348. Upbeat Fiction for Unpredictable Times: Live at East City Books with Mia Sosa, Tracey Livesay, and Sally Thorne!

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hi there, and welcome to episode number 348 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and this is “Upbeat Fiction for Unpredictable Times.” This episode was recorded live at East City Books in Washington, DC, on April 11, 2019. I moderated a panel with Sally Thorne, Tracey Livesay, and Mia Sosa, and it was a terrific panel, with a really great audience too. If you were there, thank you for coming out.

Now, there are two notes I want to make sure to mention.

One: There is a little bit of digital buzzing during some of the questions. I did my best to clean it up and minimize it, but I apologize for that.

And number two: There is a question at the end that may not be audible in the final track once I’ve done all of the post production. That person asks about an interview with Danielle Steel and asks about the stigma and negative press surrounding romance and whether that’s changed at all. Sally Thorne and I both addressed the question, but if you can’t hear the original asker, I apologize.

I want to thank Tracey Livesay, Mia Sosa, and Sally Thorne for a wonderful evening, and I want to thank Darbi and the other people who stepped forward to ask questions during the evening. I also have extra-large and effusive thanks to everyone at East City Books for making this recording possible. If you are in the DC area you should definitely stop by, as they are extremely eager to welcome romance readers.

And if you enjoy this conversation, I am going to be back at East City Books on May 8th, 2019, in conversation with Rachel Hawkins about her book Her Royal Highness. There are details in the Events tab at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.

This week’s podcast is brought to you by Radish. You can discover a world where storytelling is reimagined with Radish, an app with thousands of romance stories from bestselling authors like Lisa Renee Jones, Kelley Armstrong, Julie Kenner, and Sylvia Day in bite-size chapters, perfect to read on your morning commute, your lunch break, or before bed. You can enjoy epic romances full of everything from billionaire bosses to tattooed bad boys to sexy vampires and paranormal shifters. You can join live chat rooms and interact with authors and fellow readers who love the same stories you do. They have a fresh collection of original stories written by some of daytime TV’s top Emmy-winning writers, bingeable and fast-paced stories that you won’t be able to find anywhere else. Maybe you’re interested in a romantic fantasy like Heart of Dragons, where a woman is ripped away from her dashing fiancé to be sacrificed to the dragons that live beneath the earth, only to find herself falling in love with a powerful dragon prince. Radish has it all, and you can download the app in Google Play or the Apple store for free today and begin your adventure on Radish.

Every episode receives a transcript. This week’s transcript is brought to you by every single Patreon community member who is supporting the show. Thank you very much! Every transcript is hand-compiled by garlicknitter, and transcribing each episode is very important to me and to the people who like to read or listen or both. If you are part of the Patreon community, you are making every episode accessible, so thank you very much for that.

If you would like to join the Patreon community, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Monthly pledges start at one dollar a month, and I have some new goals in place, including a goal when we hit three hundred and fifty patrons: I’ll start doing quarterly Ask Us Anything. If you want advice, you should definitely ask Elyse or Amanda. I’m not sure I’m the best giving advice, although I’ll be really, really opinionated on what color you should paint your kitchen; I have a lot of opinions there. Our other goals include exclusive audio feeds, options for live call-in shows. Your support means a lot, so have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches, and to our community, thank you, thank you, and thank you again.

I have two compliments. I love this part.

To Anne K.: Today you are the most perfect version of you. Tomorrow you will be too. In fact, you have a flawless track record at being perfectly you. Nice job!

And to Robyn B.: There are databases on amusing internet virality, and they cannot keep up with how many excellent memes were inspired by your laugh this year alone.

Now, if you like our live shows, you can come see us at Book Lovers Con in New Orleans. If you are attending, Thursday, May 16th, at 3:30 at the Hyatt Regency in Imperial 5C, I, Amanda, and Elyse will be doing a live show, and it will be most excellent if you can join us. I have a link in the show notes so you can RSVP. It’s totally free to attend if you’re already attending Book Lovers Con; we just need to know how many chairs.

I will have information at the end of the podcast about the music you are listening to, what’s coming up on Smart Bitches, I have a terrible joke, and of course I will have links to everything we discuss in this episode.

But without any further delay, let’s get this live show going. I had so much fun at this conversation, and I’m so glad that I got to record it so I can share it with you. On with the podcast.

[music]

Destinee: Okay! Good evening, everyone.

Sarah: You are all fabulous!

[Laughter]

Destinee: Hi, everyone! My name is Destinee. I am the Events Coordinator here at East City Bookshop and an avid romance reader.

[Cheers, applause, laughter]

Destinee: It is my immense pleasure to welcome you here today. It is a dream-come-true event for me, so I can imagine that a lot of you feel the same way. So is there anyone who is here for the very first time in our store? Whoo! Welcome, welcome! That is awesome! I will give the round of applause for you.

[Laughter]

Destinee: We’re so happy to have you here. Please know we have tons of events just like this one. We just hosted Jasmine Guillory in February, so we love having you here, and we hope that this is the first of many times that you’ll be here in the store. One of the events that’s coming up that we’re really excited about is Indie Bookstore Day, which is going to be on April 27th, a Saturday, two Saturdays from now, so not next Saturday but the following one? We would love to have you here for that. We have tons of great things going on, so please stop on in.

And also, we have about fourteen book clubs right now? One of my favorites meets tomorrow, actually: W(h)ine and Angst, which is –

[Laughter]

Destinee: – for people twenty-one and up who still love to read YA, so if that sounds interesting to you, please find your way to us! We have a grand old time.

All right, so I’d like to say again, welcome to our panel tonight: “Upbeat Fiction for Unpredictable Times: A Romance Panel.” I am the purveyor of all things romance here at ECB, and when the opportunity for this event came up, I was exceedingly thrilled. I wanted the panel to be a romance panel, of course, but beyond that, I wanted it to be diverse, and I think that we have accomplished that today, so I’m very excited about that. I will be introducing our moderator for this evening, and she will do the job of getting us going! It is my immense pleasure to welcome you, Sarah Wendell.

Sarah: Thank you! Thanks!

[Applause]

Sarah: So it’s, it’s Thursday, which is like, for me, the night where I barely function and often don’t cook a thing, ‘cause I’m exhausted, so the fact that all of you have come out to hang out with us on a Thursday is so deeply appreciated. Thank you so much for coming to hang out with us to talk about romance.

So I am going to start to my right. Would you each please introduce yourself, tell us about your latest book title, and your favorite comfort food or beverage, please.

Tracey Livesay: Are we starting down that way?

Sarah: I’m going to start with Mia and work forward.

Mia Sosa: You are so slick!

Sarah: You made eye contact!

Mia: This is –

Sarah: I thought you were ready!

Mia: No, no, I’m talking about Tracey.

[Laughter]

Mia: My name is Mia Sosa. I write contemporary romance and romantic comedy. My tagline is “funny, flirty, a little dirty.”

Sarah: That’s a great tagline.

Mia: Although, to be honest, I am seriously considering changing it to “funny, flirty, moderately dirty.”

[Laughter]

Mia: And I’m originally from New York. I have Active Bitch Face, which is different from Resting Bitch Face, and my latest book is Crashing into Her. It is book three in the Love on Cue series, and my favorite comfort food has to be empanadas.

Audience: Ohhh!

Mia: Ohhh!

Sarah: Pretty much anything that you put in a dough and then bake or fry –

Mia: Exactly right.

Sarah: – it’s like a sign of a really good cultural experience.

Mia: Exactly.

Sarah: It’s wonderful. All right.

