520. Telling Stories with Julie Garwood

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello and welcome to episode number 520 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. My guest today is Julie Garwood. Yes! It’s amazing, isn’t it? Julie Garwood’s latest book Grace Under Fire is out now, and I got to talk with her. That alone rocked my brain. But I got to talk to her about her writing career, her process, and writing historicals and romantic suspense, so just grab a snack and a beverage and come visit with one of the authors I admire most. No, my inner thirteen-year-old was not chill.

I do want to let you know that we recorded this over the phone, and there’s some noise interference that I attempted to deal with, and I’m not sure if it was, like, the phone cord hitting the table or a rocking chair, but I’m going to think of it as ambience. And tell me what you think it is; I think it’s the phone cord.

But thank you for your patience, and thank you most of all to Julie Garwood and Stephanie Felty and Tara, Laura, and Deanna for questions in this episode.

Hello and thank you to our Patreon community for the transcript for this episode and for keeping me going every week. Thank you so very much for your support. If you enjoy the show, please have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Every pledge is deeply appreciated, and pledges start at one dollar a month!

I will have links to all of the books that we talk about, of course, and there are many, in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

This episode is brought to you by another podcast! Y’all might want to give this one a try because it’s delightful: F.M.K. Lit is the podcast that brings you romance, dumb jokes, gin-fueled rants, and a very immature game. In each episode, hosts Neil and Claire read two romance novels, one straight, one queer, and then play F, Marry, Kill with the characters. Each episode has its own theme, so they are sure to talk about that very specific thing that you like the most. Construction workers? Bigfoot or Bigfeet? Fairies? American women in England in the 1920s? They’ve got you covered. If you had to play shtup, marry, kill with the dashing lady pirate, the playboy billionaire, or the handsome cowboy, who would you shtup, who would you marry, and who would you kill? It seems like an impossible puzzle to solve. This is very important work that best friends Neil and Claire do every single episode, so join Neil and Claire at F.M.K. Lit the first and third Wednesday every month to see who they’re going to shtup, who they’re going to marry, and who they’re going to kill. F.M.K. Lit is available on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Spotify, and anywhere else fine podcasts are posted. You can find out more at fmklitpod.com.

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All right, are you ready to visit with Julie Garwood? We got lots of stories, and this is so much fun, so I hope you enjoy this episode. On with the podcast.

[music]

Julie Garwood: My name is Julie Garwood. I started writing romance when, let’s see, the first one came out in 1986. Oh my God! That was a long time ago. And I’ve been writing romantic suspense, historical and contemporary, ever since. I’ve been very, very lucky that it was published and that they wanted another one. I’m thrilled with that, because it’s something I love to do.

Sarah: Since –

Julie: But that is –

Sarah: – 1986!

Julie: [Laughs]

Sarah: Wow!

Julie: I know; it’s been a while. It’s funny. I always wrote when I was a kid, once I learned to read, which was late for me. I would write stories, and, but that wasn’t a career. My mom used to say you could be anything you want to be, but learn to type, and I always thought that was hilarious! But the idea was so you could support yourself while you’re going for your dream and, you know, get a job as a typist somewhere or whatever. And now that’s all I do is type all day, and I think she must be smiling down at me. I don’t know.

Sarah: [Laughs] So you can be anything you want in the world, but learn to type.

Julie: Yes! So I could support myself back then, you know? Could get a job anywhere filling in. And I actually got started writing historicals by chance. You want to hear this? It’s –

Sarah: Are you –

Julie: I had gone –

Sarah: Yes, I absolutely want to hear this. I want to hear everything. Just tell me everything!

