281. Alyssa Cole and Alisha Rai: Romance and the Resistance from Politics and Prose

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello! The sun is shining; it is a beautiful day here. It is the early afternoon, and the UPS man has not come, and the other dog refuses to come inside, so that means that while I am recording this intro, the dogs will very likely bark. I’m calling it now! Welcome to episode 281 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.

Today I have something really, really cool and very special, and I’m very excited to share it with you. Thanks to Politics and Prose on the Wharf, I have the audio of the panel discussion I did with Alisha Rai and Alyssa Cole on November 29, 2017. We talk about their favorite scenes in each others’ books; we talk about characters, including which one is an homage to Alisha’s dating life; and heads up for yet another Alisha Rai dating story; there is a really good one in this episode. We also talk about joy, romance, and the ambition of happiness as elements of resistance. We talk about how to persevere with happiness when things around you are bleak, and we talk about what happens when you Google “sexy grilled cheese sandwiches.” These are very crucial questions. So thank you so much to Politics and Prose on the Wharf, particularly Alexis and Tom, for sharing the audio with me from our panel discussion, “Romance and the Resistance” from Politics and Prose on the Wharf.

Now, I have two things to tell you. First, as a moderator I kind of failed twice, so I apologize in advance. About thirty-five to forty minutes in, I don’t repeat a question, but I – and I apologize for that – but I do remember what the question was. The question was, what do you do when people in your life discourage you from reading romance or won’t take your recommendations because they look down on the genre? And then about fifty to fifty-five minutes in, there’s another question that I didn’t repeat – again, I’m sorry; I’m terrible – that was about quirks that Alisha and Alyssa may or not notice in their own writing or in each others’ writing. So I apologize as a not-good moderator; I will do better next time.

And finally, a small content warning: at about twenty-two minutes in, Alyssa begins talking about the beginnings of the civil rights movement as a response to the rape of black women in the ‘50s and ‘60s and before that, so if that is something that is going to upset you, which I can understand, you might want to skip ahead at about twenty-two minutes in when Alyssa starts talking about things that she’s used in the history of her books.

Now, I have some things to tell you. First, if you would like to suggest ideas, email me, tell me things, request a guest, or tell me about a book you really want everyone to know about, you should totally email me at [email protected]. You can also record a voice memo and email it to me. That would rock.

Now, I have a transcript sponsor for this episode, and I’m really very honored by this. Judy is a listener overseas and is a generous supporter who loves the transcripts so much and asked if she could sponsor one. She did this in 2016, and she would like you to know that she tends to overspend on romance novels and perfume; what could be better? She says she really values our efforts to make transcripts available, so thank you to Judy. You are incredibly kind, and I am so happy to know that you enjoy the transcripts and wanted to sponsor one for everyone else, and thank you to garlicknitter for compiling each and every transcript that we do.

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The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. This is new stuff, and I will tell you all about it in the outro, which is the part where I talk after the show, and by the way, outro is totally a word.

And the dogs didn’t bark. I’m really disappointed that I expected that they would, and they totally did not, but I will just have to live with that disappointment. On with the podcast.

[music]

Alexis Jason-Matthews: Tonight we are very excited to welcome everyone to “Romance and the Resistance.”

[Cheering]

Alexis: Joining us tonight, we have Alisha Rai, whose new book Wrong to Need You is the second in her Forbidden Hearts series. Also with us is Alyssa Cole, promoting A Hope Divided, the second novel in her Civil-War-era Loyalty League series, and Alyssa and Alisha are in conversation tonight with Sarah Wendell. Sarah is a reviewer for the popular romance website Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, as well as the author of Everything I Know about Love I Learned from Romance Novels, so please join me in welcoming our authors to Politics and Prose!

[Applause]

Sarah: All right! You guys ready to do this?

Alisha Rai: I think so. Is this working?

Sarah: Do your mics work? Your mics are working?

Alyssa: Oh, yes.

Alisha: A bit, yeah.

Sarah: So –

[Laughter]

Sarah: – first of all, thank you for resisting all of the traffic –

Alisha: Yeah.

Sarah: – and the inclination to be like, I could go home and not wear real pants. So if you’re wearing real pants and you came here tonight with us, thank you! ‘Cause it’s so awesome! If you are standing and you would like to sit, there are some chairs in the middle. I promise I won’t ask you math questions or make you feel awkward, but if you really want to sit down, please come sit down; it’s totally cool. All right, so welcome! We’re here to talk about Romance and the Resistance! Which is great, ‘cause we had a conference call about this, the three of us, last night.

Alisha: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Yep, and I have questions, and I’ve scrapped all of them –

Alisha: Oh, no! [Laughs]

Sarah: – and we’re going with sort, we’re, we’re going with a pop quiz on, on algebra.

Alyssa: Okay.

Sarah: I’m kidding.

Alyssa: I would fail.

Sarah: Yeah, I’m right behind you. Like, my kids don’t even bother asking me for help. They’re like –

Alisha: Let us –

Sarah: – we’ll just wait.

Alisha: – let us just tell you, we scheduled a conference call with Sarah last night, and then we went to Target and forgot about it –

[Laughter]

Alisha: – and so –

Sarah: True story, but – !

Alisha: True story, and she texted us, like, ten minutes in, and she goes, I’m ready whenever you guys are! And we’re like, ohhh.

Alyssa: And I was like, strawberries!

[Laughter]

Alisha: So –

Alyssa: So I live on an island, and –

Sarah: Like, literally.

Alyssa: – I was just in Target, like, getting all of the things that I can’t get on the island and totally forgot about Sarah, so I’m sorry about –

Alisha: And one of those things –

Sarah: Hey, I am way, way down on that list.

Alisha: – one of those things is, is strawberries, and she saw the strawberries, and she goes – [gasp!] – three forty-nine?! And, like, bought them and then ate the whole tub while we were on the conference call.

Alyssa: Everyone doesn’t need to know this.

Alisha: [Laughs]

Sarah: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait. Something happened at that Target, and it involved Idris Elba, right?

Alyssa: Oh, yeah!

Alisha: Yeah, my book was there!

Sarah: Her book was in a Target!

[Laughter]

Alisha: – was there.

Sarah: Now, I know that I’m currently in a bookstore, so I look kind of like a rude human being, but, y’all, seriously! Idris Elba was looking at her book!

Alisha: Well, I made him look at me. That’s it. [Laughs]

[Laughter]

Alisha: His, like, book, whatever, movie, the book version of it was there.

Sarah: Kate Winslet might have been there; we don’t care.

Alisha: Well, he wasn’t looking at Kate; he was looking at me –

Sarah: Looking hard!

Alisha: – so – okay, sorry, continue your introductions.

Alyssa: It was a bad romance cover, but it was a good maneuver.

Sarah: They weren’t looking at each other, there was no clinch, but it freed him up to gaze longingly at her book, which is exactly what you want, so congrats on your releases, you guys! Yay!

Alisha and Alyssa: Thank you!

Sarah: So excited!

[Applause]

Sarah: Okay, so because those books released – it’s, today’s Wed-, Thursday, so two days ago, right? People who are here who work in publishing, is it, like, 2020 for you right now? 2021? Like, it’s not 2019.

[Laughter]

Sarah: There are actual real children; it’s pretty rad. Ma’am?

Alisha: So my favorite scene analysis book is a little bit conceited, ‘cause it’s an homage to me?

[Laughter]

Alyssa: This is true.

Alisha: It’s true! So –

Sarah: Wait, hold up, hold up, ‘cause one of the worst characters in her book is named Sarah. Do I need to be concerned here?

Alyssa: No!

Sarah: Okay.

Alyssa: It was a very common name.

Sarah: I know! Believe me, I know.

[Laughter]

Sarah: It’s st- – thank you, Sara(h) – it is still a common name.

Alisha: If it was, if it was Sarah Wendell, maybe you might – [laughs] – it was not!

Sarah: I’m just checking, ‘cause, you know, my ego is, is feeling. Anyway –

Alisha: So –

Sarah: – an homage to you.

Alisha: Yes, well, okay, so Alyssa has, like, a front-row seat to, like, my entire love life, and so when she was writing this book I was seeing this guy who we affectionately referred to as Robot, because he wanted to be a robot. Like, that’s what he said. He didn’t like, he didn’t like emotions. Like, he was very scientific and very rational and very logical, and he did not like emotions, and he would always tell me he would never fall in love with me, which is very fun to hear when you’re in a relationship with someone.

