475. Badass Anthologies and Vintage YA with Dahlia Adler

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello there, and welcome to episode number 475 – whoo! – of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and my guest today is YA author, reviewer, and editor Dahlia Adler. We’re going to talk about all the bad-ass anthologies she’s editing, about her upcoming book Home Field Advantage and her latest novel Cool for the Summer, and inspired by a recent Instagram pic of her Bantam Love Stories collection, we also talk about vintage YA romances.

And HEADS UP: in that part of the conversation we do discuss the fatphobia in Sweet Valley High.

If you would like to see or check out the Instagram or the books we talk about, have a look at the show notes, where I will have links to every possible thing you could possibly imagine.

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[music]

Dahlia Adler: I’m Dahlia Adler. I am an author of mostly Young Adult, but during the phase of New Adult, I had some of those novels as well. I also founded a website called LGBTQ Reads, which curates LGBTQ+ book recs for all ages, and I blog for BuzzFeed Books. And among my books are, most recently, my novel Cool for the Summer, which is sort of bisexual Grease with better life choices –

[Laughter]

Dahlia: – as I like to put it! And right before that I had an anthology, also YA, called That Way Madness Lies, which is all reimaginings of Shakespeare’s works. And coming up I have a Sapphic sports romance, also YA, called Home Field Advantage, coming in June 2022, and then right after that will be another anthology called At Midnight, which is all fairytale reimaginings. So generally busy. [Laughs]

Sarah: Lots of things to ask you about here. First of all, I am going to sound like such a creeper that I’m, like, stalking your Instagram, but I saw you just got a shiny, brand-new, bound manuscript of your book!

Dahlia: I did! I’m so excited about it. I can’t even tell you what, like, pulling teeth this book was over years, and it, like, it was literally written over the course of two different maternity leaves.

Sarah: Wow!

Dahlia: [Laughs] It’s basically, I never would have finished it this year except that I had maternity leave. Or finished it last year. And so that’s how I, I was able to do it, but it was such a struggle to – you know, there were all these things I kind of wanted it to be, and I couldn’t get it all together with, like, what the book needed to be and what it was going to be in a, you know, a really constructive direction. So it took some time and some outside counsel, but I am so, so happy to just hold Home Field Advantage in my hands I can’t get over it.

Sarah: So what will readers find inside Home Field Advantage?

Dahlia: They will find the story of a romance between an aspiring cheer captain and the school’s new, very unwelcome first female quarterback. They will find queer solidarity. The cheerleader’s best friend is also on the football team, and he and she have had sort of a faux-mance going on for several reasons, you know, not least of which is to keep them both in the closet. They’re in the Florida panhandle, so, you know, they’re sort of biding their time until they can get somewhere that’s a little queer-friendlier. So you will definitely find that. It’s dual POV, which I actually haven’t done for romance, where the two characters are the main character and love interest?

Sarah: Right.

Dahlia: I’ve only done where they’re friends, so that’s new for me, which was really fun. Yeah! And you will find – [laughs] – football, and you will find cheerleading, and you will find kissing and flirting and banter and a weird bowling alley that’s sort of like if your grandmother lived in a Victorian Gothic brothel kind of vibe?

[Laughter]

Dahlia: That’s my favorite thing. My favorite scene is, yeah, set, set there. And you will find dealing with misogyny and secrets and betrayal and conversations about coming out, and, and if you’re familiar with published queer Young Adult fiction, it’s like very much a mashup of She Drives Me Crazy by Kelly Quindlen and Like Other Girls by Britta Lundin with a little bit of Some Girls Do by Jennifer Dugan.

Sarah: Wow!

Dahlia: Yeah. Which, when I started it, it was not like anything. If you’re familiar with the – it was a photograph that ran in the New York Times that inspired the whole book, and it’s a photograph of a cheerleader doing a female football player’s hair, and at the time everybody went nuts over it, assuming that it was a couple, and it turns out that they weren’t, but it was too late. Like –

Sarah: Yep.

Dahlia: – the fire was ignited: I was writing this book. That was the dream. So – [laughs] –

Sarah: Wow!

Dahlia: – so, so excited to be able to bring, like, the fake story behind that picture to life? That was, that was really, really fun.

Sarah: And it sounds like you’re writing into existence worlds that you want to be in, so not only do you have a queer-friendly setting, but you also have this outstanding bowling alley, so you’re basically writing your ideal universe into being.

Dahlia: I, that’s, that’s why I got into writing.

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: So I, I am, am somebody who is, I’m Modern Orthodox Jewish; like, religion is a part of my life, and it’s –

Sarah: L’shana tova, by the way.

Dahlia: Oh, thank you! To you as well!

Sarah: Thank you very much!

Dahlia: And I enjoy it! Like, there’s, there’s a lot about the life that I love, but there were also things that, you know, I was, I wasn’t going to be living.

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: You know, so I grew up reading, like, Sweet Valley High, and I was like, this, like, going to the diner and everybody wearing bikinis on the beach situation is really fun, but that’s not going to be my future.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Dahlia: But, you know, it hit me at some point, like, literally when I was a teen and I’m reading these books, like, but I can self-insert into, you know – so the way that some people self-insert into, like, the dreamiest romance?

Sarah: Yes.

Dahlia: I self-insert into, like, the most mundane, you know, like –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Dahlia: – your most average day of Saved by the Bell is like, yeah, I’m going to self-insert into that. Am I dating myself tremendously? I’m sorry; I definitely am.

Sarah: Oh no, I’m with you. I, I, one of my gateways into romance was Sweet Valley High, for sure.

Dahlia: Yeah, I think you’ve seen my Sweet Valley High collection; I posted a picture of it on Instagram before.

