for Pleasure, right, yes, yes, of course, pleasure – and –

[Laughter]

Alisha:  – and so – you’re right; I get enough people who are like, I love your book, Glutton for Punishment!  And I’m like, that’s a very different book.

[Laughter]

Alisha:  I have not written that hardcore BDSM.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Maybe that is the secret to happiness while you’re dating:  be a glutton for pleasure.

Alisha:  That might be it!  But it, it was like, I, I realized that the last few texts that I’d sent him were constantly like, can we just talk on the phone?  Can we just talk on the phone?

Sarah:  Ohhh!

Alisha:  Can we just talk?  ‘Cause I was like, I, you’re much better on the phone, and it’s like –

Sarah:  Aww!

Alisha:  – let me just talk to you in your language, and your language is on the phone –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  – and, you know, my language might be –

Sarah:  My language is not on the phone.

Alisha:  And I’m, I’m, like, pretty ambidextrous, but, like, you know, it’s probably best if we just talk in the language that you’re better at.  But it is, you know, it’s – we, what were we talking about?  Oh.  Oh, writing!  Yes.

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  And so, you know, I think it is, I don’t think it’s an idealized world, but I think it is, it’s just different facets of our world.

Sarah:  Yep.

Alisha:  Which I think is, you know, ‘cause people still meet, like –

Sarah:  Yep.

Alisha:  It’s their neighbor that they’re spying on.  [Laughs] And, and of course it’s a romance, and there’s, like, some level of fantasy in it, right?  Like, you –

Sarah:  Yep.

Alisha:  – probably will not peep on your neighbor and then fall madly in love with him.  Well, I hope, I hope you do – [laughs] – if you have a really hot neighbor, but, like – or you will not be in this, like, decade-long feud with someone, but, but, and, you know, that’s storytelling, but I think the challenge with contemporary romance is that your world rules are already laid out.

Sarah:  Yep.

Alisha:  It’s not like paranormal where you can kind of, like, write your way out of something if you have to.

Sarah:  Yep.

Alisha:  It’s not like, and yet it’s not like any other, really, genre where, genre romance where you can, like, tweak things a little bit if you –

Sarah:  Right.

Alisha:  – if it’s convenient.

Sarah:  The rules are already written.

Alisha:  The rules are a little bit more flexible, but, like – or you’re creating the rules, but in contemporary romance, you know, there’s, there’re parts that are just, it’s so hard, ‘cause you have to be like, well, this is the world that my reader lives in.

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  This is the world that my reader knows.  Am I reflecting that world?

Sarah:  Or do I need to set this book in the ‘80s so they don’t have a cell phone.

Alisha:  Right.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  If they had a cell phone, they would just, like, call themselves an Uber and get the fuck out of here.

Alisha:  Yeah, right, right.  Like, and that’s the thing, like, you know, like, do you know all this stuff?  Like, this is the world that, yeah, this is the world we exist in now –

Sarah:  Yep.

Alisha:  So if you have, if you’re writing like a thirty-something-year-old, you know, character in a contemporary romance, they have to act like a thirty-something-year-old character in a –

Sarah:  In a contemporary romance.

Alisha:  – in a contemporary world, and, you know, and that changes.  Like, obviously, like, there’s the guy who couldn’t really text me.  Well, you know, like, so there, you might have that, but that, those are, you know, then you go, like, oh, my God, I dated this guy who couldn’t text me.  You know, like, it’s like, you have, like, things like that that pop up, so.

Sarah:  Yep.

Alisha:  But that’s like, but then, that’s, that’s sort of like the, anomaly in that world.

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  Like, for me, that’s an anomaly.

Sarah:  Right.

Alisha:  A guy who can’t text me is, like –

Sarah:  The anomaly.

Alisha:  – the anomaly, not the norm.

Sarah:  ‘Cause that’s, that’s a language that most people have grown accustomed to.

