298. Being Brave: An Interview with Talia Hibbert

Smart Podcast, Trashy Books, May 11, 2018

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello, and welcome to episode number 298 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. With me today is Talia Hibbert. Y’all should prepare to be seriously charmed. Talia is the author of Wanna Bet? and A Girl Like Her and other books that have been receiving a lot of positive exclamation points online. She’s been writing while also finishing an English degree, so we talk about what led her to writing romance and how her great-grandmother inspired her to write what she’d been longing to write. Among the other topics we cover include challenging the status quo by telling stories; the incredible allure of heroes in pursuit; the even more incredible allure of pining heroes, also in pursuit; why she writes emotionally fluent heroes; and the subversive power of writing large heroines who “have the temerity to find themselves attractive.” Talia also talks about writing a heroine who is on the autism spectrum and what led her to the development of that character. Her stories of what inspire her books and her characters will appeal to all of you who enjoy random GIF sets of superhero actors. I really enjoyed this interview, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Now, I have news and things to tell you! You ready? Let’s do this. If you are going to be at Romantic Times Booklovers Convention next week, Thursday, May 17, 5:30 p.m. in Naples 4 – and that would 5:30 p.m. Pacific time – I will be doing a live taping of this here podcast. You can join me, Elyse, Amanda, Robin Bradford, and more guests to be announced. We’re going to be doing inappropriate conversations, and I’m setting up a game of Romance Feud that promises to be really quite silly, which is the best kind of game, right? Especially if you’re taping it? So if you are going to be at Romantic Times, you do need to have a badge to enter this area, so I apologize that it is not open to the public, but it is open to every conference attendee. If you’re going to be in Reno for Romantic Times, Thursday, 5:30 Pacific, Naples 4, come join us for a live taping of the podcast! I hope you will join us.

Today’s podcast is brought to you by The Unyielding by Shelly Laurenston. New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Shelly Laurenston capitalizes on her trademark humor and kickass attitude in the third installment of the Call of Crows series, which features a band of tough-as-nails female warriors resurrected from the dead and the alpha males who aren’t afraid to give them a taste of their own medicine. Stieg Engstrom, Angriest Viking Ever, has got big problems. The human Viking Clans of Earth are in danger of being obliterated — along with the rest of the world — and the only one who may be able to save them is a super pain-in-the-ass Crow. Most people annoy Stieg, but this is the one woman he really can’t stand. Erin Amsel loves being a Crow! Why wouldn’t she when the other Viking Clans are so hilariously arrogant and humorless? She’s not about to let all that come to an end! She just didn’t expect to be shoulder to shoulder in battle with Stieg. Then again, he’s so easy to torment — and also kind of cute. With the future of the world riding on them, Stieg knows he’ll have to put aside his desperate need to kiss the smirk right off of Erin’s face. They have one goal: to conquer the idiots. Because nothing bugs Stieg more than when idiots win. If only he can keep himself from suddenly acting like one. The Unyielding by Shelly Laurenston is on sale now in mass market for the first time wherever books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com.

Each episode of this show also gets a transcript. Each transcript is compiled by garlicknitter. Thank you, garlicknitter! This week’s transcript is brought to you by Brightly Burning by Alexa Donne. Fans of Marissa Meyer and Kiera Cass rejoice for this romantic retelling. Alexa Donne’s Brightly Burning is a lush and enthralling reimagining of Charlotte Bronte’s classic Jane Eyre set among the stars. It will seduce and beguile you. Stella Ainsley leaves poverty behind when she quits her engineering job aboard the Stalwart to become a governess on a private ship. On the Rochester, there’s no water ration, more books than one person could devour in a lifetime, and an AI who seems more friend than robot. But no one warned Stella that the ship seems to be haunted, nor that it may be involved in a conspiracy that could topple the entire interstellar fleet. Kirkus Reviews calls it “A gripping examination of class, romance, and survival set in a dystopian future that feels chillingly relevant to our present times.” Brightly Burning by Alexa Donne is available wherever books are sold, and you can visit hmhteen.com to start reading.

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But now, without any further delay, on with the podcast.

[music]

Talia Hibbert: Hi. I am Talia Hibbert. I’m a Black British romance writer, a soon-to-be English graduate, an overemotional geek, all that good stuff.

Sarah: Excellent! So you’re suppose-, you’re soon to be an English graduate?

Talia: Yes. I, I graduate in July, supposing I actually manage to graduate, which is looking questionable at the moment. [Laughs]

Sarah: So is this your undergraduate?

Talia: Yes.

Sarah: Congratulations! That’s brilliant!

Talia: Oh, thank you! [Laughs]

Sarah: So have you been writing romance and matriculating an English degree at the same time?

Talia: Oh yes. Yes, I have, which is –

Sarah: Oh!

Talia: – probably not my smartest idea, but –

[Laughter]

Sarah: That’s, that’s kind of a lot of work?

Talia: Maybe. I mean, because this was my final year of university, and before I started studying English I was studying Law, and that was a lot, a lot of work –

Sarah: Oh, just a bit, yeah!

Talia: So when I moved on to English degree, I was at a point where I was kind of like, really? This is all we have to do? I can do this.

[Laughter]

Sarah: This is easy! No problem! I got this!

Talia: [Laughs] So I don’t feel like it was a huge thing. I just had to schedule myself; otherwise, I’d get carried away.

Sarah: So what made you switch from Law to English?

Talia: Well, when I – I always kind of planned on – well, actually, it was never certain I would go to university at all, but then when I ended up going, I thought that if I was going to spend that much money I needed to get a very sensible degree and do a very sensible job that would make lots of money back, so Law. And I did enjoy Law, but then I suppose the experience of studying it ironically gave me the confidence to go for what I actually wanted, which was to study English.

Sarah: That is freaking awesome.

Talia: [Laughs] Thanks!

Sarah: I mean, not a lot of people, myself included, can figure out, oh, oh, I actually want to go do this over here and, and make that change. That’s, that’s quite a difficult thing to do!