Sarah: Do you – wait, anyone here who’s been dating, have you heard or met this guy?

[Laughter]

Sarah: I, I’ve met him.

Alisha: I met him, and I was like, yeah, sign me up, and so –

[Laughter]

Alisha: – I have, so I dated him –

Alyssa: And my hero happens to share these ten-, tendencies.

Alisha: – and so one day we were out to dinner, I don’t remember what date it was, and, you know, after the eighteenth time he had told me he would never love anyone, and he kept talking about his sister, his little sister, and he was like, oh, I love this girl – like, he didn’t say love. He was like, oh, she’s so smart; oh, she’s, like, valedictorian; she’s going to grad school. Like, blah blah blah forever about his sister, right? And so finally I was like, uh-huh, I see it, and so I said, you love your sister! And he goes, no, I don’t believe in love. And I said, so –

[Laughter]

Alisha: – you don’t love your sister? And he’s like, no. And I said, okay, so in the trolley situation, there’re five people on the track. There’s one, one person over here, and, you know, I’d let some time go by so I, I wouldn’t be connected to his sister, and he’s like, of course I’d kill the one person to save the five. Like, that’s utilitarianism. I was like, okay, fine, let’s make that one person your sister. And he goes, oh, I’d kill the five, and I was like, ‘cause you love her!

[Laughter]

Alisha: You love her, and that’s why. He goes, no! She is cognitively superior to other humans.

[Laughter]

Alisha: So I went home that night, and I was like, Alyssa, this guy – and so I told her, and she goes, that sounds like my hero. That sounds like something he would say. So in her book, there’re two times? Yeah, two times that Ewan will talk about –

Sarah: Definitely twice.

Alisha: – yeah, where he talks about being, like, someone being cognitively superior, and it’s wonderful in that book, ‘cause there’s a Happily Ever After.

Sarah: It isn’t –

Alisha: Not so great in real life.

Sarah: No. Not. And it’s adorable, because he means it as the deepest compliment –

Alisha: Right.

Sarah: – and not as –

Alisha: This was the, the deepest compliment, yes.

Sarah: It really is!

Alisha: But it, it was hard to deal with in real – [laughs].

Sarah: That guy’s a tool.

Alisha: He was. [Laughs] He’s very attractive.

[Laughter]

Sarah: It happens that way, doesn’t it?

Alisha: It happens that way.

Sarah: He doesn’t have to believe in love.

Alisha: Yes, that’s the problem. [Laughs]

Sarah: So the other thing we’re talking about tonight, and we’re going to mix back and forth with these topics, is the Resistance, and I was getting ready for this panel, and I actually found your swag, Alisha –

Alisha: Oh!

Sarah: – from, I think this was RT –

Alisha: I think so.

Sarah: – in spring. So she gave out buttons, and one says Resist with Love, and the other one says HEA – Happy Ever After – is Resistance. So this has been a theme for you for most of the year. Can’t imagine why. No. Can you talk a little bit about what went into making these buttons? Why is Happy Ever After the Resistance? Why, why do we resist with love?

Alisha: So, you know, I  think, I think in general, like, emotions, in a way, are, are kind of Resistance, right, because – does anyone follow Jonny Sun? Okay, he has this really cute Twitter where he pretends to be an alien, basically, and it’s an alien, like, discovering the world, and he’s very popular. He has a book out now; it’s very cute. And his whole, like, I listened to a, a podcast with him not too long ago with Another Round, which is, like, a great podcast if you listen to that, and he talked about how he’s very committed to being, like, genuine and authentic because he thinks that, like, irony is basically giving up. Like, it’s not hard to be cynical, and it’s not hard to be, sort of despair and to, you know, look around the world and just say, well, everything’s terrible, so why do we bother loving each other? Why do we bother, you know, having happy endings? Why do we even, like, why are we even in pursuit of this anymore? That’s not that difficult. I think it is, like, a challenge to get up every day and to face the world and say, you know, like, there’s still hope out there and, you know, I don’t think that idealism is naïve if you, if you are cognizant of all the terrible stuff in the world, but it is, every day you get up and you do that, where you are genuine and you’re authentic and you’re excited about something, whether it’s even the smallest things, like, oh, my God, I got out of bed and I brushed my teeth. Like, that’s something, you know? So I think doing that every day, especially if you’re, you know, a woman, a marginalized member of society in one way or another, I think it is, it is amazingly, just resisting everything that’s pushing you down and telling you not to.

Sarah: And that’s part of romance, too.

Alisha: Absolutely, yeah!

Sarah: Because the, the element of romance that we all read it for – at least that I read it for; I can’t speak for everybody – is that I know that it’s all going to be okay in the end. Even if it’s not okay right now, if it’s not okay, then it’s not the end.

[Laughter]

Sarah: ‘Cause it’s going to be okay in the end, because that’s the promise that I am made by this book.

Alisha: Mm-hmm. And the black moment, it’s always overcome.

Sarah: Yes.

Alisha: Like, whenever there’s a romance and you have a black moment, even if it’s a tiny black moment – like, it could be, like, slight misunderstanding or something like that – and you go, ooh, I don’t know if this is going to work out, and then it does! So, like, that is the promise that you have in every, in every romance you pick up.

Sarah: And when you live in a news world where there’s a black moment, like, semi-hourly?

[Laughter]

Sarah: Like –

Alyssa: Every five minutes.

Sarah: – every five minutes. I haven’t looked at Twitter in the last forty-five.

Alyssa: Yeah, yeah.

Sara: Who the hell knows what’s on fire right now? Persisting in believing in happiness is a form of Resistance, which, which I also agree with ‘cause we talked about the idea that happiness is subversive. You had talked about that a lot when we were having lots of conversations about this panel, Alyssa. Why do you find subversiveness in happiness and in romance? And where do you find it?

Alyssa: I think in general in romance, like you said, the Happily Ever After is somewhat subversive in that the world tells us that, you know – you know, I like literary fiction and all the other forms of fiction, but they say that, oh, if your book has a happy ending then it’s not serious, it’s not important, it’s fluff, because the only things that are important, I guess, is something that causes you pain, but Happily Ever After and all of the other aspects of romance are, like – as humans, we need escape from pain. That’s why we created stories to begin with. That’s why people first started telling stories around fires; we didn’t just want to sit and stare at the fire and think about how our, you know, brother got eaten by a jackalope or whatever.

[Laughter]

Alyssa: So I think the subversiveness, especially of romance, and especially of modern romance, in that, which is more inclusiveness of many different groups, because, especially if you’re from a marginalized group, if you were in any kind of story, you were generally, like, the red shirt: you were the person who was going to get killed, who was going to have some kind of tragic ending to better the, the hero or heroine of the other story. So one aspect of the subversiveness, I think there are layers. There’s the subversiveness of women choosing happiness, finding people that make them happy, and finding careers and going after their goals, which I think is a part of most romances. You don’t generally find ones where women are just like, okay, well, I’m just going to, you know, not do whatever makes me happy, whether that’s a job, having children, or, you know, starting a charity, whatever, and marry some bum who’s going to beat me up. Like, that’s not a romance. So there’s that layer of subversiveness, of kind of saying, okay, it’s all right for you want happiness and better things in your life, and then there’s the other layers of, for example, LGBTQ romance where you say, okay, we’re going to live at the end of this story, we’re going to have happy endings, we’re not going to die; and romance for people of color where it’s like, okay, we’re actually going to show you being loved and appreciated and not just a side character in a story. So I think there are, like, a lot of different layers, and also just in general, just resisting the idea of happiness as something that is kind of unimportant –

Sarah: Yes.

Alyssa: – as a human.

Sarah: Oh, yes.

Alisha: I think it’s, like, you called it escapism, and I think that’s, like, a word that sometimes gets a negative connotation when women want it. Like, when, when a man has escapism, it’s science fiction, right? Like, that’s cool!

Sarah: Or football or –

Alyssa: Or James Bond.

Alisha and Sarah: – or James Bond or, like –

Sarah: – commercial –

Alisha: – so many other things, right, yes.

Sarah: Yeah.

