250. Being A Writer, and Being Yourself: An Interview with Sara Flynn and Meg Tilly

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello, and welcome to episode number 250 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and with me today are Meg Tilly and Sara Flynn, who are conveniently the same person. Meg Tilly is probably a known name to you. She was an Academy-Award-nominated actress who also won a Golden Globe, but she also writes romance as Sara Flynn! She attended RT for the first time and was the MC for the awards ceremony, so we start by talking about identity, about being yourself and investing your own energy in the things that you value. We also talk about her experience with RT, her writing, her process, and how acting has possibly informed her writing style. We talk about her new book, Solace Island, and we talk about learning to write romance when it is something you truly, truly love.

Now, heads up: at minutes 48:25 to 48:35, so halfway through the forty-eighth minute, there is a mention of her earlier books which were published under the name Meg Tilly. They deal with abuse, and she mentions a very brief plot synopsis that may be upsetting, so if you are triggered by mentions of sexual abuse or childhood sexual abuse, please skip those ten seconds.

This podcast is brought to you by Beyond Reason by Kat Martin, and I want to thank Kensington for sponsoring this month’s podcasts and giving me a cool book to talk about with each episode! It’s so cool! New York Times bestselling author Kat Martin combines all the romantic tension readers love, but with more suspense than ever, debuting her brand-new writing direction with Beyond Reason. Her new novel raises chills as danger stalks a woman determined to make it in a man’s world. Kat Martin is the latest to join this exciting trend in female-driven novels for the thriller audience which is growing rapidly in the marketplace. Beyond Reason has all of Kat Martin’s strengths on full display: strong characters, plenty of fast-paced action and danger, hot alpha heroes, and her taut yet engaging writing style, but this time Martin amps up the suspense for a thriller-forward plot involving big rig trucking, drug smuggling, murder, and lies. Beyond Reason is on sale now wherever books are sold and on kensingtonbooks.com.

And now it is time for my favorite thing: compliments! Yay!

To Tracy M.: In every aria for every opera, there is a transcendent piece of music. All of them were inspired by you.

And to Sarah Beth: You are as essential and comforting to your friends as a teddy bear, a blanket, and tea spiked with necessary accessories.

If you would like a compliment of your own, handcrafted with complete sincerity and a great deal of silliness by yours truly, head on over to our Patreon campaign at patreon.com/SmartBitches. For monthly pledges of one dollar, three dollars, five dollars, whatever dollars a month, you can support the show and help keep us going and help make the audio increasingly more gooder.

Also, this is our 250th episode! I am so excited! Thank you so much for being here for that and for your support and for listening. I am, I am blown away. So this episode comes with an extra-big thank-you for listening, for subscribing, for reviewing, for telling a friend about the podcast, for taking a look at our Patreon page, for supporting the show. I am very grateful. Thank you!

I also want to let you know that iTunes has a page for us as well. You can find us at iTunes.com/DBSA with recent episodes, book links, and that, all the things that you want to know from previous episodes.

And of course I will have links to all the books we talk about in this episode at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast, as well as links to Sara Flynn’s website, Meg Tilly’s website, all the things, all the linking. There will be lots of linking.

The music you are listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater, and you can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater. I will be telling you at the end of the episode who this is, but I’m betting if you are a long-time listener this sounds familiar, because I really like this music.

And now, without any further delay, on with the podcast with Meg Tilly and Sara Flynn!

[music]

Meg Tilly/Sara Flynn: Hi, I’m Meg Tilly. Oh, no, wait. [Laughs]

Sarah: You can be if you want. You can, you can –

Sara/Meg: I’m Sara Flynn/Meg Tilly. I’m, I act sometimes, I write, and I’m here talking with Sarah Wendell.

Sarah: That’s right! So, so you’re both. Is there anyone else you are?

Meg/Sara: Yes. I’m also, well, I’m a lot of things. I’m, but all, it’s, it’s really interesting because for, for the first part of my life I was, you know, if you got me in a room with twelve different people, I wouldn’t know who the hell to be because you, you would kind of become what you thought people needed, whereas now Meg Till, Sara Flynn, you know, Don’s, married to Don, mother of kids. It’s all the same person. It just is, it’s just me.

Sarah: Isn’t, isn’t growing up that way and figuring out that you can be many things consistently, isn’t that kind of liberating?

Meg/Sara: Yeah. I know. It, it is, really. You know, it’s like I hit my forties, and all of a sudden I would, I, it, it was like a big epiphany. I thought, who wrote these roles, and why am I following them?

Sarah: Yes!

Meg/Sara: And it just really kind of lightened things for me and made me aware that I could be just who I was and not feel like there was this, some kind of yardstick, artificial yardstick that I was supposed to measure up to and never was able to, always was following short, and, and you just kind of think, you do your best, you be the best person you can. You know, try to walk right in the world and, and, you know, you’re human and sometimes your best is, is very human – [laughs] – and that’s okay, you know?

Sarah: It’s very true. I have a theory that, I’m also in my forties, and I have a theory that as you age –

Meg/Sara: You look great!

Sarah: Oh, bless you, so do you.

Meg/Sara: You look amazing! I never would have thought you were in your forties.

Sarah: Oh, bless you! So do you! Thank you!

Meg/Sara: No, no, no! [Laughs]

Sarah: No –

Meg/Sara: I just look my age, but that’s okay. I’m, I’m glad of it.

Sarah: No, I, I don’t know if you know this, but there is a natural ambient Pacific Northwest skin care?

Meg/Sara: Uh-huh?

Sarah: That just by living there, you all age, like, twenty years slower than the rest of the world, especially here in the Northeast, so, yeah, so, yeah, it’s not fair. But I have a feeling that, I, I have a theory that as you enter your forties you have a Give A Shit card, and your Give A Shit card gets renewed at a much lower rate annually, so when you hit your forties you’ve got, like, two shits to give for the whole year –

Meg/Sara: [Laughs]

Sarah: – and you have to spend them really wisely, because you only have the two!

Meg/Sara: That’s absolutely correct.

Sarah: Isn’t that the, isn’t it just the best?

Meg/Sara: It, it really is. You know, I find, like, stuff happens, and, and before it would have floored me. Like, wow! I don’t even know that person, and they were so horrifically mean and rude and, like, really vicious! And I would take it on, whereas I got, all of a sudden it was like, wait a minute, that’s not for me to carry. And so I realized in, when strangers or whatever were, were cruel or whatever, you just realize, you know, the longer you turn it over in your head, the more you give your precious life minutes, seconds, hours, to them.

Sarah: Yep.

Meg/Sara: Or even if it’s somebody that you do know, and so then it just became a much quicker process to say, no, put it into the ground, not for me to carry, so that I wouldn’t, when I found my mind going to it, you know, like, like one does, then I would just say nope, and, and it’s really, really been an amazing thing to discover that it’s like, oh, wow, wow. So if I give them more of my life, then that’s, you know, that’s more of my life I don’t have back, to somebody that I don’t care about or somebody that I don’t know.