Talia: Oh, thank you! It was, it was a bit nerve-wracking when I told my mum, who’s very sensible, that I was switching.

[Laughter]

Talia: I’m doing English now! Surprise! And she was like, oh, I see.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Isn’t it horrible how your mother can reduce your, like, reduce you to a tiny, tiny, tiny feeling with three words?

Talia: [Laughs] Yes. Just the tone. I was like, right –

Sarah: Yeah.

Talia: – well, I’ll leave you alone now.

[Laughter]

Sarah: So somewhere between Law and then switching to English, you were like, and I’ll also become an author! How did that happen? What led you to writing romance?

Talia: Well, I’ve always wanted to be a writer, or I should probably say I’ve always been a writer, because I’ve written things always. Like most writers, I read a lot as well, and romance has always been my favorite genre, but it never really occurred to me that I could write romance, maybe because I admired it so much that I felt that it was beyond me, so whenever I did attempt to write, say, a novel, I’d choose a different genre – still one I liked, but one that wasn’t my favorite – and I would just never finish it, I suppose because I wasn’t completely into it. And then in the summer of 2017, it became clear that my great-grandmother was going to pass away, so I was thinking about her a lot that summer, and every time I sat down to write something, I could kind of hear her saying, why don’t you stop fucking around and write what you actually want to write?

[Laughter]

Talia: Yeah. [Laughs] And I suppose she was a very inspirational woman in terms of taking what you want and working toward your dreams, and she thoroughly approved of women being scandalous. She liked to swear and drink and go out with inappropriate men, and she wore –

Sarah: Hell yeah!

Talia: Yeah! And she wore bright blue eyeshadow until she was eighty-nine, and I always felt like all those things were a form of resistance, and romance felt the same way to me, and I suppose ultimately I started writing romance because I wanted to be brave like her.

Sarah: That’s really cool! That is really, really cool. I have spoken to, I have interviewed a lot of authors, and almost to, I think every one has said either, I loved the genre, and I challenged myself, all right, I bet you can do this, either because they read a book that they didn’t like and wanted to do better than the book that they didn’t enjoy, or they sort of aspired to writing it. Like, okay, maybe I can do this too; maybe I can do this too. And it’s really scary to actually sit down and do it, isn’t it?

Talia: Yes, so scary.

Sarah: So what was your first book that you wrote?

Talia: My first book was – ooh, well, that depends. I kind of, I like to ease myself into things, so I thought, I’ll start with a short story, and then I’ll write a novella, and then I’ll write a shorter novel, and it kind of happened like that.

[Laughter]

Sarah: All right, so you were clearly a Law student.

Talia: Yeah.

[Laughter]

Talia: I really planned it all out. And so I suppose the first book I wrote was a novella, which I published and is still available, called Operation Atonement.

Sarah: Ooh!

Talia: And it was about thirty thousand words, and I remember when I was writing it I was like, this is so long and stressful! And I don’t –

[Laughter]

Talia: How am I going to finish this? And then – [laughs] – now I couldn’t write a book that short if I tried, I don’t think.

[Laughter]

Sarah: So what led you to self-publishing? Did you always want to self-publish?

Talia: Not exactly. When I was younger and I wanted to be a writer, I was like, well, I’ll send my manuscript to Penguin, and they’ll give me lots of money and publish me all around the world, and it’s going to be great.

Sarah: Of course!

Talia: Mm. But then as I got older and I was reading more books, I noticed that none of the characters ever looked like me or the people around me.

Sarah: The devil you say.

Talia: [Laughs] And I kind of had a, hmm, why is this? moment, and as I got older, essentially, I became aware of the reality in terms of any industry, not just publishing: if you want to tell a story that isn’t supportive of the mainstream status quo, then chances are you’re going to have trouble doing it the traditional way, so that is what drove me to self-publishing.

Sarah: That makes perfect sense. Now, your latest book is Wanna Bet? Can you tell me about it? This is, I believe this was described as friends-to-lovers with pining, a whole lot of pining. Is that right?

Talia: Yes! I love a pining hero so much!

Sarah: Oh my gosh, me too!

[Laughter]

Talia: Oh my goodness, the more I write, the more I realize that a hero in pursuit is my personal catnip, so I’m putting it everywhere.

Sarah: And I’ve also noticed in your books that there’s not only a hero in pursuit who is pining, but you, the thing I appreciate very much about your writing is that, for the most part, I think in every case that I’ve read, you write emotionally fluent heroes. They’re not mad that they have a feel and they don’t like it.

Talia: [Laughs]

Sarah: They’re, they’re emotionally fluent and aware that feelings are normal, and that is so freaking sexy.

Talia: Yeah, I’m so glad you said that, because I know that maybe the archetypal hero is frankly emotionally stunted, and I know that that –

Sarah: Yes, they’re very emotionally constipated.

Talia: Mm. But I, I don’t find that sexy; I find it irritating, because –

Sarah: Yes.

Talia: – if we’re trying to, like, if we’re trying to talk and do anything interesting or have any fun, no one wants to be doing that with, like, a brick wall. There needs to be some kind of openness to humanity.

Sarah: Yes.

Talia: So –

Sarah: And it can’t be just –

Talia: Yeah.

Sarah: – the heroine’s job, either. It can’t be the heroine’s responsibility to teach the hero how to have a feel and manage it.

Talia: Yeah, a romance can’t just be like a, a manuscript of months of emotional labor on the part of the heroine. That’s not romantic to me.

[Laughter]

Sarah: That’s exhausting, and it’s not fun!

Talia: Exactly. [Laughs]

Sarah: So in Wanna Bet? you have an emotionally fluent, pining hero with friends-to-lovers. Can you tell me about your book?

Talia: Yeah, so it’s out on Saturday, the 21st of April, and it’s a standalone novel about two people, a Black heroine and a South Asian hero, who have been best friends for seven years. They met at university; and throughout the story we see, like, flashbacks to key points in their relationship, and she avoids romance like the plague, which he knows, but he has been in love with her since they met, and then she has to move into his flat for a month or so, and, you know, things happen, and it’s all very exciting.