Alisha: The horse or whatever, yeah, like the beer commercials. Yeah, like, it’s, there’re so many forms – oh, are we –

Sarah: I’m sorry, George R. R. Martin is here? Oh, he is up there! So there’s your es- –

Alisha: Oh, my God, George.

Sarah: He’s going to, he’s going to give you a concussion.

Alisha: He is.

[Laughter]

Alisha: Sorry, George. But, you know, when, when it’s women who want escapism, it’s seen as, like, something to be derided, but you need it. Like, you can’t function in a world where everything sometimes feels like it’s terrible without some way to get away from it. I mean, even if that’s for a few minutes, it’s not, it’s not like you are forgetting everything else in the world. You’re – I wish.

Sarah: [Laughs] I saw, I saw flashing lights and was like, what now?

[Laughter]

Sarah: That’s a street cleaner; all right we’re cool. Sorry!

Alisha: Yeah, in DC, sometimes you have to worry.

Sarah: Right?

Alisha: [Laughs] No, it’s –

Sarah: I mean, come on! [Laughs] I’m not even joking about things looking black moment.

Alisha: But, no, yeah, but, like, that’s the, that’s the thing. For, for people of color, for LGBTQ, for women in general –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alisha: – it is, you need something that will give you the hope that you need to function in our world.

Alyssa: And I would say all literature is a form of escapism. It’s literally putting yourself into another story and try-, and seeing from a different point of view, and it’s only really derided for certain forms of literature, so.

Sarah: And there’s also resistance in being a romance reader, because when you’re a romance reader, you get put down a lot for what you like, and I, there are many, many people who feel very free to tell you what they think of what you’re reading if they see you reading it? And I’ve, I’ve often done a, I’ve done a lot of interviews where people talk to me about, oh, what about reader shaming? I actually haven’t met that many romance readers who hold shame for what they read, because it, it makes us happy. What they hold is the continued reminder from other people that they ought to feel ashamed about what they’re reading, but not so much, we don’t. And there’s resistance in containing and in, in maintaining a reading habit of romance, so even reading romance, I think, is also being part of the resistance, because you are embracing and holding onto the idea that happiness is an absolutely acceptable and laudable thing to look for in your reading material. Also good sex.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Speaking of. No.

[Laughter]

Sarah: I, I do actually want to ask you both, one of the things that I really liked about both of the, the newest books and the previous books in the series – and I promise, no spoilers – is that there are communities of women supporting one another in both of your books, whether it’s family or friends, and friendships that take place almost entirely on a cell phone in, in the Civil War, and –

[Laughter]

Sarah: That was a really bad Instagram, you guys. You have no idea. [Laughs] So there’re friendships that take place only in your pocket, and that person is always there for you, but you never see them. And there’re friendships and supporting of your family, and there’re groups of women, and the idea, one of the things that was like, we, we’ve had this conversation about this panel, like, a couple of times, and I’m really actually excited to finally do it, ‘cause I get to share this cool conversation with everyone here. I just, like, okay, so talk now; say more words. Go ahead. One of the things that you, you make sure to include is these relationships of women supporting one another, and both of you have talked about in, in other panels and in other discussions and in interviews that women are often the drivers of change in small and large ways, and that also happens in your books. Was it a challenge to write those, or was that sort of like, well, duh?

Alyssa: For me it’s just a natural part of any story, especially stories that are primarily focused on women, and particularly, I think in all of my books, but particularly in historicals, it’s just historically accurate. For example, the novella Let Us Dream, which was about a black cabaret owner who was also pushing for women’s suffrage in 1917 New York, and it was kind of, these were people who were not in the upper classes of society. They were prostitutes and cabaret owners and number runners and things like that, but the things that connected them were, like, we’re all women and we’re here trying to support each other, and I think if you look at any major movement in American history, women were at the forefront of it. Like, I was talking to these guys about it. Like, the civil rights movement, we often think of, like, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, but, like, one of the biggest drivers of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and ‘60s was that Black women kept getting raped, and they were not get-, no one was getting charged for it. I mean, this is still a problem for all women today, but a lot of the community groups that were formed were formed by women and were trying to – like, Rosa Parks, that was, before she, you know, sat down on the bus that day, that was her biggest form of community activism. So it’s just these kinds of things, I think, when I’m writing and I’m doing my research, you, it’s the things that you come across again and again, and in A Hope Divided, the, one of the things that, that I focus on is that there were these groups of poor women – like, one of the things of the Confederacy was, like, oh, we’re doing this to protect, like, the sanctity of women and things like that, but they had a very small definit-, slim definition of what women were. If you were poor, if you weren’t white, if you didn’t fit into a certain aspect of society, then they could, you know, they didn’t really care about what happened to you, so then those women had to kind of work together to survive, so I think it just kind of comes naturally when doing the research. And for the contemporaries, it’s just, you know, I think about my relationships with my friends and my family and incorporate those things.

Sarah: I think that’s been one of my favorite changes in the genre over the past few years is the number of books I’ve read where there’s a community of women? ‘Cause I mean, there’s a whole bunch of books where it’s a whole bunch of guys who hold the series together, and now I’m seeing more and more series about women, which is really interesting because when you talk about history, usually the women are erased from history, and you’re bringing them back to the, to the forefront. Like, the men are, men are cool. They’re fine, they’re do it, they’re great, but you’re focusing on what women have contributed to history and to contemporary world, and the same with your books, too.

Alisha: Yeah. I mean, I, I actually, someone posted, like, a, a page from some, some famous woman’s memoir. I’m blanking on the name right now, but to paraphrase, the, the page said something like, I had a number of wonderful female friends and then a string of lovers, and that’s it, because when I went out to dinner with my female friends, I knew I would come back whole. And I was like, whoa! That’s like me –

[Laughter]

Alisha: – but, like, way more, like, articulate. But I was like, oh, that’s, that’s, but that’s, you know, I, I do have, I’ve always had women friends, and lately I feel like, especially, you know, we all – like, I moved around a lot as a kid. I don’t have friendships from, like, elementary school or kindergarten or whatever that I’ve still maintained, but I, I do have friendships from different parts of my life, and we’ve all spread out across the country or in different countries, and the way you keep in contact with them is through your phone or through, you know, chats or whatever. I mean, I get hundreds of chats, I feel like, a day, and I, you know, I, I manage them. I mean, Sarah lives, like, not too far from me, and we still mostly communicate through text, and I think that, you know, whenever I hear someone say, like, oh, put down your phone ‘cause you’re missing the real world, I’m like, you want me to sacrifice my friend so I can, like, what, eat lunch? Like, please! You know, like, this is –

Sarah: And those relationships are real!

Alisha: These relationships are real! Like, they’re my –

Sarah: Absolutely real!

Alisha: – like, pocket friends I heard someone call ‘em, and I like that. Like, they’re my pocket friends. Like, they’re always in my pocket, and –

Sarah: I love how some of the people in the audience are like, yep!

Alisha: Yeah, no, like, you know, these –

Sarah: I love my pocket friends! [Laughs]

Alisha: – these are your real friends, right? I mean, like, they’re –

Sarah: I’m in the room with them right now!

Alisha: Yeah! Like, and maybe you see ‘em once in a while, but they’re no less your friends, and I, and I feel like women especially have used technology, like, from the minute it was possible to do that.

Sarah: Yep.

Alisha: Like, we have always sort of, I think, and, and it’s connected to romance, too.

Sarah: Absolutely!

Alisha: I mean, romance has, romance has always been at the forefront of using technology. We were the first ones in the digital publishing game; we were the first ones to self-publish and make it successful. So, yeah, I think it’s always sort of been, and it’s been – I mean, when I found the romance community when I was, like, thirteen or fourteen on AOL message boards –

Sarah: Yep!

Alisha: – like –

[Laughter]

Alisha: – I was like, oh, my God!

Sarah: Yep.

Alisha: It’s like a ready-made friendship! Like, everybody sort of has an automatic kinship, and you –

Sarah: Yep.