Alisha:  At this point, I think so.  ‘Cause you know you, it’s the millennial sort of, you know, mindset, even if we’re, like, I, I don’t know what I am, but, like, you know, cusp, cusp.

Sarah:  I am the cusp of generation –

Alisha:  Cusp generation.

Sarah:  – I am the cusp of gen X.  I think I’m, like, one year –

Alisha:  I’m technically a millennial, I think, but not –

Sarah:  Oh, yeah, millennials are in their thirties.

Alisha:  Yeah, millennials are in their thirties.

Sarah:  People always think millennials are, like, graduating college, and I’m like, no, that’s some other group of people.

Alisha:  Yeah, and I think, I think, like, it is, it is.  I, I don’t think we’ve named them yet, actually.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Sorry.  Well, we’ll name you –

Alisha:  We’ll name you, and then we’ll –

Sarah:  – and then we’ll blame you.

Alisha:  – poop all over you.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  Shit all over you, blame you for everything.

Alisha:  Like, you are never going to be in trouble on everything, but –

Sarah:  Oh, yeah.

Alisha:  – but it is, like, yeah, it’s, it’s, you know, like that, that thirties, like – someone said something to me, and I, I said – like, they were only thirty-five and, and I was like, yeah, well men of your age say that, and he’s like, warily, you know, like, what are you talking about?  And he’s like, I’m not a millennial!

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  Yeah – [laughs]

Sarah:  You kind of are, bud!

Alisha:  Like, I know you don’t feel like one, but, like –

Sarah:  Millennials are in their thirties.  Sorry!

Alisha:  Yeah.  Yeah.  So, but yeah, I think I’m, I’m, I’m technically a millennial.  I grew up with a lot of gen-Xers, so I feel like I can traverse both, but –

Sarah:  So you have some flannel.

Alisha:  I have some flannel.  I, I wore grunge stuff.  I wore a lot of black –

Sarah:  I have my –

Alisha:  – in high school.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  I, I, I couldn’t get rid of my six-hole Doc Martens.

Alisha:  Ohhh!

Sarah:  They’re in such shitty shape, and I love them too much.  And you know what’s weird about Doc Martens?  They –

Alisha:  Doc Martens are good shoes.

Sarah:  – suck in the snow!

Alisha:  [Laughs] They’re terrible!

Sarah:  Like, you’d think, you would think with this big sole and the –

Together:  No!

Sarah:  They are ass in the snow and ice.  You do not want to wear Docs in the ice.  They just zhwp!  Off you go.

Alisha:  I did not have Doc Martens only ‘cause my mom thought they were ridiculous looking, so there was no way – [laughs]

Sarah:  Well, she’s not wrong, but they’re still awesome.

Alisha:  She’s not wrong.  Yeah.

Sarah:  All right, so last question:  what books do you recommend that you have read recently?  And it’s okay if they’re not out yet, because we’ll just –

Alisha:  Were we supposed to talk about diversity at all?

Sarah:  You want to talk about diversity?

Alisha:  Should we?

Sarah:  Yeah, sure!

Alisha:  Okay.

Sarah:  It’s a thing!

Alisha:  [Laughs] I heard it’s a trend!  Let’s do it.

Sarah:  What do you think will be the next step in, in the discussion and push for diversity within romance?  Like, what do you think will start to happen in the next year?

Alisha:  Here’s what I, I, I hope happens:  I hope what happens is that we stop thinking about diversity as a trend, despite our jokes.

Sarah:  No!

Alisha:  Only because I think we’re at, we’re at a very sensitive time in our current – [laughs] –

Sarah:  Yes.

Alisha:  – in our culture and in our, in history and, you know, when we look back on this time, I think we need to, twenty years from now, I think we need some good things –

Sarah:  Oh, God, I hope so!