Sally Thorne: Hi. My name’s Sally Thorne. I’m taking myself and my Australian accent on a tour of the US. I wrote a book called The Hating Game back in – well, I wrote it earlier than 2016, but it was released in August 2016 – a book that completely changed my life and helped me be here right now. My second book was called 99 Percent Mine, and it came out in January. It was super hard to write, and I complained on social media for, like, two years about it.

[Laughter]

Sally: And, yeah, I’ve, I’ve had a really busy trip here, and I’m missing my little pug dog Delia very badly, but I’ve met so many lovely people, and my favorite comfort food – oh, look, I’m just going to play the Australian card and I’ll say Vegemite on toast.

[Laughter]

Tracey: My name is Tracey Livesay. I write contemporary romance, interracial contemporary romance. My tagline is “true love in black and white” – I kind of like. Oh, books. So I think we’ll – [laughs] – I think we’ll be talking about my Avon series tonight, but I actually have a novella coming out May 8th. I don’t know if any of you have heard of the Rogue Resistance anthology. It’s a – no, yes, okay? – well, it is a series of novellas that were written after the election. It’s sort of like romance resistance; they all have sort of like a political sort of bent to them, and so the last anthology is coming out May 8th. It’s called Rogue Ever After, and I have a novella in it that’s kind of like Two Weeks Notice, the Sandra Bullock movie, and so my hero is a US senator, a Republican, who has – ooh! I’m going to change your mind! I’m going to change your mind, I promise!

Sarah: So you’re going to redeem the hero then.

Tracey: Yes, yes.

Sarah: Oh!

Tracey: So he has –

Sarah: That’s a, that’s a big job.

Tracey: I know! But I –

[Laughter]

Tracey: But I’m up to it.

Sarah: You got this.

Tracey: Yes, but trust me! Trust me. Trust me.

Sarah: I trust you!

Tracey: This is romance; this is Happily Ever After –

Sarah: You got this.

Tracey: – and so, you know, he hasn’t been doing the right thing. He’s been doing nothing, as a lot of them have been doing, and my heroine, who has worked for him has said, nope. I quit. And at that moment he realizes what she means to him, and he knows he has to do something to, to get her back, so that’s coming out May 8th. And my favorite comfort food is salt and vinegar potato chips and sweet wine.

[Laughter]

Tracey: And I’m not ashamed.

[More laughter]

Sarah: I just got so hungry? Wow, and I ate before – whoa! Now I – okay, does anyone else, like, just really want salt and vinegar potato chips, like, right now? Yeah, okay, so you can’t, you can’t say things like that without being like, and I brought some with me!

So the title of this here panel is “Upbeat Fiction in Unpredictable Times,” so I wanted to ask you as readers, what makes a book upbeat for you, or comforting? ‘Cause I know for a lot of us who read romance especially, it’s like a place of solace. When you’ve had an absolutely crappy day, you, you, you try a new book, or you visit a book that you’ve read a, a bunch of times. I love being in a room full of romance writers, ‘cause the minute you say something like solace or comfort, they’re like, yep, mm-hmm, yep, mm-hmm! Romance readers are the best! So what is a, what is a book for you that has solace and comfort in it? What are the elements that you need? What makes a book upbeat for you? Mia, you want to go first again, or you want me to not call on you?

Mia: I’m happy to go first! So for me, comfort means immersing myself in a world that I can see myself in. So it’s knowing that the place that an author creates is one that I would feel comfortable in, that I feel safe in, that I feel comforted in, and so, particularly when you’re talking about contemporary romance, I like to know that that world is one in which I could see myself being a friend of the characters, and then that really makes me sort of fall in love not only with them as a couple but as individuals, and then that kind of makes me feel like I’m safe, and I just want these people to get what they deserve, and, you know, then I just start fluttering and, you know, doing all of the things that romance readers do.

Sarah: Isn’t it nice when you get to just hang out with characters that you really like? It’s the best!

Sally: Okay. Well, I like your answer, first of all. For me, I think a book that’s really comforting is just, hmm, I, I find something that’s, like, got a lot of heart and humor generally pulls me in in a really beautiful way. I just, I love those kind of days where it’s just, like, raining outside and you’ve, like, called in sick and lied to your boss and said that you’re, like, really unwell with a  migraine, and then there’s just some authors that you can always count on that every time you pick up one of their books, that they’re, they’re going to be there for you, and you know that, like, they’re just going to come through each and every time, and so I find that I just love to be, like, comforted by books that have really, like, like you said, like, really down-to-earth, real characters that have real problems that I can relate to, and you know, you can see their internal motivation, like the reasons why they feel that they can’t be with this fascinating, interesting, really attractive person that they’ve either just met or just reconnected with, and at the time, at the start of the book, you’re thinking to yourself, how are they going to overcome this? How are they going to get there? But I think that if the author has a really sure voice and it feels just like they’ve just taken your hand and just, they’re guiding through, and let’s face it: we are all, you know, usually guaranteed of a Happily Ever After, unless it’s like a cliffhanger or something, in which case you throw the book at the wall.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Yes?

Sally: So I think that that’s what comforts me, and I, I love books that have, like, scenes where characters just really connect, like, and have, like, a really special or unusual moment where they just drop their guard, and I think we all have books where there’s a scene like that, and you want to, you know, if you’ve had a terrible day, like, you might just pick up a particular book, and almost like you’re, you’re, you’ve got the DVD and you’re just like, I’m just going to go to that scene and just, and maybe this time when I read that scene, I’m going to, like, read it in a different way that it’s going to reveal itself to me in a slightly different way, especially if it’s got a little bit of ambiguity or a little bit of magic to it.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sally: Yeah, that’s what I like. [Laughs]

Mia: I just want to clarify that I have allergies. Sally’s not making me cry.

[Laughter]

Sally: It was very moving. It’s okay.

Tracey: It’s all right; it’s okay.

Sarah: I mean, we are at the time of year where, like, all the trees sneeze at once. I was not prepared for the fact that there’s a period of time – I moved here three years ago – I was not prepared for the fact that my car will turn green?

Audience: Oh yeah. Right.

Sarah: Like, I was not aware that that was a thing that happened? I also did not know until, like, maybe five years ago that it was an option to be like, listen, it’s Tuesday and I’m really sick, ‘cause there’s a bunch of new books out today. I have New Book Flu? I’m not coming in today. Like, it never even occurred to me that that was a thing you could do, and I feel so, like, I feel so dumb. I could’ve been, I could’ve been missing school! Like, what was wrong with me?

I have a, I have a question: how long are we going until? Like, an hour? Ten o’clock? Tomorrow morning?

[Laughter]

[Indistinct reply]

Sarah: An hour? That’s what I figured. Okay, ‘cause I was just making sure, ‘cause, you know, I feel bad being like, all of you are my prisoners now. We live here. There’s one bathroom, but we have a lot of books, so it’s going to be fine!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Tracey, what about you?

Tracey: Oh, comfort reads: obviously romance, because of the Happily Ever After, and they have trained me so well; like, I need to know things. Like, just quick tangent: I was watching World of Dance, and it’s the Duels, where the two – do you people watch, y’all watch World – okay. So it’s the Duels, right, and the two people, like, I get so worked up at their introductions that I have to fast forward to see who won, and then I’ll go back and watch their routines. Like –

[Laughter]

Tracey: – that’s, that’s my world right now, so romance –

Sarah: You’re a romance reader!

Tracey: Yes, I am! I am, so I need to know that there’s going to be a Happy Ever After, and I do like nonfiction, but I like nonfiction when I know what happens. So –

[Laughter]

Tracey: – so, like, I love –

Sarah: I know this person’s dead –

Tracey: Yeah!