Alisha: – make your friends. We were at an event on Tuesday, and it was so cute, ‘cause these strangers who did not know each other were in the audience before we started, and we’re just kind of like creepily eavesdropping, and they were just, like, recommending books to each other. Like, they were like, oh, have you read this, have you read that? And, like, you know, you, you automatically become friends. So, yeah, when I write, when I write my books, I mean in contemporary settings, I think it’s automatic, and that doesn’t mean you can’t have a toxic woman in there, right? Like, you have had toxic friendships; you’ve had toxic coworkers who were women. I think the problem comes in when you make all the other women toxic, and then the heroine’s, like, the shining beacon of womanhood. Like, that becomes a little weird. But, yeah, you, I think that it’s pretty natural, even if you maybe are socially awkward, maybe you don’t have a lot, you’re introverted, you don’t have a lot of friends you see every day or you work at home or whatever. Like, it is easier daily now to make friends, and if you feel like you don’t have enough friends, just go on Twitter, go on Facebook. Look, the world is small.

Sarah: Don’t, no, you know what? I’m going to stop – don’t go on Twitter.

[Laughter]

Sarah: You might make friends with –

Alisha: Go to the right places –

Sarah: Yes.

Alisha: – in Twitter. [Laughs]

Sarah: Go to the right – don’t just show up, because that could end badly.

Alisha: But find the people that you like –

Sarah: [Laughs] Yes, find those –

Alisha: – and then –

Sarah: – come talk to us.

Alisha: But, like, it is easy, like, it is much easier to –

Sarah: Yes.

Alisha: – curate friends who you don’t have to even see! [Laughs] You know, so.

Sarah: And if being with people is really exhausting for you, this is great!

Alisha: Yeah, it’s a good way to do it! But –

Sarah: So another thing I want to ask you before we open it up to the room for questions – and I have planted a horrible question in the audience ‘cause I’m evil; mwa-ha-ha – we talk a lot about the forms of resistance that romance readers can do by finding authors, by seeking out authors of color, by seeking out own voices, characters of color, stories that aren’t the very well established romance of white, heterosexual, cis-gendered, Christian Americans in small towns with really good-looking Adirondack chairs –

[Laughter]

Sarah: – and I have, my neighbor has them, and they get real gross in a hurry, so whoever’s keeping the Adirondack chairs in the cover art, we need to have a talk, ‘cause I don’t know how that works. But anyway –

[Laughter]

Sarah: – when you seek outside of what you’re constantly presented with, that is a form of resistance, and when you write cultural inclusivity and, and religious inclusivity, you are increasing the ability of someone to read a romance and say I see myself, which is, like, the best feeling. What other things can we do now? What, what more can we do? No pressure. You have five seconds.

[Laughter]

Alyssa: I think some things in general, just being involved in your communities, whether that’s online or you’re, if you’re capa-, if you’re able in your real-world communities of volunteering, and whether that be politically or, you know, reading at a library or mentoring children or teenagers who need it or adults, helping with adult literacy, I think there are a lot of different ways, and the internet makes it so much easier. There are a lot of things that you can do online helping with databases, help calling if you don’t want to leave your house for, like, political campaigns and things like that, and just also educating yourself. You know, finding out more about how your, the government in general works, the, your local government, and how you want it to work and maybe doing the small things you can to push it in that direction, because I think, you know, just speaking for myself, I thought I was pretty literate in how the government works and learned very quickly, no.

[Laughter]

Alyssa: I, I was not. I was like, hey, how come I can’t just stop, like, all this bad stuff happening? And –

[Laughter]

Alyssa: – there are rules.

Sarah: Surprise!

Alyssa: There are rules. So, you know, just learning how things work, supporting people, grassroots movement, finding people on the, before they get to, like, you know, the governorship and, you know, the representatives and things like that, and kind of looking at how the, all of the little things in your community have a ripple effect to the larger things that start being really messed up. So, yeah, just starting at a grassroots level, I guess.

Alisha: I’ll take, I’ll take it in a, in a publishing and books perspective. I mean, like, this is DC; there’re so many things that you could and, and, you know, should do, but talk to your libraries, like, and have them, if they don’t have the books that you love from authors you love, tell them to get them, and most of them will buy it. Like, if it’s, like, a legit request, they’ll buy it and –

Sarah: In my library system, it’s one button: Request.

Alisha: Yeah, it’s just one button; it’s so easy, and you can just go request things and they’ll take a look at it, and then they’ll buy it, like, and, and then other people can read the books you love. I grew up in a library. Like, my parents were always busy; like, they were always working. The library raised me after school for, you know, most of my elementary school and middle school, and I started reading romances in the library, and I think it’s a great place. I mean, that does help us, because those kids and teen – I mean, kids aren’t really reading our books, hopefully – but –

[Laughter]

Sarah: You never know.

Alisha: – but let’s face it. But, I mean, like, our genre starts young, right? Like, we are, like, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen and reading books we maybe shouldn’t be reading because there’re, like, naked people on the cover.

[Laughter]

Alisha: I don’t know who that’s referring to, but – but, yeah, so, like, you know, those are people who are going to grow up, and they’re going to grow up reading these books, maybe of people who look like them or maybe of people who don’t, and that’s how you, you know, studies have shown, media affects how we see the world. Like, it is the difference of seeing Apu on The Simpsons versus, like, you know, the Mindy show or something like that. You know, when you see, like, different characters, that’s how it, it affects your brain, so, for people who can’t maybe afford to go out and buy or, or can’t because they’re too young or they don’t have the money or whatever, libraries are their best bet, so make friends with your local DC public library branch and – or Maryland or Virginia or wherever you happen to live. I assume no one came from farther out than that – but, yeah, make friends with them and, and talk to them and press a button and, and get the books that you love in there.

Sarah: Can I answer my own question ‘cause I’m a total jerk?

Alisha: Yes.

Sarah: I think that it is amazing how much technology connects you to involvement. Like, I drop my kids off at music lessons, ‘cause I’m a horrible parent and let my children play the drums and the electric guitar, and I’m walking to the grocery store, and I get a text message from an organization that I subscribe to by text, and they said, there’s a bill in Congress that you said you were interested in. Would you be interested in calling your representative? And I’m like, well, I’m going to Safeway; I’m not really busy, so sure! So I hit Call, I just press Call and hit Send, and I’m in Safeway looking for the thing I need, which I can never find, ‘cause I hate the grocery store, and I get connected to a message that tells me exactly what to say, exactly what the bill number is, and exactly what the problem is, and then they connect me to my congressman’s office, and I’m like, hi, I’m so-and-so; this is my zip code. Here is the issue: I’m calling about this bill; I have a problem – I believe it was the concealed permit reciprocity bill, which allows concealed carry reciprocity – and it took me longer to find what I was looking for in the grocery store than it did to talk to my congressman, and the staff people there are on the phone, like, all the time. It was so easy.

Alisha: Resistbot, too, for those of you, who don’t know it.

Sarah: Resistbot is amazing. You don’t even have to talk on the phone.

Alisha: You don’t even have to talk on the phone –

Sarah: Amazing!

Alisha: – ‘cause they send a fax! I don’t know what that is.

[Laughter]

Alisha: But they, they, last time, you know, when the, the last healthcare bill was up, I, you know, I got a text from them, and it said, you live in, you know, you live in a blue state, so you’re not too worried, but if you have friends who live in this, this, and this state, please contact them and ask them to use our service, and we’ll figure it out for them. So, it was like that –

Sarah: So then you’re text messaging. [Laughs]

Alisha: Like, they are pro-, they are proactive, and you just text your friends or whatever in those states and, you know, like, have them send the fax or whatever. It’s very easy, and you don’t have to talk to anyone.

Sarah: And the other thing is to keep coming to events like this one. The fact that you, that you, that you came means that this is important to you, which is wonderful, because I work on the internet, and I speak to you all every day virtually, but the fact that you came here is an enormous, enormous thing, ‘cause I know it’s hard to put on real pants and go outside.

[Laughter]

Sarah: So thank you very much for that part too. Just being here and reading romance, I think, is continually resisting the negativity that we’re told that we deserve, which we don’t, by the way. You all deserve happy endings.

Now I would like to open it up to questions, ‘cause it’s about that time, right? I’m bad at time. So I have one question already planted. So up in the front here is Erika Tsang, and she is Alisha’s editor, so she edited the books that just came out! Nice job, well done, excellent work! Yay!

[Applause, comment from audience]

Sarah: That’s right!

Alisha: She’s also Alyssa’s editor.

Sarah: Yes, A Princess in Theory, which comes out in, in February.

Alisha: Right before the royal wedding.

[Laugher, applause]

Alyssa: Alisha’s also my PR.

