691. Romantic Times Memories with Heather Graham

Sarah Wendell: Greetings and salutations. An update from the FICE campaign, as I have been calling it, wherein your Patreon pledges will turn off all of the dynamic insertion ads before or after the show permanently. My update: we are sixteen dollars away. Holy cow. Thank you!

Your support is not only going to thwart all the right-wing advertisers with big budgets and all the companies that would like some of that budget, but it’s also making the show incredibly independent. I hadn’t thought of it that way until somebody emailed me about it, but it’s true!

Speaking of, I’ve had a few messages from folks who want to support the campaign and are definitely on board with the campaign’s purpose, but can’t join the Patreon right now. Please know that it is okay and I understand. The combined support from the Patreon community is making the show better for everyone, and I cannot thank you enough for that.

Patreon pledges, as I am sure you are aware, come with a lovely bouquet of benefits: you get bonus and extended episodes, a lovely Discord community, PDF scans of the Romantic Times issues we recap, monthly Zoomy craft hangouts, and you get to be a guest on one of the Holiday Wishes episodes, which I am recording right now, and I’m having a ball.

My point being, thank you. We are sixteen dollars away from the goal, and I’m sure we’ll pass it very soon, and then the ads will stay turned off for everyone. Hurray! Thank you.

[music]

Sarah: Hello, and welcome to episode number 691 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I am Sarah Wendell, and I had a root canal today, so my pronunciation and ability to say words in this intro and in the outro might not be so great? You can probably hear that part of my face is numb, but I’m doing my best however. I know it sounds a little weird. You know what does not sound weird? The entire episode with my guest Heather Graham.

After mentioning Heather Graham, who is one of the grande dames of RT, so many times, I got to sit down with her and ask her about her career, about the way the industry has changed, and of course her memories of Romantic Times, both the magazine and the convention. We are going to talk about her memories of meeting Kathryn Falk, the earliest Romantic Times conventions, Heather’s incredible parties at RT, and the work of hosting a conference. Heather has one of the most interesting career paths, and honestly, this is a guest with whom I could just, like, turn on the mic and be like, Please tell me everything, and it will all be interesting.

I will have some timestamps for an account of some groping and harassment during the interview, and those’ll be right before we start.

I also have a little housekeeping here: we will not be doing an RT Rewind in December and possibly part of November because all of you are going to be my guests! Unless you want to sign up for a Holiday Wishes episode and then just talk about RT, which is totally fine and okay. The end of the year here is Holiday Wishes from all of you. Members of the podcast Patreon or members of Smart Bitches After Dark have a link to sign up to book a time with me, and we do a four-question interview. If you’re in the Patreon or you’re in After Dark, listen it’s super easy. Don’t be intimidated. It’s fifteen or twenty minutes; there’s four questions, and one of them is what your name is. I just want to know what books rocked your world and what wishes you have for everyone in 2026, and if you like, you could bring a bad joke to make me groan. I have already recorded a few. This is going to be a wonderful year for holiday wishes. I am so excited to share these with you.

More importantly, I was able to buy more issues. You can see them on the Smart Bitches Instagram. There is a model on the cover of one of these magazines from 1997 on the cover of a Virginia Henley book, and I am telling you it looks exactly like Taylor Swift. It’s incredible! I’ll link to it in the show notes. But this means that coming in 2026 we’ve got even more Romantic Times to rewind, and I am so excited to dive into these issues.

I have a compliment this week. In fact, I have two! Two compliments, ah-ah-ah.

To Lori S.: You know the feeling when you’re a little chilly and the sun moves or you step into the sunlight and suddenly you’re just covered with warmth? That is how you make your friends feel every day, because you are kind and thoughtful and a very good listener.

And also, to Beck Liz: Did you know that you have a superpower? It is true. Your presence brings instant vibe improvement. If you walk into a room, the vibes are seventy-eight percent better, mostly because of your smile, your sense of humor, and sometimes your socks.

I’ve already mentioned the Patreon, the benefits, and the campaign that we have running now – which I’m calling, ha-ha, FICE. If you would like to join the Patreon, patreon.com/SmartBitches.

I am about ready to launch this episode. I will be right back with some timestamps, which I have to do once I’ve done everything else.

Timestamp time: there is a discussion of groping at forty-eight minutes and forty seconds [48:40]. You’re going to want to skip one minute.

On with the show.

[music]

Sarah: Heather! It’s so good to see you!

Heather Graham: You too. How are you doing?

Sarah: I am so good! Thank you for doing this! I am really, really excited to talk to you.

Heather: Oh, you’re so sweet! Thank you! I did have a question for you: are you going to question me, or I’m just supposed to talk? [Laughs]

Sarah: I have questions for you, but then you just talk.

Heather: Oh, okay! Now, I like questions, ‘cause then I know what I’m talking about. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes. I did send the questions along, but they’re all very easy. I also want to show you – so what we’ve been doing on the podcast for the last two years is, I have been collecting old issues of Romantic Times magazine, and I scan them into PDF, and we recap them top to bottom. We do one episode about the reviews, like all of the new releases that month, and then we do an issue, or an episode where we talk about the ads and the features, like what they were writing about, what the ads looked like, which was great in the ‘90s. So right now we are, for this month, we’re recapping August 1996 –

Heather: Wow. [Laughs]

Sarah: – and I just want to show you who is on the back cover.

Heather: [Laughs]

Sarah: That is – okay, look how old the style of cover is? Like, we’re out of clinch and into single animal on some green? Look at, look at –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – and this is, this is so ‘90s! Like, I love this so much! Like you’re keeping me company while I’m working.

Heather: Do you know what kind of kills me, though, is that that was one thing I loved about belonging to Horror Writers and a couple of the things I went to for them, is they always had the art!

Sarah: Yes!

Heather: You know, like, they had real artists doing – and you could see all the different art they were doing.

Sarah: Yep.

Heather: And I’m pretty sure now almost everything is being done on a computer.

Sarah: Everything is digital, yeah. And back in the day –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – for, you know, for when you were starting and twenty years ago when I started Smart Bitches, there were still people creating, like –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – manual art, like oil paintings for the covers.

Heather: Yes.

Sarah: I have one on my wall –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – right here. That’s an oil painting.

Heather: They did, they did mixed media. Dennis and I did two of them for Zebra.

Sarah: No kidding! That’s fun!

Heather: It’s Ondine and, God, now I’m trying to remember the other one. Ondine was one of them. I’d, I’ll have to find the other one, and I’ll, I’ll send you an email. But that was a lot of fun, ‘cause they did mixed media?

Sarah: Wow!

Heather: That was done by Lynn Sanders and, and Cherif. Cherif was actually an amazing artist. He’s a fireman now!

Sarah: Wait, what?!

Heather: He was also, yeah, he was a model –

Sarah: Wow!

Heather: – and then he was an artist, yeah. Really cool guy.

Hi. I am Heather Graham, and I’m a very lucky human being, because I’ve been writing for several decades – [laughs] – and started out a long time ago, and it was kind of strange for me. I had been working – well, okay. I met my husband when I was fifteen, and he was actually a couple years older, but he went to the junior college, waited for me to graduate. We got married and went off to USF! And I majored in theater there, which was really great, because Disney’d only been open a few years, and we got to go over to Disney all the time, and we could even play Fluffy sometimes; it was great. I loved theater. I worked in the theater in Miami for several years, but – [laughs] – my problem with that is that we were not equity –

Sarah: Nope.

Heather: – and when we had three children it was costing me a great deal more to go to work – [laughs] – than it was to stay home, because day care actually cost more than what I was making.

Sarah: Still does!

Heather: [Laughs]

Sarah: For everybody! It’s horrible!

Heather: I’m telling you. But, but I had a great time. I worked for entertainers down here called the Rose Brothers, too; did some shows with them. I got ten dollars for an afternoon of backup singing, and then I bartended. [Laughs] You put them all together.