Sarah: – so I know how this ends!

Tracey: No, but, like, the Bad Blood, like the Theranos stuff, oh, that was fascinating because I knew she got it in the end!

[Laughter]

Tracey: But, like, when I’m, like, reading all these Trump White House stuff, I’m like, no! ‘Cause when I’m done, it’s still happening! Like, I just can’t! So comfort is, I know what happens, it’s happy, people get together –

Sarah: That is so true.

Tracey: – and that calms me.

[Laughter]

Sarah: It’s so true.

Tracey: It is.

Sarah: So comedy is a very subjective thing, and what makes me laugh may be very different from what makes other people laugh, and there’s some things that are just deeply funny to you – like, I stopped reading Stephanie Plum like many, many years ago, but if you say “gumpy” to me, I will start laughing, ‘cause it’s hilarious, and so you have these moments as a reader and as a writer that you have to sort of con-, translate your humor onto the page. What are some ways in which you incorporate humor in your writing? And is it a conscious thing, or do you look at it later and go, oh hey, wait! That was, that’s funny! Awesome! Tracey, you want to go first?

Tracey: Sure.

Sarah: ‘Cause I’m evil? You just hit me with the mic; I’m right here.

Tracey: I know, I know.

Sarah: I know.

Tracey: But there’s too many witnesses.

Sarah: Someone used to be a lawyer.

[Laughter]

Tracey: So I don’t think I write particularly funny. I don’t try to write funny, ‘cause if you try to write funny it’s never really funny. That is a really sort of specific skill that I don’t have, but I think sort of, the humor in my writing comes out of situations. So my characters are in situations, you know, that are funny, and then if that makes me laugh then I’m like, okay, that’s good, but I don’t, like, try. Like, in my house right now, the smoke detector is way too close to the stove, and I don’t know who designed that, why they thought that was a good idea, but any whiff of smoke and that thing goes off, and I’m standing there with the towel, and I’m just doing the little smoke detector dance, and one day it just seemed funny, and so I was like, oh, okay, so I have a scene in the book where my  heroine is trying to make breakfast, and she burns it, and the thing goes off, and it’s, you know, and she’s doing the little dance, and so I mean, it’s not like it’s funny-funny, like you guys didn’t laugh, but it’s funny in the book. But –

[Laughter]

Sarah: I’m not trying not to ‘cause I have a microphone!

Tracey: I know, but in the book it’s funny, so.

Sarah: We’re all trying to be polite, like, I mean, I’m definitely holding in!

Tracey: No, so that’s the –

Sarah: I hate that dance! I’m too short for that dance.

Sally: Okay, well, after that, I’m feeling deeply unfunny, because you’re hilarious!

[Laughter]

Sally: I agree. When you’re trying to write, try, don’t try too hard to be funny, because that is the quickest way to be unfunny. I guess my first book, The Hating Game, is the one that people tell me is funny, and I was really surprised when I, you know, when it first started to go to my agent and then to the publisher, people were coming back to me saying that it was really funny, I was genuinely surprised. I didn’t really consider it to be a funny – like, ‘cause I hadn’t tried to be funny. It’s just the way that I, the way that I think and the way that I like to write my sentences. I’m really glad that it’s, like, tickled a few of you. I think that it, I just really enjoy finding, like, interesting, like, little turns of phrase, and I love it when characters are bantering and it’s just like, they’re just like, pop, pop, pop between each other. I think that was more so in The Hating Game. I once worked with a guy, and we got along so well, and we sat next to each other – actually, so many people have said to me, like, was he your inspiration for Josh in The Hating Game? And I’m like, really, no, because he was, you know, he was, like, an older guy, and he was in his fifties, but when you’re at, you know what it’s like when you’re at work, like, you, you find, like, someone at your work that’s, you’re like, like, you’re my, you’re my work uncle, or my work wife, and you, and you need that person. If that person calls in sick to, like, lie in bed and read a book, you’re like, I’m not forgiving that person.

[Laughter]

Sally: But the reason why I bring him up is because we got along so well, and we got to know each other so well, that every single time we said something to each other, I always knew that he would say the exact right thing back, and it was such a great banter-y feeling, just like, that just fills, fills you full of energy when you are talking to someone and you can rely on them that they’re always going to say the right thing back, and I think that that was a realization in The Hating Game for Lucy when she realized that Josh didn’t come to work one day. Was he at home, like, reading a book? Who knows? And she just realized that, like, all of the energy had just been drained out of her and out of the office, and it was because he always said the exact right thing to her. That, that’s what I love in books, just when they come back with something really unexpected, and yeah, that’s, that’s what usually when I, like, laugh out loud.

Sarah: I love dialogue; I think it’s like eavesdropping on conversations, and I, I will find myself scanning to the dialogue, ‘cause listening to other people’s conversations, even if it’s just in my head – which sounds really creepy now that I said that out loud – that’s really fun. Plus, you also have the cultural advantage of deep Australian sarcasm. Like, the, the base level of sarcasm in Australia is about twenty-five percent higher than the United States.

Sally: But also, like, the self-awareness of that is, like, at minus twenty-five percent.

[Laughter]

Sally: I mean, I’m finding I can just pretty much say anything, and people are like, ha-ha! Aw!

Sarah: Yeah! Pretty much! Oh yeah!

Sally: I’ve just been, like, unwittingly, like, really dopey and charming no matter where I’ve gone, just because of this accent.

Sarah: Yep.

Sally: It’s, it’s served me well to this point, so I’m continuing, continuing to rely on it.

Sarah: You’re actually from, like, Brooklyn, right?

Sally: No one could do an accent this bad this well.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Mia, what about you?

Mia: So just as Tracey said, it’s really hard to write funny, so what I try to do – and I think actually I succeed at it – is live funny, and so the things that happen to me find themselves on the page. This may be the TMI portion of this panel, but this was about a week ago: my husband and I are in the bedroom, and after – [pauses for laughter] – I, I happen to say, who needs a nightcap when you can have a night-cum?

[Laughter]

Mia: And my husband, like, he laughed so hard, and I looked at him, and I was like, yes! Let me put that down! I do, I have, like, Post-it notes by the bed, I have AquaNotes in the shower, so, like, anywhere I am in the house, I’m, like, trying to figure out, like, okay, that’s something really good; I need to write it down and put it in a book. That’s how I get my humor. My, and my husband is a huge source of humor, because he’s just – I mean, and, and I’m sorry!

[Laughter]

Sarah: I’m just imagining, like, you know how those Post-it notes lose their sticky, right, and they end up in the weirdest places, so I’m imagining somebody going, what?! I’m sorry; please continue.

Mia: Yes, we have some interesting ones. But my husband, for years, refused to acknowledge that he needed glasses. So we went to New Orleans on a trip, and we’re looking for food, and he’s like, look, down there! Grill, grill, grill! And I was like, sweetie, girls, girls, girls!

[Laughter]

Mia: So this is the life that I lead, and so that’s the kind of stuff that is in my books. I just, it’s so ridiculous that it has to find its way in a book.

Sarah: So we’re all really fortunate that you’re a writer. Thanks for bailing on law!

Mia: I know! [Laughs]

Sarah: That was great! I mean, well played!

Sally: Oh my God!

Sarah: All right, so I have a question for each of you about your books, but I sent it to you in advance so you don’t have to be scared; there’s no math.

Tracey: Okay.

Sarah: So Tracey – yeah, you ready?

Tracey: Yeah.

Sarah: So in Love Will Always Remember, one of your characters is a lobbyist, and –

Tracey: I was feeling very political recently; I don’t know why!