[Laughter]

Sarah: So I want to ask you, I want to ask you, and I’m going to borrow one of your mics for this, so I can get it on the recording: what were your favorite scenes in their books that you’ve read so far?

Erika Tsang: Well, I’m sorry, Alyssa, I haven’t read your historical, but for Alisha’s Wrong to Need You, my favorite scene is when Jackson cooks –

Sarah: Yes, thank you!

[Laughter]

Erika: – for Sadia for the first time and the first, her first bite – it made me both hungry and turned on at the same time –

[Laughter]

Erika: – and it was just an amazing, amazing scene.

Sarah: That man can crack an egg.

Alyssa: Can I –

Erika: Oh, my God.

Alyssa: Can I just say that “it made me hungry and turned on at the same time” can be applied to pretty much any –

Sarah: All.

[Laughter]

Erika: Yes, that’s –

Sarah: You could also put that as a cover quote. Like, was, anyone here in the room, would you buy a book that said, this book made me hungry and turned on at the same time? Yeah, right? That’s like saying, this book had too much sex. I would like that book right now.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Thank you very much. I’m sorry to put you on the spot, but I’m glad I warned you. All right, I am –

Alisha: Can I, can I just add one thing to that?

Sarah: Yes!

Alisha: When I wrote that scene, before I wrote it, I googled “sexiest grilled cheese sandwiches.” That should tell you –

[Laughter]

Sarah: Oh, my God!

Alisha: It didn’t give me any results; I had to, like, figure it out on my own.

Sarah: Your, your search history must be amazing!

Alisha: Oh, NSA has a lot of fun with my search –

[Laughter]

Sarah: So who has questions? I love questions. I have more, but I like you guys a lot. Please, please don’t be shy. What you can do is just shout them out, and then I will repeat them. [Hums waiting music] Yes! All right.

So the question is, how do you negotiate politics and the history of politics and researching political history when the, those things are also current as well? Is that it? Yeah.

[Clarification from audience member]

Alyssa: You get really depressed – nah.

[Laughter]

Alyssa: So, for most of my historicals, they are pretty explicitly political in a way, because there’s no way they couldn’t be with the types of characters I write, people of color and LGBTQ people, people from marginalized groups, so there’s going to be some, even if it’s not the focus of the book, there is going to be some political impact on the characters in the book, and the way I usually navigate it is, I guess, just straight through. If someone doesn’t like it, then they’re not the reader meant for my book. I can’t really try to soften anything, and, like, in a way, I do sometimes. Even though it’s still – like, for example, in the Civil War books, I have some things that are, like, people get really mad about, and I’m like, you have no idea; that’s, like, the most – [laughs] – that’s the softest version of that situation that I actually researched. But, I mean, that’s for me, too, because I don’t want to be, like, completely demoralized every time I have to write a book, so I do, like, try to find the good things in history as well – in political history – as well as the bad things and just try to focus on these terrible things happened, but I want to, the feeling I want to leave my readers with is these terrible things happened and are happening now, but, you know, people got through them. We, people have always fought them and persevered and in the end, even though it sucks, the, in general, you know, the good guys always have some degree of winning, and things don’t always get completely terrible, and when they do, we come back from that, because in general, you know, humans can be terrible, but we do try to strive toward being good.

Sarah: And happiness is a victory.

Alyssa: Yes, and happiness is a victory, and even when things are terrible, there are people who are happy. Like, things are terrible right now, and we’re pretty happy sometimes, so I think –

Alisha: Occasionally.

Alyssa: [Laughs] Occasionally.

Alisha: Yeah.

Alyssa: But, you know, I think that’s another thing that, you know, when I said I was writing a Civil War series, people were like, what? Like –

Sarah: Oh-oh, that’s heavy. Yeah.

Alyssa: But, like, there are bad things happening all the time all over the world, and despite that people still fall in love, people still have fun with their children, people still have fun with their friends. They find a way to do this in any society that is going through terrible things, and so we can’t just kind of flatten the story to things were bad and everyone was having a terrible time. Even within terrible times, there are pockets of happiness, and, yes, that is resistance to that, to the terrible times.

Alisha: I think also, and it feels like especially lately, politics has become conflated with civil rights, like, humanity, and in particular, I think, for me, I want to push against that, and I don’t think, I don’t think it should be political for anybody to be happy? And if it is, then, like Alyssa said, it’s probably not the reader base, maybe, for me. I will say, I, I was actually writing Wrong to Need You around the time of the Muslim ban. My heroine is Pakistani-American, she’s Muslim, and the hero is Japanese-Amer-, half Japanese-American, and his grand-, part of the, the plot of the series, for those who don’t know, is about his grandfather, who’s passed away, was in a Japanese internment camp, he was Japanese-American, so he kind of carries that history, and she has a son who’s also half, you know, part Japanese-American and also Muslim, so, you know, grappling with all of that, you know, there’s no, like, Trumpism in the book or anything like that, but that’s, you know, there’s, there’s a scene in the book that, you know, was kind of hard to write. It was, you know, the, the son finds out about the internment camps from, about his great-, like, great-grandfather and, you know, he asks his mom, like, oh, could that happen again? And, you know, she can’t say no, but she gives the best answer she can. Like, no, we’ll pro-, you know, like, we’ll protect you and, you know, that’s what I think a lot of moms of color tell their children, you know, like, especially now, like, we’re going to protect you the best we can. It’s the reality that you live with, but at the same time, I mean, we all live under a reality where anything can be taken from us at any time, right? Like, it’s so easy, and we’re finding how easy it is for our humanity to be taken away from us. So, but we’re still happy. Like, we still have moments of happiness, and we can still have love, and we can still have all that. So for someone, for a reader, if they consider that politics, then I can’t really help that, but I feel like it’s my – I don’t know if responsibility is too heavy of a word, but I think that it is, part of our jobs is to think about that and to think about what message we’re sending out when we create media that the world’s going to consume.

Sarah: I was just going to say, it’s part of the job that you’ve elected to do with what you write. That’s the, the –

Alisha: Right.

Sarah: – job you’ve taken on.

Alisha: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Now you had a question, ma’am.

[Laughter]

Sarah: So you want to know if there’re going to be television shows of Alyssa’s books? This is good questions!

Alyssa: That is a good question.

Sarah: These are very good questions.

Alyssa: I don’t know. I hope so. Like, I – I don’t know Shonda. Like, I –

[Laughter]

Alyssa: It was what a – my, my contribution is that when I was doing my interview I was like, I want to recommend a lot of books; can I recommend some books? And they were like, okay. So –

[Laughter]

Alyssa: Because my interview got kind of long, ‘cause I just kept adding books that I liked, and I was like, it would be –

Sarah: I have that problem.

Alyssa: And I was like, it would be better if, you know, we just made this into a separate thing, if that was cool, and they said okay, and so that’s my contribution. I would love it if my books became a television show, obviously, as, as every author would, or most authors would, but, yeah, so, you know, it’s not like I’m hanging out with Shonda, unfortunately.

[Laughter]

Sarah: That’s too bad.

Alyssa: But it is really cool, and it’s nice being able to recommend books to people. I mean, I just like telling people about things that I like. Obviously, that’s why I’m an author, so I can –

[Laughter]

Alyssa: – I can force people to, to read about things that I like. [Laughs]

Alisha: Captive audience.

Alyssa: So, yeah, that aspect is cool. The other part, you know –

Sarah: Fingers crossed. I saw a question over here. Yes, ma’am.

Alisha: You know, I think with anything, like, there has to be a level of them being open to something new? And I think really quickly, like, in any group, you can tell when someone is genuinely earnest about wanting to try something new, and in that case, like, I’ve never seen anybody in romance, like, gatekeep or, you know, they’re like, oh, here’s, like, eighty books I love! You know, like, here’s my entire Goodreads shelf. I have it, like –

Sarah: You, you just got –

Alisha: – sorted by age of, like, hero. Like –

Sarah: You just got paid? That’s great! [Laughs]

Alisha: Yeah, like, you know, let’s go, and – but, you know, I think it, I, I think there is some level of, you know, women or men or whatever who think that it’s, you know, beneath them and whatever. I think I’m just kind of tired of trying to convince people that we’re great? [Laughs] I think, I think they’ll either come to us, like, earnestly seeking, like, figure out what we like about it and everything. In that case –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alisha: – I’m, you know, more than happy, but I think that, you know, sort of beating your head against a wall –

Sarah: Yeah.