Sarah: So you have a pining hero, friends-to-lovers, and forced proximity.

Talia: Yeah.

Sarah: Well played! That is an excellent – that’s a catnip trifecta right there.

Talia: Those are definitely my favorite things. [Laughs]

Sarah: Now, I’ve seen a lot of praise, especially from Corey Alexander on Twitter and other readers, talking about your portrayal of a large heroine. More than one reader has called this their favorite fat representation. Can you tell me about your process, like, developing the story? What led you into this story? What was your entry point? Which is a really cagey way of saying, where do you get your ideas?

[Laughter]

Sarah: Except really, actually, I’m very curious: what led you into this story, and how did you develop this heroine?

Talia: Well, hmm. In terms of where I get my ideas, I always start with characters, and then I shift around situations to suit what I want to happen with the characters. So all of my ideas are very much character-driven, and Jasmine, the heroine of Wanna Bet?, the whole story  was kind of a result of me trying to disrupt the status quo in some way, which is something that I try to do with all of my books. And with this one, I feel that very often, especially for women and feminine people or those who are read as women, love always comes down to whether or not they deserve it? You know, are they smart enough, pretty enough, thin enough, and I feel that Jasmine is the kind of woman who people would say doesn’t deserve love, because she pushes people away, and she can make bad decisions, and she doesn’t meet particular beauty standards, but she still has the temerity to consider herself attractive, and I kind of wanted to give her a hero and a story that show you don’t have to meet anyone else’s standards to be completely and totally loved.

Sarah: I love that, that she has the temerity to find herself attractive, because that is, I think, unfortunately, a universal, almost, reaction to women of size who embrace what they look like and are happy with themselves. Like, how dare you? You don’t fit –

Talia: Yes.

Sarah: – this, this standard of, of appearance. How dare you? And that outrage, that sort of sense of offense is layered onto women in so many different ways.

Talia: Mm, definitely.

Sarah: So where did you start with the hero for this, for this book? For Wanna Bet?

Talia: Well, it’s, because I kind of start with characters, sometimes I think of a character, and I don’t know who to put them with, and sometimes I try to put them with other characters I have hanging around, but then I’m like, no, that doesn’t work, so I save them for later. So I actually had Rahul, the hero of Wanna Bet? in my head for I think it’s three or four months before I started writing this story, and I tried to put him with a different heroine, and he was like, no thank you! And I was like, okay, you sit tight; we’ll find someone for you. And then –

[Laughter]

Sarah: Fine!

[Laughter]

Talia: So I put him in a corner, and then when I kind of came up with Jasmine, I was like, oh, this is perfect! Because he likes to look after people, and he’s a very good boy, but he’s also very kind of focused on what he wants, and I felt like it was a good combination.

Sarah: So do the characters just sort of show up in your brain and start talking to you? Or do you think about a particular trait and then build a character around it?

Talia: You know, when I was younger, before I started writing, I used to read lots of author interviews, and they’d be like, oh, this character just wouldn’t stop talking to me, and I’d be like, wow, what a pretentious thing to say. That is a –

[Laughter]

Talia: That’s not how it happens! But it totally is how it happens, and now I feel bad.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Yeah. But I also think that when you can hear a character in your mind, whether as a reader or a writer, I think when you can hear a character and they have a distinct voice and a way of speaking and a way of, of presenting themselves and their view of the world, it makes the experience of reading about them so much richer, so even though it does sound really pretentious or maybe a little scary –

Talia: [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: – I have all these people talking to me in my head! Um, are you a writer, or do we need to talk to an emergency medical professional? Like, what’s happening here? That, that becomes a, a very, a strength in, in a, in a writing brain. Have you noticed that your process has changed as you’ve written more books? What is your process like?

Talia: Oh, it’s definitely changed. I feel that in the beginning I was definitely fumbling along, and because I do kind of prioritize the characters, I was letting them kind of drag me off on complicated stories, and then –

[Laughter]

Talia: – and then we’d kind of get to a certain point, and I’d be like, what’s going on? Why are we here? How did we get here? What do I do now? I don’t know. Whereas now, I do try and corral them a little bit, and I kind of try and think in terms of what they need to happen. It’s like remembering that I am actually the god of their existence.

Sarah: [Laughs] You’re in charge here, people.

Talia: I’ve just got to lay down the law instead of letting them do whatever they want. I think that’s the main difference. So sometimes when I’m writing things – often, in fact – I kind of start with the characters, but they’re in a certain scenario, like they have this job or they have this hobby, and then as I write it and I get to know them more and I figure out what they need, I’ll completely change their job, I’ll change where they are, I’ll change how they meet. So I have, like, three drafts of every story on my hard drive with all the people in completely different situations until I find the right one.

Sarah: About how long do you think it takes you to write a book? Have you measured that time?

Talia: Yes. It takes me about four weeks to write a book.

Sarah: That is very fast. My goodness. Nice!

Talia: [Laughs]

Sarah: I’m a very fast writer when it comes to, like, nonfiction reviews. I’m very fast because it’s a muscle that’s pretty strong, so I completely understand that when you’ve worked on strengthening those muscles, you can write quickly, but four weeks is really awesome. And excellent for readers: I’m sure readers appreciate that.

Talia: [Laughs] Yes, I think they do. I, I, I have been releasing a book a month since I started publishing. I have had people say, like, I love how I know that your next book is going to come out very soon.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Now, you mentioned that when you have these characters in your, in your writing, they try to lead you off into complicated directions, but it seems that you want to focus on very simple tropes like friends-to-lovers, pining hero, forced proximity, go. What are some of your favorite essential romance stories that, that you like to explore in keeping it simple and direct?

Talia: I think – well, the things that I always return to are mostly the things that you just mentioned, like friends-to-lovers and forced proximity and things like that, and the more I write, the more I’m realizing that what I actually want is to minimize, not minimize external factors, but to put it simply, I kind of want to minimize plot and just have these long books of emotional happenings, and – [laughs] – I feel like I’ve definitely done that more with my recent releases, and it hasn’t gone horribly wrong, so we’ll see how that goes.