Sarah: You, there, so there’s a scene in the book where she, like, stands up to this complete turd bucket of a Congressperson, and he’s all bitter because – you had a really interesting way of putting it, and I don’t think I put it in my notes – that he was pissed off, this is a paraphrase, but he was pissed off that someone who didn’t look like him was sitting across from him and challenging him –

Tracey: Yeah.

Sarah: – and I was like, oh yes, keep going, girl. Get him! Get him! Like, my favorite scene in The Hating Game is when she stands up to his dad. Like, I was ready for him to just take a fork and stab him in the throat.

Sally: Oh my God.

Sarah: That’s my favorite, so, you know, women standing up to men, I’m in there. And she’s a lobbyist, right? So she is a lobbyist, she stands up to powerful people on the regular, and – which is, you know, something women are not conditioned to do, which is probably why I’m so fascinated when I read about women doing it? And then she gets amnesia.

Tracey: It’s an amnesia –

Sarah: I love a good amnesia story, ‘cause it, because romance amnesia is completely unlike actual amnesia?

[Laughter]

Sarah: Like, you remember how to use the toilet; you know how to, like, breathe; you know how to put on socks; you probably still remember how to put on Spanx; but –

Tracey: I addressed all of that.

Sarah: I know!

Tracey: I did.

Sarah: It’s amazing!

Tracey: I did my research. I did.

Sarah: I know! So what are the steps that you took to reconnect her? ‘Cause she got a do-over.

Tracey: Yes.

Sarah: What are some steps that you took to reconnect her to her life and give her a do-over?

Tracey: Well, you know, like you said, this is romance amnesia, so it was convenient. Six years of her life that was lost –

Sarah: Right.

Tracey: – ‘cause, you know, that, that was a, that was a, a plot point, so it had to be six years. But I think what’s important was to sort of show how she was before the accident –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Tracey: – so you see sort of what her life is, like, right now, and then the accident happens, and afterwards, I think the reader sort of, she’s very vulnerable, and so the reader, who may have been turned off by maybe how aggressive and assertive she was beforehand, sort of feels for her, because they imagine themselves in that situation and, and how you would react, and what would you do? And then slowly, you short of, you sort of show that the way she is now, without the hurt that caused the earlier persona, is a good person, and it doesn’t hurt that she has a sexy, James-Beard-award-winning chef who wants to help her get back her memories.

Sarah: Again, romance.

Tracey: Yeah.

Sarah: Yeah.

Tracey: Yeah, with, like, a tattoo and a little scruff and –

[Laughter]

Tracey: Sorry.

Sarah: Anyway, you were saying? Yeah?

Tracey: [Laughs] I know; like, where was I? But, yeah, I think it’s sort of showing how she was before and showing sort of like what her life could be like if that hurt hadn’t happened, and then I think what’s fun is then giving her back her memories and having her choose who she’s going to be. Like, that was what was really interesting to me about writing an, an amnesia story: not just that it was a romance trope, but the idea that most of us come to these sort of relationships with baggage, and if you don’t deal with them it could affect the relationship. Like, you might meet the right person for you, but it might not be the right time in your life because you maybe haven’t dealt with certain things, and so that was, that was the idea, that she’s having an opportunity, like, you know, in a Hallmark movie like, you know, The Holiday: she goes back in time, and she has the opportunity to redo things, to make different decisions, and sort of what her life could be like if she, you know, does the right thing, and then she pops out of it and she has to make a choice, and I was really fascinated about writing that particular story.

Sarah: And her core of strength is still the same.

Tracey: It’s, yeah, she’s still the same person. It’s just that the thing that hurt her, that caused her to put up that face, she doesn’t remember, and so now, with the amnesia, she is sort of truly who she would have been. Now, at the end, she doesn’t lose that badass-ness, because she’s earned that, but the, sort of the, the, the wall that she put up –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Tracey: – is, is gone, so, yeah.

Sarah: I think that’s one of my favorite parts of romance, when you see characters become who they really are, and you recognize them for who they are, even if they weren’t that person at the start of the novel? It takes so much talent to make that happen, too, on a page.

Mia, in your book, Crashing into Her, so the hero and heroine have a one-night stand, and then they reconnect, and they have – there’s mad banter, y’all. There’s a lot of banter. Mad banter. I don’t remember any Post-its or nightcaps –

[Laughter]

Sarah: – but there was banter. Now, one of the things I thought was so interesting was that you have, you know, banter and people challenging each other and, you know, the super weird awkwardness of, you know, running into your one-night stand and then having a really long, extended time hanging out with your one-night stand, ‘cause that’s not awkward. It’s not like it’s an elevator! You’re hanging out! So the, the hero is a stunt man, and he’s from Puerto Rico, and in the conversations, in between the jokes and the sarcasm, he also talks about Hurricane Maria and the destruction and how that is something that he carries with him, along with all of the, you know, abs and sarcasm. Which is, you know, as it should be.

Mia: Right!

Sarah: What do you rely on when you’re, when you’re balancing reality and comedy? That’s a really hard balance!

Mia: So when I was writing Crashing into Her and I knew that my hero was going to be Puerto Rican, and I knew that I, I couldn’t write a book without mentioning Hurricane Maria, it’s just as an author it felt important to, to acknowledge that as something, and to acknowledge it as a failing, really, in terms of how we handled it, and I think the, the balance comes from creating a character that feels as real to you as someone you actually know, and if, if the person is Puerto Rican and has family there, like I do, then that is part of them, and it’s going to be a part of the conversations that they have, and to not have it there is almost like you’re, you’re, you’re making the person just a random person, as opposed to who you know they really are. And it’s really easy for me to see who this person really is, because their experience is my experience, and so, you know, so weaving that as something that two characters can talk about, but that also, I think when you think about the Happily Ever After, I think you want to give the reader confidence that these two people in the real world will make it, and so having a conversation where they talk about Puerto Rico and she agrees with him on, you know, sort of his take I think for many readers will make them confident that those two together will be okay, because they’re on the same page on those kinds of issues that matter, and so I think it’s just about, you know, kind of creating the real person and all of the experiences that you think that person would react to and just putting that in a conversation.

Sarah: That makes a lot of sense. And it also makes the world of the book real, because you can connect it to your world. You know that this is the same, ‘cause that’s the, I think that’s really the challenge for a lot of contemporary romance authors. You have to build a world that’s real to every reader when everyone’s contemporary experiences are immediate and happening and different, so it is, it is, it is important, like you said, to acknowledge what’s actually happening in the world of the book that’s happening in the world of, that we live in. Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s a really –

Tracey: Particularly when it affects them.

Mia: Yeah.

Sarah: Yes! And it’s something they carry.

Mia: Yes.

Sarah: Like, it’s a, it’s like a –

Tracey: Exactly.

Sarah: – like a hurt or a bruise; you’re just going to walk around with that.

Mia: Yeah. We think a lot about, like, quirks and, you know, what is this thing that the character does all of the time?

Sarah: Yeah.

Mia: But, you know, it’s just as important to think, what is the character thinking all the time? What are the things that are important to the character?

Sally: Yeah.

Sarah: Now, Sally, in your books, you write from a very deep point of view of one character, which is really fascinating because you allow your readers to, like, fully decorate a room in that character’s head. Like, we brought interior decorating magazine, we’ve got a couch, a couple of chairs; like, we are living in their head very much, and it’s a very fun experience. How – one of the thing – and, and I have to say, like I said before, I love the level of sarcasm. I, I, I do love a good sarcasm? – How do you choose, then, when you’re deep, deep, deep in the point of view, how do you choose how much to reveal about the characters they’re interacting with? Because it’s obviously filtered through their perspective –

Sally: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – but for the reader, you’re building other characters. How do you choose how much to reveal for the other POV?