Sarah: And that external yardstick that you just mentioned, that is –

Meg/Sara: Yeah.

Sarah: – a lot of that is, is instruction on what you should be giving your energy to. You should carry about this, you should be invested in this, and you get to a point where you’re like, you know what? How ‘bout no? How ‘bout I don’t?

Meg/Sara: [Laughs] Yep!

Sarah: Oh, well!

Meg/Sara: How ‘bout no! Yeah.

Sarah: Hold up, how ‘bout not ever? [Laughs]

Meg/Sara: Yeah. Yep.

Sarah: So this was your first trip to Romantic Times, is that right?

Meg/Sara: That was my first trip to Romantic Times. It was amazing.

Sarah: That was my next question. How did you like it? ‘Cause you looked like you were having a great time.

Meg/Sara: I had a blast. But I, I would be lying if I didn’t say that I’ve been sleeping very well since I got back because I didn’t realize how much I was like, oh, my goodness, oh, my goodness, you know. So I think the thing for me, where it was really, really special for me, was that I was coming with, as an author, with my first romance book, but that was, that was – it’s not the right word; I was going to say subsidiary, but I, I don’t have the right word at my fingertips – but that was –

Sarah: Secondary? Was it secondary?

Meg/Sara: Secondary, yeah. That was like, my, the main thing that I found, ‘cause the first thing that I went to was like a kind of business-like author welcome-to and this is what you should be doing, and the woman who gave the talk was amazing, and she had so much information, and it was just like a checklist of everything I didn’t do.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Oops.

Meg/Sara: And I found, I found my, like, stomach starting to hurt, and I was like, but, but no, I just wanted to see romance authors, and so they’re like, kind, I kind of thought, well, you know what? And so I, it was wonderful and very helpful I’m sure to a lot of people, but I, I, for me, I was, I, I started going to the, the ones where my, where authors that I’d read were at, and so I was a bit more fangirling, I guess, than making it business, and that was so much fun, because I get to see people who I’ve read and – or try to see people, because there was one that eluded me until the awards show, and then she couldn’t!

[Laughter]

Meg/Sara: It’s terrible, but, but I, I just wanted to, you know, you just want to be, like, where you can say, I really, really, really enjoyed, you know, the years of entertainment you’ve given me or, you know, found that particular – my problem is I’m really bad at remembering names ‘cause I’ve read so much, so –

Sarah: Yeah, you and me both. I have the same problem.

Meg/Sara: Oh! It’s terrible! People, everybody’s like, ooh! Well, this and this and this, and I didn’t know, like when I went to your guys’ thing, some of those books, I didn’t know I’d read them –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Meg/Sara: – until, until the plot was starting to be described, and it was like, oh, I know that book! But I think the fun thing was is that I didn’t really tell people about my romance reading obsession for, well, for a very long time. I mean, I told my husband when I first met him ‘cause I thought, you know, I’m tired with trying to pretend to be somebody I’m not, and this is what I love and, and sat him down and tried to read him some of Amanda Quick’s books. It didn’t, he, he, you know, he let me read to him, but he, he wasn’t, clearly, it became clear early on that he wasn’t a romance, going to be a romance convertee, but he, I, I didn’t really talk about it, and what I really loved was all of these women who are like, yeah, I read it. Like you guys, so smart, so articulate, and you’re like, yeah! And I’m like, yeah! They read it! I read it! You know, and, and it just was very, very freeing. And, and there was also, I don’t know, like, I went to the Avon one where they had us act out cover, the covers and had us, had people, you know, sing karaoke and, and a lot of the people were quite shy, as, as I sometimes am –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: – but try to pretend not to be, and I just, it just made my heart so happy. I mean there was just such fun and, I don’t know, it was just this kind of, it just felt very tender –

Sarah: Yep.

Meg/Sara: – towards all these people like me and protective, I guess.

Sarah: So it sounds like you’ve been a romance reader for a very long time. When did you start reading romance? Clearly, clearly, you are one of us, so welcome!

Meg/Sara: Yeah.

Sarah: [Laughs] You found all of the people just like you.

Meg/Sara: Yeah, I did!

Sarah: So, where did you start? And I’m really curious, who were some of the authors that you wanted to meet at RT?

Meg/Sara: Okay, well, so, obviously, Lorraine Heath I wanted to meet.

Sarah: Oh, my gosh.

Meg/Sara: Oh, my gosh.

Sarah: She’s, she’s incredible.

Meg/Sara: She’s incredible, because you know what I love about her, her writing is that she instills, she, she has the humanness. You know, like some, some romance writers you’ll read, and then, I don’t know, you, I feel the affection for her readers and for her characters, and, and that’s what I really love, and I, I, so I wanted to meet her, and I didn’t until, until the very end. I, I actually, we had bought, I, so much so that I, there was one talk I wanted to go to, “Heroes and Heartbreakers,” and I got the day mixed up, and I was so disappointed, and then we bought tickets to that thing out at the museum? My husband’s like, you’re going to be at this conference for all this time. Why – I’m like, but, I know, but some of those authors, they’re going to be talking for hours about their stuff, but then we got in a taxicab from hell, and we had to, we had to get out finally because he almost killed us, and –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Meg/Sara: No, seriously! First, he was like, jerk, jerk, jerk. Like, being really jerky, so I had some medication in my, in my purse, some dissolvable –  my husband never gets sick, he started getting sick and ate them, and then there was a, a fire truck that was, he decided he was going to jump in front of this fire truck and, and outrun it?

Sarah: That seems bad.

Meg/Sara: Yeah! And then he had, he couldn’t, so he had, ‘cause it was coming towards us, we almost got in a head-on crash, he had to slam on his brakes, like around a foot into, and finally I just said, honey, we’re getting out.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: And, you know, then he tried to charge us three times what the meter said, and it was terrible, terrible, but we ended up having a lovely, lovely dinner, but I missed going to that, that long talk. I don’t know. I can’t remember where this went to. So I never got to see her until, then there she was, like, right in front of me.

[Laughter]

Meg/Sara: And then she came on stage and, and, you know, so he was leaping forward and hugging everybody, and so then I’m like, well, I get to too then! [Laughs] But then I realized maybe people were getting tired of being hugged, so I, then I, I refrained the third time she came up on the stage.

[Laughter]

Meg/Sara: Okay, so, so how did I, how did I start? I also have enjoyed some of Julia Quinn’s stuff; she was there. And, and then I met HelenKay Dimon, who I haven’t read, but I’m looking forward to reading her. I met several authors. Actually, the great thing about your guys’ talk was, I was scribbling things down madly on my Post-its, so I have a whole list of things now, ‘cause I start with authors, and then I read them, and then, and then I read everything they’ve written, and then I’m just waiting. So how did I start? My first romance, and I don’t know if this even qualifies as a romance, was when I was in school, and I think I might have been, like, thirteen or, or whatever, and I, I, we just, my sister and I would work our way through the library ‘cause we, you know, we’d go to the library on, take the ferry over and get huge stacks, me and my sisters, and then we would read them all, and then we’d go through the school library as well, and I came across Gladys Malvern? I don’t know if you know her?