Sarah: [Laughs] Well, I think that if you’re focusing on characters that are friends-to-lovers –

Talia: Mm.

Sarah: – you have a lot of backstory to, to reveal in dialogue, because these are people who know each other well and can sort of speak for themselves.

Talia: Yes, that’s why I love friends-to-lovers, but I actually love any situation where they’ve known each other before the story begins, and I haven’t explored many other tropes like that yet, but one thing that I really am eager to write is – well, two things actually: an enemies-to-lovers book where they were previously mortal enemies, but then they meet again and they somehow fall in love; and then a second-chance romance where they kind of were together, maybe they were even married, but then their marriage completely broke down, yet somehow they come back to each other and make it work. I’m not sure.

Sarah: I imagine that people who love your books will be listening to this and going, yes please, yes please, yes please, yes, that too! Write that, uh-huh, yep, okay, when’s it going to be out? Is it going to be out tomorrow?

Talia: [Laughs]

Sarah: Now, in A Girl Like Her, you wrote an autistic heroine who is extremely aware of herself, and she has some serious walls up against the rest of the world and what I think of as the squishiest marshmallow interior hero, who is very decent and succeeding marvelously at being a decent human being. What brought you to writing that story? Where did you start with that one?

Talia: Oh my God, this answer is the one that will make me sound like a complete weirdo. So a couple of weeks –

Sarah: I promise you it won’t.

Talia: [Laughs] So a couple of weeks before I started A Girl Like Her, I saw a GIF on Twitter, and it was like this new dark and gritty version of Captain America that they’re doing with, like, the beard and the long hair  –

Sarah: Right.

Talia: I saw it, and I had this vision of a guy like that who looks kind of terrifying but is actually really wholesome and just a nice boy, and he’s, you know, drinking tea with you, and then he finishes his tea, and he’s like, do you want – like, you was like, do you want some more tea? And he’s like, yes please, so you take his tea, but then your hands touch, and you’re like, wow! We should do it. And –

[Laughter]

Sarah: All right, I’m right along with you! Keep going, yeah, right, this makes sense.

Talia: [Laughs] So I actually tweeted something along those lines, and all of my followers were like, wow, can you write that?

[Laughter]

Sarah: Why yes, yes, I can.

Talia: Well, at first I was kind of like, guys, I’m just being thirsty. Like, please –

[Laughter]

Talia: But then around that time I was writing a book that I was just so sick of. It was absolutely killing me, and one evening I decided to put it away and write something fun, and so I wrote about this librarian walking home from work, and she walks really quickly because she knows that if she gets to a certain place at a certain time, she’ll bump into her neighbor, who she has this huge crush on, and the neighbor was the Captain-America-inspired guy –

Sarah: Ahh!

Talia: – and so I wrote this scene where they were, like, walking together, and the heroine was so into him that she couldn’t kind of bear to show it, and then once I finished the scene, I was kind of like, I think these characters are important. Like, I want to write, I want to write a girl like her, so I did.

Sarah: What led you to her being autistic?

Talia: Oh, well, actually, that was probably – hmm, I don’t want to say that it was shameless self-insertion, since I am autistic, but it a little bit was, but mainly because, as an autistic woman, especially an autistic Black woman, I just kind of take for granted, or took for granted, that I was never going to read a book with a heroine who was like me ever. And then I kind of thought, well, I’m a writer now, so I could just make one.

Sarah: Hell yeah! [Laughs] I mean, I, I completely understand that from my own perspective. I complained – I have a rule where I’m not allowed to complain about something three times – if I complain about something three times then I either have to shut up or do something to change it, and I’m Jewish, and I got really frustrated with the sheer volume of Christmas romances that arrive in, on the porch in, like, October, and I was like, you know what? I don’t understand why Hanukkah’s not a romance holiday; there’s eight days, there’s candlelight, we eat jelly doughnuts; this is really romantic; what the hell?

Talia: [Laughs]

Sarah: So I wrote a Hanukkah romance and was like –

Talia: I love that.

Sarah: – I’m going to, you know what? Screw it: I’m going to write one. If there isn’t one, I’m going to write it. So on the, on the one hand, like, I kind of want to cry listening to your story, and on the other hand I’m like, fuck yeah, you write one!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Yes, I know that feeling of, you know what? Screw it! I’m going to do it. Nobody’s sto-

Talia: Yeah.

Sarah: I’m going to take care of this!

Talia: I love your rule of, like, complaining about things three times and you have to handle it.

Sarah: Yes.

Talia: Yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: Either you, if you’ve complained about something three times, either you have to stop complaining about it, or you have to do something about it. Even if it’s unsuccessful, just observing this pisses me off doesn’t accomplish anything. And in the end, I’m very proud of what I wrote, and it sounds like you’re very proud of what you wrote as well.

Talia: Yeah, I suppose I am, because even though it started from this idea of representation that I’d been missing, I didn’t actually write, you know, myself; it is a very different character, and –

Sarah: I was going to say, I don’t sense that you have those walls and, like, really don’t want to talk to anybody. [Laughs]

Talia: No. [Laughs] So I kind of, I really wanted to represent autism in general, and I wanted to do that faithfully because I’m also conscious that a lot of the time when we do get autistic characters, they’re written by people who aren’t autistic who have very strange ideas of how autism works and what autistic individuals are uniformly like, and it seems like –

Sarah: I was going to say, there’s only one type of autism that I’ve read in books; it’s the same type over and over.

Talia: Yeah. [Laughs] And it’s, it’s not completely accurate or very humanized or just anything that I want to recreate, so I, I think I’m proud of the fact that I managed to put some positive representation out in the world.

Sarah: I think that’s something definitely to be proud of, because I can see from the response to that book when I was doing research how much that representation meant to people who were like, finally, it’s not this one type of character that has nothing to do with my reality as a person with autism.

Talia: Yeah, that made me happy.