But then I just made the decision, you know. I was one of those kids that everybody said, Your nose is always in a book; you should try to write one. And I’d actually written something that had given me, about the times, that had given me a partial scholarship when I was going to college, so I’m thinking, okay, I can probably do this. And my mother had worked as a copyeditor for an advertising agency, so, and she was very, very strict on English and that type thing, which was a little awkward at the beginning, but – she was born in Ireland, so she spent a lot of time making sure American English was always correct.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Heather: But it was great. She definitely helped out. She wound up being, when we did our first group down here, she wound up being secretary for our romantic writers group in Florida… [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s cool.

Heather: But – so the first thing I sold was a short horror story to something called Twilight Zone in Canada, which I don’t believe exists anymore, but I didn’t do it; I really didn’t. [Laughs] It wasn’t my fault.

Sarah: [Laughs] I would never think to blame you!

Heather: But in the meantime – [laughs] – in the meantime, one of the things – I’d grown up with a tremendous amount of history books, because they’d brought them from Ireland and Scotland, and I had all of these, and then I fell in love with American history, and I thought I wanted to write history. But at the time the houses were looking for the category romances. They had just taken off. Harlequin had them. Somebody came out with Second Chance at Love and Silhouette and Candlelight, and all kinds of things were just coming out. And I did want, though, I, I didn’t want to write a book about somebody who became a governess in France, fell in love with the vineyard owner, married him, and lived happily ever after. I, you know, I wanted more of the real world that we were entering into at that time. So I wanted to work with people who might have cared about somebody before, who might have a job, who might have important things happening in their life, and Candlelight was open to that, so I sold my first book to Candlelight, and then Candlelight went into Candlelight Ecstasy, and then it’s a – publishing has definitely taken weird twists and turns –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Heather: – since I started.

Sarah: Y-, yes.

Heather. At the time, that was a lot of what happened. And I knew about the magazine called Romantic Times, I would be getting it, and then I found out – and it had just, really just opened. She had only done one thing, and that was called the Love Train, so far.

Sarah: Yep!

Heather: But she was just beginning her magazine. And she came to Florida with Ken, because they were visiting, he had a grandparent in a home down here, and so it’s like, Yes, of course I’m going to meet you! And at the time one of my cousins-in-law happened to be a drummer, and I said, Oh, we’ll meet at this place, ‘cause they had good food and they had the entertainment, and so I met her. And I was so excited, because she came with a copy of the magazine, and it had an advertisement in it, and the advertisement was Liza, Liza Dawson and Pinnacle Books are looking for historical novels written by authors with a voice similar to Heather Graham. So of course I’m like – [laughs] – Heck yeah! May I try, may I try?

Sarah: I cannot close my mouth. So there was an ad –

Heather: [Laughs]

Sarah: – in one of the earliest issues from an editor –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – looking for writers with your voice. Were you just sort of like, I’m right here? Right here!

[Laughter]

Heather: Well, you know, those were early days. I was like, Let me try, let me try! And she was, Kathryn was great about helping me make connections, and of course I did send things to Liza, and – who’s still wonderful. I think she’s working as an agent right now, but she was wonderful. And it was funny, though, because I had a discussion with her about the companies were very proprietary about names, so I would be writing under a pseudonym. And I’m like, Oh my God, that’s a deep, heavy consideration. So she goes, No, no, you’ve got about sixty seconds. And Shane and Derrick walked into the room, so that became Shannon Drake.

[Laughter]

Heather: So I started writing historical novels for them under Shannon Drake, and then as, you know, years moved along, Dell was also doing historicals, so –

Sarah: Yep.

Heather: – I did historicals under Heather Graham, and I got to get those all in. And then, then we kind of segued into doing a lot of romantic suspense when they went into – I wrote the first Mira, so when they, Mira, going into Mira, it, you know, was going to be a suspense, and it’s still out there, called Slow Burn. Well, I’m being – that’s one thing thankful about these days: everything is still out there because it can be in Kindle!

Sarah: Yes, it sure can!

Heather: Yeah. It’s, it’s still out there. But we had, I would have to say, you know, Kathryn was quite a personality. I loved her. I know she had, you know, problems here and there with people, but she did so much for so many careers, not just me. She, she did amazing things for people, and I still appreciate it to this day. We had so much fun at those conventions, and some were along the line – oh, okay, then I wrote a vampire series. So –

Sarah: You were also one of the earliest, I think, to really –

Heather: Possibly.

Sarah: – dive into vampire romance.

Heather: I can’t really remember what year it was, I should have looked that up, but when I started that we were talking, and then I decided that we would have a vampire party at RT, because RT was really made up of a lot of parties, good parties, costume parties –

Sarah: Oh yes!

Heather: – all kinds of parties.

Sarah: I have lots of questions about these parties, ‘cause I remember them very well.

Heather: Well, we figured, or I should say I figured that since we were doing vampire books, and it had to do with blood, what we should do is have the party and then have all of our proceeds go towards pediatric AIDS. So we did it for many, many years, donating to pediatric AIDS from the vampire party, and it was a lot of fun, because she also had all of her cover model contests.

And the first one that I went in, went to, her first, I think her, the first actual convention was in New York, and I was there, and she was so funny, because she was starting, you know, her, her contest, her cover model contest, and she said, Oh, you’re going to walk with  him, and I’m like, Wait a minute; you told me I was supposed to be judging with Nora Roberts, and she goes, Yeah, yeah, but just walk with him. Then you get to sit down. I’m like, Okay, whatever. [Laughs]

Sarah: Okay!

Heather: So I wound up walking with a guy named Lance Tobalt, who to this day is a very good friend of mine, and I don’t remember who won. [Laughs]

Sarah: So you judged –

Heather: If I felt like…

Sarah: – one of the, you judged one of the earliest Mr. Romances –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – with Nora Roberts.

Heather: [Laughs]

Sarah: Amazing!

Heather: It was…

Sarah: I’m so excited to listen to all of this. Okay. Wow.

Heather: But then, let’s see, she just, I also met someone who’s been my best friend and also has been kind enough to work with me as my assistant for years and years. I met Connie Perry and the Ladies of Louisiana because of all the costume contests, ‘cause they were Mardi Gras dressers. That’s, that’s what they did, many of them did for a living! So they would come with their absolutely fantastic costumes, and that was a lot of fun too, because what they would do, so many of them – and other people too, of course – they would pick characters out of an author’s book and for the costume contests they would be dressed up as those characters.

Sarah: Wow!

Heather: So – [laughs] – it was really, really wonderful, and it would be exciting to see what people could do. And I think it’s fun, too, because the one great thing about a book to me that, that I take nothing away from video or anything else, but in a book the characters are what you see in your head.

Sarah: Yes.

Heather: So everybody’s going to see something a little bit different –

Sarah: Yes.

Heather: – which is a lot of the fun of it. So getting to see somebody dress up as your characters, it’s like, Oh wow! Yeah, that could be! [Laughs] That was, that was a fun thing to do.

Sarah: Have you seen the footage of J. R. Ward meeting the actors playing the Black Dagger Brotherhood in the film adaptation?

Heather: Oh no, I haven’t!

Sarah: I will send them to you.

Heather: I’m going to have to go watch it.

Sarah: I will send them to you. There are two, and at one, she’s just, she walks up, she goes, Holy shit!

[Laughter]

Sarah: And, like, she has to sit down. She’s in front of some stairs, and she’s like, I have, I have to sit down right now. The guy looks exactly like the character she envisioned. So then there’s another one where she’s walking in, and the char-, the other character comes up, and she’s like, Oh, oh, oh, and she is completely overcome, because it’s so good. And, like, she’s like, I, I, I’m so sorry; I’m being rude. Hi, I’m, I’m, I’m Jessica. I’m so sorry; I need to – like, she is just completely overcome by seeing something that was in her head –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – fully…

Heather: Come to life, yeah.

Sarah: Fully come to life!

Heather: Come to real life.

Sarah: Yeah!

Heather: Yeah. Mm-hmm, absolutely. Yeah, there’s a lot of that, and then some, it’s like – oh! We just did, I was just a location chair for Bouchercon –

Sarah: Oh, cool!