Sarah: Ooh, no! Please tell me!

Meg/Sara: Okay, so I don’t know if she’s romance or not, but she wrote historical, so Behold Your Queen was a story about Esther, and it was an amazing, amazing book, and she fell in love with King – name starts with an A. She was – Jesus!

Sarah: Ahasuerus.

Meg/Sara: Yes! Yes, that’s right! And, and it was amazing, it was amazing book. I loved it, and I read it over and over, and every time she’s walking towards him in the throne room, you know, trying to give her people the right to fight –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: – to give their people so that they, it’s just not going to be an all-out slaughter, you know, and she doesn’t know if he’s going to lower his scepter or not or if her head’s going to be chopped off, and every time I cried. Every time! And I read that book over and over, and then she had another one called My Lady, My Love that was about Queen Anne, who was – and, and one of the guards. It was a, you know, that was sad, more, more sad. It didn’t have a happy ending because she was in jail, and I think she ultimately got killed. I can’t remember; I didn’t read that as much, but Behold Your Queen. So then my sister, then one day my sister came across a Barbara Cartland novel.

Sarah: Oh, well, there you go. [Laughs]

Meg/Sara: Yeah, yeah. And there was an awful lot of dot-dot-dot and blushing virgins with their, you know, and all of that, so they were a little bit shy and whatnot, but I did enjoy reading some of those, and then I went, I was doing the ballet, and I went away to New York and, and then became an actress and had children, and I didn’t read romance for several years. You know, there was a big chunk where I didn’t, and then I had children when I was twenty-four, and the world, there – you know, you have children. The, the responsibility of their health and happiness and, was, was my responsibility, and the world was so scary, and the news was so scary, and I’d been reading all the, like, literary, you know, whatever, and best New York Times, you know –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: – but all of that stuff and being like, yeah, worked my way through the classics and, you know, giving myself, I guess, my own education, but when I had my children, at first there’s no time to read anything –

Sarah: No.

Meg/Sara: – really. You’re just so busy. But then they get –

Sarah: And tired. [Laughs]

Meg/Sara:  You’re exhausted. But then when they started, when, when it eased up a little bit and there was time, I found my way, I was going, I was, I think I, I was coming back from or going to a location, and I grabbed a, I think it was a Nora Roberts, not sure, just to read in the airport and on the airplane, and then I started reading all of her stuff, and then I found a Jayne Ann Krentz and Amanda Quick, who then, she started writing as Jayne Castle, and I, the first three, oh, my gosh! They, I mean, I read every-, I’ve read everything that she’s ever written, and then I found my way to Lisa Kleypas, who I love. I love her modern and I love her, her period. I started with her period, and then she transitioned to modern, and I wasn’t – I was like, ooh, I don’t know. Well, I’ll read it ‘cause I love her writing, and then I loved her modern as well. She’s going back to period again.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: And, and then, you know, you find your way. She blurbed Eloisa James, so then I started reading Eloisa James, and I loved her The Ugly Duchess and, you know, the Desperate, the Desperate Duchesses, you know –

Sarah: Yep!

Meg/Sara: – and all of those? I love those. Pleasure for Pleasure and the one about the, you know, the Scottish sausage.

Sarah: [Laughs] Yes!

Meg/Sara: [Laughs] Oh, and I also liked, I also read Sarah MacLean. I, I was particularly fond of her Rules of Scoundrels. I thought that the Fallen Angel series was really good. And Lorraine Heath, I read everything she’s done. I’ve read, oh, gosh, oh, what, what’s her name? She does, mm, the one who did Ian Mac, you know, who had a different way that his mind worked?

Sarah: Oh, the, Ian Mackenzie.

Meg/Sara: Yep, and there was that whole – I read all of that.

Sarah: The Madness of, The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie.

Meg/Sara: Yeah, yeah. I –

Sarah: That’s Jennifer Ashley, but please don’t, please don’t be impressed; I just looked that up.

Meg/Sara: Yeah, oh, oh, yeah. Okay.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Meg/Sara: And she had those shapeshifter things, which I actually haven’t, hadn’t read, even though, which is weird, because I, I really enjoy her writing, and yet, and yet why did I not shift over? But why did I not read those as well? I don’t know, you know. It’s interesting that –

Sarah: Every reader has their thing, though. Every reader has the thing that they like best.

Meg/Sara: Oh, I know! I read, I met, I met Redheadedgirl out, after the thing –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: – and they were talking about there’s ones with lizard series where people, like, find these lizard men incredibly handsome or dragons and stuff like that. I didn’t know before I went to RT that all these things existed. I don’t know that they had books that had, you know, more than two players in it. I didn’t know that they had – I mean, I didn’t, I had no idea! I just, like, went from one author until, you know, I found another author and another one in, like, an anthology or whatever, or a, you know, where everybody has novellas, and then I’d find other authors.

Sarah: Well, the nice thing about romance is that there is so much that no matter what it is that you like, we, we can –

Meg/Sara: Yeah.

Sarah: – we can find a book for you to read, even if you do like shapeshifting lizard ménage.

Meg/Sara: Right.

Sarah: You know, if that’s your thing, we can totally help you out.

Meg/Sara: I know, right?

Sarah: There were a – [laughs] – a couple times at RT where I had, somebody said, oh, I’m reading this book about seals, and I was like, okay, hold on, Navy SEALs or shapeshifting seals? Like, which, are they both?

Meg/Sara: [Laughs] Yeah, I know. It was, it was the, it was really interesting, but you know what, what I love about it? Like, okay, so especially like when, again, the people, which was great, and I, I especially appreciated the gummy bears?

[Laughter]

Sarah: I am just so glad –

Meg/Sara: It’s just like, just like comfort food, right? It’s like, oh, my gosh! We’re just here and we’re loved! It was really great. It was so much fun. Oh, my gosh.

Sarah: I am, I am so glad you liked it. I, I love doing the Reader Recommendation Party each year. We just want people to go home with something and also have a snack. Our, our demands are very low. Come talk about books, have a snack, and, and maybe you win something.

[Laughter]

Meg/Sara: It was very cozy. But what I loved is, is the wide variety of things that made people go, ooh!

Sarah: Yes! That’s my favorite.

Meg/Sara: Yeah! Because it’s like, I didn’t know, and so even though there were some where initially I was like, nah, that’s maybe not my cup of tea, I thought, no, you write it down because you don’t know what your cup of tea is until you try different cups of tea, and, you know, you might find you enjoy other things too, so I’ve, you know, I’ve got this whole – it’s, it’s nice because you, you have this whole list of, of new things to try –

Sarah: Yep.