Sarah: I have!

Dahlia: I know you saw my Love Stories and, yeah, all those things.

Sarah: I’m going to ask you about that –

Dahlia: [Laughs] Okay!

Sarah: – in just a minute, so stand by.

Dahlia: Yeah.

Sarah: I also, like I said, I swear I’m not Instagram-stalking you.

Dahlia: No, please!

Sarah: I sound like such a creeper, but you have a one-year-old pandemic baby, too!

Dahlia: I do! It’s his birthday today. 

Sarah: Oh my gosh! Happy birthday! Mazel tov to all of you!

Dahlia: Thank you, yeah! I just, like, I, it’s very hard to keep my head together with all the different passage of things: holidays upcoming and him turning one and books, books, books everywhere. And I have a day job – [laughs] – which –

Sarah: Oh, well, I mean, piece of cake!

Dahlia: – let’s pretend I’m doing right now.

Sarah: Yeah! For sure!

Dahlia: So –

Sarah: Shh! Don’t tell!

Dahlia: – yeah, it’s been a lot, and having a pandemic baby is like, you have this wonderful bright spot –

Sarah: Yep!

Dahlia: – in, in all of this, but there are so many – just thinking about how few people he’s encountered in his life, I’m like –

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: – he doesn’t have the play group his older brother had, and he doesn’t have the music classes his older brother had, and it’s – you know, that kind of thing is, is tough. So, there’s some real sunshine in the house.

Sarah: Let me ask you, let me ask you about your, your, what I call the bad-ass anthology collection.

Dahlia: [Laughs]

Sarah: You have edited some seriously bad-ass anthologies. You have another one coming out. How did these come to be? What is the process of assembling the bad-ass anthology?

Dahlia: I have two more coming out.

Sarah: Two!

Dahlia: The fourth one is going to be an out-, is, it’s about girls in sports, and I’m co-editing it with Jennifer Iacopelli, who is a sports maven. So that’s –

Sarah: Amazing!

Dahlia: – that’s a little different from the others, but I’m really excited about it. Out of Our League, coming Summer 2023! But the other three are more of a set: they’re all anthologies of reimaginings. And the, the origin story of them actually is that on Twitter I was randomly posing the question, if you could have any author retell any story, what would you choose?

Sarah: Ohhh!

Dahlia: And this woman, who’s actually a teacher, replied that she would love an Edgar Allan Poe anthology with – and she named a few authors, and I was like, I love that idea, but specifically with, and I named Stephanie Kuehn and Tiffany Jackson, who are just two brilliant psychological thriller authors –

Sarah: Right.

Dahlia: – who I just know would, like, you know, destroy Poe in the best way. And they both responded like, oh yeah, I would do that! And then other people started replying! I would do that! I would do that! And I was like, oh, hold on, this is actually going to happen. Let me get off Twitter –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Dahlia: – before I make an entire lineup this way, ‘cause I, I literally had half the lineup just from authors replying to me, and I was like, nonono. I love thrillers and horror and dark fantasy; like, I know who I want in this. Like, I’m not doing this without, you know, shooting off emails to, like, Lamar Giles and Caleb Roehrig and whatever. So, so I jumped off Twitter and I emailed them, and everybody was in. I mean, this was, this is an unusually smooth process. I didn’t have –

Sarah: Yeah!

Dahlia: – anybody say no. Everything was super fast. I didn’t have any agents that were impossible to contract with; that’s a whole separate nightmare. There’s a lot of logistical nightmares to anthologies, but –

Sarah: Yes, it’s a lot of agents; it’s a lot of people; it’s a lot of moving parts, which is one of the reasons –

Dahlia: Yeah.

Sarah: – why the bad-ass anthology is so impressive!

Dahlia: Yes. [Laughs] But the first one was like an unusually, incredibly smooth experience. So then I wrote a book proposal. Actually, for anybody’s who’s interested in doing this, you can look at my blog, which is dailydahlia.wordpress.com, and there’s a post on there called “So You Want to Edit a YA Anthology?” though I’ve heard it, it is applicable to other categories as well, and literally, my entire proposal is in there, so the premise and the target audience and, you know, those sales pitch aspects, which include why these authors are good choices for it, you know, and their merits and – so that was it, and that’s how His Hideous Heart happened.

And then, you know, I had a great relationship with my editor, Sarah Barley at Flatiron, who was so like, yes, we want to work together again, and then, like, who do you, the only author you might read more in American high schools than Poe is Shakespeare –

Sarah: Yep.

Dahlia: – so that, to me, was sort of an obvious next one, and, I mean, Shakespeare is retold a lot in YA –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Dahlia: – so I didn’t only want it full of authors who are already doing that. I wanted some authors who were already doing that, and then – so this was a little bit different with the lineup. With Poe, his body of work is, you know, like ninety percent that he, you know, he’s known for, like, these psychological thriller and horror-esque things –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Dahlia: – and then he has his detective stories.

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: So you’re really kind of dealing in not, you know, sort of an obvious pool of authors who do these particular types of books, but with Shakespeare, there’s the tragedies, there’s the histories, there’s the comedies. You can kind of dig in anywhere and pretty much anybody would have something to do with it.

Sarah: Yeah!

Dahlia: So for that it was a little bit more of an adventure putting people together. I searched on Twitter to see if anyone, any authors that I liked had actually talked about wanting to be in a Shakespeare anthology, ‘cause it was kind of an obvious idea that just nobody had ever done, and I saw A. R. Capetta and Joy McCullough had both mentioned that, and I think they’re both phenomenal, so I was like, please, please come write for me. The first big part is the outreach of names and the people you think will bring what you want to bring to the anthology, and it’s not as simple as having just your friends, and it’s not as simple –

Sarah: Right.