Heather: – which, which we build, we bill as the world mystery convention. I mean, there are a lot of conventions; we just bill it that way. But it is a lot of fun, because it’s a convention that’s set up for readers, for librarians, for writers, for anybody who loves mysteries, and it’s so much fun in that aspect, because it’s, to me – I’ve said this before; I’ve said it on my website, I think – but it’s kind of like, I just love it because it’s like this pack of puppies that gets together to play?

Sarah: Yep!

Heather: People are so nice. We do a free book night to benefit the libraries, and – [laughs] – I got to put on my dinner theater and have the band play and all that kind of thing. So we had a great time, and we also had opening ceremonies at the World War II museum, which meant a lot to me. It’s an amazing museum. But working with us, Connie, Connie was the administrator for it, and working with us we had I forget how many people, fifteen to twenty? And we’ve known them since RT.

Sarah: Wooow!

Heather: So they’re like friends who come along to help when you need it, you know, who still love – yeah, we’ve kind of segued from romance into mystery now, but they’re all people who just love books! And we’ve stayed friends all these years, and it’s pretty amazing that it all began with RT.

Sarah: There is, I, I am really confident in my theory that so much of where romance is right now can be traced directly back to RT and Kathryn Falk. Only now, for example, it is 2025, and only now are people saying, Wow, historical romance is really in trouble. There’s hardly any of it. No one is stocking or selling or transporting mass market paperback. Like, mass market paperback as a format is really gone in romance.

Heather: It’s gone.

Sarah: It’s gone.

Heather: It’s gone. It’s hardcover or trade or –

Sarah: Exactly.

Heather: Yep.

Sarah: And I mean, I understand the reasons why. Economically, I totally get it, but I think one of the reasons why historical became so popular is not just because of the Avon ladies and not just because they were the, really the big first major titles, but that Kathryn was a champion of historical romance and –

Heather: Yes.

Sarah: – constantly promoted it, and it was, like, her love, like the thing – I think the magazine started because she’d been writing a book about historical romances and historical figures, and they were like, No, this one chapter! Do that one chapter! Make that a book! And – woo, tell me!

Heather: Oh, I, I was going to say, I think a lot of us, one thing – I mean, I, I was a lucky kid, because my parents read everything, and they encouraged you to read. They were wonderful about that, and my mom had a ton of Gothics.

Sarah: Ohhh yes!

Heather: Phyllis Whitney, Victoria Holt, you know, by all of her names, and, you know, all kinds of things like that. So I had, I had read so many Gothics, and I absolutely loved the format. So, you know, it seems, you know, it’s just something I always wanted to do. And she was a champion; she was, I think she was a champion of the genre –

Sarah: Yes

Heather: – you know, in general. Because it’s, it’s strange; I never really understood why; many people look down on the genre.

Sarah: Oh yes, they do!

Heather: And she was, you know, she was the voice behind really, you know, getting it out there and supporting people – not just people who were writing; people who wanted to read – and with RT, she created fun!

Sarah: Oh my goodness.

Heather: You know, we all got to go and have fun. And it, it was nice, because a lot of us – I, I don’t remember what year I joined RWA, but of course I joined RWA and I was with them. And I’m an equal – [laughs] – opportunity grabber: I belong to everything.

Sarah: I mean, why not, right?

Heather: [Laughs] I love HWA too; I love MWA; I love, I love all of them, so. And I still love to read everything known to man.

Sarah: Yep.

Heather: So it, yeah, it, it definitely works. But I also, like I said, I have so many friends from back then. One very special, whom I just spent some time with and I love to pieces, who has not only had wonderful things happen with her work, but she’s just a beautiful person, is Charlaine Harris.

Sarah: Oh my goodness! Yes! I remember one of my early RTs, she was there.

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: And I was like, I was just, I was just in a hotel hall with, with Charlaine Harris. She was walking this way, and I was walking that way, and I was in the same hotel hall with Charlaine Harris! Like, there was a part of me that was not able to comprehend what I had just experienced.

Heather: [Laughs]

Sarah: And then I ran into her on Bourbon Street – you remember when the conference was in New Orleans?

Heather: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: I ran into her on Bourbon Street, and I’m like, well, this is much more appropriate. This I understand.

[Laughter]

Sarah: But Charlaine Harris and you and some other authors, you were really, you were there every year!

Heather: Oh, definitely! She supported us, and we supported her.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Heather: We had, we definitely had some funny things happen. Did you go on the ship, by any chance?

Sarah: I did not. That was before my time, but I have seen all of –

Heather: Okay.

Sarah: – the ads for the romance, romance cruises. I, I would love to do one now myself, because it sounds really fun!

Heather: [Laughs] That was interesting because the, the, the ship we were on was not their best ship, and –

Sarah: Oh no!

[Laughter]

Heather: – we planned, we planned a party, and it was supposed to be, like, on the back deck? And the wind whipped up, and they told us, Oh no, you can’t change your party! It’s set for this time! And so it’s like, Okay! So we started to have the party, but all the tarps started blowing off.

Sarah: [Gasps] Oh my gosh!

Heather: …so they finally did let us come in and kind of end the party inside, but it was interesting as it happened. And then the day that we were coming back in, the Mississippi was incredibly rough, and we watched, like, the pizza pans go flying… [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh no! [Laughs]

Heather: – all over the place. So it was definitely an interesting cruise.

Sarah: Oh yes. I have, I have so many questions about RT. One of my favorite memories is just the energy of it. There is –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – and I, I’m sure you experienced this with, with Bouchercon and any conference that involves readers: there is a very specific energy that comes when people take a week off of work, they put down their responsibilities to their family, to their parents, to their kids, to their communities, and they take a vacation about books.

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: That is, and it’s, and, you know, RWA was a business conference. That was a career-focused conference; it had a different vibe. There were parties! There’s lots of parties, but RT was a –

Heather: [Laughs]

Sarah: – was more of a reader convention, and that energy, I, I miss it a lot. Like, that was a very unique, unique in energy. What were some of your earliest memories of RT, either the magazine or the conference? Or both?

Heather: Oh wow. Well – [laughs] – let’s see, the first one was in the Roosevelt –

Sarah: Yep.

Heather: – and at 3 a.m. we got this loud knock on the door? We had to get out for them to check for bedbugs. [Laughs] So –

Sarah: Oh God, no! Oh God! Oh, yuck! Now I feel itchy! Aw, that is the worst!

Heather: Yeah, yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: Kathryn must have been pissed!

Heather: That was interesting. So, so we would get into discussions about where it was going to be after that.

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: But she was trying, which is something that, you know, a lot of people do now too is that when you’re doing contracts on places, because – well, okay, I’m going to segue a little bit with what I had learned from her. I’ve always had friends in New Orleans, and because when I was a little kid my dad took me, we went to the zoo, we went, you know, he showed me the museums and the cemeteries, and it’s, it’s very funny, ‘cause you tell people that, and they’re kind of like, What? Your father was taking you down Bourbon Street when you were five? And it’s like…

Sarah: Heck yeah!

Heather: – there was a Bourbon Street at the time.

[Laughter]

Heather: We saw the, you know, we, we saw all the incredible historic and, and learning sites, and again, the zoo, and then I was so excited because Cat People with David Bowie came out, and then I was, I’ve been there, I’ve been there! I did love David Bowie. [Laughs] Anyway. The, there’s, there’s just something about it, and so I had gotten up there as quickly as I could to see some people after Katrina –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Heather: – and one of them owned a carriage company. She was saying, you know, they weren’t getting the help they needed from the federal, the state, the –

Sarah: Nope; been there.

Heather: – parish, or the city, but she loved the American people. They were doing so much for them, but they didn’t want to live on charity, and then she looked at me and said, And you can have a convention. And I went, Uhhh. [Laughs]

But Connie was with me, and we decided we would try, and for some reason she’s just, she has always known the working of conventions. And she managed to do the negotiating, because one of the things is, when you’re having something like that, you’ve got to get a hotel rate that people can afford.

Sarah: Yes!

Heather: So that’s one of the big things with conventions. So we did wind up doing it at the Monteleone, and I think we did it for seventeen years, and then –

Sarah: I was at one of them!

Heather: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.

Sarah: I was a Guest of Honor.

Heather: Yes!

Sarah: I don’t even know if I can tell you how life-changing that experience was for me?