Meg/Sara: – and some won’t be for me, and that’s okay, but I love the nonjudgment and –

Sarah: Yeah.

Meg/Sara: – the, the joy that people had in, in being out about all, what they liked to read! It was –

Sarah: Yep!

Meg/Sara: – it was so much fun.

Sarah: Well –

Meg/Sara: It, it was really, it was, like, one of the highlights.

Sarah: Oh, thank you! I’m so glad! We have the best time doing it. I think one of our goals as a, as a website and as a community, and certainly my goal in helping people find books to read is that I want people to be able to identify what’s their catnip. Like, what is your romance reading catnip? What are the things you love best, because there’s lots of it, and then once you find your catnip, you’ve got good books to read for ages.

Meg/Sara: Yeah, yeah. That’s what I love, that’s what I love. Like, when, I remember when, you know, the e-readers first came in and I was staunchly no way, never, not going to touch it in a million years. I love bookstores, I love to have a book in my hand, I love to, you know – but where I found it, where I found it really, really wonderful and amazing, my husband finally got me one just because he really likes electronics, and in the beginning I really resisted, but then I would find authors, and they don’t, bookstores, I’ve noticed that the romance section in the bookstores is getting smaller and smaller and smaller, and so it was, like, it used to be, you know, two, two aisles full all the way from front to down and, you know, you, you could go and you could get – but it’s gotten, it’s shrunk and shrunk and shrunk and –

Sarah: Yep.

Meg/Sara: – many times you can find a new author, and they might be an author that’s written, you know, many books, but you can’t get their backlist, and that’s where, where the Kindle has really come in handy, because I’ll try somebody new, and then none of their books are available, some of them aren’t, but you can get them and read them on your e-reader –

Sarah: Yep.

Meg/Sara: – and that’s wonderful, to be able to read everything somebody’s written.

Sarah: Plus you’ve got 460 books in your purse, but it doesn’t weigh anymore!

Meg/Sara: Oh, I know!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Meg/Sara: Like, when I travel, no, seriously, when I travel, I used to, you know, you’d bring your suitcase, half of it was full of books because –

Sarah: Oh, no question.

Meg/Sara: Yeah! If you go to Europe or something like that, you know, if you’re going for work or whatever, you’re, you, you’re up at night, and so you read, ‘cause you don’t want to wake up, you know, the other person that you’re traveling with or whatever, and I would leave books. I wouldn’t put them in, I would put them by the garbage because they would always be gone the next day because many of the housekeepers were, you know, maybe liked to read romance or were trying to learn English; didn’t matter where in the world I went to. So I would always, you know, have, half my suitcase would be books, and I would run out, always. By the end of the trip, I would have run out of books, and trying to find an English, an English bookstore in some countries was very difficult, and then you’d get there, and they wouldn’t have romance.

Sarah: Nope. Never. Nope. When I, when I studied abroad, I had a very hard time finding romance in English –

Meg/Sara: Yep. Yeah.

Sarah: – unless I ordered it, and it cost just so much money to –

Meg/Sara: Yeah.

Sarah: – to ship from wherever. But if you, if you grew up so far from your neighbors, no wonder you had so many library books!

Meg/Sara: [Laughs] Yeah, we did. Yeah, we didn’t have TV either, so –

Sarah: Oh, yeah. Library trip.

Meg/Sara: Yep. Yeah. So books were – and we didn’t have money to go to films really mostly, so, yeah, the library really, the library really was sustenance, and it, and the, the thing I loved about books was it showed you other ways of living –

Sarah: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: – and other ways of being, so you could learn and develop your own moral compass or your own idea of right or wrong outside of maybe what was being showed to you. It was, books were, books really, you know, I love books.

Sarah: Yeah, me too. So, what led you to writing, writing romance? Was, was there a book or a moment that made you say, okay, I’m doing to do this now? I want to write one.

Meg/Sara: [Laughs] Okay, I’ve tried a couple of times –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: – just because I love it, and everybody always says, you should, you should write what you read, you know. That’s the proverbial wisdom, and so, you know, I would try, but I think the thing was, is because I loved romance so much, it was an impossible mountain to climb, which sounds weird, ‘cause a lot of people –

Sarah: No –

Meg/Sara: – oh, no!

Sarah: Makes sense to me! I completely understand, yes.

Meg/Sara: And okay, so, so every time I tried I’d be like, this is, this is no good, because I, I love it, so I don’t want to put out something that’s not, that, you know, there’s so many beautiful writers out there! Which, which is weird, because I just, when I first started, I’m like, oh, I’m going to write these memories, and then it became a book, and then I wrote another. I had no problem with regular, I mean, I, I was like, people don’t have to buy it, but with romance, I had such a, I just didn’t want to, I just didn’t want to, I don’t know. So I’d try, and it would turn out, so I’d start out, ‘cause I really, as, as you could tell by some of my list, I, I do really like Regency, but there’re all those details, and I just didn’t want to get it wrong, and then my friend has been, had been trying to get me for years to, he, he had written something. Now, he wasn’t a, a traditionally published author, but he had written something that he had been working with and sending out to, you know, agents and, and re-editing, and he, he, he is a bit older, and his, he wanted his brother to see his published book, and his brother got cancer.

Sarah: Right.

Meg/Sara: And it was, it was, it wasn’t, you know, maybe he’ll make it. It was, you, you don’t have much time. And so he decided to put it online. He decided to do the Amazon thing, and he did it, and he was so happy about it that he kept on saying to me, you have these backlists, you have these books, you have – like, ‘cause, you know, I write a lot, but I don’t necessarily send out, haven’t sent out everything that I’ve written, so, yeah, I’ve had six books traditionally published, but, you know, I’ve written many more manuscripts, and, and he loves some of the manuscripts, ‘cause we, we met at a writing group, oh, gosh, like, maybe eighteen years ago, and then we were in a, a weekly writing group as well. So he kept on saying, send out, what about this one? What about try – you know, Lucky or Try and Stop Me, or what about – you know, you should write something, you should put it up online. I’m like, oh, yeah, yeah, sure, some day. You know, but I kept putting him off because I didn’t want to burn my traditional publishing bridges, and, and I was perfectly happy with my little life of writing something and sending it out and, you know –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: – you know, my little, my little, you know, amounts that the publishers would give me and getting my little royalty checks. I mean, that was fine. But then he came to visit last spring, and his brother had passed away, and it, it made him, I think, even more so, because he dedicated his book to his brother, and, and then again, he was like, you should do it! And it was, he was, he had seemed kind of beaten down a little bit, and I just all of a sudden realized, oh, my gosh, you know, he’s heading towards eighty, and I keep on saying, yeah, yeah, sure, I’ll do it, but I just felt like all of a sudden, I don’t know, he just seemed – and so I, I just found myself saying, you know what? I’m going to do it too!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Meg/Sara: I’m going to write something! So that’s how I, that’s how I did it. I said, like, but I’m not going to, okay, I’m not going to do it under my own name, ‘cause I don’t want to burn my publishing bridges, but I’ll, I’ll write it under a pseudonym, and I, and I’ll get it, and he goes, what are you going to write?! Well, why don’t you put up one of those ones? And I’m like, no, no, ‘cause I think, well, if I’m going to do it, I just might as well have fun. Nobody’s going to read it, but I, I said, I’m going to write a romance. And so once I was, it was weird because once it was Sara Flynn, ‘cause I made several attempts, I had so much fun. Like, so much fun writing this book. Granted, I did eight drafts of it, but –

Sarah: [Laughs] That’s, that sounds pretty normal!