Dahlia: – as having just people who have experience with anthologies, and it’s not – you know, you want to bring new names that’ll be interesting, but familiar names that people already know and really want to read by, and you want to bring people who are tested in anthologies –

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: – because not everybody can write short fiction!

Sarah: No, short is hard!

Dahlia: Short is really hard –

Sarah: Short is very challenging!

Dahlia: – and there’s a lot of good authors who just don’t want to do it. I mean –

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: – that’s why you don’t see them in any anthologies: they turn them down because they’re like, I don’t think I can write short stories.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Dahlia: So – or I’ve tried and I hate it! So –

Sarah: It’s a little bit, so it sounds like it’s a little bit inspiration and a little bit of fearlessness, too. You’ve got to be like, hi! You don’t know me, but I’m doing this thing! Get a – and, and –

Dahlia: Yeah.

Sarah: One of my major life mottos is, run it up the flagpole; see who salutes?

Dahlia: Yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: See what’s up! Yeah!

Dahlia: Where you can do that, it’s great. The problem is they’ve become, anthologies have become almost like a status symbol somehow? So if you run it up the flagpole, everyone salutes.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Dahlia: Not everybody you reach out to responds, eventually. If you go door to door handing out flags, some people are like, here’s your flag back.

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: [Laughs] I’m not doing that. But, but it’s one of those things where so many people want to do it –

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: – that you end up have to be, you know, there’s, there’s people who, like, do open calls for that, and I’m like, that’s not me. I know what I want out of each collection. I know what vibes I want people to bring to it.

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: I know what kind of different voices I want and the different representation I want. I know what I’m looking for. So I am, I am very particular and thoughtful about, about who I approach. And I, I think we’ve had really good results from that –

Sarah: Yeah!

Dahlia: – and I have such a good partner in Flatiron, and Jon Contino is, like, the most amazing cover designer I could have ever dreamed, so I think my covers are awesome, which does not hurt.

Sarah: No! No. The, the Poe anthology cover was, like, it jumped out at you from across the room!

Dahlia: Yeah, I love it. So yeah! So that’s really the process is you do, so you do the lineup –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Dahlia: – and then, you know, you have to have everyone tell you what they’re doing before, so for example, so if you’re doing an anthology like this, like Poe, like Shakespeare, you have to make sure everybody’s not trying to retell the same story –

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: – so then everybody tell me your top three choices of what you want to do, and it’s shocking how little overlap there was?

Sarah: Really!

Dahlia: With both Poe and Shakespeare, yeah.

Sarah: Wow!

Dahlia: There was very little that had to be worked out. More with the fairy tales; fairy tales were more people kind of jumping on top of the same things?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Dahlia: Though not necessarily the stories you’d expect. And, but with, with Poe and Shakespeare, it was actually pretty easy to divvy that up, but with Shakespeare, because I knew I wanted to do, like, half comedy, half tragedy?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Dahlia: I approached, you know, I made my list of, like, let’s say seven trag-, seven authors I thought would do tragedy and seven I thought would do comedy, and then when people surprised me I had to juggle it around again.

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: ‘Cause somebody I was sure would want to do something stabby, and then they’re like, I want to do the most lighthearted comedy! I’m like, okay!

Sarah: Okay!

Dahlia: There’s go somebody off my comedy list, and now I have to find somebody new for tragedy, so that actually was a little bit of a build-as-you-go kind of project.

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: But people really don’t realize how much the logistics fall on the –

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: – editor-editor, i.e. me. There’s like one –

Sarah: No!

Dahlia: – publisher that does it for you? But if you’re not with them, and I’m not – [laughs] – you do, you know, you contract with all the agents; you send out all the payments. Now that publishing is doing its thing of breaking things up into multiple payments, we have, we’re co-editors on an anthology paying in thirds. That’s forty-five payments! Like, it’s a nightmare!

Sarah: A piece of my soul just died.

Dahlia: Yeah. 

Sarah: Oh my God, that’s a lot of math!

Dahlia: It’s, it’s so much. And thankfully I have a wonderful agent now who has helped me with some of the harder things as the contracting somehow gets worse and worse with each anthology.

Sarah: So in addition to the inspiration and the assembly and the editing, you also get the opportunity to sort of renovate a lot of really familiar stories! So what’s –

Dahlia: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – what’s in some, what are some of the stories you can talk about from the fairytale anthology? Are there any you can talk about yet?

Dahlia: I feel like I can. I mean, the manuscript is not, like, officially delivered and accepted, but the, you know, stories are accepted on my end, so I feel like I can talk about it a little bit?

Sarah: Ooh, yay!

Dahlia: There is – so, let’s see: we have Little Red Riding Hood is, is now a heist and subsequent revenge.

Sarah: Oh! That fits!

Dahlia: So that’s very cool.

Sarah: That tracks. I –

Dahlia: Yeah.

Sarah: – little jump there, yep.

Dahlia: No, I’m really into that. Snow White is a beautiful story with a transgender protagonist who is, you know, getting out of his mother’s shadow. So that’s, that’s really the focus on that, which I love. A new story to me, is like this really cool, colonial Indian, kind of magical story with tigers and, and it’s so creepy. I’m like – [laughs] – trying to figure out what details I can share. There’s some straight-up horror.

Sarah: Ooh!

Dahlia: I mean, Hansel and Gretel is, is cannibalistic horror –

Sarah: That’s a horror story.

Dahlia: – in this one.

Sarah: Oh yeah, that’s a horror story.