Alisha: – or trying to gain someone’s approval is, like, you know, it’s not, there’re so many other things we could be, we could be, like, reading and writing so many great books when, while, in that time.

Sarah: This is, like, my job, so I’m familiar.

Alisha: Oh, yes.

Sarah: Yep, I’ve got a lot of, I’ve got a lot of strategies for you.

Alyssa: I, I have a slightly different answer. Just because I think it’s been really, like, ingrained into people that it’s a reflexive response sometimes when you say romance that people are just like, oh, those kinds of books or, oh, trashy books or, oh, things like that, and, like, it is annoying, and, like, I definitely am not always nice when people say things like that –

[Laughter]

Alyssa: – but I do think, like, if you have, they’re your friends and people who you were kind of, like, trying to invite into this world that you really love, you would do it like with any fandom –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Alyssa: – that you were part of. Like, if there’s something you really, really, really, like a book you really love, you don’t have to be like, oh, here is this, like, romance, and this is the – you can just say, here’s this book I love; can you give it a try? And if they say something silly, you can just say, like, why don’t you just try it and see if you like it? If they don’t want to try it, then you can’t really do much more than that, because then you start becoming, like, you know, that person who –

Alisha: Yeah.

Alyssa: But it’s like any, like, if you have a favorite show that you like, you would say, oh, this episode – like, for me, I’ve had shows that I loved and, obviously, like I just said, I always try to force people to like things that I like, so sometimes I’d be like, you should watch this show! And I would keep telling them how cool the show is, and they wouldn’t want to watch it, and then I would say, oh, I’m about to watch this episode, and I would have an episode that I really liked. Sometimes it’s more effective to just have them watch an episode and then they say, oh, this show is cool! than to keep trying to tell them how cool the show is. So, like, I would just say, like, maybe without, if they seem resistant you can just say, I like this book; see if you like it too, and if they, if they aren’t receptive, then, you know, that sucks for them, ‘cause they’re missing out.

[Laughter]

Alisha: I’m not an anime fan, and Alyssa is a big-time anime fan, and she loves Yuri on Ice a lot, and she kept telling me, she kept telling me to watch it –

Sarah: [Laughs] Yuri fans.

Alisha: – like, a million times, and I wouldn’t, so when we were at RT, we were sitting down to dinner –

Alyssa: Yup.

Alisha: – and she pops out her iPad and just turns it on. And then –

[Laughter]

Sarah: You have no choice!

Alisha: – any, any time I, like, tried to look at my phone, I could just see her, like, turning –

Alyssa: It has subtitles –

Alisha: [Laughs]

Alyssa: – it has subtitles, and she was missing important information.

Alisha: So maybe don’t do that?

[Laughter]

Alyssa: She watched the whole thing, okay?

Alisha: Somewhere between maybe my response of, whatever, and her response of, I’m just going to shove it in your face now.

[Laughter]

Sarah: I do have a third option for you. One of – ‘cause I do this all the time; I get a lot of email like, oh, I’ve, I’ve never really liked those books, but I read this one and it was really good, and maybe you could tell me if there are more?

Alisha: That one, that, that opening is good, though.

Sarah: Oh, yes.

Alisha: That gives you, like, a lot of –

Sarah: Sometimes you have somebody who’s like, oh – the thing that always works for me is telling people how they’re going to feel when they’re done. I think one of the major reasons there was that book with the, with the grey, there were some shades of them? One of the reasons why that spread like wildflower is because I think women were saying to other women, this is book is great for my sex life, and I don’t know anybody who’s like, oh, orgasms that are good; I don’t want those! God!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Good sex?! Bleah! That’s part of why that book spread so quickly, because people were like, this is good for certain things that we don’t talk about normally. So I think if you talk about how the book is going to make you feel – I felt so happy when I read this book, this book just made me so happy, or I felt great, or this just, this was exactly my catnip – and every reader has their catnip. You know how there’s, like, four out of five dentists agree, something-something? I actually think that five out of five readers are reading romance; just that one doesn’t know that that’s what they’re reading? And it’s okay; you can put an Adirondack chair and some shoes on the cover, and we’ll pretend it’s something else. That’s fine! But we know it’s romance, so if you, if you tempt them with the, the result and however that result might be, ‘cause it’s different genres.

So how much time do we have for more questions? Oh, bring it!

So your question is, how does, how do each of these writers deconstruct the stereotypical images of black women that you are very familiar with in fiction and show what’s actually happening behind the scenes of those portrayals? Do I have that right? I’m not, I’m not repeating it because you didn’t say it right; I’m repeating it for the recording.

[Laughter]

Alyssa: For me, a lot of my writing is driven by being annoyed at something.

[Laughter]

Alisha: She’s so petty. Oh, my God.

Alyssa: I am! I’m very nice, but I’m also very petty. And so a lot of times, like, sometimes when I’m writing these characters, and also I just really, I’m interested in how, like most writers, I’m interested in how people work and how they become who they become, and I think – like, for example, the, the whole Civil War series is, was in part driven by the fact that I was annoyed that there were all of these things that I didn’t know about the Civil War, because everything I knew was like Gone with the Wind or North and South and brother versus brother and these kind of, like, flat caricatures of what was going on during the war, so I decided I’m going to try and write something a little different. It’s not like I’m really thinking this through; it’s just kind of, it’s, you know, later on, when I think about what’s going on. So with the thing you’re talking about specifically is, I think, in a way I don’t really think of it as deconstructing. That is what it, the final product is, but I think, just in a way, I really, no matter what kind of character I’m writing, you know, if it’s the white, male hero or the South Asian, Muslim hero or the African-American heroine, I want, as a writer, to understand why they’re doing what they’re doing, and that comes through, I think, for the, and for the reader to never have any questions, because I think, for me, I feel like it’s a failure as a writer if when the, when a reader finishes a book they say, I don’t understand why this person did this thing, or I don’t understand why they would do this, and also because if I’m reading a book, it bothers me if I don’t know the motivation for a character’s doing something. It makes me feel like I missed something, and then I start going back pages – or in a movie or anything like that, where you are trying to connect with the characters, and then suddenly they do something, and you’re like, wait, why did they do that? Or what would cause them to do that? And, you know, in a movie it could be a scene was chopped out or something – and so when, in the books, I just try to think of, put as much information as possible without, like, info-dumping or without boring the reader to show why a person is the way there is, and – is the way they are – and the, the, with Black women in particular, they have been portrayed very specifically, especially in historical things – and in contemporary too; that’s changing now, but – I think just in a lot of ways I’m, like, again, I try and do it for all characters, but I definitely want to make some things clear, like people don’t just become this way, and, like, for, for every character, but particularly, particularly for my heroines, you know, there are some, a million different factors that would lead someone to have to feel that they can’t show their emotions or that they have to, you know, keep repressing their emotions and just keep getting on. So, again, I try and do it for all of the characters, but if it helps people understand Black women as I write them – ‘cause obviously, you know, there are so many different writers writing people differently – then that’s good.

Alisha: Yeah, I think part of the, the issue is that a lot of, like, what we consider a strong female character has been shaped by men, right, and the easiest way to denote a strong female character is to give her a sword and a leather jacket, and then she’s done, right? And, like, a fancy belt.

Alyssa: And lack of emotion.

Sarah: Don’t forget the belt.

Alisha: And, yeah, there’s a fancy belt, like a tactical gear belt.

Sarah: With the studs on it.

Alisha: And that’s it!

Sarah: Yep.

Alisha: And then she, like, kind of saunters in and, you know –

Sarah: In heels.

Alisha: Right, yes! In, in heeled boots, and that’s it; that’s a strong female character. And then I think there is another layer of, you know, for women of color in particular. Part of them being strong is being alone, and this is something – like, we’ve talked about this in regards to Hidden Figures. There was a, a popular feminist who wrote sort of this review about Hidden Figures, and she said one of the issues she had with it was that focused too much on the women’s, like, women having relationships and the women’s, like, it took away from them being strong female characters. And you know, we, we sort of had a discussion, ‘cause we have, like, weird, deep discussions on WhatsApp, and we were like, you know, it is, like, subversive, sort of, to show, like, Black women sort of being happy in relationships and happy at work and getting everything that they want, like, whatever that thing might be, whether it’s a relationship or not a relationship. But, yeah, I think there is sort of, like, this idea that if you’re a strong female character, like, you have to be strong in this one way, and that is so damaging because, I mean, if we just look around this room, we’re all strong in different ways. Like, we’re all competent at different things, and whether they’re small or big or whatever, we all have some sort of strength in us. So to be told again and again and again, you’re not strong because, is hugely damaging, no matter what color you are, but I think especially for, for if you’re a marginalized woman. So that’s sort of what I try to do in my books. Like, you know, you are competent, and you are good, and even if you’re competent in, in the most minor way, you’re still good at something. You’re still strong, even if you’re not whatever –

Sarah: Yeah.