Sally: Okay, well, yes, you’re right, I’m really in one person’s head, and it’s actually probably, I probably actually write, prefer to write in the third person. Like, if I was left to my own devices and no one was ever going to read it, I like writing like I’m God, and I know what everyone’s thinking. But for a book like The Hating Game, I think I, maybe I started out writing it in third person, but realized very quickly on, you know, probably in the first chapter, that it wasn’t going to work, because the experience that I want the reader to have is that they are in her tiny little shoes –

[Laughter]

Sally: – and they are in that office, and they are across from that guy, and I just, like, I couldn’t achieve that kind of feeling of intensity by be-, being outside and, and looking in.

So I’ve continued that in 99 Percent Mine, and I had a few challenges with this book. Like, I, I set myself a few difficult tasks? So for people who haven’t read it here, it’s about two twins, a boy and a girl, and they inherit a cottage from their grandmother, and the twins are in the middle of, like, a World War III fight, like the worst – they fight all the time; this is the worst fight that they’ve ever had. And the brother’s best friend arrives to help them renovate the cottage for sale, so this is a riff on a, like a brother’s best friend trope, but I’ve changed it slightly, ‘cause I didn’t like, in brother’s best friend, how it was often, you know, the brother saying to his friend, keep your hands off my little sister. Like, I, in –

Sarah: I’m with you there.

Sally: Yeah, I, I didn’t like that, and so in this case, it’s the brother saying to his sister, keep your hands off my best friend.

[Laughter]

Sally: And she, she tries really hard, but it, but it’s tough. It’s tough. It’s also a forced proximity situation, which is another one of my personal catnips. Love it when people get snowed in; you know, it’s just like, darn, so much snow!

Sarah: It’s like you’re speaking, speaking to my soul right now. Those are all of my favorites.

Mia: Yeah. One bed!

[Laughter]

Sally: Yeah. There is one bed in that cabin that is smothered in snow right to the ceiling.

Tracey: Yes, yes. And, and body heat. They need body heat.

Sally: Oh, okay! Okay, can someone get us a laptop, because I think we’re about to write something here.

[Laughter]

Sally: So anyway, the, this, the other challenge that I had was that I chose characters that all knew each other their whole lives. So that is a really hard thing to establish really early on without going on for too much that, you know, how do these people know each other, and what is their dynamic, and, and what do they think, what does she think of him? The, the guy, the love interest, Tom Valeska, a.k.a. the World’s Most Perfect Man, and I think, like, specific to this question, I think that, the challenge was that Darcy has a twin brother called Jamie, and Jamie isn’t in the book, like, in person in a scene for most of the book, but I had to have him there with her all of the time. My mum’s a twin, she’s got a twin brother, and I’ve always been really interested in that dynamic, and so I, I just really needed Jamie to be this presence always, and he’s always the, the thought that she returns back to. It’s like he’s, he’s there invisibly –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sally: – judging and, like, tormenting, and so, I had so many people say to me, like, oh, I hated that guy Jamie! And I’m like, yeah, I made you hate him, because Darcy thought she, you know, Darcy pretty much hated him in the beginning. So by the time Jamie arrives and steps out of the car and walks into the scene, I’m hoping that you guys all felt that you knew him, and he – yeah, it, it was a, a difficult thing to try to achieve, and I hope that I did, but yeah, I think I’ll continue writing in that first person, just because I think that it lets me leave the love interest a little mysterious, and that’s my favorite kind of romance novel.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sally: I’ve had so many requests, including from my own mother, might I say, to write The Hating Game from Josh’s point of view, and my mum has titled it The Loving Game –

[Laughter]

Sally: – and –

Sarah: All right, so show of hands: all in favor? All right, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll begin nagging shortly.

Sally: Don’t worry; if my mum can’t get me to do it, then no one can.

[Laughter]

Sally: But I just, I just really love that you’ll never know exactly what those guys are thinking, and like I said before, I love books where you just feel like if you just read this bit one more time, it’s just going to, like, sort of like kaleidoscope twist around, and you’re going to –

Sarah: Ohhh, yeah!

Sally: – finally understand what he meant, or what that look meant, but the reason why I like leaving those little uncertainties in there is because then the reader uses their imagination, and as soon as you finish a book and put it out there, it’s no longer my book; it’s our book. We all share it together, and I really enjoy thinking that little bits of it all are yours now.

Sarah: That’s lovely!

Sally: That was beautiful, right?

Mia: Yeah.

Sarah: You were being entirely sarcastic, weren’t you?

[Laughter]

Sarah: All right, so we have one, we have one more question, and then we’re going to open up to the audience, and I always ask this of any podcast guests, so I’m going to ask you guys. Do you have a book or books that you would like to recommend that make you feel happy, that you want to tell everyone about?

Sally: Well, it’s no secret that I am, like, a Christina Lauren fangirl? I love those girls; they’re really good friends of mine. If, if anyone doesn’t know, they’re two people writing under the penname of Christina Lauren, so Christina and Lauren, and like I said right at the beginning, like, for them, like, for me they’re an author where I can always count on that they’re always going to come through for me, that the book is going to be just a really well-developed world with people that have full lives, and you just step into it, and you’re just, like, pulled along with it. So I loved, like, Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating. That was one where I, like, I remember actually having to, like, physically prevent myself from wetting myself –

[Laughter]

Sally: – which, like, is, I mean, like, so often in books you’re like, huh, or like, LOL, but like, that, that one was, that one was like, I came close, guys, to, yeah. [Laughs] I came close, and, like, I also read an advanced copy of their upcoming book The Unhoneymooners, which is just, like – I don’t know how they keep getting better and better with each release, but they do.

And another great book that’s coming out soon is Fix Her Up by Tessa Bailey?

Tracey: Yes.

Sally: And I really think that’s going to be a big book when it comes out. I think that’s going to be one that everyone’s talking about, because it’s just so endearing; so funny; like, hot as hell, but, like, also just balanced with that real sweetness and really real characters and really great internal motivators, so those are some of my recommendations.

Sarah: Nice!

Mia: I’m going to go with one, one that I read recently. I basically read novellas because – [laughs] – ‘cause I’m writing all the time and I don’t have time to read a lot of books, but I read Phyllis Bourne’s Feud, and it is so funny. It, basically, the story is there are two neighbors: a woman who learns that, as a result of her, a family member’s death, she’s inherited a home, and she’s inherited a home next to the owner of the home of a family that has been in a feud with her family for decades. And she also learns that there’s an additional clause in the will that basically would give her an additional two hundred and fifty thousand dollars if she somehow gets this guy out of the neighborhood. So – and he has the same clause in his will. So their goal is basically to get rid of each other, and the things that they do are so hilarious, including a scene where he is mowing his lawn, and she is about to go to an, a job interview, and all of the grass clippings get all over her suit, and she manages to get it off, but doesn’t realize that it has also gotten trapped in her afro, and so she is at the interview with grass clippings – [laughs] – and it, I mean, just the visuals in this, the things that they do to each other, including, he finds himself on the roof, and she ends up taking her ladder so he’s stuck on the roof. I mean, it is so adorable, and she, she is one of those writers who breaks the wall, and so she’s actually talking to the reader, and so there, you know, you’ll get this sort of, you know, stop judging me; I know I did something really badly here. But it has just that feel. It is something that I guarantee you, you will laugh at.