Alisha:  – to come out of this.  Someone, someone was saying, like, you know, you shouldn’t be political if you’re, if you’re an author or, like, whatever, businessperson, and –

Sarah:  Uhhhh –

Alisha:  – and, look, look, I mean, for you and for your kids and for me and, you know, for, for a lot of people out of there, just sort of being alive is an act of –

Sarah:  Oh, yeah.

Alisha:  – of politics, and it’s because we’ve conflated, I think, politics with the right to be a human in this world and to, you know, to marry who we choose and to walk down the street and not get killed and, you know, to –

Sarah:  Well –

Alisha:  – just exist, and so –

Sarah:  Not being political means not challenging somebody on the things that they’re doing –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – that are harmful, which is –

Alisha:  Right, and that are –

Sarah:  – well –

Alisha:  – that are harmful to either, to either you or to people you care about or to anybody in this world who you don’t want to – you know, like, why –

Sarah:  Right.

Alisha:  – why harm people?  [Laughs] And it is, you know, it’s, it’s, I, I do talk about politics insofar, insofar as that politics have somehow become, you know, more than just the IRS and – [laughs] – our various –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  – you know, government agencies and stuff like that, and tax cuts.  I mean, it’s become, it’s become a question of, of if we can let people live –

Sarah:  Culture and society and –

Alisha:  – you know?  Yeah.

Sarah:  – respecting other people’s humanity.

Alisha:  Respecting people as, as people, and so, you know, when I think about the diversity trend or whatever it is, you know, I think, you know –

Sarah:  Before the election you could just sort of roll your eyes at it.  Now you’re like, okay, no.

Alisha:  And I really think, you know, where we are now is sort of a direct result of what we haven’t done and what we haven’t accomplished in, in creating empathy for all sorts of people, and I think that, you know, there’ve been a number of studies, and I’m, you know, I often link to quite a few of them, and I’ve read them.  You know, they’re – I’m a smart chick; they’re smart studies.  [Laughs] You know, like, they’re, they’re good studies.  They’re solid studies that show that, you know, media showing good representation of various people, various types of people of all races and orientations and whatever creates empathy in people.

Sarah:  Yes.

Alisha:  Even if they’re not exposed to those people on a daily business.  So we’re talking TV and we’re talking books, we’re talking movies.

Sarah:  Right.

Alisha:  Creating good representation.  I think the, the key word there is good, because they’ve also found that showing negative stereotypes of people, confirming biases against people, has led to decreased empathy towards those people.

Sarah:  Right.  And, and narrow portrayals that diminish that person’s humanity and make them into a –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – service or a plot device –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – or a, a role –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – more than a person.

Alisha:  I mean, and, and it really is –

Sarah:  Denying people the complexity of being human.

Alisha:  Right.  And, and, you know, I get it; sometimes, like, those confirmation biases, I mean, we’ve seen in this election play out how confirmation biases can, can lead to money and presidencies and – [laughs] –

Sarah:  Ohhh –

Alisha:  – all sorts of things!

Sarah:  – just a few.

Alisha:  But, but, you know, and it’s, it’s not comfortable sometimes to have those confirmations challenged, you know, like, or have those biases challenged, but –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  – but I really think, you know, and I think what hopefully people have realized is that those good representations are, are, are what the world needs.  But I think the, the challenge is really, you know, think about who your audience is, and I think sometimes when people write these negative stereotypes or they write –

Sarah:  Reductive characterizations, yeah.

Alisha:  – they write reductive characterizations, you know, you write, you write this character who is, you know – I’ll take mine, you know – you, you write the Apus, you write the guy who owns the gas station whose Indian, or you take, or you write, he, you know, he has a taxi or he’s whatever, you know, like, you –

Sarah:  You’re putting a person of color, of a specific culture, in a context that is overly familiar, reductive, stereotypical, and limiting.

Alisha:  Right.  And, and that might be very comforting for some of your readers, but, but you have to think about the readers – I mean, I think when people do that, and I’ve seen a number of, of books where, where it’s a stereotype, right?