Heather: Really!

Sarah: It really was. I, I still tell stories about it. One, you built in time into the conference for people to go shopping, and you would literally tell everybody, If you don’t go shopping, I will be mad! This time is for you to go shop; now go shop in New Orleans; they need your money. Which, really, no problem; on it.

The second thing was that I was with L. A. Banks, who has –

Heather: Uh-huh.

Sarah: – since passed away; Kayla Perrin; and Joe Konrath. And I don’t know if you remember this; this is the, my, probably my favorite thing you’ve ever done? Like, you will go down as a hero in my world for this?

Heather: Ohhh, you’re too sweet!

Sarah: So the opening, you’re like, you know, Just tell us your story! And I went first, and I’m like, Listen, I am so in awe at who I am sitting next to? You know, here’s how I got my start, and I’m a blogger, and I write online, and this is my book, and I’m so honored to be here. I hand the message to, or hand the mic to L. A. Banks, who had the greatest call story I’ve ever heard in my life, because if I remember correctly, she thought it was a bill collector who called her, and she pretended to be her landlord.

Heather: [Laughs]

Sarah: And said, she, Oh, she can’t come to the phone. And they’re like, Oh, I’m so-and-so calling from this publishing house. She goes, Ohhh, hang on! And I remember her saying, And I stood up, and I stomped to the door, and then I opened the door and I went out in the hall, and I turned around and I came back in, and we’re all pretending to yell at each other, and I got on the phone with my editor. To this day I thought she was a bill collector. And then Kayla Perrin is supposed to go, but Joe Konrath gets the mic, and he talks for an hour. And we ran out of time! So Kayla Perrin didn’t get to talk. And this kind of kept happening whenever the four of us were there: Joe would get the mic, and he wouldn’t let it go. And so at the very last session, we’re all up on the dais, and you come up to me and L. A. Banks and Kayla Perrin, and you’re like, Listen, we’ve turned off Joe Konrath’s mic.

Heather: [Laughs] I…

Sarah: Don’t give him yours. We turned it off. And I was like – [deep breath] – I love this so muuuch!

Heather: [Laughs more]

Sarah: And that’s exact- – he could, he would lean in and be like – [sputtering noises] – nothing.

So this is, like, this was life-changing: I met L. A. Banks, and I think she passed away like a year later? Maybe a year or two? ‘Cause I remember meeting her and her daughter, and then about a year or so I went to the memorial service for her – or it was a memorial auction; it was a benefit auction – and I remember, you know how sometimes, like, the universe talks to you in weird ways? The book that I had been reading at your conference was for sale in the window of the store next to where her memorial – it was a bar; it was like a –

Heather: Oh wow!

Sarah: – action, auction, and I’m walking, and I’m like, That is the book I was reading when I was at this conference when I met L. A. Banks. Wow, this is clearly a sign that I am in the right place, and I am going to go into the, have a good time. I had a great time, but I still remember (a) L. A. Banks was truly an incredible person, and (b) your conference –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – was the most dope. I loved it so much –

Heather: Oh!

Sarah: – so thank you for that!

Heather: Thank you! Thank you! Yeah, I’m going to have to – I, I think we’re going to do one more grand finale. We wound up doing one because this, this Bouchercon was supposed to have been, I forget what year, 2021 or something, when we were in the middle of the pandemic –

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: – and a storm wound up coming and the whole thing. So I wound up doing one then, even though – one of the funny things is of course I was out with Connie when we first went in. People would be, Oh, come eat here; oh, come eat here; come shop here. You know, they’d be on the street begging people to come in, and then one time couple years later I was with her when, and I’m looking at my watch; it’s like, Wow, we’re in a long line. It’s like, Isn’t that what you wanted?

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Heather: [Laughs] You know, and it’s like, Yeah! Yeah, it’s back up. But we did one again when we missed Bouchercon because a lot of friends liked that. That was their way they came to New Orleans –

Sarah: Yeah!

Heather: – all the time, and, and you always got to see an author that you cared about, maybe an editor, you know, things like that.

Sarah: Always.

Heather: So we’re probably going to do one more, one more grand finale.

Sarah: But you’re so right, that the hotel contract is one of the foundational pieces of these conferences, and I think that’s one of the reasons why a lot of the conferences that are trying to pop up now in romance, there’s been a bunch of weekend cons or reader gatherings, and they have gone really poorly, and part of it is just the cost, and –

Heather: The costs, the costs are high.

Sarah: The costs are so high!

Heather: But they have, that’s just it: you have, you know, you have people who can – now, I am not a negotiator? [Laughs] I’m not good at all, because somebody says something like, Oh, that’s so nice! And you’re supposed to say, No, that’s great, but do we get this room with it?

Sarah: Yes.

Heather: No, that – [laughs] – that’s…

Sarah:  That’s very much a Yes, and –

Heather: – learn how to –

Sarah: – we get this?

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: Yes, and we get that –

Heather: Yes, exactly.

Sarah: – yep.

Heather: Yep. So, thank God Connie’s a good negotiator. [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh, she’s, she’s terrific. And she’s so organized, like –

Heather: Yeah, she is a really – yeah.

Sarah: – I’m organized person; she is like next-level God-tier organized.

Heather: [Laughs]

Sarah: So my first year at RT, at the convention, was the one in Pittsburgh, and –

Heather: Okay.

Sarah: – I don’t know if you remember this: the hotel wasn’t finished? They had been renovating it.

Heather: Yes, I do remember!

Sarah: Stuff was hanging from the ceiling. Okay, that is my hometown, and I was so embarrassed –

Heather: Oh!

Sarah: – because the thing that I did the most was tell people who had asthma how to get to Mercy Hospital because the dust of the hotel was making them sick? And so I was like, Okay, you’re going to go up this block, turn left; there’s a hospital right there. That was my role for, like, a little while. That was the same year that one of the Mr. Romance contestants had a breakdown and threatened to kill his roommate, and I watched all of these conference attendees, who in their real lives are psych nurses, physician assistants, hospice nurses –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – and they just, like, his roommate, who had been threatened, they just adopted him and were like, You are staying with us. You’re going to, we’re going to make, make sure there’s a bed for you. We’re going to take over. These people were incredible in how –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – they treated others.

Heather: Well, I think that’s one thing you find at the conferences is that, like, like, it’s kind of like the same thing I was just saying: you’re, you’re just happy to be together.

Sarah: Yeah!

Heather: Because – or even, you know, when you get together with writers and readers it’s kind of like, you know, Oh my God, I hate this cover! What do you think? Is it okay? Is it –

Sarah: Yeah!

Heather: – going to be okay? Should I – you know, like – you know, ‘cause somebody told me one time, everything in publishing is know, know when to hold, know when to fold?

Sarah: Yes.

Heather: You know, and of course that hasn’t really changed. Many things have changed over the years, but this was funny, ‘cause it reminds me of when you were – [laughs] – telling me about L. A. Banks and, and that group, because when I got the first call, I’m, you know, you’re, I mean, first of all, you know, we’re sending out the self-addressed stamped envelopes and, you know –

Sarah: Oh yeah, and –

Heather: – everything’s snail mail.

Sarah: Mailing out a manuscript in an envelope that’s like two and a half inches thick. Oh yeah.

Heather: Yeah. Yeah. And actually, yeah, I have a, a family band, and it’s called the Slush Pile, because –

Sarah: No!

[Laughter]

Heather: Yes. Yes, Slush Pile is available on iTunes, but – [laughs] – it just, that’s what so many people I know came from!

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: And I can’t imagine those poor editors trying to go through those massive, massive piles. But when I, I first got a call, and I’m so excited, and – [laughs] – I love my mother-in-law, but she came out of the depression, as, you know, did mine, but so if I would be typing, you know, trying to get something done, she would say, Oh good, you’re not busy.

Sarah: Yes! Oh my gosh!

Heather: Okay, whatever. And then –

Sarah: Oh yes.

Heather: – when I didn’t get a call back, like weeks went by and I didn’t get a call again, and she was like, Oh honey, I’m so sorry; somebody’s, somebody’s, you know, just playing you. They’re playing a joke on you. And then the editor finally called back and apologized: they’d been at sales conference, you know –

Sarah: Of course!