Dahlia: Yeah! Oh, and it, and it’s maintained a horror story. It’s actually, the, the collection is dark. There’s like one sweet romance in it by Anna-Marie McLemore, who’s, like, anthology pro in everything. And that’s amazing, but – oh no, I guess, I guess the Cinderella is also a pretty sweet story, but, you know, this one has drag queens and a social media presence, and it’s, you know, very thoroughly modernized. Yeah.

Sarah: It’s so interesting, too, when you look at fairy tales, because so much of them were prescriptive tales of limiting power among women –

Dahlia: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – a lot of the time, and were meant to keep the idea of gender and, and role in society in this very, very narrow definition. If you’re just like, ka-blooie, let’s blow this way out and, and include everybody and retell all these stories, that must feel very thrilling.

Dahlia: It’s very thrilling, and it has been the natural outcome of all these anthologies –

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Dahlia: – which feels honestly phenomenal. His Hideous Heart, I gave no direction other than, like, approximate word count. I mean, it’s Poe. You, you kind of know what you’re supposed to do in terms of vibe. And nobody turned in a story with a white male main character, even though those completely dominated Poe’s stories. All these new gazes that weren’t in Poe’s original work at all, and it made such a difference, and it was really fascinating and phenomenal what a difference it made, so as I’ve gone on in these, I have more actively sought that out?

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: You know, with a little more, like, what I hope people will do, and again, I don’t really necessarily give instruction, but I’m more – I mean, there are things where I’m like, you know, cross-dressing is such a strong theme in Shakespeare, and I’m like, okay, some of these stories need to go to trans authors. Like, this is, this is what we’re doing here. So there it was a little bit more like, I would love you to join; I would really love you to tell one of these stories. So I was a little bit more, you know, kind of shoving specific stories at people that were stories that had to be in the anthology, you know, just because I feel like for a Shakespeare anthology, you know, certain stories are a must, and then there was, you know, who I wanted to be telling them. So I got a little more active with that. So just having new people be the heroes of these and new people see themselves in these versions of the works, and the best part, having that come in to classrooms –

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: – and having it get studied officially – like, you can have a Poe unit, and instead of the Poe unit feeling exclusive to everyone but, like, white men –

Sarah: Ugh.

Dahlia: – your Poe unit can now be about everybody if you study His Hideous Heart, which also happens to contain the original Poe stories, so that part feels just phenomenal about it.

Sarah: That is such a cool and lasting signal of your work, of how much it means, too. Like, to have your work on a syllabus? That’s a big thrill!

Dahlia: And it’s something I never thought I would have, because you can’t – like, what’s the other thing I do? Like, really light, contemporary work.

Sarah: Yep.

Dahlia: Like, yeah, there’s some school libraries that have Cool for the Summer because, you know, it could be a really good book to give to a newly out bi kid or something –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Dahlia: – or you just want to have, you know, an entertaining read, but it’s not, you know, my books are not syllabus books. I didn’t write The Hate U Give, you know? [Laughs] So to have books that are actually going to, like, get, that actually do get into classrooms is, it’s just not something I ever pictured myself being able to do, and it’s neat, yeah.

Sarah: I know this feeling, and it is a thrill.

Dahlia: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: It is absolutely a thrill.

[music]

Sarah: We will be right back with our discussion of vintage YA next, but first I have one thing to tell you about.

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And now back to my interview with Dahlia Adler, where we talk about vintage YA. Remember Sweet Valley High, Sweet Dreams Bantam? Yep, that’s where we’re going. On with the show.

[music]

Sarah: Okay, so back to me stalking you on Instagram, because –

Dahlia: [Laughs]

Sarah: – that’s a totally normal way to build a podcast. We, so we’re talking about stories that have been around for a really long time and that center and focus on a very specific group of white people.

Dahlia: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: You recently posted a stack of Bantam Love Stories.

Dahlia: I did.

Sarah: Okay, we have to talk about this, because I know you and I both share a history with Sweet Valley, and I was very much a Sweet Dreams reader too. But Sweet Dreams and Love Stories were both Bantam but slightly different, and I’m not as familiar with Love Stories. Can you tell me about these and tell me about the ones that you have? ‘Cause some of these sound absolutely incredible, particularly Sharing Sam.

Dahlia: Oh God. So Sharing – so what’s funny about these is like – and also with Sweet Valley High – is sometimes I would get so excited by these premises I thought were brilliant, and I would, like, tell them to my family, including my parents, and my parents would look back at me and go like, that’s the plot of this movie that was big in the ‘80s. There was always, they were actually ripping off things that –

Sarah: Yep.

Dahlia: – I just didn’t know about because I was too young. So she Sharing Sam is some existing movie, like Lonesome Dove or something like that. I wish I had looked up the plot so I could make sure that I’m giving the right movie, but it’s about this girl is, like, really into a guy, and she’s the, it’s – okay, so there’s a main character, I think her name is Isabel? And her best friend is Sam, and Sam falls for this guy, but Isabel also falls for this guy, and this guy falls back for Isabel, but Sam’s dying of cancer? So Isabel and the guy never, never – so Isabel says to the guy, date Sam; make her happy; she’s dying. So the guy dates Sam, but all the while, he and Isabel are in love with each other, and they just lie about it and keep it from Sam the whole time, ‘cause they just want her to have a happy last few months. So Sam is falling in love with the guy, and the guy pretends he’s falling in love with Sam, but then he does start falling for Sam, because he’s spending a lot of time with her, and she is a great girl! And so it’s all very complicated, and I won’t spoil the ending because I think it’s worth reading! [Laughs] It was really good! But it was this very depressing, sad, but clearly memorable book.

Sarah: Soapy!

Dahlia: And most of the other plots I don’t remember, but it’s your very standard girl-meets-boy. I don’t think there was ever a queer one.