Meg/Sara: The first draft was so much fun, and it, it, it wrote fast. Like, I’ve never, you know, written the, a first draft in, like, three months. Now, you know, I, I was listening to a lot of authors at RT saying, yeah, I wrote the first draft in seventeen days, or oh, I wrote that – I’m like, whoa! Or, or, you know, I’ve met some people who said they do nine books, they release nine books a year. Like, that’s never going to happen to me. Never, because I’m just having too much fun playing with the, with the story and, and also it’s, it’s hard work, and also I’m just slower. So I’ll, I’ll never be one of those who pumps out a lot of books, but I, I do want to, you know, consistently write things that I like, and people are like, well, how many are you going to write? I’m like, well, I want so-and-so to have a happy ending, and then there’s so-and-so in that. You know, I, I’m, so, there’re several people that I already have that I want to have happy endings. So that’s kind of how it happened. So I, I did it, but then it, it, it snowballed on me. So I was going to just throw it up, but then I really like it, but nobody’ll know it’s me, so that’s fine, that’s perfect. And then I got Nancy Berland, and she, she said, she was, started asking me questions like, oh, so, so what do you do? So what’s your – and I was, I was telling the truth, right? But I was telling a, a truth that left a huge part out, and I, I was getting, like, I felt myself getting red and feeling like she was so kind, and she was so nice and interested and, when we were talking, and, like, yeah, and yes, I have worked at a, you know, in a, a department store selling gloves and hats, and yes, I have worked at a deli, and I was a waitress, and I have done public speaking, but –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: Do you know what I mean? I felt ashamed, and then I just said, you know what, okay, here’s the deal: I’m also an actress, and I told her all that, and she’s like, okay, and I said, but there’s a reason I’m doing this, you know, blobbity-blah, and then – so there was that that made me think, okay, and then she said, well, you, you can think on it and decide what you want to do, but also, my husband, who’s a writer as well, he writes for teen boys, they sent him to writers’ festival in Las Vegas, and a writer that I like, Eloisa James, was going to be there, and so I told him, tell her that I love her writing, and so, because I really, I’ve really enjoyed a great, a great many of her books. So then he told her, but then she was like, oh! Oh, my goodness! And then he told me that she wanted me to text her, and I didn’t really, wasn’t much of a texter because I, you know, I’m, I’m slow at picking out the things, but I’m like, oh, my gosh! Well, I don’t want to be rude, so I texted her, but what he didn’t tell me is that he told her I wanted to text her and would it be all right? Because we’re both kind of shy. So, so now I, now I text with Mary, who’s Eloisa James, who’s Mary Bly? And, and I’m, it’s like, oh, my gosh! And she’s so smart, and she’s so intelligent, and she’s like, yeah, this is what I do. And then I saw her on that Good Morning America – no, whatever that show was – the CBC, CBS –

Sarah: CBS Sunday Morning.

Meg/Sara: Yeah, and you were on that! I’m like, oh, my gosh!

Sarah: I was!

Meg/Sara: She’s so smart, and she’s so intelligent, and she’s standing tall in her love all things romance, and I thought, well, hell’s bells –

[Laughter]

Meg/Sara: So then I just decided, in for a penny, in for a pound, and, and so that’s how it happened, you know. I have to say, I went to see my doctor, what was it, day before yesterday, and he said, so, what’s going on? I started, you know, I told, I started to tell him, well, I went to – and then I was at this conference, and they were all romance writers, and I’ve written a romance novel! And I started talking, and he goes – ‘cause he’s seen me, you know, when I’ve had to go and do the physical things for, and he goes, you, you, you love writing romance better than anything, don’t you? And I said, yeah! I really do –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Meg/Sara: – be able to do it or if anybody’s going to want to buy it, but, yeah! And he says, yeah, I mean, you were going off to do this movie, and, I mean, you were, you were, you know, fine about it, pleased about it, but you really light up when you talk about this romance. [Laughs] And that’s funny. It was funny how well even a stranger could see that.

Sarah: I think it’s, I think it’s wonderful when you figure out what it is that you want to do most.

Meg/Sara: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: The, the things that resonate with you.

Meg/Sara: Yeah.

Sarah: And I was wondering, it’s very hard sometimes for an author to talk about her own book, but where did you begin with writing Solace Island?

Meg/Sara: Well, okay, so where I began is, I promised Ken I was going to write a romance and throw it up online. And then I was like, well, what the heck? But because Meg Tilly was out of the way, it was okay, ‘cause nobody’d ever read it, but I would have mollified my friend. So I was walking with my friend – I have a friend who I walk with three times a week – and we were walking around, and I said, I’m going to, I’m going to write a romance. Now, here’s the funny thing: she’s my friend –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: – but it was only in the last year that I had actually told her, and I’ve known her for seventeen years, that I, I read romance. Weird, huh? So I told her, and then I gave her Mistress, ‘cause I thought she would like that, but she didn’t, she’s not a romance reader, really, so then I tried another one. Oh, I, you know what else, who else? I liked, I liked some of Sherry Thomas’s books, her –

Sarah: I love Sherry Thomas.

Meg/Sara: Yeah. Her Delicious, and then the, then the series about the sisters –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: – and the, the one about the woman who was so beautiful and the – I love the complexity and the different layers and the – and then I actually read her one about the killer assassin woman as well. I think she, she doesn’t write, part of me is like, she should, she needs to write faster! But –

[Laughter]

Meg/Sara: – but I know, she writes beautiful books, and so it takes a long time. So, yeah. So what was I saying? So I gave, then I gave her Delicious, but she didn’t get through that one either. So, you know, but whatever. Digression. So, we’re walking, and I said, I’m going to write a romance, and I said, but I – she says, well, what’re you going to write about? I says, well, you know, love story, obviously, but I’m, I don’t know where to set it, and she goes, well, why not set it here? And I was like, well, that’s good, ‘cause then I won’t have to – ‘cause I was thinking, well, I could, I bought, I – so, then I’m like, okay, I’m write a romance, and then I, I bought these books online about being a housekeeper in Regency time –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Meg/Sara: – and I got a book about manners in Regency time, and my God, they’re so dense! And then I thought, you know, for my first romances, I, I think I can’t do that, because, because I, I just think I would get all caught up in all of that, but I, I am living in modern times, so that’s how I got the idea. And then it just sort of ran away with itself. I wish I was a, I could just do an outline and then just stick to it and write, but I’m not. I kind of, I kind of, like, the second book, I don’t know if the, the things is because now I’m aware that people are aware that it’s Meg Tilly writing a Sara Flynn?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: But it’s, it’s, it’s been a little more difficult, and she’s, I’ve had three different guys for her, and this third one I’m hoping is going to work out, but I get to around page 100, and it’s like, no! Ew! No! I mean, you’re both nice people, but you just shouldn’t, I just can’t take them into the bedroom.