Julie: [Laughs] Well, I went back to school to finish, and I was a four-year RN, you know, where you got the BS with it and all, and there were a couple of classes I still needed to take, and then do clinic and I was done, and the first one was a history class. History in high school was boring and I didn’t like it, and I kind of thought, well, what’s the less painful, and there was one that fit the schedule called Russian History, and I thought, oh, it’s going to be awful. I loved it, and I think it’s all because of the professor. Sister Joan had a Ph.D. and was amazing! Well, so, she was teaching another class called Ancient and Medieval, and it was four- or five-hour class, and I thought, well, I’ll just tuck that one in too, and that hooked me. I loved the discipline of the feudal system and everybody had a place and what would happen if you put somebody who didn’t, who was different, you know, and – anyway, one night I decided to get a knight ready to go into battle, and I thought I was so smart: I wanted to describe him without describing him. Example: takes two servants to carry the kite-shaped shield, and he lifts it with one finger. I mean, you know, so you know he’s strong. It takes, they have to stand on a stool to put his helmet on his head, so you know he’s tall. And I meant to show him off, and it was awful, but anyway I got him all dressed, and I thought, where’s he going to go? You know, what’s he going to do?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Julie: And I decided, because he was so arrogant in this prologue, to mess with him, so I gave him Elizabeth. That became, I titled it The Warrior, but they changed it to Gentle Warrior, which is kind of an oxymoron, but I was so lucky how this happened. An agent came to Kansas City for a conference at Avila College, and I couldn’t afford to go to it, but another friend was having a little social event and invited me, and all the published authors were, circled the agent, and I, you know, I was just happy to be there and listen to everyone, but as she was leaving she said, I didn’t meet you and introduced herself. Well, so I told her I’d written a children’s book, and she kind of scrunched up her nose and said, well, I don’t handle a lot of children’s books, but go ahead and send it to me, and she patted my hand, which I think is hilarious. And I tell her, it was pity! That’s why, ‘cause I was like this little wallflower. Anyway, I sent her what turned out – I didn’t know categories, and it was a YA, and it’s a story of a grandfather who moved in with his daughter’s family, and –

Sarah: Right.

Julie: – who would be the most traumatized by the change? And I figured it’d be a thirteen-year-old girl. So I put the story in her viewpoint, and it’s kind of an uplifting, fun story, and so Andrea loved it and said – Andrea’s the agent – she said, I’m going to give this to Scholastic and see. Do you have anything else? And I said, well, I wrote a romance – and I told her this before, I think, but anyway – but there’s a catch: it takes place in 1086. And she said, that’s a historical romance, and I think she thought, you big dork, because I didn’t know categories –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Julie: – and said, send it to me, and I did. But in the meantime, the editor at Scholastic rejected the book A Girl Named Summer and said, nobody wants to read about old people. And then we were going to send it, or Andrea was, I think, going to send it to Putnam or somewhere, and before she could, the editor at Scholastic called back and said, well, the book’s never going to sell, but I can’t get the story out of my mind, so I’m buying it.

Sarah: Wow!

Julie: And that book sold, so that was good. Anyway, the historical romance went to Pocket, and they – do you remember a line called the Tapestry line?

Sarah: Absolutely I do!

Julie: Well, I hadn’t heard of it. I mean, I was in school; I didn’t know all this stuff, and – anyway, they needed a filler because they knew that line was ending, and they wanted space or whatever in stores, I guess. So they purchased what I called The Warrior, and they changed the title to Gentle Warrior, which is, as you know, an oxymoron! But anyway, they said, will you do another one? And yeah, I said, sure! And so I wrote another one that they titled – [laughs] – when the editor told me Rebellious Desire, I laughed, and then I thought, oh God, she’s serious!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Julie: And, and she wasn’t laughing! [Laughs] Anyway, that was a fun book to do too. It was in Regency period, and the research was so much fun. And then I went back to doing another medieval, and so I just kept going, and pretty soon I was doing it full time, you know?

Sarah: Wow. So this –

Julie: Loving it.

Sarah: – all started because you took a history class in Russian history, then learned –

Julie: Uh-huh.

Sarah: – the medieval feudal system, then wrote a Regency –

Julie: Yes.

Sarah: – and learned Regency history.

Julie: Yes.

Sarah: Wow!

Julie: Weird, huh?

Sarah: That’s just wild!

Julie: That’s, medieval’s where my heart was because of the discipline and all. I just, I liked it, which is odd, but I did.