Sarah: Nope.

Dahlia: There might have been some with people of color. I don’t remember any with any disabled main characters. I don’t remember any fat main characters. I mean, we’re talking very standard ‘80s, ‘90s, one look makes it in there.

Sarah: Yep. And they’re very soapy.

Dahlia: Yes, they’re very soapy!

Sarah: They –

Dahlia: But what’s actually cool –

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: – is a lot of the authors are familiar names if you look at them.

Sarah: Yes! Yes, oh my gosh!

Dahlia: I knew – yeah! – I knew at least one person would respond with, I wrote one of those, and they did! I don’t even have that huge a stack.

Sarah: Yep.

Dahlia: But somebody did write back that they had written one of those, and I was like, I have to look through them all again and see what all the names are, but they really, it’s clearly how some authors got their start. I think Katherine Applegate wrote some of them. I don’t know if it’s the same Katherine Applegate who’s behind, like, Animorphs and stuff, but I, I, I think it is, actually.

Sarah: And it’s funny because these are not available digitally. You can only get these used; they’re all out of print. But much like Sweet Valley High, which are now in KU, God help me –

Dahlia: Hmm!

Sarah: – that, you have, you, you, you look at these, and if these were the books you read, you recognize them instantly. There’s a specific feel –

Dahlia: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – there’s a specific set of, of character types. There’s always going to be these very familiar conflicts, like the jock and the nerd.

Dahlia: Yeah.

Sarah: You see that iteration ten times.

Dahlia: Every trope, every really stereotypical pairing. I mean, they have them, but they were absolute book candy. I mean –

Sarah: That’s such a good term for it: they’re absolutely book candy.

Dahlia: [Laughs]

Sarah: The Sweet Dreams ones too.

Dahlia: In the same way that Sweet Valley High was!

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Dahlia: But each, but, but standalones, which is very different.

Sarah: Yes, yes. Not that Sweet Valley High is known for its continuity.

Dahlia: Yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: Because until they killed a character –

Dahlia: Well, no, they’re continuously in junior year –

Sarah: Yes.

Dahlia: – for about twenty years.

Sarah: Two spring breaks, two holiday breaks –

Dahlia: Yeah.

Sarah: – two summer breaks –

Dahlia: Yeah!

Sarah: – two, two winter/Christmas things. And until they – yeah, I think –

Dahlia: Its own version of continuity. [Laughs]

Sarah: You’re, you’re just going to be sixteen and blonde and, and the, the fatphobia of those books is just –

Dahlia: Oh my God.

Sarah: – screechingly terrible.

Dahlia: It’s horrible.

Sarah: It’s –

Dahlia: But I remember, you know, there was the whole, the twins are a perfect size six!

Sarah: Yes, how –

Dahlia: That kept, that kept me going when I was a size six, and I’m like, I feel awesome about this! And then when I was a size eight I was like –

Sarah: I’m no longer perfect!

Dahlia: – one size bigger than the Wakefield twins; I’m perfect!

Sarah: Yep.

Dahlia: You know, and then, you know, and so on and so forth, and then they reissued the books like twenty years ago –

Sarah: Yep.

Dahlia: – maybe fifteen years ago? And they changed them to a size four.

Sarah: I know.

Dahlia: There were very few updates they made to the books, and that was one of them, and it was horrifying, and the uproar was significant, as it should have been.

Sarah: And justifiable! Good God!

Dahlia: Yeah! I’m like, keep your updates to, like, yeah, The Oracle is now an online paper. That makes sense, ‘cause – [laughs]. But yeah, no, that was, that was a depressing change, but yeah, those books were –

Sarah: And, and until they killed a character by having a refrigerator drop on her during an earthquake –

Dahlia: Hmm.

Sarah: – there was remarkably little character development. Those characters –

Dahlia: Yeah.

Sarah: – were going to stay the same, and what I loved about the, the Sweet Dreams, the, the Bantam YA books and also what sounds like Love Stories is that it was a complete love story between those characters, and you got that serious, high-grade hit of dopamine of having that – I think it’s dopamine – of having –

Dahlia: [Laughs]

Sarah: – that, that happy ending. Like, everything is so angsty and so emotional, and things are so hard, and I might fail Chemistry, and I’m falling in love! And then everything’s wonderful: you get an A in Chemistry and your boyfriend adores you.

Dahlia: But, like, when I say I wanted to just live in the mundane other life, I mean, that’s what I mean.

Sarah: Yeah!

Dahlia: I didn’t want drama bigger than that. I didn’t want a refrigerator falling on my friend.

Sarah: No!

Dahlia: But speaking of lack of continuity, those books happened after Sweet Valley University started? So she’s still alive in Sweet Valley University.

[Laughter]

Dahlia: Because she’s a minor character who only appears once when they go home for a high school reunion, but it’s hilarious that they see her there –

Sarah: No!

Dahlia: – and then they killed her off in a Sweet Valley High that was written later. Just a little bit of fun trivia for you.

Sarah: Okay, that is hilarious and has made my entire morning. And when you have those books that came out once a month –

Dahlia: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and, and the same with the other YA romances, there were always new ones; they were like Harlequin for teens. There was always a new set every month, there were always new stories, and there was always, like, the same sort of tropes and romantic entanglements that you were going to experience.

Dahlia: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: With Sweet Valley High, because you – [laughs] – people who read those books like we did, they lived in that world. Like, I remember –

Dahlia: Yeah.

Sarah: – so many things. I have a podcast to tell you about, by the way.

Dahlia: Ooh! Okay!

Sarah: There are two, two Irish ladies have a podcast called Double Love where they are –

Dahlia: [Gasps]

Sarah: – rereading and recapping each book in order.