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  Like, it’s a stereotype come to life, and they just fall in love with the stereotype, and then – [laughs] – then it all plays out with the stereotype.  And those books are, are feted, you know, like, they’re, they get great reviews, and they get awards, and they get lots of, they get money!  Like, you get –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  – like, those authors are, are rewarded for those books, and, and, you know, at a certain point, I can’t tell you not to make a living, but at a certain point I think you have to think about what you –

Sarah:  The thing – to, to, to quote Glen Weldon from NPR, the thing that you thought you made is not the thing that you made.

Alisha:  Right.  You know, whenever I write any character I think, if a person who’s represented by that character, if they read this book –

Sarah:  Uh-huh.

Alisha:  – how are they going to feel?

Wilbur:  Meow!

Sarah:  Wilbur really –

Alisha:  Is that your cat?  [Laughs]

Sarah:  That’s Wilbur.  I think his brother has done something that he doesn’t like, and he is going –

Alisha:  He’s mad!

Sarah:  – he’s going to yell about it.  He might come downstairs.

Alisha:  And yell?  Holy cow!

Sarah:  He might, yeah, yeah –

Alisha:  He is a very loud cat!

Sarah:  Oh, well, you know.  He’s, he’s a very large, loud cat with a lot of –

Wilbur:  Meow.

Sarah:  He, he’s –

Alisha:  Oh, my God!

Sarah:  He has a lot – Wilbur!  Do you have things to say about diversity?  I’m orange.

Wilbur:  Meow!

Sarah:  He’s got things to say.

Alisha:  He’s so mad!

Sarah:  Eh, or he’s just talking.  Hey, Bud!  What’s up?

Alisha:  Hey, cat!

Sarah:  You out of water, you out of food?  Did your brother poop and didn’t cover it up?

Alisha:  [Laughs]

Sarah:  It’s not a podcast unless your brother interrupts with a big crap.  Yeah.

Alisha:  He’s just going to be creepy on the stairs.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  He’s just going to, oh, he’s going to sit there and yell at me, ‘cause it –

Alisha:  Aw!

Sarah:  – cats have a schedule.  I’m supposed to be doing something that I’m not doing.

Alisha:  Aw!

Sarah:  Oh, I love you too, Buddy.  It’s nice to see you.

Alisha:  [Laughs] So –

Sarah:  The, the thing about romance is, for me, to quote what Emily Nagoski said on a podcast, when you write about women achieving sexual satisfaction, when you write about women achieving autonomy and independence, that is a radical act.

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  It is fundamentally revolutionary.

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  Because just those aspects are incredibly subversive.

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  Even if you have a structure that is the most patriarchal foundation ever, the fact that the story is centered on the woman and the woman is achieving self-actualization and making choices for herself and –

Alisha:  Getting what she wants.

Sarah:  – getting what she wants –

Alisha:  Yeah, yeah.

Sarah:  – including orgasms –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – that is inherently, to varying levels depend on, depending on the execution of it, very subversive.

Alisha:  Correct.

Sarah:  So I have unrealistic expectations, it seems, of romance, that we can do better, that we can, we –

Alisha:  I really –

Sarah:  It’s not unrealistic, it’s, it’s not unrealistic in the idea that it can’t be done; it’s that it’s not being done yet.

Alisha:  Yeah.  And I –

Sarah:  Like, what, what, what’s the holdup?  Come on!

Alisha:  – I understand, and there, there really should not be a holdup, and I really think part of it is, you know, like, it is not easy.  Like, none of this is easy, right?

Sarah:  No, it’s not easy.

Alisha:  Like, this is not an easy cash grab.  This is not, like –

Sarah:  And there’s no –

Alisha:  – I want to write vampires ‘cause it’s on trend!  You know, like, ‘cause how many vampires can you offend, possibly?  [Laughs] You know, like, this –

Sarah:  Many.  Have you been on the Internet?