Heather: – they were back and everything, and they really bought it. And then it was just so funny because then if I was working and anybody came near me, she’d bat them away.

[Laughter]

Heather: That kind of stuff…I was working then.

Sarah: Get back! Get back!

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: So I remember –

Heather: But, but I do understand it. I understand what the, you know, what they came from, so.

Sarah: Yes. Yes, and, and like you said, gathering with other writers and other readers, that’s a common language?

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: That you can get right into really meaningful and, and sometimes vulnerable conversations ‘cause you know you’re talking with people who value the same things that you do, which was one of the valuable parts, I think, of RT. It was all people who loved romance, and we all wanted to come and hang out and talk about it.

Heather: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: Amanda, my assistant, who recaps with me, said something so wise, and I think about it all the time. She had started with a convention, ‘cause I used to bring her and my writing staff; I would bring all of us to RT. And her first experience with RT was just the convention. So then I was like, Do you want to recap the magazine? And Amanda was like, You know, I, I’m recapping the magazine with you, and I remember the conference, and it really is, the conference really was the magazine come to life.

Heather: Yeah!

Sarah: It was the magazine and all of the enthusiasm and all of the writers giving advice and teaching each other things. The earliest articles I’ve ever seen about computer reading, digital reading, eBooks, eBook formatting, how to get eBooks on your computer, where to buy them, all of that I found in RT. So the magazine –

Heather: In RT.

Sarah: – was also teaching this generation of readers, who probably were not very tech savvy, how to read eBooks. And the conference was that energy in, come to life, which –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – is really incredible if you think about how hard it is to do that.

Heather: Yeah. Well, I think that’s, that is one thing I’ve discovered: I went to my first World Fantasy last year, and one of the things that I have discovered is that all of them, romance, mystery, horror, fantasy, readers, and in all these years – first of all, readers are wonderful – and I remember somebody – [laughs] – somebody came up and introduced themselves to me at Bouchercon, and he was like, I’m just a reader. It’s like, oh, no, no, no –

Sarah: Nooo!

Heather: – there’s no such thing as just a reader. [Laughs]

Sarah: No such thing!

Heather: I am a reader; I’ll always be a reader. No, we love readers.

Sarah: All of this exists because of you! Because you are reading –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – we are doing all of this. You are not just a reader.

Heather: Exactly.

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: Could not exist if we didn’t.

Sarah: No.

Heather: You know, and I’ve had people say the same thing to me, and I remember the one, my first reaction one time when somebody said, I don’t understand why you guys go to all of these conventions to teach your competition. And I remember first thing that came to my mind is, If other people aren’t writing, what the hell am I going to read? [Laughs]

Sarah: Right?!

Heather: Yeah! You’ve got to keep a, all up, got to keep it going all the time, because I can’t – I don’t know. ‘Cause you see the things where, oh, if you’re stuck on an island, what food would you want? And it’s, I don’t care what my food is; just drop me a –

Sarah: I need books.

Heather: – give me enough books to read –

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: – for the whole time and I’ll be fine. So. And then –

Sarah: I remember at the RT in, in Pittsburgh, Kate Duffy had been registered mistakenly as a reader. She had a reader badge and not an editor badge? She’s like, I’m having the best time! [Laughs]

Heather: I know. I loved Kate.

Sarah: Me too!

Heather: Kate was one of my favorite people. Yeah.

Sarah: She was one of my first real mentors in romance. When the site started and we were, you know, causing all sorts of ruckus, she was one of the first people who said, No, I think what you’re doing is really important, and I think that the criticism that you are giving is important, and what you’re doing is important. And then if I screwed up, if she didn’t like what I was doing, I also heard about it instantly from her. Like, instant…

Heather: [Laughs] Oh yeah! No, Kate would tell you!

Sarah: She was like, I am not pleased about this. I’m like, Okay. You know, I was in my twenties; I was very intimidated.

I also remember my first RT in Pittsburgh, there was a hanging. You hung somebody on stage. I had never been to RT before –

Heather: I have. [Laughs]

Sarah: – I, I’m on, I’m like, I’ve got a little spot on the little table, I’m off to the side, and here, and you’re producing dinner theater. You know, every experience in your life is valuable, so you get to do dinner theater at RT, and you hung somebody! And I remember my jaw was dropped. [Laughs]

Heather: I didn’t really kill him!

Sarah: Oh no, you didn’t, but I was not expecting a hanging over dinner. It was, it was incredible.

Heather: Yeah, I just killed somebody at Bouchercon too.

Sarah: Oh, congratulations! Well done!

Heather: [Laughs]

Sarah: How did you start doing these productions for the conference? And if I remember correctly, from looking at older issues, you would write a different story for each one. You would write something for the production each time, right?

Heather: Yeah. ‘Cause I’m, I never, I mean, to this day I love theater. I go to theater anywhere.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Heather: And, I mean, I think, again, I think a lot of it had to do with my parents, because first thing I remember, I’m a little kid, and they, my mother immigrated, dad, and then they all came into Chicago, so I was a little kid when we would go from Miami to Chicago. She would always take me to the museums, to the plays and things, and I fell in love with Howard Keel in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers when I was five or something; I don’t know.

Sarah: Howard Keel –

Heather: But –

Sarah: – whoo! Yeah.

Heather: – ever since then, you know, I was in love with it too, and to this day I, you know, love theater. I just, I love to go watch things, and – and we just, I had a friend who, Jackie Reilly, she was in Cats, a Broadway production of Cats for twelve years, and I would drag her to things and make her sing. [Laughs] This sucks. Yeah, we’ve, we’ve lost Jackie now too, but boy, did I love it when she would come, ‘cause I never heard a voice like that. She was incredible.

But it’s, you know, they were just the things, you know, that I came from, that I was in love with. And sadly, a lot of the time now I wish I had taken a lot more math or – [laughs] – things that were a little, little more practical, but I still, to this day, I still love theater. There will hopefully be more productions in the future.

Sarah: Oh, I hope so.

Heather: This one was a lot of fun because there’s a fellow named Clay Stafford who runs something called Killer Nashville, and I made him be my detective, and then John Land, with whom I’ve written Young Adult, he got way more carried away than I thought. Have another friend, Terry Rogers, who also does ghost expeditions? [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh, excuse me, what? Yes, please!

Heather: [Laughs] Yes, he is great. I’ve, I’ve, I’ve done supernatural on – oh God, I forgot the name of the ship now. One of the ghost ships from World War II; we did one with him on that, and we’ve done some others, but – and then Lisa Black, who is a forensic scientist, and Tracy Hill! I mean Tracy Huff–

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Heather: – whom I know from, like, my whole life with RT and, and all of that type thing.

Sarah: There is this genuine, especially when you are connected to each other through organizations like Bouchercon or RT –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – there is a sense of mutual support, because –

Heather: Yes.

Sarah: – these people actually get it. Like, they get how it is in this career and in this business and how weird it is. Like, they get it.

Heather: Right. Yes.

Sarah: That was the other thing about RT: for readers it was a place where we all understood that outside of RT people would look down on us for reading romance, and people would look down on romance and had, probably had – I remember, I remember the press coverage from the early days of my going twenty years ago, and it was very different. Like, if you had RT now, I think the media knows better how to talk about romance. They take it more seriously, because –

Heather: I do too –

Sarah: – ‘cause it’s made so much money!

Heather: – because, it’s like I said, publishing’s always been funny.

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Heather: I started out with a short horror story.

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: Then I sold a romance, and then I finally got to sell historical romance, and then I did vampires, lot of suspense, mystery, that type thing, but I always, I still think, like, you know, advising people, it’s still the most important thing to make sure, if you love everything, then hey, great, but you’ve got to love and be excited about your own work –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Heather: – because that’s what, you know, that’s, that’s where your excitement’s going to be on the page that people are going to find.

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: But now, we were just talking too about the demise of the paperback –

Sarah: Yes!

Heather: – so you’re –

Sarah: Which is a massive loss.