Dahlia: Oh no.

Sarah: And it is, first of all it’s hilarious. Second of all, there’s plenty of Irish slang, which makes it extra more good.

Dahlia: [Laughs]

Sarah: Third, they are not here for any of the bullshit that we just mentioned, and they’re, so they’re part of a podcast network called HeadStuff, and if you join HeadStuff+ you get extra bonus episodes where they are also recapping the TV show.

Dahlia: Oh my God. Amazing.

Sarah: But if nothing else –

Dahlia: I miss that TV show.

Sarah: Oh, it was, that was some serious teen viewing. But if nothing else, check out their Instagram? I will, obviously I will link to it in the show notes, but in the Instagram, they are tracing back the source photographs for some of the cover art –

Dahlia: Huh!

Sarah: – and it’s all this interesting behind-the-scenes stuff, because these were, I, I want to say they weren’t necessarily book packaged, but they were very heavily produced, these books.

Dahlia: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: There was a whole, like, bible for Sweet Valley. I wonder if that was true for the other Bantam lines? Like, this, these are the things –

Dahlia: I feel curious now!

Sarah: Right? Like, I want to find out who wrote, who, who edited these? This is the, this is the problem with, with being involved in books for so long behind the scenes? I’m like, okay –

Dahlia: Yeah.

Sarah: – who edited these? What was it like? What kind of meetings did you have? What were the meetings like?

Dahlia: Somebody did comment on my Instagram post something about having worked in these.

Sarah: [Gasps]

Dahlia: But not as an author.

Sarah: All right, I –

Dahlia: I think it was Elana Roth, who’s now an agent.

Sarah: Yeah. My first boss was the packager. Yeah, packager!

Dahlia: Yeah.

Sarah: Yes, exactly! These are all very packaged! I, I love this. I love this so much!

Dahlia: It’s just so interesting how different packaging was back then. Like, the, the way it shifted from having these long series to, like, absolutely not now. Now you can’t find a YA, a contemporary, realistic YA series. Like, four books is the max.

Sarah: What –

Dahlia: You can have, like, companion worlds.

Sarah: Yes.

Dahlia: Even those are pretty short. I mean, Miranda Kenneally’s Hundred Oaks series is like the longest I can think of, and it’s seven books, eight books?

Sarah: Yeah! So have you thought about doing these, this type of YA love story, updated? What a series that would be. Wouldn’t that be cool? Like, updated Love Stories –

Dahlia: [Laughs] I mean, I don’t –

Sarah: – updated Sweet Dreams?

Dahlia: I don’t feel like publishing is so open to series like this right now?

Sarah: No, it’s really not.

Dahlia: There are people who are doing really fun standalone romances, but they’re a lot more diverse than, you know, what we saw in these. So I really, I devour those. I mean, I’m –

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Dahlia: – I’m really enjoying them. Like, I read so much YA standalone romance. But I would love to see more that’s in the same world or, you know, just kind of spinning off of the same characters so you keep seeing –

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: – people over and over. There’s so little of that. Like, I can definitely think of some, but again, super short series –

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: – even where you get the same characters over and over.

Sarah: Different.

Dahlia: Yeah, I know! I would kill to do something like this. I mean, if you were like, hey, you can just write, like, a new Sweet Valley High and, like –

Sarah: [Gasps]

Dahlia: – that’s going to be your job for the rest of your life? Like, I’m in. That’s fine.

Sarah: Maybe that could be – I mean, I’m sure the copyright would be a frigging nightmare, but that would be an amazing anthology. Sweet Valley Revisited?

Dahlia: Oh my God. I’m sure copyright is a nightmare, but I would be all over that! [Laughs]

Sarah: Would that not be amazing?

Dahlia: If anybody’s listening who can make that happen –

Sarah: Yes! This, listen –

Dahlia: Yeah.

Sarah: – Dahlia, this is my favorite game: Where’s My Venture Capitalist?

Dahlia: [Laughs]

Sarah: I just, I just want, you know, the dump truck of money to show up at my house. I’ve got ideas; I’ve got lots of ‘em; just call me. [Laughs] But –

Dahlia: I’m so into this. This is an excellent idea, even though –

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: – my agent would be like, get out. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah. Do I even want to deal?

Dahlia: My agent is wonderful, but she had never done anthologies until she signed me, and I happened to have kind of, in the period between when I left my last agent and signed with her, I kind of accidentally sold both of my upcoming anthologies.

Sarah: Oops.

Dahlia: Oops, exactly? So she had to, like, quickly take on both of them to do the contracting and stuff, and she was like, you seriously want to do more of these? This is horrible! I didn’t realize how horrible this was!

[Laughter]

Dahlia: And she’s absolutely right. I mean, they’re a nightmare, and I, I feel bad ‘cause I’ve made it a nightmare for her too. So I’m like, in my head there’s two more ideas I really want to do –

Sarah: Yeah?

Dahlia: – and then I’m done. But –

Sarah: I get it.

Dahlia: – you know, I, I said this recently on Twitter, and a lot of people picked up on it and have, like, quoted it back to me that anthologies are for me like tattoos are for other people?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Dahlia: There’s something about the pain that, like – [laughs] – I seem to keep disregarding and wanting more! Why? Don’t know! But it’s like, never really done; doing one just makes me want to do another one, even while I’m in the hell of it, so.

Sarah: [Laughs] It’s funny because you said earlier that the, the YA, the little YA books were like romance candy; they were like candy.

Dahlia: Yes.

Sarah: You don’t sit and think and savor like, wow! What was that Jolly Rancher really like? I want to remember the – no, you just have another Jolly Rancher.