Sarah: Isn’t that a lovely feeling? It’s the best feeling. Does your, does your having autism influence your writing or your process that you’ve noticed?

Talia: Yes, although I’m getting better at it now, but I worried; maybe it wasn’t a concrete thing so much as a paranoia that I had, but when I started writing, I worried that my portrayal of people’s thoughts and perceptions of the world might be influenced by my perception of the world, which I know is fundamentally different to that of people who aren’t autistic, so I would kind of show it to, say, my boyfriend, who is on the autistic spectrum, so I don’t feel weird asking him about it, but he’s much better at pretending to be neurotypical than I am, and I’d show him and be like, does this seem weird to you?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Talia: And he’d be like – [laughs] – he was, like, stop asking. Like, it’s your book; you can just make it however you want, and I was like, oh, that is a good point.

Sarah: Ooh, I like him.

[Laughter]

Talia: So I think that was actually more something that I was conscious of at the beginning that I let go of now, but it did influence me at first.

Sarah: May I ask how you see the world and process the world as different from someone who is neurotypical?

Talia: Hmm, let me think about that. Well –

Sarah: It’s a very difficult question, and it might be a bit of an unfair question, so if it is, please feel free to tell me.

Talia: I think it’s an interesting question and one that I, I’ve never really articulated it because it’s something that you have to kind of think about subconsciously. Mostly in social situations I have to try and mirror other people –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Talia: – because if I don’t, I have a lot of problems with people being scared of me, actually, because apparently everything that I say and do seems extremely angry. [Laughs]

Sarah: What?!

Talia: So sometimes – yeah. So sometimes people kind of, well, I suppose people ask me things, but I don’t understand what they want me to say or why they’re asking it or what the purpose of the interaction is, so I just kind of respond as best I can, but then I later realize that I completely misinterpreted what was supposed to happen there, and it all came off very, I don’t know – oh, now I’ve dropped my phone –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Talia: It all came off very – [laughs] – mm. I don’t like, I don’t like group interactions. There are so many potential pitfalls. Oh dear. I think one of the most interesting things from my perspective is the fact that people can process so much sensory information at once that I could never do. Like, people can, people can talk on the phone and talk to other people at the same time or understand things or see things or hear things, and I can’t do that. If I have one kind of stream of information coming at me, everything else needs to go away, or I get very stressed out.

Sarah: So too much input overwhelms your brain.

Talia: Definitely. But I suppose the flip side of that is that I am able to focus probably an unusual amount on things, and, and I can literally kind of cut off all other things around me.

Sarah: That’s a very handy skill in a writer. [Laughs]

Talia: Mm, yes.

Sarah: Another thing I’ve noticed in your Twitter feed, and I’m wondering if this is also part of how you view the world: you observe the genre and its character tropes and the books and the things that characters are doing, and you pick out patterns in behavior very quickly. For example, yesterday you tweeted that you noticed heroines who are mistreated or betrayed frequently internalize, like, I suck; I am this problem, whereas heroes who are mistreated and betrayed project their betrayers’ qualities on everyone else: I can never love again because this one person was horrible and she was blonde, so all blonde women are evil.

Talia: [Laughs]

Sarah: That, okay (a) that’s totally true, and also, I think, very indicative of how women are taught to assume responsibility and masculinity is taught to project responsibility. What led you to notice that particular pattern? What other patterns have you noticed? Is that part of how you see the world as well?

Talia: I do really like to kind of explore things and rip them apart, especially in popular culture and societal norms and things like that, and I suppose I have had a lot of people, mostly on Twitter, angrily respond like, why do you overthink everything? And –

Sarah: ‘Cause it’s fun! [Laughs]

Talia: Yes! Oh my God, yes!

Sarah: It is so fun! Like, why would you not? [Laughs]

Talia: Exactly! You don’t understand that I’m enjoying myself here. Like – [laughs] – this is –

Sarah: Believe me, I understand completely what you mean.

[Laughter]

Talia: So I do think that is kind of why I notice the patterns, and I think also one of the things that made me so conscious of these patterns is, I obviously know about the hallmarks of different sorts of romance because I’ve read so much of it, but then I, I sit down to write something, and I can see in my head how it should typically go. So, for example, I’m writing a hero at the minute who was treated badly by a woman, a romantic partner in his past, and I’m kind of dealing with the effects of that, and I could see in my head that typically he was supposed to be in a position of, I don’t trust women anymore. Like, sometimes those heroes even veer into misogynistic territory where they’re like, all women are gold-digging sluts because Rebecca from five years ago didn’t love me.

[Laughter]

Sarah: It’s so true, and it’s so toxic, yes.

Talia: [Laughs] And I’m kind of like, could you pull yourself together for five minutes? Like, I don’t want to write that kind of hero, because I hate him.

[Laughter]

Talia: So I’m writing my hero, and his response to that was to kind of think that actually, that there was something wrong with himself, and he kind of knows consciously that there’s nothing wrong with him, but he does have this insecurity from that incident, and when I was writing it, I was thinking – ‘cause I’m always conscious of this sort of thing when I’m writing it – I was thinking, like, people are going to say, oh my God, this hero is too feminine. And I was like, why is this insecurity from a totally valid event that could lead to an insecurity going to be treated as something in him that’s wrong because he’s a guy?

Sarah: That’s a very big question.

Talia: Well, I think that it’s actually funny, because I was reading your book yesterday that you wrote with Candy Tan called Beyond Heaving Bosoms?

Sarah: Oh my gosh, you’re reading my book? Thank you! That’s so cool!

Talia: Well, I actually didn’t know it was your book when I ordered it, and then it arrived and I was like, Sarah Wendell – is that the same Sarah Wendell that I know?

[Laughter]

Sarah: Yes, yes it is.

[Laughter]

Talia: So that was a cool moment. But when I was reading the section on heroes, I was kind of like, wow, yes. Like, speak the truth! Because –

[Laughter]

Talia: It focuses so much on, like, the, the standards of masculinity that they are expected to uphold –

Sarah: Yes.