Sarah: Awesome. Game on?

Tracey: Yeah. I’m the worst. I was, like, looking at my Kindle app trying to find books and authors, ‘cause I can’t remember anything. And –

Sarah: Oh, it’s okay; I can’t either.

Tracey: Yeah, and I’m writing right now, and so I tend to not read when I’m writing. I’m actually reading nonfiction. I’m reading the new View book, which is – [laughs] – oh, it’s some stuff! So, but I think the, the last romance novel I read was a novella. It was Adriana Anders’ Loving the Secret Billionaire, which is really good. He’s hot; he’s blind – [whispers] – he’s a virgin! It’s –

[Laughter]

Sarah: And a secret billionaire!

Tracey: And a secret –

Sally: Yes.

Sarah: Is there only one bed and they’re stuck in the snow?

[Laughter]

Tracey: No –

Sarah: That’s fine.

Tracey: No, but –

Sarah: ‘Cause he’s hot and –

Tracey: – he lives out in the woods, though. He’s reclusive.

Sarah: Oh that works! Okay, yeah!

Tracey: Yes, yes. So, and he’s very talented with his fingers, ‘cause he’s a computer guy, but get your minds out the gutter!

[Laughter]

Tracey: So that was the last book that I read.

Sarah: Some of you are writing this down, aren’t you?

[Laughter]

Tracey: But yeah, that’s the last one that, that was good.

Sarah: Awesome! All right, audience question time? Who has questions? Who wants to ask questions? Don’t be shy! I have more questions. Okay, go ahead.

Audience member: Oh! Well, thank you!

Sarah: If you would like, okay, if you would like to have your question included in the podcast, just go ahead, and if not, tap the microphone three times and I’ll know to take it out. But introduce yourself and ask your question, please.

Audience member: Ooh, that’s a lot! I’m fine with it; don’t worry about it.

Sarah: Cool, dude, thanks! I have to get consent; it’s a thing.

Audience member: Isn’t DC single-, single-party consent?

Sarah: DC is single-party, but I live in Maryland, so I operate under dual-party consent.

Audience member: Ahh! Look at you! One of my questions – and Sally, I’m so sorry; I haven’t read your books yet – but I’m very familiar with you two, Tracey and Mia. One of the things that I really love about both of y’all’s books is that you bring in things from your own personal lives, like you’re Puerto Rican; your son having, being on the spectrum. Did you, how do you navigate that line between something that you really want to bring in your own life and make it real for the reader but also getting too personal? I was wondering about that.

Mia: Well, I just shared a bunch of TMI, so I’m not sure that I’m the best person to ask this question! There – I think the line for me is the stuff that I bring out in my life is the stuff that’s funny. And there is emotional stuff, there’s no question, but I try and minimize kind of anything that I know personally is something that’s going to hurt me as I read, ‘cause if it hurts me as I read it might hurt a reader to read the same thing, and for me the biggest thing is that I don’t want to do harm. I want people to pick up my books and feel comfortable and know that the world that I’ve created is one that they’ll, they’ll end up happy in, just like my characters. There’s no question that there are things that I include that are part of my personal life that aren’t sort of like ha-ha-ha, you know, including sort of the, the push and pull. In one of my books, Acting on Impulse, there is a push and pull between the heroine and her family. She’s a personal trainer, her family owns a Puerto Rican restaurant, and they have this tension because her father has had a stroke, and she’s very worried about the fact that if he continues to eat the wonderful foods that the restaurant offers that she, he’s going to get sick again. And, and those are things that are like real tensions, you know, but it, but the, the arc of that secondary conflict is one that I think ends up happily. They end up – should I say this? I guess it’s spoiler-y! It, but they end up, you know, doing a, a cookbook that basically takes their Puer-, traditional Puerto Rican foods and makes them, they’re lighter fare, and that’s kind of sort of one of the ways that I approach it, because it’s something that I do with my own mother. I remember one Thanksgiving – we always make empanadas; that’s why it’s my comfort food – in our house, and one Thanksgiving I, I told her that I was going to make baked empanadas.

[Laughter]

Mia: You could imagine her response. She was looking at me like, what? Baked! We don’t bake empanadas. But I did it, and she loved it! So, you know, so those things do come up, and you, you show those kinds of tensions, but do them in a light way. That’s kind of how I try and balance it.

Tracey: I mean, I would just say that I sort of, I’d get inspiration from things in my life, like, you know, my son has Asperger’s, and so thinking about him is what sort of led me to write a romance with a hero that was on the spectrum. So, you know, my son is only fifteen, so – [laughs] – it’s not quite the same, but the emotion that I have, you know, for him, the love that I have for him, I, I hope translated into the story, and so in that way I sort of take from my personal life, but it’s not too much, because it’s not, you know, the real situation. And it’s sort of like the same with my daughter with the amnesia book. My daughter is thirteen now, but when she was five, we found out that she had a tu-, a brain tumor the size of a walnut attached to a cyst the size of a softball, and –

Sarah: Good heavens!

Tracey: Yes. But it was – just, long story short, she’s fine! [Laughs] We are all good, but they think it was slow, a slow-growing thing, and so for years she was a very sort of quiet – I don’t want to tear up, but she’s very sort of quiet little girl, and after the surgery my husband, like, made me go home, because the surgery was in Richmond and we lived in Fredericksburg, and he’s like, go home. I have two boys; he’s like, see them, take a shower, come back, and when I went back, she was awake from the surgery, and she was just like, blah blah blah blah! And blah-blah-blah! And Daddy, bring me chicken nuggets! And I want smoothies! And, like, the nurse, you know, like, everyone was just like so sort of charmed by her, and I was like, who is this little girl? Because that is not who I let wheel, you know, let them wheel into the operating room. But, you know, her personality had changed because this thing that, you know, had been inside her for a while that she didn’t know was not normal – I mean, that was her life – was now gone, and so that sort of thinking and emotion led to that book, even though it wasn’t the same situation. And so that’s sort of how I take from my life into the books, and then I’ll just throw random funny things in, like in that same book, the hero, the heroine describes the hero’s laugh, and it’s the way my husband laughs, and it always cracks me up and makes me happy, and so I’ll put little things like that, but nothing that’s too TMI, that anyone would, you know, that he would be worried about.

Sarah: Unlike Mia.

Mia: I know. I like those situations.

Sarah: I heard that.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Oh my gosh, I’ve got lots of questions. I got one over here; I got one over here. Ma’am? Yes. Come on up! No, that’s all right. I’ve done that.

Audience member: So my questions are for Sally. Sorry that I’m blocking people. I’m part of your Flamethrowers group, so I –

Sally: Oh, hey!

Audience member: – have followed you for a while it feels like, but I actually have two questions. So the first is, I really enjoy hearing your sort of behind-the-scenes when you were writing the books. [Digital buzzing] I’ll just, whoops. [Digital buzzing stops] Like, for example, when you read the first chapter, your, the first draft version of the first chapter –

Sally: In the, in the read-along?

Audience member: Yes, exactly.

Sally: Yep, mm-hmm.

Audience member: And also when there was the sex scene that it was originally reversed.

Sally: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm?

Audience member: Yeah. So I’m curious if there’s any other interesting sort of behind-the-scenes story of things that you’ve changed. I know you’ve mentioned, like, for both books, that they ran long, and then you had to edit them down –

Sally: Mm-hmm.

Audience member: – and I’m curious if you lost anything in those, in that editing process that, I don’t know, you were sad to lose. So that was my question one. Question two is if you have any movie update news.