My first contemporary wasn’t because they were selling more or less or any of that. I couldn’t, the way my brain works, I see a scene, and from that scene I know the whole book. That’s the weirdest thing, isn’t it?

Sarah: Wow!

Julie: And it u-, it usually happened at sporting events –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Julie: – with my kids. You know, you’re sitting there, oh God, when will this T-ball be over? Or, or whatever, and you get nudged and it’s, your son’s up, and so then you yell, good eye! Or whatever, and it was kind of fun, but in the meantime I would usually zone out and daydream, and these scenes would come, and, but the one for, as an example, Grace Under Fire, it’s always the two lines that start the book that determine it for me, and in Grace Under Fire it’s Isabel, “Grace Isabel MacKenna had a hundred things to do today. Killing someone wasn’t one of them.” And that’s the basis for that whole book. Is that weird that that’s how it works?

Sarah: No, I don’t think that’s weird at all! If you see a scene and then you know the story behind it, well, then you write it down, right?

Julie: Yeah, yeah! So I have been able to do that at many football, baseball, basketball games. [Laughs] Oh God!

But the reason I wrote the contemporary, I could not, and the scene I saw was in a confessional, and I, and that was based on a story, if you have time: I took my sister Cookie – that’s what we called her; her name’s Mary Colette, and she’s older – to London with me, and my daughter was doing a summer internship at Oxford, which sounds really awesome, but it was actually, I think, a shopping trip, but anyway.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Julie: She, we went to see her, and so when we – Cookie only had one rule: we had to go to Mass every day. She’s a devout Catholic, and that was the rule, and I said, yeah, okay. So we were so excited – I had never been – that we didn’t sleep at all on the plane, and when we got settled in the hotel they said, well, there is a service in like a half hour; if you, you know, take a taxi you’ll be there, blah-blah-blah. So zoned out and punchy from lack of sleep we go, and I don’t know if you ever saw the movie Sisterhood, but the priest doing the, you know, the sermon looked exactly like the guy in, in, who played the priest in Sisterhood. And he starts talking and giving this parable: he talks about the prodigal son, and when he gets to what I call the punch line or the reason, he just stopped, and he said that I know you know, and the congregation’s all nodding like, yeah, we know. So then he tells another one, gets to the, you know, the reason for the story and stops, and I’m, Sarah, I’m not making this up: he said that I know you know I know you know.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Julie: And I turned to Cookie and said, I don’t know! ‘Cause I thought it was hilarious! Well, that made her laugh.

Sarah: Oh no.

Julie: So – oh yeah – she got mad at me and went to another pew.

Sarah: [Gasps]

Julie: That left me all alone, and to the left was this confessional with a heavy – it looked heavy – velvet red, what do you call it? Curtain that –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Julie: – covered – yeah, you went in that way to tell your sins, and I started fantasizing and wondered what sins they’ve heard in there, and then the opening for “Bless me, Father, for I will sin” was born.

Sarah: Yeah, cool.

Julie: And that’s Heartbreaker. So anyway, it was meant to be.

Sarah: Wow!

Julie: I’ll do time in Purgatory ‘cause I daydreamed in church, but that’s okay.

Sarah: So we have Julie Garwood books because of Russian history, T-ball, and confessional.

Julie: [Laughs] Kinda!

Sarah: All right, sure!

Julie: Oh yes! Why not? Oh yeah.

Sarah: Well, congratulations on Grace Under Fire!

Julie: That was a fun book to write. Did you read it yet?

Sarah: Yes, I have read it. I try not to spoil the book, but wow! This book just goes!

Julie: Yeah, I like, I, I want ‘em to move. I don’t want – you know, I’ve been told, oh, read this book. You have to get past the first two hundred pages, but then – and I’m thinking, no!

Sarah: No.

Julie: – know what’s going on before two hundred, you know?

Sarah: Yeah, I don’t even like TV shows where it’s like, well, you have to watch the first season, and then the second season it gets good? And I’m like, what, what kind of time do you think I have?

Julie: [Laughs] I know it! That’s true! Oh God! You’re like me; I love that!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Julie: We don’t have time for that!