Talia: – and it just honestly becomes so toxic and so exhausting and so counterproductive in a genre that is supposed to be about, like, emotions –

Sarah: Yes, thank you!

Talia: – and they’re so hemmed in with all these gendered standards and things, so that is something that I try to go against when I’m writing.

Sarah: Which would probably be why I really enjoy your heroes and their squishy marshmallow interiors and their emotional fluency. Elyse and I are working on a post about boner-led heroes who are led around by their boners?

Talia: [Laughs]

Sarah: Like it’s some sort of a magnetic, like, draw, like, that he has a boner, and he must do what his boner says and go where his boner tells him to go, because he’s ruled by his boner, and I’m like, what about a guy who’s, like, normally emotionally fluent and open to new experiences and recognizes that sometimes those experiences lead you to getting hurt? Like, why – it’s both toxic, and it’s also this incredible fragility.

Talia: Mm. Yes. It’s – [laughs] – I’m just still laughing so much about the boner-led hero thing.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Yeah, we’re, we’re editing that. It was a whole conversation, and we’re editing it for the, for the website to come, but basically, if it’s like a, it’s like a divining rod that you would use to find water –

Talia: Yeah.

Sarah: – in the desert, only for him it’s like, I sense that she is submissive; my boner tells me so!

Talia: [Laughs] Oh my goodness.

Sarah: No, that’s not how they work! I’m really sure that that’s not how they work.

[Laughter]

Talia: I just, sometimes it is disturbing how much certain heroes kind of think, well I, I long for her with my arousal, so therefore – and I’m like, no, you can’t base real-world interactions on, like, your sex drive. That’s not how we operate as human beings. That doesn’t, it’s not going to go anywhere good.

Sarah: I feel like –

Talia: But sometimes –

Sarah: I feel like I’m at a concert –

Talia: – it does.

Sarah: – and I’m just holding a lighter, like, yes! YES!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Please go on. I’m sorry I interrupted. [Laughs]

Talia: Oh – [laughs] – it just very much frustrates me when we have these heroes who in real life wouldn’t get anything out of anyone. They wouldn’t have good jobs, because they don’t know how to interact like normal human beings. They would have any friends, because they don’t know how to treat people. They definitely wouldn’t have relationships, because –

[Laughter]

Sarah: It’s so true!

Talia: They just wouldn’t function in the real world, but in some of these books they’re like, oh, he’s running a multimillion-dollar corporation, and I’m like, are you sure?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Talia: He doesn’t seem like he can. Do you have him confused with someone else? He doesn’t –

[Laughter]

Sarah: I’m crying laughing over here.

[Laughter]

Sarah: It’s so true. My favorite is when the hero’s dick twitches?

Talia: [Laughs] That’s something.

Sarah: Several years ago when Twitter was a, Twitter was a slightly different place, it was a little bit smaller, I was like, all right, listen, I need to, I need to know. Please ask your male partners and friends, do their dicks actually twitch? Like, if they’re sort of like, if they’re mildly interested in something, does their, does their penis actually sort of shiver? Does it give a little shimmy? Does it actually twitch? And so – [laughs] – the next morning I had all these people saying, my husband, my boyfriend, my friend, they’re all so disturbed that I’ve asked this question, because it’s just not a thing that happens. But in romances their dicks are like, they just do a little dance when something happens!

[Laughter]

Talia: And they’re always hard. They’re going about their daily business constantly aroused, and I don’t know how they maintain it! It doesn’t seem, like, conducive to daily life, I don’t –

Sarah: So true!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Oh, oh my gosh. So do you have – I’m crying – do you have a favorite hero that you’ve written of your books?

Talia: Ooh, that’s a difficult one. Ooh.

Sarah: It’s very hard to ask a writer, which is your favorite? Because, well, they, they, they were all your favorites at one point or another while you were writing them.

Talia: Exactly, yes. Well, I actually think that Isaac from Undone by the Ex-Con, which is probably one of my, like, least popular books – I feel like not many people have read it, but he’s my favorite hero.

Sarah: How come?

Talia: Well, he’s very, I don’t know, he’s very, he’s very quiet. I don’t want to say he’s brooding exactly, because he’s not really like that, but he’s very quiet and thoughtful, and he internalizes a lot, and also, probably because he’s a writer, so I kind of identify with a lot of his thoughts about writing, I suppose. I feel like we could have a good long chat.

Sarah: That’s really interesting. I love a good cerebral thinking character of any gender. Like, I, I, I love a character who’s really interested in, in their own thoughts and in thinking about how they view the world. Introspective characters, that’s what I like. That’s the word I was looking for.

Talia: Yes.

Sarah: I love a good introspective character, because it means that there’s something interesting in their own interior landscape.

Talia: Yes, exactly.

Sarah: So do you design your own covers? They are amazing.

Talia: Oh gosh, no. Thank you so much, but –

[Laughter]

Talia: – I have zero artistic talent to speak of. I am a genuine train wreck. Actually, art is probably one of the few things I will say I am one hundred percent terrible at. All of my covers were designed by Cosmic Letterz, and she’s amazing. Like, she doesn’t get too annoyed when I mess her around five thousand times per cover –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Talia: – because I can’t even, like, I have no idea what I even want the cover to look at, look like. My brain is not visual at all, so she has to make me twenty different versions of a cover, and then I’ll be like, oh, maybe that one. I see it now. That. And then we finally get there, but it’s a long and painful process.

Sarah: So your, your, your Twitter avatar, you have some –

Talia: Mm.

Sarah: – that is you, right?

Talia: Yes, that’s me. [Laughs]

Sarah: You have some outstanding eyeshadow on. Did you not do that?

Talia: Oh, this is the thing people always ask me! Yes, I did that. I’m a makeup artist.

Sarah: Okay, so listen, that’s artistic talent! I don’t want to scare you or anything, but that would be art, and it is a talent that you have, so it may not be book covers, but damn, your eyeshadow skills are quite on point! My gosh!