Alisha: – box society has decided strength is for a woman.

Sarah: And a lot rides on women. We do a lot of things. We never do just one thing. Like, my rant on the last episode of my podcast was about how all the productivity books that I read are written by guys who do one thing, and I’m like, wait, where’s the book about productivity where I have a job and I run a company and I have these children and they eat all the time and then there’s something for the PTA again and I don’t know where the checkbook is? Like, where’s the productivity for women who do twenty-five things in an hour? Like, I don’t see that book.

But you’re, you’re, you reminded me, actually, what you said, Alisha, reminded me of something in Alyssa’s book: there’s a scene in A Hope Divided where Ewan is thinking back on his mother, and his mother and his father, they had, his father was abusive, and he realized that his mother knitting and just not accepting the abuse that he was taking just sort of, she, he was giving her, just, just knitting was in her control, and knitting was resisting. Knitting was control and strength in the face of chaos that she could not control. Even the most minor thing of knitting or cross-stitching or making something that gives you solace is strength.

Alyssa: And I just wanted to add one thing: I try to address that too, because I see it play it out, play out in the real world that, and, like, and on Twitter and things like that, where kind of people, especially with women of color, can start being like, oh, like, you’re such a badass, so things like that, when you were talking about something, just because it’s painful, and so it can be, like, really frustrating because you’re like, no, I’m not a badass. I really wish I didn’t have to talk about this. I’m only talking about it because I am being forced to, so, like, it’s not something to be celebrated; it’s really frus- – so that’s another thing that I think goes into – right.

Alisha: Yeah, I think, like, sometimes when people say, like, badass, they forget that you’re also a whole other human, like, across from it, and you have vulnerabilities and –

Sarah: And that you can be vulnerable, yeah.

Alisha: – maybe just ‘cause you’re passionate about something, it doesn’t make you, like, a strong female character.

Sarah: You’re not invicible.

Alisha: Right, you’re not invincible. None of us are.

Sarah: Don’t lie. You sleep in high heels and leather pants, I know.

[Laughter]

Alisha: Well, I do, but –

Sarah: Right, obviously. Obviously. Okay, I saw – yes, ma’am, bring me your question.

Alisha: I don’t think I, I, I don’t know. Do –

Sarah: That’s going to be the thing I notice, ‘cause I notice patterns when I’m reading and reviewing, and I, I notice those things.

Alyssa: I –

Alisha: I think food, I think food for me, ‘cause I’m usually hungry.

Alyssa or Sarah: Yes.

[Laughter]

Alisha: Yeah, there’s cannoli.

Sarah: Yes.

Alisha: Okay, so Alyssa actually had a hand in the cannoli; so in Hate to Want You there’s, like, you know, a cannoli scene – it’s not what you’re thinking – and –

[Laughter]

Alisha: – and –

Sarah: Wait, somebody gets shot?!

Alisha: There’s just food. But Alyssa, like, read the first draft, and the only note she had was, this cannoli could be way sexier.

[Laughter]

Alisha: So, yeah, that’s the only thing I think I can think of. As far as, like, I, I usually do have a lot of siblings. Like, I will do – ‘cause I’m used to big families? And as, I mean, as far, I don’t think I have – yeah, I think I just have the Forbidden Hearts, the two twins, and my first book has a pair of twins, but I’ve got, like, thirteen books, so that’s not too many, I don’t think. But I know a lot of, like, twins. [Laughs] I think I, I think our generation just has a lot of twins in it, ‘cause everyone was, like, doing IVF, I don’t know.

[Laugher]

Alisha: There’s a lot of multiples, I think, going around, but –

Alyssa: For me, I think friendships, because generally I try to have the friendships be as important as the romantic relationship? And we were talking about this yesterday, but I realized outdoors sex.

Alisha: Alyssa has a lot of outdoor sex in her books.

Alyssa: I didn’t –

Sarah: Seriously, you guys!

Alyssa: I didn’t think about it. Like, it wasn’t a purposeful thing, and I don’t know why.

[Laughter]

Sarah: I have a, I made a list. Like, ‘cause she started, like, well, wait, there was that one time, and then the other one was like, uh-huh, yeah? Mm-hmm, yeah?

Alyssa: Yeah, so that –

Sarah: It actually says in my notes here, banging locations.

[Laughter]

Sarah: That was going to be one of my questions. [Laughs]

Alyssa: So, yeah, that was an unconscious pattern, I guess.

Alisha: [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: Oh, yeah, patterns are never conscious.

Alyssa: No, yeah.

Sarah: Not ever. So one of your patterns is that your characters always feed each other? There’s, always.

Alisha: Is there? Oh.

Sarah: Your characters always feed each other.

Alisha: I’m usually hungry!

[Laughter]

Sarah: And then in your books, one of the characters almost always has a specialty; they have a very special high level of competence –

Audience: Ah!

Alyssa: Oh, yeah.

Sarah: – and what happens is that the other character will do something to assist that character with their competency.

Alyssa: I like people helping each other.

Sarah: Yep!

[Laughter]

Sarah: I’m horrible –

Alisha: She’s a Hufflepuff.

Sarah: I, I would be a terrible editor.

Alyssa: I am a Hufflepuff, yes.

Alisha: She’s a Hufflepuff.

Sarah: Oh.

Alisha: Like, it’s like the helper, helper branch of the Hogwarts –

Sarah: You’re both Hufflepuffs!

Alisha: We are.

Sarah: No lie.

Alisha: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: All right, I saw another question. Didn’t I? Didn’t I? Didn’t –

So your question, if I heard you correctly is, before they were published were they pressured to write differently than what they write now, to write more mainstream and white and – you used a really good word, and it’s just flown right out of – traditional; thank you! – books and characters before they were published? Is that the question? Okay, thank you.

Alyssa: I’ll go, ‘cause mine is shorter, I’m sure, ‘cause you have way more books than me, but me? No. Not exactly. My first books were published as smaller presses that didn’t, that were more open to different kinds of characters, and also I kind of, around the same time that I was published, was also, if there was story, and, like, you know, there were people who didn’t want the books; they didn’t say why, so, like, it’s not like, no one was like, you need to change this character to be a certain way, but, like, for everyone, your books get rejected for whatever reason. But also books that I thought would be a harder sale, I just – and also because I’m impatient – I just self-published them? Like, my first historicals were self-published in anthologies that I found other people who wanted to write similar things and just said, hey, let’s do this, and then by the time I was going to submit historicals to publishers – again, not everyone wanted it for, because it doesn’t fit every catalog and for various reasons, but there’s, there have – and I had, like, weird feedback from, you know, cert-, some agents or people who were interested telling me to change, like, things that would make it very weird, like wanting Malcolm in the first book to be, like, more dominant, and I’m like, do you, did you read this?

[Laughter]

Alyssa: Like,  she cannot –

Sarah: Can he wear a tie, and can it be grey?

Alyssa: [Laughs] She cannot – yeah, like, this can’t be like Fifty Shades of Savory. But anyway, no. I haven’t, I haven’t really had people trying to change anything to be more traditional.

Alisha: So I started publishing almost, like, a decade ago, so it’s been a while. Eight years? God, forever. [Laughs] And so my story’s a little bit different, in that I did. I shopped my first book around, and I got very positive interest, but the one publisher who was sort of ready, really liked it said, can you just make all the characters white, though? And I was like, well, the heroine is a chef in an Indian restaurant; that’s going to be really awkward. She’s suddenly white; like, is it going to be, like, a meatloaf restaurant? Like, what is the story here? So I was like, well, I don’t know if I can just do that. Like, that’s hard, and I would change the whole story, but I had options, because at the time digital publishing was really booming, so I was able to go to a small press, small digital press, and, and go through that. And also they were, they were telling me to change my name so it was less ethnic sounding? So it was like a, it was like a whole, there was a whole issue, but, you know, we’re, like, it, it’s not that far ago.