[Laughter]

Meg/Sara: Like, you don’t belong together! And out it goes, so, we’ll see. So that’s how it hap-, that’s how it started, and then, and then it was just so much fun. It was so much fun. Usually, I would say before, maybe eighty percent of the time, I was like, oh, I’ve got to go to my writing room, and I, I did my daily writing practice, but it was sort of like – and once I was in, I was usually more happy to have written than to actually be writing, and I was always glad afterwards, and sometimes you’d read, and you’re like, oh, wow! I wrote that! But, but this one I was, I, I’m chomping at the bit to go in. This, the first one for sure, where it was like, okay, see you, bye! And then people would come to visit, and I’d say, okay, but you just have to know, I’m going to need my writing time, whereas before I would use the excuse of people coming to visit to, you know –

Sarah: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: – I would still go for hikes with people and cook them food, but it, it, this was the thing that really called me away. I just love it. I just loved it, you know. It’s fun.

Sarah: It is really fun, isn’t it? And, and I’m curious how acting and writing work together or work against each other. Like, for example, I was thinking, well, I know that, you know, films and television shows are often filmed out of order.

Meg/Sara: Yeah.

Sarah: You know, you start at the end, and then you go to the beginning, and then there’s the middle, and you have to maintain the right motivation for the right scene –

Meg/Sara: Yeah.

Sarah: – even though you’re filming this thing backwards or, you know –

Meg/Sara: Yeah.

Sarah: – in what might be just, well, let’s just film this page randomly; that’ll be fun. Has that influenced your writing style? Do you also write out of order?

Meg/Sara: I don’t know that I’m writing out of order sometimes. Like, the first –

Sarah: Yeah?

Meg/Sara: – YA book I did, it’s more like the character has to talk to me, so I had been, it was with, for Tundra, which is an imprint of McClelland & Stewart, and they had asked me if I would consider writing a YA book, and I thought, well, wow. The books that I read as a young adult, those ones really stuck with me, and so I was like, well, what I should write? And I knew I wanted to put in, I thought, well, I’ll write, I’ll use a little bit of mine. I wanted to put in, like, my pet chicken that I had, Coconut Zigzag, and, and I thought, you know what? I didn’t put the rattlesnake story in my memoir book, which, you know, I sold as fiction, so I’d like to put that in somewhere too and, you know, and maybe I’ll use, like, a farm, nothing – but I didn’t really know who it was going to be, and then one day I was going to be going out to dinner with my husband, and all of a sudden, Jacqueline started talking to me, and she wanted to tell me about the swing she made with her dad, and I didn’t know what it was, so I know this, but this how it usually starts for me. I get, like, the tail end of, and when you get the tail end of a, of something, you have, it’s like a dream, you know, when you wake up and the dream’s all there, and if you lie there you can go backwards and dig into it and find the, the whole, the meat of the dream?

Sarah: Yep, been there.

Meg/Sara: So it’s just, yeah. So she started – but if you get up and say, oh, I’ll remember it later, then –

Sarah: No.

Meg/Sara: – you know, half an hour later, it’s gone.

Sarah: Nope.

Meg/Sara: So I, I was, I started typing, and he was like, honey, honey! I’m like, call the restaurant! We’re going to be a half an hour late! I have to get this down! So I wrote down this thing, and the first bit I wrote, that was the beginning of the book, and it, that section about her and her dad building the swing was nine pages. Well, in the final draft I did, the final book that came out, that was, the nine pages, I’d cut it down to around a paragraph, and it was the middle of the book, and I had the whole first half that I didn’t even know was there. So, do I write out of order? I guess so, sometimes. It’s, it’s like I jump in and then, and then find, find it, but I wish I, I wish I could be like those other people because, you know, my husband doesn’t have to do nearly as many drafts, but my, my books just kind of take me on a journey. Whereas, okay, so as an actor, as an actor, a lot of times, I know a lot of actors, they memorize on their way to set, and they do it, but for me, I always like to memorize the whole, the whole script, which is hard ‘cause they keep changing the pages.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: But I like to keep the whole in my mind so that it’s like pieces of a puzzle so that you only want to have, like my acting teacher, Peggy Feury had said, it’s like a curtain. You don’t want to have the curtain blown apart all, out all the time so you know exactly what’s going on and who, you know – it’s only hints that you just reveal, so it’s like a curtain blowing away, and then it’s, it’s obscured again. And, and so that’s how I, I would work, but most actors don’t. They don’t have the whole thing in that I, that I’ve worked with, but, you know, they have, they, they’ve read the whole script. They don’t have it all, it memorized.

Sarah: And so you, you end up having all the characters in your brain –

Meg/Sara: Yep.

Sarah: – almost like writing! Because you’re creating –

Meg/Sara: Yep.

Sarah: – all of them. They’re all in your brain too.

Meg/Sara: Yeah. Well, because a lot of times people will memorize just their things?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: Their, what they say? But many times what you say, even if the, the scriptwriter didn’t mean it, what they say triggers your, your character’s whole thought process so that she has, if you’ve built her backstory well enough, she has no option but to respond with the lines that she does. The whole – so, so, yeah, many times, to me, more important than what my characters says or doesn’t say is to what the other characters say and not, many times it’s, you don’t, you don’t see all that. You don’t see the work. You don’t see her thoughts while the other person’s doing or, or whatever, but they’re, they’re all there, and I think that would be such an interesting film is if you took all the stuff and played it on the people when they weren’t talking.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Yeah.

Meg/Sara: You know, so you have the film, and then you have the, the film that people could see, you know, of the film, the film, the other part of the film that’s –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: – behind closed doors.

Sarah: And it’s the same thing with writing. You have to choose what to reveal and –

Meg/Sara: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and choose how much you’re going to show the reader, even though you can see everything.

Meg/Sara: Yes, or you, or you don’t see everything. Lots of times later, I’ll look, I’ll, I’ll, if I read through something I’ll be like, holy, where did that come from? You know, or –

Sarah: Yep.

Meg/Sara: – people are like, oh, yes, when you used the symbolism of the turtle in that, it’s like –

Sarah: Oh, I did?

Meg/Sara: – wow, yeah! I, yeah, you know, whoa!

Sarah: Yep!