[Laughter]

Sally: Okay. Well, yes, for 99 Percent Mine, I, I wrote it as a hundred thousand words, because that’s what The Hating Game was. The Hating Game was a big book. I, I don’t, guys, I still don’t know what I’m doing here. I, I just, I’ve only got two books, and I was just like, okay, I guess I’ll just do, write it the same as the first one, so I turned in a hundred thousand words, and the editor read through, and she was like, oh, I think this can be a shorter book than this. I think we can just tighten this up. So I did lose twenty thousand words, which, it was hard at the time, but because I’m, I recognize that I’m, like, a little newborn baby author that doesn’t know much, and I have a very good editor who works with some really top authors, I thought, she knows what’s best for the story and for the pacing of this, so I mean, I did wince a little bit when I got my, my computer mouse and I dragged, dragged all the way down, and I dragged and I dragged and I dragged all the way down many pages, and then I went Delete. It was a –

Tracey: You cut and you paste to a Deleted Scene folder –

Sally: Oh, is that what I should have done? I should have saved all that for bonus material! Oh!

Tracey: Yeah!

Sarah: You don’t kill your darlings? You relocate them to another folder.

[Laughter]

Sally: These are the things that I’m learning here. I’m, like, really learning, like, I should have saved that for, like, a newsletter or something like that. Look, I can’t think about it too much, as to whether I lost something that was too important to me. I’ve got to kind of like leave that behind. The book’s done now, and I have to just accept that I kind of did my job. I, I, I produced the best book that I think that I could at the time, considering the, like, crushing writer’s block that I struggled with. Which, everyone knows that I did. Like, having a book like The Hating Game happen and then everybody saying to you, I can’t wait for your next book, it’s, like, such a lovely thing to say, but also just the hardest thing to hear, because it’s, it’s me feeling like I’ve got to, I’ve got to come up with it again. I have to try to give you guys feelings again, and I wasn’t sure if I could do it. I wasn’t sure if I was just like a, like a one-hit wonder, and there were times when I wondered, maybe I should just have one great book and then fade into obscurity again. So, yeah, look, there, there, there was, in, in those twenty thousand words, of course there were scenes that I enjoyed writing, and I, I felt like they added to the story, but ultimately I just took the advice of the professionals, and I think I’m happy with how it turned out.

And as for your second question about the movie? So if you guys don’t know, The Hating Game was optioned fairly soon after it came out, and we had to kind of keep that under wraps for a while, because they wanted to actually get some, get some stuff done. Like, you know, books get optioned all the time, and then nothing happens, but in this case, the production company were, like, really passionate about the book. They really got the book, and they wanted to, like, kind of do right by it, so they hired a really great screenwriter, and so the screenplay was written, not by me, but I got to have input into it, which is great! I didn’t actually expect that I would be able to. I kind of just thought that, you know, from there on I would just be, like, kind of in the dark, but they, they gave it to me, and it was a really cool moment to read your book in a script format, you know, like, all formatted out, you know, like, you know, SCENE and EXTERIOR and, like, you know.

[Laughter]

Sally: I was just, I was just like kind of freaking out. I studied film when I went to university, and so that was just like a really cool moment for me. So that was completed, and guys, honestly, it would be such a great movie. It’s, like, I’m so happy with the, the screenplay is just incredible. It’s so funny, it’s so fast-paced, and she also thought of some things, like, that I kind of wish that I’d thought of, which is also, like, it’s, like, a little hard on the ego sometimes when you just, like, you read through it and you’re like, oh yeah, that’s better.

[Laughter]

Sally: And then they attached a director, David Mirkin, who – I mean, for me, he’s always going to be most famous for directing Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion –

Audience: Ohhh!

Sally: – so, I mean, like that “Time after Time” scene at the end, guys, we know that he can do, like, ridiculous and funny really well. And so yeah, now it’s in that kind of like mysterious no-man’s land of, like, you know, where, de-, development, where I sound, like, really mysterious, but it’s because I honestly don’t know what happens next.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sally: I’ve, I’ve never known what happens next. This entire experience for me, from the day that I got my deal, I’ve had, like, zero expectations for anything. I’ve just been pleasantly surprised every single time. When The Hating Game came out, I was just, you know, like, if I get, like, one person that loves this book, then I’ll feel like I did it, and I achieved what I wanted to, so constantly, mildly astonished and confused. I think that’s probably my tagline.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Astonished and mildly confused?

Sally: Yep.

Sarah: Well, I think that is our time. Is that correct?

[Indistinct reply]

Sarah: One more question? Oh dear. Nobody on this side of the room? Yep, all right, one in the back. Yes, sir.

Audience member: Truth in advertising. I am not a romance fan, and I’m here by proxy for my sister.

[Laughter]

Audience member: – North Carolina, and she’s eight months pregnant, and so –

Audience: Aw!

Audience member: – she told me to be here, and I came.

[Laughter]

Audience member: By coincidence –

Sarah: You are so off the hook for a baby gift.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Like, you don’t have to get anything.

Audience member: Coincidentally, I did read an article, a publication I’m forgetting, about Danielle Steel earlier this week –

Sally: Yeah.

Audience member: – and it was saying that she’s gotten no respect for the prolific reality of her career –

Sally: Mm-hmm?

Audience member: – and just the, the vast number of sales and production volume and everything, and so I ask the question that, do you think it’s just blatant sexism?

Sarah: Yes.

Audience member: Or –

[Laughter]

Audience member: – do you think there’s a turning point for when the genre as a whole and the writers as a whole will gain the respect that they may deserve for just the sheer quantity, for the sheer amount of volume of people that love them?

Sarah: Yep.

Mia: Oof!

Sally: I, I read that interview with Danielle Steel, and it made me really sad.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sally: It struck me as someone who was writing from a place of deep loneliness and maybe some, like, disappointments in her life, and I found it really sad that, that she said in the interview that her kids weren’t really that aware of her success. She, I think she’s got a lot of kids, doesn’t she? Like, how many kids does Danielle Steel have? Like, I want to say like seven or something like that. Like, like, a lot. She’s got a lot of kids.

[Laughter]

Sally: Luckily she can afford them. [Laughs] And she said something along the lines of, you know, my kids don’t know that I’m famous; they don’t know what my career is, and it struck me as really sad, because I want them to know. I want them to know that she’s the, the highest-selling author alive right now and that she’s, like, achieved the most incredible successes that, like, any of us here up on this stage, like, you know, like, it’s incredible! Like, and so I just wish that, especially for her daughters, that they would know what their mother had achieved. I, I, I feel like maybe she was trying to frame it in, like, she’s protecting them so that they don’t know that they’re, like, crazy rich, but –

Sarah: Nah, they know.

[Laughter]

Sally: Yeah.

Sarah: I’ve seen the interior of her apartment. They know!

[Laughter]

Sally: And yeah, so I just wish that her kids, that, that she could feel more proud of herself to tell her kids, you know, that this is, this is the legacy that she’s created and leaving behind. But yeah, I do think that it is sexism, and she also mentioned in that interview that she had an ex-husband that really belittled her career and said that he, you know, she, she never felt like she was able to be proud of herself, and so, I mean, I, I left reading that interview just feeling sad and disappointed for someone that has achieved so much and should be so proud, but –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sally: – just hasn’t had the, hasn’t allowed herself to, to feel the full experience, and yeah, I do think that there is, it, well, yeah, it’s, when people, when you say you’re a romance writer, I think that, yeah, there’s a lot of sexism, and people don’t seem to want to attach as much worth to women’s enjoyment and experiences as men’s.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. I’ve been writing Smart Bitches for fourteen years, and I’ve been reading romance for longer than that, so basically, I write about romance, but I also write about the writing about romance, and for many, many years it was crap, and there was this sort of – okay, we all, like, go into a bunker in February, because that – right?