Talia: [Laughs] Thank you! I actually started doing makeup because I knew that I was bad at art, and I hate being bad at things, so I was searching for an artistic thing that I could be good at, and it ended up being makeup.

Sarah: So do you do makeup for other people as well?

Talia: Yes, I do, although not so much at the minute, because I’m so busy, but actually before I started writing I was a freelance makeup artist; like, that was my job. And I have a beauty blog, which is very exciting, but I’ve also severely neglected that because I’m writing and of my degree and everything. But yeah, I do makeup for people.

Sarah: So you’re getting your English degree, you’re also a makeup artist, and you’re writing a book every four to five weeks. So do you sleep? Is sleep a thing that you do? At all?

Talia: [Laughs] You’d be surprised. I actually sleep a lot!

[Laughter]

Talia: A significant amount, possibly too much.

Sarah: And I firmly believe there is no such thing as too much sleep when you need sleep, but I am also the bedtime commander. My children will not tell their friends what their bedtime is because they’re too embarrassed, and yet they wake up in the morning and they feel human and relaxed and calm, and I’m like, see? You can be –

Talia: Exactly!

Sarah: – embarrassed all you want, but you got enough sleep.

Talia: Exactly. I remember when I was young and I was, I had the earliest bedtime of anyone in my class, and it was so horrible, but my mum was like, do you want to be like everyone else, or do you want to have a refreshed brain?

Sarah: Yes!

Talia: I was like, thanks, Mother. [Laughs]

Sarah: Learning how to take care of my brain and the way that my brain is unique is something that I have really valued about my own maturity as a person, and learning how much sleep I need was life-changing.

Talia: Yes. I think that you’re definitely right in terms of, like, looking after yourself and learning what your brain needs is invaluable.

Sarah: It’s very true. Now, I have some questions from Elyse. First, are you going to be at Romantic Times in Reno or at RWA in Denver? Are you coming over to the States?

Talia: Oh gosh. Probably not, because I – okay, so I went to Mexico, like, six months ago, and it was the longest flight of my life, and my skin dried out, even though I wore two tissue masks, and I’m never repeating it.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Talia: So it might be – [laughs] – it will be a long while before I return to the Americas. I probably have to go at some point to Jamaica to visit family, but not, not yet, okay? Not, not yet.

Sarah: [Laughs] It is, it is very funny how the world is so small on the internet. We can connect with people instantly. Like, I’m in, outside DC, and you are in England, and we’re having this perfectly normal conversation instantly over the internet. We can talk anytime on Twitter with people all over the world, and yet when you actually try to travel to different places, it takes a little while! It’s a big pond.

Talia: Oh my goodness, it’s painful. Like, I couldn’t believe it the first time – not the first time, but the first time that I went to America as an adult and I was on the plane, I was like, was it always this far away?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Talia: Or has it changed? [Laughs] Unbelievable.

Sarah: Yeah, we’re kind of far. It’s, it’s a problem. My other question from Elyse, I mentioned, oh, I’m, I’m talking to Talia Hibbert today, and she went, oh my God, please ask if Cherry’s sister will get a book. So.

Talia: Oh, Mags. Oh, people ask me this all the time. I don’t want to say yes, because I have so much to write, but at the same time I feel inevitably she probably will, but not for a long time. [Laughs]

Sarah: Right. So what are you working on right now? How many books do you – do you write one book at a time, or do you sort of have a few going at the same time?

Talia: I write one book at a time, but I plan multiple books, and I have a file called Fragments where I get kind of images and scenes from stories in my head, and I just write them down for when I start properly working on that story. So currently I’m working on – well, currently, I am outlining the rest of the Ravenswood books, so the books that follow A Girl Like Her.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Talia: And then I’m actively working on a book that I don’t want to spoil anything, but it’s an enemies-to-lovers situation.

Sarah: Ohhh?

Talia: I don’t think I can say anything else, but yeah. [Laughs] And then I’m also working on two second-chance books and a trilogy which is going to be kind of like vaguely related to organized crime, but not exactly. It’s a long story.

Sarah: Ohhh!

Talia: [Laughs]

Sarah: So lots of books, yay.

Talia: Yes, I suppose so. [Laughs]

Sarah: Now, the question I always ask is what books are you reading that you want to recommend to people?

Talia: Oh my goodness, you’ll wish you hadn’t asked. Okay, I have a list.

Sarah: No, never, never regret asking this question.

[Laughter]

Talia: I have an extensive list. So anyone who follows me on Twitter will have seen me absolutely screaming the other night over Never Sweeter by Charlotte Stein? I –

Sarah: Oh my.

Talia: Oh my goodness, everyone had been telling me to read it forever, and I had been hesitant because of the premise, because it is about, like, bullying, and I feel like, like most people who make a life reading and writing books, I have been bullied.

Sarah: Oh!

Talia: And I was like, wow, this is going to be horrible!

[Laughter]

Talia: But then I read it, and I was wrong, ‘cause it was amazing! And I, oh, and now I’m reading everything she’s ever written. Oh, it was amazing. What else? Oh, I’m reading a lot of Beverly Jenkins right now as well.

Sarah: Isn’t she amazing?

Talia: Yes. Like, I follow her on Twitter, and she’s so lovely, and I just read all her tweets and smile and love her from afar. [Laughs] So I’m reading Destiny’s Captive at the minute, or I just started it, and I think it has, like, a lady pirate, which is very exciting.

Sarah: Yes!

Talia: [Laughs] And I was recently absolutely floored by Invitation to the Blues by Roan Parrish. That has – I think I read it a couple of weeks ago, and I still just kind of find myself thinking about it deeply at random moments throughout the day, where I’m like, wow, that book was so amazing. Like, I’ve, my life has forever changed. Everyone needs to read that.

Sarah: Isn’t it cool when your brain gets a book hangover?

Talia: Yes! I love it, and also hate it, but love it.

Sarah: [Laughs] Yeah, yeah, me too.