Heather: – going to have trade, you’re going to have – yeah – hardcover, and you’re going to have E, and that’s changed things, but one of the strange things that I had happen in the last, I guess, okay, last several years at this point, but during the pandemic I saw a really good documentary on the time when the Romans left Britain –

Sarah: Huh!

Heather: – and it talked about all the different tribes that were coming in and where they were and everything like that, and I thought, oh my God, I’ve got to do something with that, and so I decided I was going to, you know, go back to historical and write something on the Romans leaving Britain, and then I thought, I’ve got to put Merlin’s daughter in it! [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh hell, yeah, you are!

Heather: …had a bunch of stuff. Well, then, at the time, my company did not want to see something that wasn’t, you know, mystery. We need –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Heather: – mystery, mystery. So I’m like, Okay. And I hadn’t been Shannon Drake, so I put it, the name Shannon Drake on it and threw it up on Amazon myself! And then, you know, go by a few years here, and then the next contract I get to, they wanted two romantasies. I hadn’t even known the term romantasy. [Laughs]

Sarah: Well, I – the, the, the term romantasy makes me laugh so hard, because everyone is like, It’s this new thing, and I’m like, No, it’s not! We’ve been doing this! [Laughs] This is just a new name!

Heather: No, we – Silhouette, I had written for something called Shadows –

Sarah: Yes!

Heather: – and that had to be –

Sarah: Luna? Yeah!

Heather: – a long time – [laughs]. But those were basically romantasy!

Sarah: That is rrromantasy. I think you have to trill the R to make it really special, so I always say it rrromantasy.

Heather: Romantasy. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes, you have to trill it; it’s, it’s important!

[Laughter]

Heather: But anyway, so I wound up with two of those, so the next book I have coming out is called The Sword of Light, and it is a romantasy!

Sarah: That is awesome.

Heather: And so it’s –

Sarah: Congratulations, by the way!

Heather: I don’t know. Well, it’s awesome, but it’s also a little strange, because the book I had out in April is called The Murder Machine, and it is about somebody – and frighteningly, a lot of the things I took right out of the news – somebody using AI to commit murder.

Sarah: Yep.

Heather: Which can be done. And so it just seems strange that the first book is hardcore mystery – [laughs] – and the second one is going to be romantasy.

Sarah: Romantasy! Congratulations, though! I mean, seriously. I interviewed Holly Black for an inter-, for, for the podcast, and she said, you know, Victory is still being in the game. Victory is, you know, success is being able to do the job and still being, still being, still doing the job.

Heather: Yeah. Just, no, I, I love what I do. I hope I never have to stop. And then, I was going to say the next thing that I had out, because of the demise of the paperback –

Sarah: Yep.

Heather: – I was doing, this year, doing the murder mystery and then the fantasy, but I’m delighted to say that we’re having kind of what we call a Krewe segue –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Heather: – because the – [laughs] – Krewe of Hunters is, God, I don’t know how many books are out on that…

Sarah: It’s a lot.

Heather: – but anyway, a Krewe of Hunters will come and, from, called The Witching Hours, which will be coming out from Kensington in January. So –

Sarah: Congratulations!

Heather: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I’m, I’m really – well, I, I, I – the other thing is, I think I’ve been incredibly lucky, ‘cause we talked about Kate, we talked about a couple of other people. I have been very, very lucky to work with some amazing editors, you know, that I loved very much. And so, what – I, I love everybody at Mira, but one thing that I do love about Kensington too is they’re still standing. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes!

Heather: So, it’s still family-owned, and –

Sarah: I am, in the August ’96 issue, we’re talking about the conference, and there’s this whole page of VIPs of publishing. First of all, it is like ninety percent white guys, including the guy who is the book buyer – this is 1996 – the book buyer for Booking Along truck stops. The truck stop book buyer was at RT! But right in the middle is Walter Zacharius and Steven Zacharius, both attending –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – the conference as, you know, Kensington, and I’m like, I have, I have had drinks with Steve Zacharius. He’s a very jovial person to have a drink with! And then I’m thinking, like, How the hell am I having a drink with a guy who has run a publishing house for this long, and it is still standing?

Heather: He was a riot. Speaking of RT, you know what Kathryn had me do one year?

Sarah: Please tell me!

Heather: [Laughs] Walter was there, and it was his birthday, so she had this wooden cake made, and I had to dress up as Marilyn Monroe and jump out of it – [laughs] – so I could sing “Happy Birthday” to him. That part was all fine and great, except one of my kids was at that conference, and Derrick walked by when I was sitting on the cake waiting to go in it, and he looked at me, and I, I said, I said, Is this okay? He goes, You look like your mother. [Laughs]

Sarah: [Gasps]

Heather: He walked off, and it’s kind of like, not that I don’t love my mother, but –

Sarah: That’s not the image you want getting into a cake dressed as Marilyn Monroe! Ohhh –

Heather: No, so I, you know –

Sarah: – wow.

Heather: – that wasn’t the plan. [Laughs]

Sarah: So what are some of your favorite stories about Kathryn Falk and the, and the conference?

Heather: [Laughs] The only one of them that – you know, because we, ‘cause, you know, we’ve come out with so many codes of conduct and things like that?

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: One of the things I always remember, because anytime something’s being done I always say, It’s got to go both ways.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Heather: And one of the reasons I can do that is, we also – and like I said, most of the guys were great, and I’m so appreciative to them – but one time when we were doing the, you paid five dollars, and you get a dance with a cover model. And my son, one of my sons was actually an Arthur Murray instructor.

Sarah: Oh!

Heather: So he, the other boys would, you know, would do it for me too, so that, you know, we’re making money for pediatric AIDS. So I’m there one day, and couple people had complained to me like, Oh, my song wasn’t a, you know, slow one, and I’m like, You know, I’m so sorry; I’m not, you know, some – we, we can’t just play slow; everybody’ll leave. So they’re, you know, okay with that, and then – [laughs] – one of my sons came back to me and said, Mom, and I’m like, Yeah? And he said, Could you ask them not to pinch our butts?

Sarah: [Gasps]

Heather: [Laughs]

Sarah: Ohhh! I have heard that the Mr. Romance men experienced a lot of touching. Yes, I have heard that is true.

Heather: So I did. You know, I made an announcement, you know, like, You, you, you’ve paid five dollars to charity for a dance. You did not buy a man! [Laughs] This is the five dollars for charity.

And then we had another, one of the theaters that we were doing there, one of my friends – I guess I killed a lot of people. I didn’t know…

Sarah: You have killed a lot of people. I mean, at RT, your, your, your death, your death toll is, is really quite significant.

Heather: [Laughs]

Sarah: Cheers to that, by the way!

Heather: We had her in a coffin, and when the show ended, you know, everybody starts talking, we’re going to go into the dancing –

Sarah: Yep.

Heather: – I think Lance was in it that year, and he had gotten us some champagne, and we’re all backstage. So it’s about twenty minutes later before we finally hear –

Sarah: [Laughs] She’s knocking?

Heather: We forgot to get Lorna out of the coffin.

[Laughter]

Sarah: Hello, please, I have to pee!

[Laughter]

Heather: So of course we went back very apologetically and got her out. So that one was a, a funny experience in a way, but I guess not for Lorna.

Sarah: No, probably not for her.

Heather: She was stuck in there, but.

Sarah: One thing I know, having gone to so many conferences, and having been part of planning different conferences in different industries is, is they are very expensive, beyond just the hotel contract and the price for the room, it’s expensive to do these productions and, you know, once you, once – like, for example, RT had meals! That’s like eighty dollars just for the roll on your plate! These are very expensive meals, which is why you would have these huge groups of authors splitting the cost and then coming up with a theatrical reason…

Heather: So that you could have meals –

Sarah: Yes!

Heather: – exactly. Exactly.

Sarah: And it was so expensive! Do you remember –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – and if this is an off-color question, please feel free to not answer, but do you remember a ballpark of what you were spending at RT, what you were investing?

Heather: Uhhh, thousands.

Sarah: That’s what I figured. ‘Cause I would –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – just, just ballpark looking at, like, the Seelie and Unseelie Court. That was probably ten authors on each side, so you have twenty authors, plus other people, plus publishing sponsors, just for this one meal –

Heather: Yes.