Meg/Sara: That was smart of me! I wish I could take credit for it.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Meg/Sara: But, you know, sometimes – [laughs] – sometimes you’ll just get something in a dream or you’ll, you know, and, and you just write it down when you wake up, you know, you know, with your eyes shut or – but, but this one, this one, like, writing Solace Island, that was just, that was just sheer fun. I know all of it – I can’t remember who came up and said, that’s just bullshit! It’s not fun; it’s hard work. It is hard work, but I have to say, this was the most fun hard work I’ve ever had.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Meg/Sara: Do you know what I mean?

Sarah: Yeah!

Meg/Sara: It’s like, this, it, because, because it wasn’t all dark. I mean, there’s dark stuff in it, but it’s, but it’s, it’s going to have a Happy Ever After, and it’s, it’s just fun. It was like play. But hard work play.

Sarah: Yep.

Meg/Sara: But that’s the best kind of play sometimes.

Sarah: And it’s, it’s also a challenge to yourself. I think a lot of people come to writing romance as avid readers who –

Meg/Sara: Yep.

Sarah: – look at the process of actually writing one as something akin to impossible wonder.

Meg/Sara: Yes!

Sarah: Like, there’s no way I’m ever going to do this. I, a couple years ago I wrote a Hanukkah novella because –

Meg/Sara: Yes!

Sarah: – I, I have a rule: I’m not allowed to complain about something more than three times or –

Meg/Sara: Right!

Sarah: – I either have to shut up or change it.

Meg/Sara: [Laughs]

Sarah: So I, I wrote one, and like you I was like, oh, boy, this is hard!

Meg/Sara: Yeah.

Sarah: I, I hope I can do justice to how much I love the genre. Like, the fact that could even try is like, wow, I’m really audacious trying to do this! And then there’s also the sort of challenge element where you’re like, all right, I know I can do this. I know I can write the book that I want to read.

Meg/Sara: Yeah. That’s –

Sarah: And when you combine them both, it’s very motivating, especially when you’re having fun in the world you created.

Meg/Sara: Yeah. That’s it; it’s writing a book that you’d want to read.

Sarah: Yes.

Meg/Sara: That’s it. You also wrote that other book, Everything I Know About – I, I get –

Sarah: Everything I Know About Love I Learned from Romance Novels? I like long titles; it’s okay if you can’t remember them. [Laughs]

Meg/Sara: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, no, no. I, I bought that, and I started to read it, and then I got scared like, oh, my God, I’m never going to be able to do this romance stuff!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Oh, no!

Meg/Sara: It’s really good, and then I’m like, okay, okay, ‘cause it made me start sweating, and then I’m like –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Meg/Sara: – I’m setting this aside until I finish this next, this next manuscript. I can probably read it once I’m in the edits, and it’ll be very helpful, but –

[Laughter]

Sarah: Okay, that’s hilarious.

Meg/Sara: for you, because you couldn’t be, like, Sara Flynn for your, you know, because you’re very famous, so it’s like –

Sarah: I don’t know about that. I don’t know about very famous, but I will say –

Meg/Sara: Oh, yeah!

Sarah: – much like, much like you, publishing my romance fiction, the one novella that I wrote, publishing that under my own name was terrifying.

Meg/Sara: Yeah!

Sarah: There’s a, there’s a standard and expectation. I mean, one of my questions for you was about why choosing, why would you choose a pen name because, you know, a lot of people know who Meg Tilly is, so –

Meg/Sara: Yeah. [Laughs] Okay. Well, it –

Sarah: But that makes sense; your reasoning makes total sense!

Meg/Sara: Yes. Well, that’s why I chose a pen name, but also, then when I, when, you know, Nancy’s like, well, do you want to do it under it, since you’re going to go public about it? But I thought about it, and I just thought, you know, my, my Meg Tilly books? They’re, like, the adult, the adult fiction.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: Very, they’re very, very, they aren’t the kind of books as a romance reader that I would read, but they’re books that I had to write, because –

Sarah: Yep.

Meg/Sara: – they dealt with things that I needed to say. So I would, I, I know that the people who, you know, I have wonderful readers and had wonderful support, but they deal, they deal with abuse, and –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: – I, if I was a romance reader, I would be really, like, ho!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Meg/Sara: I’d thought I’d gotten into a romance, and, and they’re really hard, and some of my YA stuff, again, deals with abuse of one kind or another, and then my middle-grade books didn’t, but, you know, those were lighter and my stepping stone to romance, but I wouldn’t want, I wouldn’t want my romance readers to accidentally pick up a Meg Tilly book? Oh! My gosh, no. But I met Linda Lael Miller, who’s a lovely, lovely lady, and she’s like, oh, yes, I picked up one of your books, the one with the girl on the cover like [frightened noise]!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Meg/Sara: You do not want to read that book! You must donate it to a library. It deals with a pedophile who kidnaps a twelve-year-old girl. Do not touch that book with a ten-foot pole. Especially because, you know, she has very, you know, strong beliefs about, you know, using language and stuff like that?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: Well, my goodness, you know, first chapter, you know. So, so that’s what I don’t want, is I don’t want to cross-pollinate. [Laughs]

Sarah: Well, it’s also, a lot of readers and, and authors have talked about the, it’s almost a contract between the reader and the author. If you say that this is a romance, the reader –

Meg/Sara: Yeah.

Sarah: – has expectations, and the fact that you know that, the fact that you know, that you know the, the expectations is really important.

Meg/Sara: Right.

Sarah: I mean, that’s a really good thing!

Meg/Sara: Well, I want people to, I want people to pick up a Sara Flynn book and feel safe. Like, no – okay, you know, it’s contemporary romantic suspense, so there are going to be a few bodies, but it’s all going to turn out well. You know what I mean. Like, it’s go-, it’s, it’s, it’s like a rollercoaster ride where you don’t have to be scared, and not one of those ones where, like, real people jump out at you at the dark and go blah! Where they really do scary, scare you? You know, it’s, it’s, it should be a fun, a fun read, but you should feel safe. And you really, you know, I really can’t state strongly enough that, you know, if you’re a romance reader and you read romance for the reasons that I do, then don’t pick up, don’t pick up my adult books. Don’t pick up Singing Songs or Gemma because you really, you will not, it, it wouldn’t, it’s not a happy thing.

Sarah: So with your book, with Solace Island, can you tell us about the heroine and the, and the story that you wrote? It’s, it’s really easy for me, being the interviewer, to be like, so, tell us about your book! But that’s a very wide question.

[Laughter]

Sarah: So I know it’s, I know that it is – I don’t want to give away too much for people who will be listening, but I know that it is a suspense. There’s a hero that may have some very interesting military background, and there’s, someone’s trying to kill her. There’s also a dog. These are all good things, so can you tell us about the –

Meg/Sara: Yeah.

Sarah: – can you tell us about the story and about the heroine?

Meg/Sara: This is the hardest part. You know, you’re supposed –

Sarah: It’s always hard.