Sarah: Yeah! Why would I, why would I slog through something because it’s going to get good at some point? I’ll just start where it gets good!

Julie: Amen! And I want to draw the reader to where I am in my sick mind. [Laughs] I want them to – well, I know the ones who read my books and I hear from have my sense of humor –

Sarah: Yes.

Julie: – which is good, you know. So every book, I know one of the questions was, when did you switch to romantic suspense? Well, it’s always, I’ve always had some kind of a mystery in every one of my books.

Sarah: Yes.

Julie: That’s just what I do, and some have more; some have less. That’s how I like to write, I guess.

Sarah: Now, I have questions from different people who were very excited that I’m talking to you today, and one of them is Laura, who wanted to know, after thirty-five books, what part of writing still excites you? Is it the T-ball, or is it the confessional, or – what part is it? [Laughs]

Julie: It’s kind of all of it. It’s the fact that when I picture something or I get those first two lines, the excitement of telling the story, and that never changes. There have been times when I, you know, I’ve taken time off, and after a certain amount of time I get anxious. It doesn’t matter if it sells; I have to write it. And that’s what I do! I don’t know. It doesn’t define who I am, but it’s what I do, and I am so lucky that I love what I do!

Sarah: Yeah.

Julie: And, so that’s never changed. It’s always – and somebody said, well, what book do you like the most? And this is a cop-out, I know, but it’s always the one I’m writing! Because once I start it, those characters are all I think about.

Sarah: Tara actually asked me to ask you about your writing process. Has your writing process changed over the years?

Julie: It has. The first two books, the Young Adult and the first historical, I would get up at between 4:00 and 4:15 and go up into the loft and write until about quarter of 7:00, and then I would jump in the shower and get the kids up, and then it was carpool and go to work and life got in the way, you know?

Sarah: Yeah.

Julie: And then I, and I did that every morning. My husband didn’t know I was writing, and –

Sarah: Really!

Julie: Yeah. That was kind of on purpose. I just, it was something I did.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Julie: And, you know, you’re asleep at four in the morning, so. Anyway, I worked in his office, and then I went to school, but – and I went back to school when my youngest started kindergarten. I was so fortunate that I was able to see all of the games and the school events and, and a lot of it comes through in my books. As an example, my middle one, Bryan, we were eating dinner one night, he was seven or eight, and he said – and I’m not making this up – Mom, we should probably go. And I said, go where? And he said, to school – for the play that he was in.

Sarah: [Gasps]

Julie: My son was in a play – wait, it gets better! He needed something to wear. He was Joseph in the play, and it was towards Christmas, so that’s what it was –

Sarah: Right.

Julie: – and I had about forty minutes to find something, get it on him, and take him to school and watch him in a play!

Sarah: Oh my gosh!

Julie: Oh yeah! And that was just the way his mind worked, you know?

Sarah: When you were switching from historical romance to suspense, and I think a lot of writers did at that – there was a time when a lot of historical romance writers also started writing suspense and thriller romances. Do you remember what it was like to switch between subgenres, or was that a natural progression for you? Because your books have always had a mystery in them, you’re right.

Julie: Well the, Heartbreaker was the first contemporary, and I didn’t want to do it. I wanted to stay with historicals, but I couldn’t get the book to work in any setting that wasn’t contemporary, and that was the continuation of the Buchanans.

Sarah: Right.

Julie: So do realize, as an example, Brodick Buchanan was first, you meet him in a book called The Secret, and then he has his own story in Ransom.

Sarah: Right, yep.

Julie: And so all of his ancestors are the Buchanans of today –

Sarah: Yep.

Julie: – and so I have to finish them, of course.

Sarah: I’m sure you’ve had this question before, but do you miss writing historicals?

Julie: I, in my head, if the story is there, I’ll write another one. You know what I mean?

Sarah: Yeah.

Julie: Yeah, I do miss it, but I’ve gotten so involved with all the Buchanans.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Julie: I – writers that I want to know what everybody’s thinking.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Julie: When I, when I was writing Gentle Warrior – I’m, I’m embarrassed to admit this – I was in the dog’s viewpoint at one –

Sarah: No!