Sarah: – and I’m like, I know how much a meal like this costs at a hotel if you’re hosting a conference. This is thousands and thousands of dollars invested! Not just from publishers, but from authors! Like, this was a career investment!

Heather: Yeah. Well, but we didn’t have to do it by ourselves.

Sarah: No.

Heather: Do you know what I mean?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Heather: That, that was the thing: you know, groups of us would get together and it would be, Okay, we’re going to do this meal, and then a lot of the, you know, the companies back then, Harlequin put in for a lot of them –

Sarah: Oh, lots of money.

Heather: – Kensington? You know, a lot of the different companies were putting in, and that definitely helped, because – [laughs] – that was one thing my, my husband was funny, because he was saying, he said, Man, you guys had a lot of meals, but they were usually muffulettas. And I’m kind of like, Yeah, ‘cause that’s what we could afford –

Sarah: Yeah!

Heather: – to get everywhere – [laughs] – ‘cause that’s…

Sarah: And listen, no shame on a mufuletta; that’s good stuff. [Laughs]

Heather: Yeah, yeah. That’s what, that’s why you need the, the, the good negotiator. But the other thing that I wanted that we had worked for this, and it’s similar with things we did back in RT: we have, we had a special event for what we called the underrepresented authors?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Heather: Which could be, you know, people writing in a little off genre things, you know, perhaps…

Sarah: So, like, basically marginalized people writing –

Heather: Marginalized, yes. Exactly.

Sarah: – books about marginalized groups, but then also, like, somebody writing, like, medievals, which are not popular, or somebody writing something that isn’t very –

Heather: Right, right!

Sarah: – trendy. Yeah.

Heather: Anything that we considered un-, you know, underrepresented –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Heather: – and I was thrilled, because we were able to have a nice thing for that. And then the other thing that I have learned over all these years is somebody might have their first thing out, they might have a couple of things out, they might have been that underrepresented author, and in two years they may have the biggest movie on the planet out. You know –

Sarah: Yep!

Heather: – you don’t know. You need to take the chance to discover everything.

Sarah: Yes!

Heather: And then – what’d we call that? – and then we had, then we had, again, we had another one where it was called the Discovery Zone –

Sarah: Yes, I remember that one!

Heather: – so you could go out and see the independently published, you know, all things like that. And we had, we had food at both of them, and I was so happy. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah. Seriously!

Heather: Even if it was muffulettas!

Sarah: Having food at a conference event? Like, I look at that and I’m like, Okay, this is very serious money here. Like, I look at that as a major investment on the part of the conference, because it’s, it’s so expensive. I also remember one of the RTs in Florida. I want to say it was, like, near Orlando?

Heather: Near Orlando?

Sarah: It was near Orlando.

Heather: Okay, yeah.

Sarah: And that was the first one where they had a signing for digitally published authors. It was indie –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – small digital presses, and the, the big question was like, okay, well, like, what are you, what are you going to sign? You don’t have a book! And people were like, Oh, a digital signing! What am I going to sign, the air? Like, people were making jokes about it, and then I go down to the lobby. The line to get into the digital signing is like the line to get into the big signing: it was all the way down the hall, around the corner, out the door, and people were so innovative! They gave away CD-ROMs, thumb drives, postcards with a download code, and you could sign the postcard – 

Heather: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: – pictures. Like, anything that would be a memento of that experience, authors were on it. And so a few years later –

Heather: Yep.

Sarah: – when all of a sudden people were like, Wow, romance authors are really technologically advanced, and they have all of these tech things! Like, listen, I could tell you exactly, these are people who are very creative and want to connect with readers, and sometimes you need a physical thing to do that. RT was the one who hosted the first digital signing, and this was at the time –

Heather: Yes.

Sarah: – when RWA was like, Oh, these aren’t real – these aren’t authors –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – these aren’t, these aren’t legitimate; these aren’t recognized. And RT was like –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – Let’s have a signing, just y’all, and it was massive! They were –

Heather: I know! I was in that line! [Laughs]

Sarah: I was in that line too!

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: And that is an, that’s another example of how RT was going to be like, Hey, here’s a new thing for you to read.

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: And we’ll teach you how to read it.

Heather: Oh, absolutely!

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: Like, like, like I said, I have seen, over the years I have seen things where, you know, it’s like, I’m like, Oh, I’ve just got to try this, and then two years later it’s a, it’s a series!

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Heather: You know, so you don’t know what wonderful gem you’re going to come upon when you take your chance to go through and, and look in discovery zones or, you know, the underrepresented areas, because everybody begins somewhere. You know, we all begin somewhere.

Sarah: Yep!

Heather: And you, you don’t know.

Sarah: You really don’t.

Heather: That’s one thing I love about Charlaine. If I happen to be speaking with her, she – [laughs] – one time – actually, I’ve probably done it more than she has lately, but she cracked me up because she looked at me and she, we were talking about something, and she, she said, Well, you know, ‘cause we came from the age of the dinosaurs!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Yeah, you know, back in the 1900s.

[Laughter]

Sarah: So what do you think the effect of the conference and the RT magazine has been on your career?

Heather: Like I said, so, so very much, I wouldn’t, would have never had that chance to try the historicals. I never would have had so many friends? And just, I wouldn’t have tried to do the New Orleans conference, because I learned so much from, you know, Kathryn and Joe and Connie –

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: – and everything that was going on then? So I would say definitely – and it, I think the other thing, too, is it kind of led the way for me in that I tend to be a people person to begin with – I really love and enjoy a lot of people – but it also allowed me, like, that excitement of being around books –

Sarah: Yep.

Heather: – and finding new things and meeting people and finding out, you know, what makes them tick, what makes whatever they’re doing come out, so. I, it definitely had a huge – and then, again, I think I was telling you earlier, one of the best times I think I ever had, and this is was definitely through Kathryn, because that’s how I met Lynn and all those people – oh, and we’ve got a great book that Cherif’s in. It’s only available on eBay, because of course Helen’s basically passed away, and…

Sarah: Oh, Helen Rosburg has passed away? Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that!

Heather: Yeah, I am too. I mean, but she had actually sold the company before, but there is no more Medallion.

Sarah: No, I knew that.

Heather: Actually trying to figure out how to get that back out somehow, but it’s basically, it’s a fairytale. [Laughs] Romantasy, if you will.

Sarah: The devil you say! You mean –

Heather: But it was done –

Sarah: – this been, this genre’s –

Heather: – years ago, and…

Sarah: – been here all along.

[Laughter]

Heather: I had all my kids in it, and Cherif was in it, like I said – I think it was Cherif – and Lynn did the, you know, the artwork for it, and it’s called There Be Dragons or There Be Christmas Dragons. I think it’s only available on eBay. But –

Sarah: I have seen it, because I saw pictures of it in one of the issues of RT.

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: It was on, I think it was on the cover!

Heather: [Laughs] Oh! And then one of the fun things is I have a baby in it? That baby was my nephew, and he just went to college.

Sarah: Oh my gosh!

Heather: So I can always tell when it was done, because he just went off to college. So – [laughs] – that was, yeah, that was fun. That definitely. And like I said, that will always mean so much to me, because all my kids are in it.

Sarah: Yep.

Heather: You know, we had so much fun doing it.

Sarah: Yep!

Heather:  I don’t – she just, because of RT and Kathryn, I think I definitely learned how, you know, as you were saying, survive – [laughs] – you know, to keep surviving through everything. And again, the most – it’s, it’s, you know, it’s, especially to – oh, I’m not sure if I mentioned Lisa, Lisa Black, who is a forensic scientist –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Heather: – and is wonderful. She was also in my show in – she and Kelly – in New Orleans just now. But I’ve, that’s one thing: I was not a science major – [laughs] –

Sarah: Yep.

Heather: – and so for me, getting to go to conferences and listening to somebody who really knows things is amazing!

Sarah: Oh yes.

Heather: And, like I said, just the, the, the friendships I’ve made. Oh! And the things, because of, of RT that I moved into as, you know, moved into other things, I have been on a USO tour –

Sarah: Yep.