Alisha:  Yes, it is a lot.

Sarah:  Lots of them!  I’ve seen their forums; you don’t want to mess with them.

Alisha:  You know, it is – like, I don’t mind if I, if I, if I offend a duke?  Like, a Regency duke?  I’m okay with it, but if I – [laughs] –

Sarah:  [Sighs] Fine.

Alisha:  – but if I’m offending, you know, somebody who’s alive, who’s reading my book, if I’m hurting them I, I feel bad!  You know, I don’t want – I think you just have to always assume that someone is, someone could be hurt by your book, and you, do you want, are you, are you ready to say, I did everything I could not to hurt you?

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  And if you can’t say that, and if it’s a matter of, like, well, somebody rubberstamped it, and they said it was fine, you know, like, tsk, it’s not really, like –

Sarah:  That’s not the point.

Alisha:  That’s not the point, so –

Sarah:  I struggle with the term sensitivity reader.

Alisha:  You know, I kind of do too.  I, that’s why I don’t use them, ‘cause I’m like –

Sarah:  But I can’t think of a –

Alisha:  – it’s a, it’s a, it feels off to me, and I don’t know why.

Sarah:  It, for one thing, I think it puts the – we already have a negativity associated with the concept of sensitivity.

Alisha:  I, yeah.

Sarah:  Even though we just talked about how feelings is, are normal –

Alisha:  Are great, yeah.

Sarah:  – having them is normal –

Alisha:  Yeah, yeah, no, no, I know.

Sarah:  – being sensitive is something that is detrimental to your health and happiness –

Alisha:  Correct.

Sarah:  – and, and to your standing and your status.

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  Being sensitive is not necessarily considered a good thing.

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  So having a sensitivity reader already casts that person’s role at a, at a, at a detriment.

Alisha:  Yeah.

Sarah:  It’s already explaining that they have to, they have to be aware of something that, fundamentally, that they are reading with an awareness that they, they and the person giving the material to them –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – accept is not a universally held awareness –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – which, that I get, but calling it sensitivity implies – or maybe it doesn’t imply it; maybe I am just inferring that –

Alisha:  You do, there is sort of like a, it feels odd to me.

Sarah:  Like –

Alisha:  No, no, I get it.

Sarah:  Sensitivity, being, being told, oh, you’re so sensitive, is very rarely a compliment.

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  You know?  It’s usually a veiled criticism or an observation.

Alisha:  Right, yes.

Sarah:  Like, if you’re convinced that you feel ghosts everywhere, I’d be like, you’re very sensitive!

Alisha:  Yeah!

Sarah:  Like, you’re aware of things –

Alisha:  Yeah, yeah.

Sarah:  – that I am not, and thankfully not aware of.

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  But, like, my children will come home and be like, well, he said I was soft –

Alisha:  Mm-hmm.

Sarah:  – ‘cause I’m too sensitive, and I have to combat both of those words, you know, so it seems to, I –

Alisha:  The sensitivity reader, I, I get it.  You’re saying it like –

Sarah:  It’s not the concept; it’s the name.

Alisha:  – it’s like it’s, it’s guarding against the too-precious people out there, who – [laughs] – but, but at the end of the day –

Sarah:  Right!  And that’s not actually what it’s doing!

Alisha:  – at the end – right, it’s not.  And it’s, it’s –

Sarah:  And it’s advocating for fair and accurate and kind and –

Alisha:  And it’s –

Sarah:  – inclusive portrayals, not making sure that people –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – don’t get their feelings hurt.

Alisha:  And that –

Sarah:  That’s also a goal, unless you –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – want to hurt people’s feelings.

Alisha:  And they cannot, and that’s the thing, like, it, if you, if you use, like, a beta reader or whatever, if, and if you’re sensitive to begin with, I think, like, you can’t, it will never hurt your book.  Like, how, how can it possibly, how could it hurt you to have, to include more people in your readership?