Julie: And I thought, what am I doing? Anyway, I took it out, of course, but it made me laugh.

Sarah: Listen, I think it’s a perfectly good experiment to try writing a romance from the dog’s perspective.

Julie: [Laughs] Yeah, I don’t know about that!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Julie: I love writing about these invincible, arrogant, perfect men and then just really messing with ‘em. It’s fun.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Julie: Well, it is!

Sarah: Yes, it is, absolutely. There’s always a moment with your heroes where they’re like, why is this person so annoying?

Julie: Yes! And I like that, you know?

Sarah: Now, do you have a sense of which of your books is, is a reader favorite? Are there books that you hear more about from readers still?

Julie: Yeah, what I have discovered is, for some reason it’s always the first book that they read! I’ll get an email and it’s, I loved your latest book, but my all-time favorite is so-and-so. That’s the first book of yours I ever read!

Sarah: Yep.

Julie: And I read that over and over again. Which is nice, but one of the all-time favorites is, oh, there’s about four of them: For the Roses –

Sarah: Yep.

Julie: – Ransom, and the contemporaries would be definitely Wired, Hotshot, The Ideal Man. I hear about those a lot.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Julie: I had fun with Hotshot; that was fun. And that was, you know, I saw that scene too!

Sarah: Yeah?

Julie: Where he looks out the window and she’s a little girl going in the water and becomes a hero; he saves her. Every book I’ve written, I wish I could rewrite it to make it better; yeah, I really do.

Oh, this is interesting, Sarah – or weird. I write three endings to every book.

Sarah: Really!

Julie: Not on purpose. I always think, no, no, I need to – and I write a second ending. And then I think, what am I thinking? It should be – and I write the third ending, and always I send the first ending in.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Julie: Is that weird? Yes.

Sarah: That’s amazing!

Julie: I think it’s my way of letting go of it. I guess; I don’t know. Each time I think, well, I’m not doing that again! Guess what, I do it again.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Well, I mean, the endings are all happy, right?

Julie: Oh sure!

Sarah: Yeah! Well –

Julie: That’s it! You hit it on the head, Sarah. I don’t want to write about psychopaths anymore; I want happy endings.

Sarah: Yes.

Julie: I want to write an uplifting story that will make people feel good. I can’t tell you the number of emails I’ve received from cancer patients –

Sarah: Really!

Julie: – who have said, you got me through chemo, and it makes me want to cry, because that’s the whole point of why I write is to make a difference, and even if it’s for ten minutes, smiling and pulling you away from something else, no matter what it is. That’s, that’s my job, isn’t it?

Sarah: Yep.

Julie: So there you have it!

Sarah: And that must be the most, the most fulfilling kind of reader letter to receive, right?

Julie: It really is, yes. It is. My daughter went into a patient’s room – this was when she was a resident – and she said, Mom, my name tag was on my, you know, the wide jacket thing – said, she was reading one of your books.

Sarah: [Gasps]

Julie: Told, she never connected, you know, and I thought that was kind of sweet –

Sarah: Aw!

Julie: – but I – yeah. Liz didn’t tell her, but that’s fine too, you know?

Sarah: Wow.

Julie: I always think if I see someone reading my book, one of my books, I’m not going to say, do you like that? Because what if they don’t? And –

Sarah: Yes! [Laughs]

Julie: – uh-oh! Yeah, so I just go on my merry way.

Sarah: So looking back on your career, since 1986, wow –

Julie: Yes.

Sarah: – what are some of the biggest changes you’ve experienced, both in romance and in publishing?

Julie: Well, when I wrote The Warrior and the YA, I heard Young Adults are dead; nobody’s been buying anymore, and I heard that humor in historicals was a big no-no. That’s what I was told right before both of them sold, by other authors who had been around for a while. It’s always the story. I don’t know – I know things have changed.

Sarah: Yeah.

Julie: I know that print runs are completely different. We have the Kindle now; we have all sorts of changes. It has changed a lot, and yet a good story finds a way.