Dahlia: [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s the same thing with anthologies and tattoos: you don’t remember the specifics, but you just remember the overall experience of it, and you want more –

Dahlia: Yes.

Sarah: – of that. Yep, I get it! I get it!

Dahlia: Yeah.

Sarah: Memory is a weird thing.

Dahlia: But also, also, like what they say about childbirth? Like, if you didn’t forget it you would never be able to do it again?

Sarah: It’s true.

Dahlia: Extremely true!

Sarah: Very true.

Dahlia: So you definitely forget enough of how bad it was the last time. Now I’m doing two at once, so maybe that’ll really hammer it home.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Dahlia: But who knows.

Sarah: So what else are you collecting?

Dahlia: So I do collect signed books. I mean, for me it’s really fun ‘cause it’s my friends. Like, my dad –

Sarah: Yeah!

Dahlia: – collects signed first editions of books. I collect books, you know, signed by Becky Albertalli. Like that’s –

Sarah: Yeah!

Dahlia: You know, whatever I can get signed by friends is great, so it’s been really fun, especially during the pandemic when I really want to support indie bookstores. It’s like really hopping around seeing where everybody’s doing their, you know –

Sarah: Their signing, yeah.

Dahlia: – their events through, and who they’re signing with and then trying to get books from there. It’s been like a little fun. It’s my Pokémon.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Dahlia: You can catch ‘em all. So, you know, I wish I could do, like, signed books and books I’ve blurbed and, you know –

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: – personalized books and, and all those different things, and so I do collect all of that. Otherwise, in terms of just stuff, I mean, I have more candles than I should for that I never use them, but – [laughs] – the truth is, what I really like to get, and it’s marketing-minded, is I love buying anything that could conceivably be considered swag for my books?

Sarah: Oh, I get it, yeah.

Dahlia: So, you know, I could get heart-shaped sunglasses to look like my Cool for the Summer cover, I could get pom-poms and that’s Home Field Advantage, and in my head I’m getting all these things to take pretty Instagram pictures or whatever, but I’m actually horrible at taking Instagram pictures, although apparently they work for you. [Laughs]

Sarah: They work real well for me. You’re doing great; keep going. You’re doing terrific.

Dahlia: But now I know I need to, I need to work harder to impress you. I didn’t realize –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Dahlia: – my Instagram that early! So, so I like to get things that are kind of tangentially related to my books, and for Shakespeare and Poe that’s been really fun.

Sarah: Oh, I bet!

Dahlia: Yeah, I also always, I’m like, oh, I’m going to do a giveaway of all these different Shakespeare-themed things! And then I’m like, I only got one of each of them; I’m keeping them.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Dahlia: – keeps happening to me. But I have, you know, like, Poe pencil pouch and Shakespeare Tarot cards.

Sarah: Yep.

Dahlia: I just have, like, the most ridiculous collections of, of Poe and Shakespeare stuff, and that’s really fun, but I just, my office is very small.

Sarah: Yep.

Dahlia: I, I chose this little nook in my house to be my office, and it, it absolutely cannot fit all these things I’m talking about having here.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Dahlia: I mean, and it, some of it’s like I have a Poe lunchbox down here that Fran Wilde, who was one of my contributors to His Hideous Heart, we did a panel and she brought me a Poe lunchbox that had chocolate hearts in it, but, like, anatomically correct hearts?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Dahlia: Like of course I still have that just sitting next to my desk. Have I eaten the chocolate? No! Is it still in there? It sure is! When did my book come out? September 10th, 2019.

Sarah: It’s still good! [Laughs]

Dahlia: It probably is still good. I did open it up to see if they got gross and it didn’t, so I feel a little better, but, like, I bought a lithograph of “The Raven.” Did I ever hang it up? No, I did not.

Sarah: So what books are you reading right now that you want to tell people about?

Dahlia: I’m, like, looking at my, I have my TBR listed up here.

Sarah: You have your TBR on a whiteboard.

Dahlia: Yes. Oh yeah!

Sarah: [Gasps] That is smart! You have your TBR on a whiteboard in your office. Oooh!

Dahlia: I, I do. I also keep it in a notebook and everything.

So I just read A Touch of Ruckus by Ash Van Otterloo, which is a really cute Appalachian, queer middle grade with magic and a nonbinary love interest, and it’s a really sweet story that has – I hate saying cottagecore vibes, but it really just does have cottagecore vibes.

I’ve had, so I mostly read YA, partly because a lot of my reading is just reading for blurbs –

Sarah: Right.

Dahlia: – but also because I, I primarily do my blogging for BuzzFeed, but I have determined this year that I’m going to read at least one adult book a month? So these aren’t necessarily recent reads, but going through some of the adult reads I have read this year that I really liked:

Yes, Daddy by Jonathan Parks-Ramage, which CONTENT WARNING for, like, absolutely everything. But that, that was just a phenomenal gay thriller.

I just read Real Life by Brandon Taylor. Finally, of course I, like, after Filthy Animals, I finally got back to Real Life. So that was great.

I’m reading now – God, I can’t remember the name of it. It’s something like What Happened to Isabel or Whatever Happened to Isabel [The Adventures of Isabel] – I don’t know – by Candas Jane Dorsey. I love PI series with, like, really snarky, you know detective heroines.

Sarah: Yes.

Dahlia: Like, I love Kristen Lepionka’s Roxane Weary series, so this is another one kind of in that vein that I was really excited about, and the second one comes out in October. So they pitched me, you know, the second book, and I’m like, I want to read the first book! Can I also have the first book?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Dahlia: So that was very kind of them to send it to me.

And God, September is such a huge month. Like, there’s so much I want to read, and I just haven’t gotten there yet. Like, I’m so excited about Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo, which is, like, also queer Appalachian. I really like queer Appalachian stuff.