Sarah:  Right.  And to include a varying perspective on –

Alisha:  Right.

Sarah:  – the characters that you’re writing, especially if you are not personally fluent in –

Alisha:  And, and that’s the thing, like, you know, I’ve heard people say, like, well, if you write an Indian character, like, am I limiting my audience to just Indian readers?  And I go –

Sarah:  What?!

Alisha:  – oh, you should see my readers!  Like, I don’t even know, like, you know, let’s, let’s look through my Twitter and look at everyone’s avatars and see how many Indians I have in there.  I don’t think I have a lot!  And, or, and I don’t write only Indian characters.  I write across the board.

Sarah:  Just speaking in purely mathematical terms –

Alisha:  And, and actually, it’s not a bad thing, just – [laughs] –

Sarah:  Just –

Alisha:  – literally billions of us – [laughs] –

Sarah:  -just to say –

Alisha:  – like, it’s not –

Sarah:  – in terms of pure math –

Alisha:  Right, right, it’s not bad!

Sarah:  – that would seem to be, say, just say, hypothetically say it’s a trend, that would be a somewhat profitable trend!

Alisha:  The thing is, the thing is, you will never have that.  You’re going to have, you’ll have all the readers then, do you see?  Like, if you write with an eye towards not offending people –

Sarah:  Oh, yeah.

Alisha:  – who you’re representing, you will have those readers, and you will not be hurting anyone –

Sarah:  Nope.

Alisha:  – and you’ll be creating, like, if, if nothing else, you know, like, if that’s your financial objective, like, you’ll have the widest audience possible.  It makes more sense.  This makes financial sense.  Racism and, and, you know, all of our phobias make no financial sense, right?

Sarah:  Right.

Alisha:  So if you must be a business person, let’s look at the thing that makes financial sense.

Sarah:  All right, so, whatcha reading?

Alisha:  What am I reading?  Okay.

Sarah:  So, I heard in the comments of a post today on my site that Alyssa Cole’s upcoming book is amazing, and I haven’t read it yet.

Alisha:  Oh, my God.  [Laughs] All of Alyssa Cole’s books are amazing!

Sarah:  Well, it’s true.

Alisha:  Like, it is, it is –

Sarah:  It is a truth universally acknowledged that Alyssa Cole writes good books.

Alisha:  She’s just, just like a perfect princess.  She’s like – [laughs] – she’s – okay, full disclosure, Alyssa is one of my best friends, and, but she became my best friend ‘cause I literally slid into her DMs and was like –

[Laughter]

Alisha:  – literally slid into them and was like, hey, girl.  [Laughs] You write some good books.  Be my best friend now!  And, and now I get all of her books early!  But, so she’s got a couple of, of great things.  So her, her last one was the suffragette –

Sarah:  Yes.

Alisha:  – anthology, and it is – like, okay, you love Let It Shine, right?

Sarah:  Yep.  It’s good.

Alisha:  Oh, my God.  I think –

Sarah:  Redheadedgirl reviewed it –

Alisha:  Oh, okay!

Sarah:  – and I got to read it, and it is so good.

Alisha:  Like, my mind is being blown even thinking about it.  It is one of my favorite books.  It’s a novella; it’s great; you should read it; it’s fantastic.  But her, her novella in the –

Sarah:  They’re in the club.

Alisha:  Yes!  [Laughs]

Sarah:  In, in the ‘20s.  It’s a whole other kind of clubbing.

Alisha:  Yes.

Sarah:  People don’t realize the ‘20s had some stuff!

Alisha:  Yeah, they had some stuff, but, like, but that suffragette antho in general is pretty good.  It’s got, like, you know, it’s got Kianna and Lena Hart and, and Piper Huguley.  It’s really, really good, but – but her, her novella in it is just so good.  So she’s got, I’ve read it, ‘cause I’m special, but she’s got – [laughs] –

Sarah:  [Sighs] Fine.