Meg/Sara: – you’re supposed to, you’re supposed to have your – that was funny, ‘cause at RT, you’re supposed to have a, what do they say, an elevator pitch: don’t have that. You’re supposed to have a longer pitch: don’t have that. And my husband always says, you’re so terrible at that because –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Meg/Sara: Me, I’m just like, oh, I, I wrote the book, it’s all in the book, and I get off on these things that, you know, to me are very important, but to most people are little tiny, tiny, tiny little tangents. So anyway, she’s, she seems like she’s got the perfect life, you know. She’s got a successful business. She has a handsome business partner, who also happens to be her fiancé, and, you know, it looks like everything is wonderful, and then on the eve of her wedding at her bachelorette party, he dumps her. And so she retreats to Solace Island with her sister Eve, and, to just try to make sense of what happened and doesn’t want to do anything other than just kind of recuperate, relax, and, and kind of pull herself together. What she doesn’t expect is to meet Luke Benson, who’s a, a handsome baker, but he’s got this sort of mysterious past, and she meets him, and sparks sort of fly, but she’s, no way she’s going to move on it. You know, the, the traditional – [laughs] – romance type thing, and then, but then things get more complicated because it appears somebody’s trying to kill her, and so she’s got to figure out who she can trust, who she can’t, if Luke is someone to fall for or someone that she should fear, and, and it’s – but it’s, but it’s, it sounds very like, duh-duh-duh, but it’s also, there’s, I like, I like romances that have a little bit of humor as well as the suspense, and, and the sister story is very important to me, so the connection between her and her sister and that kind of strong female support and bonding. That was another thing that I really loved about RT is that, is the feeling of female support, rather than –

Sarah: Yes.

Meg/Sara: You know how, what I really dislike about the way the media seems to be going, where they seem to be glorifying and, women being horrible to women, and –

Sarah: Yes.

Meg/Sara: – women tearing down other women and – it worries me because those are the role models that are being set forth, and it was really lovely to be where women were just all women having fun and being supportive. It was nice.

Sarah: That’s one of my favorite things about the romance community too, that it is incredibly female-centered and that the genre itself is about exploring female experience. You said earlier about how you have all of these things happening in your imagination that you can use your imagination to go different places, and it, not only can you learn different things and experience different things, but you also can learn about yourself –

Meg/Sara: Yeah.

Sarah: – in the privacy of your own imagination. Like, oh, I like, I like it when a hero does this. I like this in a sex scene. I like this in – this person’s job sounds amazing. I want to learn about that. You can, you can experience what resonates with you –

Meg/Sara: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: – and then, and then, and then share that experience with someone else who’s very likely to be like, oh, my gosh, me too! Yes, the same thing happens to me.

Meg/Sara: Yeah. [Laughs] Yeah. That was fun when, when I’d meet somebody. They’d say, well, what do you – I’d say, well, I really like this, you know? Kind of feeling a little shy ‘cause it’s all the – and then they’re, I do too!

Sarah: Yes!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Yep, it’s the same thing.

Meg/Sara: Yeah.

Sarah: So, I have one question that I always ask each person –

Meg/Sara: Okay.

Sarah: – I interview, and it’s actually, some people are like, oh, gosh! I’d like to go get my phone, to go get my Kindle. What are you reading or what have you read recently that you want to recommend to other people?

Meg/Sara: Well, I’m read-, I, and I’m, I should be able to look up things, but right now I’m reading Amanda Quick’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much? It’s really good. And I’m around, ooh, let’s say a little bit more than halfway, and I started it, I started it yesterday, ‘cause it just came out, I think, the day before, on the 12th – I don’t know what day it is today – or the 11th?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Meg/Sara: And I’m really enjoying that.

[music]

Sarah: And that is all for this week’s episode. I want to thank Meg Tilly and Sara Flynn for hanging out with me for so long. If you are curious about some of the books we talked about, of course there will be links to all of them in the podcast entry at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast, or you could head over to iTunes.com/DBSA if you are an iThing user: iOS, iTunes, iPod, iBooks, all the Is. If you use the Is, then head over there.

This podcast was brought to you by Beyond Reason by Kat Martin. New York Times bestselling author Kat Martin combines all the romantic tension readers love but with more suspense than ever, debuting her brand-new writing direction with Beyond Reason. And I am laughing because I said the word Kat, so of course the cat was like, oh, you’re talking about me! No, I’m not actually talking about you, but now he’s going to hit the sound box with his head, so let me try that again. I’m not even taking this out; I hope you find this fun. I’m going to say Kat and see if the other one shows up. Okay.

This podcast is brought to you by Beyond Reason by Kat Martin. Her new novel raises chills as danger stalks a woman determined to make it in a man’s world. Kat Martin is the latest to join the exciting trend in female-driven novels for a thriller audience which is growing rapidly in the marketplace. And I happen to know Elyse is a big fan of all of these female-driven thrillers; they’re great. Beyond Reason has all of Kat Martin’s strengths on full display: strong characters, plenty of fast-paced action and danger, hot alpha heroes, and her taut yet engaging writing style. But this time she amps up the suspense for a thriller-forward plot involving big rig trucking, drug smuggling, murder, and lies. Beyond Reason is on sale now wherever books are sold and on kensingtonbooks.com.

If you are curious about this funky music, I am going to tell you all about it. The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. You can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater. This track is called “Cotton Heads” and is from the two-album set from Caravan Palace that includes their album Caravan Palace and Panic. You can find it at iTunes, Amazon, wherever you buy your funky music, and you can find Caravan Palace on Facebook and on their website at caravanpalace.com. Now, I know a lot of you have bought this two-album set and are really enjoying it. I am so, so happy you like it as much as I do.

And speaking of liking things, as I mentioned at the start, this is our 250th episode, and I am deeply honored that you hang out every week and that you tweet at me and tell me how much you like the podcast, that you’ve subscribed and left reviews in different places and told friends and spread the word, because each week our audience grows a little bit, and I find that just, I find that just incredible, so thank you for being part of the podcast. It would not be the same without you. I hope if you are walking the dogs or cleaning or if you’re like me and petting a cat who is determined to kick the sound box off the desk – dude, seriously – or if you’re dyeing wool or making alcohol, whatever it is you’re doing, thank you for doing it – heh-heh – while listening to us. I appreciate it so, so much.

And if you would like to have a look at our Patreon page, patreon.com/SmartBitches, there are options to support the page with a small or medium-sized or large, whichever is your favorite way, sponsorship pledge. Monthly pledges make a huge difference, but so does your being here and listening right now, so thank you so much for that.

Next week, we will have people talking about romance novels. I have an upcoming episode about location-independent writing and travel. I have an episode about true crime with Elyse and Amanda. I’m really looking forward to all the editing I have to do.

But in the meantime, on behalf of everyone here, including Meg Tilly and Sara Flynn and my cats, who are summoned by the words Kat Martin, apparently, we wish you the very best of reading. Have an excellent weekend.

[funky music]