Sarah: Yep!

Julie: That’s the way I look at it.

Sarah: Deanna wanted me to ask you, what books are you reading that you want to tell people about, and what authors or genres really excite you?

Julie: Well, I’ve been doing a lot of nonfiction –

Sarah: Ooh!

Julie: – for – well, you know, like with Grace Under Fire it was more about Scotland and the laws –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Julie: – and their, you know, their police, their FBI, their this or that. All that is different, and I had to know what I was talking about. So now it’s ballet, just for terms, and so a lot of nonfiction for the one I’m writing now.

When I do, I’ve got a big stack of books on the table next to my bed, and the one I want to start right away is Where the Crawdads Sing because so many people have told me that’s such a good book. Have you ever been told over and over again that this book is just amazing and you read it and you think, what are they talking about; it’s awful? And I –

Sarah: All. The time. [Laughs]

Julie: It’s – I don’t know! But that’s happened with me several times, and, well, more than several times.

So I, I love Nora Roberts, I like the oldies and goodies, but I like the new ones coming up too. I’m not so much a – this’ll blow you – I’m not so much a historical reader. The series on TV, Downton Abbey –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Julie: – you know, I don’t really get into that, but then I hear how awesome it is, and I need to; I just haven’t. I’m, I’ll try anything. I like every genre; I’ll say that. For romance, it’s whatever anybody is telling me I should read.

Sarah: What are you working on right now?

Julie: You want to hear the two opening lines?

Sarah: Yes, I would love to hear the two opening lines.

Julie: On Monday, May 1st, Lola Gray Drummond turned eleven years old. On Tuesday, May 2nd, Lola Gray’s mother hired someone to kill her.

Sarah: Holy cow!

Julie: Yeah. But the third line is – [laughs] – Needless to say, the family was dysfunctional.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Little bit, yes.

Julie: So there’s a lot of fun in it; so I’m having fun with it. It’s not all, it’s not – all of ‘em have a little darkness to ‘em –

Sarah: Yeah.

Julie: – because mystery, but I kind of like writing about clueless people sometimes, you know what I mean?

Sarah: Yes.

Julie: And I don’t ever have a title until I’m in the book, and then there it is –

Sarah: Wow!

Julie: – you know. Usually about the middle, though, that it just hits me. Like Saving Grace –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Julie: – when he says to her, you’re my saving grace, I thought, oh, that’s the title of the book.

Sarah: That is!

Julie: And there you go. Yeah.

Sarah: There you go! Thank you so much for this interview. It has been an absolute pleasure to talk with you today.

Julie: It was fun! I’m glad I got to visit with you again!

Sarah: Oh, me too! It’s, it’s just such a pleasure, and I love hearing all of your stories, so if you ever want to come back and tell more stories, just let me know.

Julie: Okay!

[Laughter]

Julie: I’ve got a hundred of them!

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of an absolutely lovely visit with Julie Garwood. I am so honored to have talked to her, I cannot even tell you. Thank you to Stephanie Felty for setting this up; thank you to Tara, Laura, and Deanna for questions; and thank you to Julie Garwood for spending so much time with me.

I would love to know what your favorite Julie Garwood novel is. Please tell me! If you have a recommended Julie Garwood novel, if someone’s listening and thought, oh, I’ve, I’ve never read Julie Garwood! Where should I start? Well, if you like historicals, my favorite is The Bride, but like Julie said, that’s the first one of hers I read, so I like it the most. But I’m curious what your favorite is. Tell me your favorite Julie Garwood novel; we’ll make recommendations for everybody. You can email me at [email protected]

As always, I end with a terrible joke, and this joke is from Maggie:

Why was the ear of corn on trial?

Why was the ear of corn on trial?

Well, it had committed a cob-ital offense.

[Laughs] Cob-ital! I – [laughs more] – bad puns are the best jokes, I swear! Cob-ital. Thank you, Maggie, for this wonderful joke, and thank you for hanging out with me today. This, this episode was really exciting for me, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend.

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

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