Alisha:  – as-yet unpublished royals series that I’m very excited about, and it’s got, oh, my God, the first book is, like, grownup Princess Diaries.

Sarah:  Ooooh.

Alisha:  Like, grownup, like, oh, and super sexy and fun.  it’s like, oh, oh, my God.  Like you can’t even think about it, but, so that is, that’s, hopefully, you know, that’ll be published soon, and, and everyone can read it, ‘cause I’ve, like, teased everybody.  [Laughs] And I’m like, listen, you want royals?  I’ve got the best royals in world!

Sarah:  And then her revolutionary book is coming out –

Alisha:  And her revolutionary book is coming out.

Sarah:  An Extraordinary Union.

Alisha:  Yes, An Extraordinary Union!  Yes.

Sarah:  Thank you.  For me, it was, well, there’s a woman in a dress leaving a room, that on the cover –

Alisha:  [Laughs] Okay, yes.

Sarah:  – ‘cause that’s what I can, I can describe the cover.

Alisha:   An Extraordinary Union is excellent.  It’s a beautiful cover.  It’s a really pretty –

Sarah:  It’s gorgeous!

Alisha:  That’s coming out –

Sarah:  I don’t remember the word part; I just remember the picture part.

Alisha:  – from Kensington, I believe.  That is a very good book.  And of course Kit Rocha just got their last book in the Beyond series out, which was very, very good, and she’s got her upcoming, they’ve got their upcoming series coming out too, which I’ve sort of been reading.  The first book is about a super soldier, so I’m, like, really all over that.  [Laughs] And I love the super, like, the, the cold, emotionless super soldiers?  Best, best heroes.

Sarah:  So that’s your –

Alisha:  That is my –

Sarah:  – that’s your catnip.

Alisha:  – that is my catnip.

Sarah:  That’s your catnip.

Alisha:  Yeah, like, oh, the Nalini Singh, like, Psy, like, hero-type guy?

Sarah:  Cold, emotionless –

Alisha:  Cold, emotionless, like – [whispers] but then he finds love.  [Laughs]

Sarah:  – complete control –

Alisha:  Yeah, complete control!

Sarah:  Because the, ‘cause in the real world, the cold, emotionless people have no control a lot of the time –

Alisha:  Correct, and –

Sarah:  – or they’re, there’s a whole aspect of their lives –

Alisha:  – and sometimes –

Sarah:  – where if it’s out of control they lose their minds.

Alisha:  – and you may not want to do them.  [Laughs] Like –

Sarah:  But in a book –

Alisha:  – ‘cause they are the ones that you have to do all the emotional labor, but in a book, oh, it’s beautiful!  [Laughs] Like, to see that slowly unravel and –

Sarah:  Yep.

Alisha:  – to get torn apart but –

Sarah:  And I think that’s part of what Sarah MacLean points to as the feminism of romance, that the cold, emotionless male figure is taught that emotions and kindness –

Alisha: Yeah.

Sarah:  Yes, they’re taught that emotions are bad, and then they learn that they are not and that they are human.

Alisha:  And that they –

Sarah:  And that the heroine –

Alisha:  – can actually make their life better!

Sarah:  – and that the heroine is the one that transforms them into a more human human.

Alisha:  Or at least, like, kind of unlocks, like –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  – or just says, like, it’s cool.  You can be human.  And, and they do.

Sarah:  Nothing bad is going to happen to you.

Alisha:  Nothing bad is going to happen to you if you’re human, and I think that’s, like, an important message for everybody to –

Sarah:  Yeah.

Alisha:  – sort of take away.  Oh!  And I, I did read – finally!  It took me forever; I had an ARC and I, I didn’t get to it, but Sonali Dev’s latest book in her Bollywood series.

Sarah:  A Change of Heart?