[Laughter]

Sarah: That’s when the media’s like, oh, it’s Valentine’s Day, and then there’s those books with Fabio! Let’s go talk about sex and find a romance author for dating advice! And we’re all like, oh my God, everybody get the wine; we’re going in the bunker now.

Tracey: Do you practice the scenes that you write? Heh-heh-heh-heh!

[Laughter, applause]

Sarah: Oh yeah, I got asked, I, I, when I did an interview on live television – which, which wasn’t, you know, my mouth wasn’t dry enough – I got asked about my sex life on live TV, and I’m writing about romance! I didn’t even write a romance at that point! Oh yeah! There’s a presumption that if you’re writing romance, that there’s an enormous amount of assumptions that are going to be made about you as a writer, as a reader, and about the books. I would like to be optimistic and think that the tide has begun to turn, because there are more outlets that have significant power behind their mastheads that are looking at romance without the forty to fifty percent of, oh yeah, that; we’ve got to talk about it once a year; where they talk about it more than once a year. And then there’s journalists like Kelly Faircloth at Jezebel, who is amazing when she writes about romance, and there are people who are like, no, no, wait, hold on, time out; we actually need to take this seriously, not just because it’s sex and that’s fun to write about, ‘cause then we get page views and get clickbait, but also because this is a viable and important genre, and it is a massive part of the publishing industry; we need to take this seriously. I see more of that, but I still see, like, the bingo card of, all right, you mentioned Fabio –

Tracey: That was Mia.

Sarah: Yeah?

Tracey: She wrote the Bingo card?

[Indistinct talk]

Sarah: Yeah! Oh yeah! Oh yeah.

Tracey: – drinking game or whatever.

Mia: The drinking game.

Sarah: Yeah, Mia did a drinking game. I did a whole series of workouts, because I’m evil. And the first one was, like, romance novels, like if, if, if someone feels bereft when the heroine leaves the room, you have to do ten pushups, ‘cause I’m a terrible person.

[Laughter]

Sarah: But the, the drinking game and the romance publicity, or it’s-February-everybody-head-to-the-bunker coverage, there’s still that same sort of sexism. I think it was Nora Roberts who said that it’s the hat trick of easy targets: it’s relationships, emotions, and sex, and the more we take those three things seriously, which I think we’re beginning to do culturally, the more the tone of the coverage of the genre will change. Plus, it’s really hard to ignore a genre when on a Thursday night in DC you have a room full of people here to talk about it! So thank you, guys, for being part of that change!

And I think this is our time, correct? Thank you guys so much for coming!

Destinee: Thank you, guys. Thank you.

[Applause]

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. I want to thank everyone at East City Bookshop again for allowing me to record the panel, and to Sally and Tracey and Mia, you were outstanding. Thank you especially to everyone who came out on a Thursday night and made that such a fun experience for everyone.

I have another conversation at East City Books coming up May 8th. I will be in conversation with Rachel Hawkins at the East City Bookshop, talking about her new release Her Royal Highness. You can find out more at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books in the Event tab and in the links to the show notes.

I will also have links to where you can find Sally Thorne, Tracey Livesay, and Mia Sosa all over the internet so that you can follow them, sign up for their newsletters, and find out about their newest books. And of course I have links to all of the books that we talked about in the show notes as well.

If you want to get in touch with me, you can email me at sbjpodcast@gmail.com, or you can leave me a message and tell me a joke at 1-201-371-3272. Just leave a message, tell us what you’re thinking, tell me a terrible joke; I love those.

This week’s podcast episode is being brought to you by Radish. You can discover a world where storytelling is reimagined with Radish, an app with thousands of romance stories from bestselling authors like Lisa Renee Jones, Kelley Armstrong, Julie Kenner, and Sylvia Day, all in bite-size chapters, perfect to read on your morning commute, your lunch break, or before bed. Or all of the above, if you’re like me. You can enjoy epic romances full of everything from billionaire bosses and tattooed bad boys to sexy vampires and paranormal shifters. You can join live chat rooms and interact with readers and authors who love the same stories you do. They have a fresh collection of original stories written by some of daytime TV’s top Emmy-winning writers, bingeable, fast-paced stories you won’t find anywhere else. You can dive into Gita’s outrageous dating life as she joins a shifter-only dating app. Her super-sexy date Reece Darby turns out to be a human, and there’s crazy sexual chemistry. Makes it hard to believe he’s really not into shifters. You can also join virginal college student Ali Calloway in Fraternity Madam, who becomes an overnight success running an escort service with the fraternity boys next door. Or maybe you’re interested in romantic fantasies like Heart of Dragons, where a woman is ripped away from her dashing fiancé to be sacrificed to the dragons that live beneath the earth, only to find herself falling in love with a very powerful dragon prince. Whatever you are interested in, Radish has it all. You can download the app in the Google Play store or in the Apple store for free today and begin your adventure on Radish.

This week’s transcript is being brought to you by the Patreon community. Thank you, everyone, for helping underwrite the transcripts every week so that every episode is accessible. And thank you to garlicknitter for transcribing each and every one! [You’re welcome! – gk]

If you would like to join the Patreon community, it would be wonderful to have you. Have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Monthly pledges start at one entire dollar every month, and goals are good, so I have some. All of the information is at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Your support of the show means a lot, so thank you very, very much.

If you want to see us live, I will recap the details real quick. You ready? Here we go. If you’re attending Book Lovers Con in New Orleans on May 16th at 3:30 local time at the Hyatt Regency, Amanda, Elyse, and I are doing a live podcast. You can join us! Imperial 5C. There’s a link to RSVP in the show notes. It’s free to attend if you’re already attending Book Lovers Con; we just need to know how many chairs. That’s really it. We hope that if you’re going you’ll join us, because live shows are so much fun, and we love meeting you in person.

The music you are listening to is from Sassy Outwater. This is Caravan Palace. This track is called “Queens,” obviously, for obvious reasons. You can find this track on their double-album set Caravan Palace and Panic, which is available at Amazon or iTunes, and you can find Caravan Palace on their website at caravanpalace.com.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a band that had a MySpace page; I think I need to go find some.

Coming up on the website, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, that goes with this here podcast, it is time for Whatcha Reading? We’re getting into your reading business twice a month, and we want to know what, what are you reading? We’re going to tell you what we’re reading; you’re going to tell us what you’re reading; we’re all going to buy new books; but you knew that, because this is not your first rodeo.

Next week, we have some reviews of new fiction, a new edition of Cover Snark, and since it’s the first of the month, we’re going to be talking about all the May titles we’re looking forward to, and wow, is that a big list. Plus, we have Books on Sale every day and Help a Bitch Out on Tuesdays. I hope you will stop by and join us.

I will have links to all of the things that we talked about during this conversation, and I will have links to all the books we mentioned, of course, in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast. Yes, I can type that as fast as I say it, now that I think about it.

And as always, I end each episode with a terrible joke, and this joke is from Kit, who has been emailing me terrific jokes for about a week now, and it is a freaking delight, so thank you, Kit. Are you ready? Bad joke? Bad joke, here we go:

What do you call a milking machine disruption at the dairy?

Duh-duh-duh. What do you call a milking machine disruption at the dairy?

Udder chaos.

[Laughs] I love – I just have this imaginary moment of all of you rolling your eyes at once. It’s glorious fun.

So on behalf of everyone here, with special thanks to everyone who made this episode possible, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend. We will see you back here next week.

[regal music]