But I’m very behind on romance. Like, I got Alexandria Bellefleur’s Hang the Moon? Haven’t read it yet.

Sarah: You’re going to love it.

Dahlia: You know, I loved Written in the Stars.

Sarah: You’re going to love it.

Dahlia: I know. Yeah, I just read a cool book called Major Detours by Zach Sergi (Sergi?). That comes out September 7th, and it’s a Choose Your Own Adventure YA –

Sarah: Oh!

Dahlia: – that’s based in tarot?

Sarah: Ooh!

Dahlia: The whole thing is like a tarot-card-centric adventure, and I know nothing about tarot? But the Choose Your Own Adventure aspect was such a cool thing to see again for the first time in years.

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Dahlia: Yeah, and it got on my radar because I did the cover reveal for LGBTQ Reads, and then I was like, how does this work?

Sarah: Yep!

Dahlia: And it’s just, you know, if you’re going to do this, turn to this page! And then if you made this choice, turn to this page. I’m like, oh, okay!

Sarah: Yeah!

Dahlia: This totally makes sense! And I can –

Sarah: I remember those!

Dahlia: – do whatever I want!

Sarah: Also published by Bantam, I think.

Dahlia: It was so – yeah, that was really cool. Like –

Sarah: Have you tried, have you tried any interactive fiction?

Dahlia: I am obsessed with Choices. Obsessed! It is my favorite game like that. I mean, also because I find the graphics so much better than every other game, and I find it hard to play the different apps when I don’t like the graphics so much, when they look funny to me?

Sarah: Yeah?

Dahlia: So I have to admit that plays in, but I love, love, love Choices.

Sarah: Yeah.

Dahlia: Like, I have played it for years. I actually interviewed some of the people involved on my blog years ago because I’m such a fan girl. [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh, cool! Is that the cool thing about being a blogger? This, I’m a really big fan of your thing; can we talk about your thing?

Dahlia: Yeah.

Sarah: ‘Cause I want to talk about it with you, please? Yeah.

Dahlia: And you know what, more people want to than, like, starting-out bloggers ever think? Like, I thought for sure everyone was going to say no to me forever until I ever got a platform, but no, people want a place to talk about their work, and it doesn’t really matter how big you are, because if they’re big they just want a repository for their words. Like, they want the information somewhere.

Sarah: Yeah!

Dahlia: So they’re, they just want somewhere to link to! It doesn’t matter if you have two followers; it doesn’t matter who finds it organically for me.

Sarah: Yeah!

Dahlia: Like, they have more information, and I feel like up-and-coming bloggers don’t necessarily think that when they’re getting too daunted to ask bigger names?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Dahlia: So –

Sarah: Don’t be afraid!

Dahlia: That’s –

Sarah: Ask!

Dahlia: Yeah!

Sarah: Run it up the flagpole!

Dahlia: It’s –

Sarah: If people want to find you, where can they find you?

Dahlia: So I am on all social media as – I shouldn’t say all social media – I’m on Twitter and Instagram as @MissDahlELama, M-I-S-S-D-A-H-L-E-L-A-M-A.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Dahlia: dahliaadler.com. My books are around; newest release is Cool for the Summer; next one is Home Field Advantage. And then I’m also on LGBTQ Reads and @LGBTQReads on all social media – that one is true. And you can also find me on BuzzFeed Books. And yeah, I am, I am around, I am loud, I am easy to find. [Laughs]

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you to Dahlia Adler for hanging out with me and for sharing her cool collection of Bantam Love Stories. If you would like to find her online, I will link to all of the places where she is, and I will link to her article “So You Want to Edit a YA Anthology?” And of course I will have links to all of the books that we talked about. I would never let you down like that.

I am curious, though: did you read Sweet Dreams or Bantam Love Stories? Were they your gateway into romance? I would love to hear from you, and you can email me at [email protected].

But I also want to tell you this conversation has inspired me to start a new podcast project – inside this podcast; don’t worry, you have to go anywhere. I definitely read Sweet Dreams romances, and I remember some of them very vividly, even specific scenes inside some of the books. So I have decided that I am going to do the Sweet Dreams Romance Recap Project. I’m going to recap the first twenty Sweet Dreams romances. I have them right here on my desk; I bought them used. They’re not even digital; you can only get them from used book stores. So in the Sweet Dreams Romance Recap Project, I am going to devote an episode to each of the first twenty Sweet Dreams romances. We’re going to look at the incredible cover photography, the context, and the story itself, and the writer! Many of them are still writing under new and surprising names. But we’re going to look at each novel each episode, sometimes with a co-host who will recap and discuss with me. The first episode will be out on October 15th, and it will be about book one, PS I Love You by Barbara Conklin, a book many, many readers remember. So if these were your gateway into romance or you remember some of these, I want to hear from you! Email me; you can even use [email protected] – it all ends up in the same place – and put “Sweet Dreams” in the subject line. I would really love to hear which one was your favorite.

And as always, I end with a terrible, terrible joke, and this is no exception! I love this joke; I have made many people around me laugh with it. Are you ready? [Clears throat] Serious podcaster voice:

Why do teenage girls walk in groups of three, five, and seven?

Give up? Why do teenage girls walk in groups of three, five, and seven?

Because they literally can’t even!

[Laughs] Literally can’t even! That is from BeardedBro19. High fives to you, BeardedBro19! [Laughs more] Cannot even! I cannot even! I cannot even finish this episode without making a mess!

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading and a wonderful weekend. We’ll see you back here next week!

Smart Podcast, Trashy Books is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic.media/podcasts.

[awesome music]