Alisha:  A Change of Heart.  Like, whoa!  [Laughs]  Right?  It was really good –

Sarah:  But it, but it ripped your heart out of your chest, right?

Alisha:  It ripped it, yeah, and I, I, it’s –

Sarah:  The change of heart is that your heart’s going to change locations.

Alisha:  Right, right!  I was, like, whoa!

Sarah:  It’s going to be removed very surgically from your chest!

Alisha:  Right!  It was amaz-, and I was, I was, like, blown away, and what I really like about Sonali is, like, you know, she’s got the three books in the series where each one is so different!

Sarah:  Oh, yeah.

Alisha:  So different!

Sarah:  Oh, yeah, the first one is, like, Harlequin Presents on steroids.

Alisha:  Yeah!  Yeah!

Sarah:  The second one is super angst-y.  The third one is just, like –

Alisha:  Like, here’s your, yeah, like, let me take a –

Sarah:  Let me carefully –

Alisha:  – yeah, let me take a knife and take this out, yeah.

Sarah:  – excise – all of your internal organs are going to take a little trip.

Alisha:  But I, I really like that one.

[music]

Sarah:  And that is all for this week’s episode.  I know you guys like the longer episodes, so I hope you enjoyed that, and I want to thank Alisha for hanging out with me and bringing brownies, ‘cause that was awesome.  Doing interviews in person is slightly different than doing them over Skype or over the phone.  It produces sort of a, a very different conversation, so I hope you enjoyed it.  Orville, in the background right now, is, seems to be in favor of the in-person interview and also is about to show up to chew on the sound box.  What a good cat!

This podcast has been brought to you by Kensington Publishing, and they would like you to know (a) that Orville is knocking over the drinking water – [laughs] – such a professional show over here!  Kensington would like you to know about New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, US Navy veteran and genre pioneer, Lindsay McKenna.  Her newest book in the Wind River Valley series, Wind River Rancher, is out now.  With her signature military heroes and a Western romance setting, this distinguished author’s finest talents combine in an engrossing series about searching for the true meaning of love and freedom within the wild expanse of the American West.  Battling PTSD, as Shaylene Crawford attempts to turn around the Bar C ranch as a home for wounded warriors to heal, she finds an unlikely sympathetic ear in former Marine commander Reese, who is battling some demons of his own.  You can find Wind River Rancher wherever romance is sold!

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater.  This is the Peatbog Faeries from their album Dust.  This track is called “Marx Terrace,” and you can find it online at Amazon or iTunes or wherever you buy your music, and you can also find it at peatbogfaeries.com.

If you would like to send us an email, you want to ask me a question, or you want to leave us a voicemail, all of those things are awesome and possible.  You can email me at [email protected] – I love hearing from you – or you can leave a voicemail at 201-371-3272.  That is a US number – actually, Jersey – so that would be country code 1-201-371-3272.  You can tell me about all the things you have to say or ideas for the podcast or suggestions or questions or you’re looking for book recommendations.  We take all kinds of email here, because you are all very interesting, so if you’re contacting us, thank you!  You rule.

I also want to tell you about two things:  one, we have an iTunes page, and it’s really cool:  iTunes.com/DBSA.  And we have a podcast Patreon.  If you are enjoying the show and would like to make a monthly pledge of a dollar, two dollars, three dollars, five, whatever, a month to help keep the show going, upgrade equipment, and commission transcripts for the episodes that do not have one, I would be most appreciative!  Current patrons are helping me figure out the schedule for 2017, and they have some outstanding ideas, so you’re also helping me improve the show, so thank you for that.  But most of all, thank you for listening and thank you for being here.  I really hope you enjoyed this episode.

Next week we have more discussion about romance, ‘cause that’s what we do!  But in the meantime, on behalf of all of my loud, loud pets; Alisha Rai; everyone here; and myself, we wish you the very best of reading.  Have a great weekend.

[wild music]