[Laughter]

Talia: [Laughs] And I’ve been reading an advance copy of Lynn Turner’s Pas de Deux, and it’s so beautiful. It’s just, like, really, really stunning, and it’s about dancers, and I used to dance, and I always wondered kind of when you’re reading about dance, how can anyone really capture how brilliant it is, and I feel like this book actually manages to capture the feeling of dancing, and I just, I love it. I’m, like, blown away.

I feel like I’m going to kind of rein myself in here and, and cut the list off. Otherwise, we’ll be here for a very long time.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Well, is there anything else that you would like to mention?

Talia: Hmm, anything else I would like to mention. I would definitely like to say how much fun it has been to come on here and do this and how much I love Smart Bitches, like, severely.

Sarah: Oh, you’re the nicest person! Thank you!

[Laughter]

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this interview. I want to thank Talia Hibbert for hanging out with me and talking with me about all of the different things. If you would like to find Talia, you can find her on her website at taliahibbert.com. You can find her on Twitter @TaliaHibbert, on Facebook at AuthorTaliaHibbert, and you can find her on Instagram @taliahibbert as well, and of course I will have links to all of these places in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

On Thursday, May 17th, if you’re going to be at RT, I hope you’ll come join us for a live taping of this very podcast in Naples 4 at 5:30 p.m. Pacific time. We will be – we being Elyse, Amanda, Robin Bradford, and myself, plus more people – will be recording a live show. We will be talking about RT, making inappropriate comments about various things, talking about books, and then we’re going to play Romance Feud, and it’s going to be awesomeness, so please come! It would be so great to have you. Again, this is open to people who are in the Romantic Times convention. You must have a badge to enter the area. I apologize that it’s not open to the public, but if you’re going to be at RT, come join us Thursday, May 17th, 5:30 p.m. in Naples 4 at RT in Reno. I hope you can come, ‘cause it’ll be so much fun.

Today’s podcast is brought to you by The Unyielding by Shelly Laurenston. New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Shelly Laurenston capitalizes on her trademark humor and kickass attitude in the third installment of the Call of Crows series, which features a band of tough-as-nails female warriors resurrected from the dead and the alpha males who aren’t afraid to give them a taste of their own medicine. Stieg Engstrom, Angriest Viking Ever, has got big problems. The human Viking Clans of Earth are in danger of being obliterated — along with the rest of the world — and the only one who may be able to save them is a super pain-in-the-ass Crow. Most people annoy Stieg, but this is the one woman he really can’t stand. Erin Amsel loves being a Crow! Why wouldn’t she when the other Viking Clans are so hilariously arrogant and humorless? She’s not about to let all of that come to an end! She just didn’t expect to be shoulder to shoulder in battle with Stieg. Then again, he’s so easy to torment — and also kind of cute. With the future of the world riding on them, Stieg knows that he’ll have to put aside his desperate need to kiss the smirk right off Erin’s face. They have one goal: to conquer the idiots. Because nothing bugs Stieg more than when idiots win. If only he can keep himself from suddenly acting like one. The Unyielding by Shelly Laurenston is on sale now in mass market for the first time wherever books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com.

Each episode of this here podcast receives a transcript which is hand compiled by garlicknitter. Thank you, garlicknitter. [You’re welcome! – gk] This week’s transcript is being brought to you be Brightly Burning by Alexa Donne. Fans of Marissa Meyer and Kiera Cass rejoice for this romantic retelling. Alexa Donne’s Brightly Burning is a lush and enthralling reimagining of Charlotte Bronte’s classic Jane Eyre set among the stars. It will seduce and beguile you. Stella Ainsley leaves poverty behind when she quits her engineering job aboard the Stalwart to become a governess on a private ship. On the Rochester, there’s no water ration, more books than one person could devour in a lifetime, and an AI who seems more friend than robot. But no one warned Stella that the ship seems to be haunted, nor that it may be involved in a conspiracy that could topple the entire interstellar fleet. Kirkus Reviews calls it “A gripping examination of class, romance, and survival set in a dystopian future that feels chillingly relevant to our present times.” Brightly Burning by Alexa Donne is available wherever books are sold. Visit hmhteen.com to start reading.

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And if you would like more options, please have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. The podcast Patreon community is the first place I go to suggest questions for upcoming guests and to tell them who’s going to be on the show next, so if you would like some inside information and would like to be part of the Patreon community, patreon.com/SmartBitches.

And to Julia, Laura, Maria, Jean, and Stuart, thank you so much for supporting the Patreon and being part of the Patreon community.

Our music is provided each week by Sassy Outwater. You can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater. This track is called “Queens,” and it is from Caravan Palace. Their two-album set with Caravan Palace and Panic is available at Amazon and iTunes and everywhere you buy your fine, fine music. You can find Caravan Palace on their website, caravanpalace.com.

Next week on the website – you know there’s a website that goes with the podcast, right? I’m presuming you knew this – we are going to have one of our most popular features, Cover Snark. And we have an internal channel on our Slack for the website where we placed all the covers that are submitted and the covers that we find. It is a treasure trove of heinous amazement, so each cover snark is more fun than the last one. I hope you’ll hang out with us and take a look at some strange, strange things. We also have reviews and a Rec League, and most of all, Elyse, Amanda, and I will be at Romantic Times Booklovers Convention in Reno. We’ll be posting pictures and videos while we’re there, so stay tuned for that, and if you’re going to be there and you see us, please grab one of us to say hi, ‘cause we would love to meet you.

I have links to all the books we talked about and the different things that we mentioned during the show, but as always, I end with a terrible joke. Are you ready for a terrible joke? I have a terrible joke. All right, you ready?

Why is dark spelled with a K and not a C?

Give up? Why is dark spelled with a K and not a C?

Because you can’t C in the dark!

[Laughs] I told that one to my older son, and he just gave me the greatest look of unimpressed horror. Like, oh God, I’m related to you. It was amazing! That joke comes from Wsl22. Thank you, Wsl22! You can’t C in the dark. [Laughs]

So on behalf of Talia Hibbert and everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. Hope to see you here next week for our next podcast. Have a great weekend.

[fine, fine music]