Sarah: Wait, was it, was it always Alisha Rai, or did you – ?

Alisha: It was always, yeah, yeah.

Sarah: But that was, that needed to be changed?

Alisha: It was too ethnic sounding, yeah. [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: Okay.

Alisha: And I was like – so I didn’t want to do that, and I didn’t want to change the character’s ethnicity, ‘cause I would have had to basically rewrite the whole book, so I went to digital publishing, and they were really great! And they were – because at the time it was less risk for them, right. Like, they could just put things out very quickly without worrying about, like, will it sell because of the author’s name or, you know, all this stuff, ‘cause they had very little investment in it. So that was how I started, basically, where I was, like, a little bit petty as well, and I was like, no, I’m not going to do that, and I, and I did that. So, yeah, it has – but times have changed, you know. Like, in, in eight years, it’s big leaps for my name not to be considered ethnic now, I guess.

Sarah: And you’ve outlasted –

Alisha: Yes.

Sarah: – some of your publishers.

Alisha: I have! [Laughs] Indeed, I have. Yes, I have, so –

Sarah: [Cackles]

Alisha: But then, yeah, and then I – I’m not going to do that cackle, but you can. [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s why I’m over here in this chair asking all the questions. [Laughs]

Alisha: But, yeah, so, and then I self-published for a while, because it was sort of the same thing: there was a good amount of freedom, and also I was curious about it. And, you know, so, like, my, my journey’s kind of like an inverted triangle, and I think it’s true for a lot of, actually, women of color. Like, our, our journeys didn’t start, like, you know, it used to be you started in Harlequin series and then got built up to the big leagues and then, you know, like, that was a certain path that romance authors took, and now I think it’s just all topsy-turvy, and one of the reasons is because a lot of us couldn’t get in the door in the beginning, as short as eight years ago or a decade ago.

Sarah: But, like, now you’re in Target and in independent bookstore –

Alisha: Yeah! [Laughs]

Sarah: And you’re in independent bookstores, and –

Alisha: Yeah! It’s pretty cool.

Sarah: – you have starred reviews all over the place! There’s a lot that’s changed in the last few years.

Alisha: Yeah, a lot has changed.

Sarah: Which is good.

Alisha: Well, I think people are realizing that the audience is out there. I mean – and I think before they didn’t maybe know, and I think social media has helped and word of mouth –

Sarah: Oh, yes.

Alisha: – and events like this. Like, you know –

Sarah: Oh, yes.

Alisha: – everything is sort of chicken and egg; like, you can’t do one without the other, and then it becomes a cycle, so I think once, you know, once, like, you sort of can follow the trail, then, you know, it’s good.

Sarah: And readers are so very specific and smart about what they want. Like, Amanda, my assistant said this this week: that readers don’t just say, oh, I’m looking for a cowboy romance. They want a cowboy with a mail-order bride set in this state at this time with a, with a secret baby. Like, we, we know the recipe of –

Alisha: It’s homed in.

Sarah: – what we want, right? Like, we have very specific tastes, so if you have a reader who’s online saying, I would really like to read romances with Indian-American families, there’s going to be authors who are like, hello! It is so great to meet you! Let me introduce you to all of my books. You can find that.

Alyssa: Or, and I, and I think in addition to that, there are a lot of people who don’t know they want to read that, and then they read it and they say, oh, this is awesome. Like, a lot of, I’ve heard from various readers or people who gave my books to other, you know, people, like Farrah Rochon was like, oh, I gave your book to, my science fiction book to her neighbor, who was, like, a sixty-five-year-old white man in Louisiana who, and, like, you know, that’s awesome, but just that, you know, bookseller or – not a bookseller – like, a sales team wouldn’t say, oh, I’m going to market your book to a sixty-five-year-old white man in Louisiana; they would say, that’s not in your demographic, but he loved the book, and then he got the rest of the series and he read it, and, like, one of the most interesting things about, like, getting a, being able to do tours and – well, not tours but, like, visit bookshops –

[Laughter]

Alyssa: – and, like, go to conferences is that, like, meeting people who, if you went to a sales team and showed, you know, gave them their information, they would say, that person’s not going to read that book, and there are so many people reading widely and reading a variety of different things that I think there’s, like – so it’s a two-prong thing of, like, there are people who specifically are like, I am looking for something that I never really was able to, I was never able to really see myself in these books, and now I can, or I can see people like, you know, my friends and my family in these books, and then there are other people who are just like, oh, no one ever gave me this book to read and I’m reading it, and it’s cool and I’m going to read more like it.

Sarah: Right.

Alyssa: So it’s like a, a dual thing.

Alisha: And, and part of it is just, like, authors. Like, so many authors for so long were shut out of even getting their books in front of people that, like, like, I don’t write only South Asian characters at all, but, you know, like, I think it is, like, sort of a, you know, they may not be looking, they may just be looking for you and you don’t know it. You know, they might just love your writing. Has nothing to do with who the characters or what’s it’s about; it’s just, you know, and they don’t know you because they can’t find you. So, like, it has been, you know, in a struggle forward.

Sarah: And yet the changes have been good.

Alisha: The changes are coming.

Sarah: Changes are good.

Alisha: Slow, slow but steady; that’s –

Sarah: I have gotten the it’s-time-to-wrap-up signal.

[Laughter]

Alisha: So subtle.

Sarah: Thank you, I was just check – I appreciate that!

Alexis: A round of applause for our authors and for Sarah.

[Round of applause]

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this episode. Special thanks to Alexis and Tom from Politics and Prose and Politics and Prose on the Wharf for sharing the audio with me and for being so generous as to send me all the files when they were done. Special thanks to everyone who asked a question. I should have asked you to say your names, since it was being recorded, but I didn’t, and that was bad. So thank you to everyone who asked a question; your questions were brilliant. But most of all, thank you to everyone who was in the room; it was a nearly full house, and it was really, really fun, so thank you to everyone who came out on a very rainy night in November for “Romance and the Resistance” at Politics and Prose. I am hoping that there will be more events in the future, and I love moderating, so if you want me to moderate a thing or you would like Amanda to moderate a thing, definitely get in touch with me.

Do you have questions or ideas or suggestions? Would you like to know how to get in touch with me? I think you probably do! You can email me at [email protected], and if you’re curious about sponsoring an episode or sponsoring a transcript, you can email me there or at Sarah with an H at smartbitchestrashybooks.com [[email protected]]. I would love to hear from you.

This week’s transcript is being generously supported by Judy, who is a listener overseas and a generous person who loves the transcripts and was kind enough to say, hey, can I sponsor one? She, she – [laughs] – I love her bio. When, when someone sponsors I’m like, would, would you, what would you like me to say? And she says, well, you can tell everyone that I tend to overspend on romance novels and perfume; what could be better? Judy is clearly one of us. She really values our efforts to make the transcripts available, so thank you to Judy for her kindness and support to bring us this transcript, and thank you to garlicknitter for compiling each, each transcript. [You’re welcome, Sarah, and thank you from me too, Judy! – gk]

The music you’re listening to was provided by Sassy Outwater. You can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater. This is a new Peatbog Faeries album, and I am so excited! This is Live @ 25. They are celebrating twenty-five years together, and they have a new live album with some songs that you may remember from other albums and some new tracks as well. You can find Live @25 by the Peatbog Faeries at iTunes and Amazon, and I will have links to both places, as well as a link to this particular track, which is “Marx Terrace (Live),” in the podcast entry at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

And speaking of: you can find links to the books that we mentioned and also links to some of the things we’ve talked about, including links to Politics and Prose on the Wharf and Yuri on Ice, in the show notes as well.

And now it is time for a terrible joke, because I end each episode with a terrible joke, and finding these jokes is really the highlight of my week, so – [clears throat] – dad joke time: must have serious voice.

So, did you guys hear about the librarian who was knocked out by falling books?

What, you didn’t? You didn’t hear about the librarian who was knocked out by falling books?

Yeah, she had only her shelf to blame.

[Laughs] They’re so bad, and I love them so much!

So on behalf of everyone here, with deep thanks to Politics and Prose and to everyone who came to that event in November, I wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and I will see you back here next week.

[lively music]