Heather: – with ThrillerFest), which was amazing, and I’ve also been to the Sharjah International Book Fair in the United Arab Emirates, and –

Sarah: Wow!

Heather: – I don’t think anything has, you know, and, and would have been possible without learning that we do need each other, that we do need to support each other –

Sarah: Mm-hmm

Heather: – you know, and, and, you know, just, just what amazing things we can come up with working together.

Sarah: It’s so true. And that creates this longevity. Like, one of the things I remain so, so impressed by as I collect all of these issues and I have them in, like, preservation boxes because the early ones are newsprint; they’re very, very fragile.

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: That longevity, I mean, that, the, the newsletter started in like 1981, and she closed it in 2018. That’s a –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – really long time to exist as a magazine, and Kathryn was smart enough to be like, All right, it’s not just romance anymore; we’re going to talk about mystery; we’re going to talk about suspense; we’re going to –

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: – talk about thrillers; we’re going to talk about inspirationals. Everybody had a, a section –

Heather: Yes!

Sarah: – and I have spoken to so many authors in other genres – I know, like, John Scalzi and some other science fiction and fantasy authors who said, RT was the first place we got legitimate reviews. Like, that was the magazine that took us seriously early, early on, when there weren’t a lot of publications, and there certainly weren’t blogs; it was before all of that. Kathryn was able to adapt to what was popular and find a way to make it part of the continuity of Romantic Times magazine, and it became RT Book Reviews because it wasn’t just romance anymore!

Heather: I think she was great, too, in that she was somebody who – I can’t remember exactly, but I think I met an editor –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Heather: – at Tor, Bob Gleason, through her, and Bob got us to the Goddard Space Flight Center – [laughs] – because they were, they, they had their funding pulled, but they were going to do –

Sarah: Yep.

Heather: – books in conjunction with, you know, with fiction to encourage young people –

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: – to get into science. And I’ve been doing, I have two out – John wants to do a third – John Land and I have been doing sci-fi, and we’re, you know, for their, because of the Goddard Space Flight Center, but it always reminded me, too, that – oh, I think I was, when I had first started out, I think I was a little bummed because I had gotten something called the Writer’s Digest Writer’s Market, and that’s how I was…

Sarah: Oh, I’ve seen that, yep!

Heather: And people tended to be more, more, This is a mystery; this is sci-fi; this is –

Sarah: Yes.

Heather: It’s very genre-specific, and I always wondered why, because if you look at Star Wars – [laughs] – it’s a space adventure. There’s mysteries in it, there’s the romance in it, there’s all these different things in it, and I think it’s fun now – that’s why I, actually I said I’d never heard it when I did it, but romantasy I think is fun, and romantic suspense I think, because, or even, you know, if you wanted to do, sci-fi can be suspenseful to begin with, but I mean, it just, I love it when different elements are in books.

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: You know, when you don’t have to be entirely genre-specific.

Sarah: No, and one of the, one of the things that I love looking at older issues of RT magazine is like, okay, why is this book in this section but not that one? Because it’s really, to me it’s that genre!

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: Why is it over here? But okay! Fine.

Heather: Oh, I see that a lot.

Sarah: Always, right? And it’s like, well, whoever put it there, I disagree.

[Laughter]

Heather: Or if you want, put it in both places!

Sarah: Yes!

Heather: I don’t care. [Laughs]

Sarah: Just add it in both. People will be looking there.

Heather: Put it where I can find it! Yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: So I always ask this question: are there any books that you’re reading right now that you want to tell people about?

Heather: There’s an author out there now called S. A. Crosby, Shawn – Cosby? [Yes, Cosby] – and this is a guy I love as a human being? And Razorblade Tears, or razor sharp – I’m horrible with titles!

Sarah: That’s okay; so am I. It’s embarrassing for me, ‘cause I run a blog.

Heather: Yeah, look up at S. A. Cosby. He’s, he’s absolutely amazing. I love that.

And I just did something else, too.

Sarah: You were right, by the way: Razorblade Tears is the correct title. You win.

Heather: Okay, thank you. [Laughs]

Sarah: You – good job! [Laughs]

Heather: Terrible when you can’t think – that’s my problem! I can’t think of things all the time.

I love, in the cozy department, I love stuff Traci Hall is doing. She does, like, a bunch of mystery, more cozy-type mysteries that take place in Scotland.

Sarah: I love a book that’s not here, not now.

Heather: Oh yeah!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Heather: Oh yeah, beyond a doubt.

Oh, one of the best books, and I know I’m going to blank on it; it’s by Cheryl, and I just blanked on – Cheryl Holt – and I’m blanking on the title. It is so good. It’s about, she uses partially her family and something that really happened –

Sarah: Ooh!

Heather: – like, to a great-great-grandfather arrested by police for a murder he didn’t commit, but kind of getting shoved into it because of the times? And then – I can’t believe I’m forgetting the title of this; it is such a good book. And then how, you know, in current day, a family member goes back to investigate and winds up proving the truth, and it’s, it’s just a beautiful book. God! I can’t believe it. She’s one of my favorite people.

Sarah: That’s okay! You can always email me later if you remember; it’s fine.

Heather: Yeah, I’ll email it to you, because this is – like I said, it, to me, is one of – so beautifully written.

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: You know, just so beautifully told, and the kind of life I want –

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: – you know, where we can look at the past and know what was wrong that we did, you know, and to come into the future learning how to speak intelligently to each other –

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: – and – anyway, the book does it.

Sarah: And in, much like the spirit of the conferences, where you teach other people to bring other people with you into the future and tell them what you’ve learned, because they’ll go, they’ll go beyond you.

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: Yeah, I think about that a lot ‘cause, you know, the site is twenty years old. I run a twenty-year-old blog? Like, that’s weird. And I’m still here! And there’s still more to say about romance, and my hope is that all of the people who are now talking about romance know a lot about the ways in which it interacts with the world. Like, romance is part of the world that we’re in. It, it is a direct reflection of how we feel about ourselves, about love, about vulnerability and intimacy and sexuality. Like, these are all reflections of very core parts of ourselves, and I’m hoping that the way that I have talked about romance has influenced people and that they will continue that conversation long after I stop talking.

Heather: I, I never understood why people had a problem with romance, because, you know, it’s, love is actually one of our better attributes as human beings.

I have found it!

Sarah: Oh, good!

Heather: Cheryl Head, H-E-A-D is her last name, and the book is Time’s Undoing.

Sarah: Ooh, that’s a good title!

Heather: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: I like that!

Heather: It’s a very, very good book.

Sarah: Where can people find out more about your books, if you wish to be found on the internet?

Heather: Well, thank you. My website is theoriginalheathergraham.com –

[Laughter]

Heather: – because sadly, we were, we were both born Heather Graham, but sadly I have her by a few years, so mine’s the original. I wanted it to be sadlytheoriginal, but nobody would let me do it. [Laughs] So. But also there are, if you look under For My Readers, for most holidays I do short stories that I just send out to give to people.

Sarah: I love that!

Heather: And then I put them up on Amazon, and if you have Amazon, whatever it’s called, Amazon –

Sarah: Kindle Unlimited?

Heather: Whatever the –

Sarah: Yeah.

Heather: They’re free on Amazon, too. So –

Sarah: Fantastic!

Heather: Yeah. So I like to, like to keep up with people that way.

Sarah: I will make sure to link to all of that.

Heather: Okay. [Laughs] Thanks!

Sarah: Do not worry; I will promote it all.

Thank you so much for doing this interview? I have been, like, thinking about talking with you because you’re in just about every issue. Every month I’m like, Oh, and there’s Heather Graham! I feel like I check in with your past. I’m, I’m in your backstory like every, every month. And you, you really made the convention something very memorable and special and spectacular –

Heather: Oh, thank you!

Sarah: – through all of your work. it would not have been what it was if you weren’t hanging people on stage.

Heather: And, and locking them in coffins! I mean, seriously! [Laughs]

Sarah: And locking them in coffins and, you know, doing some –

Heather: Thank you.

Sarah: – doing some scary stuff on stage. It would not have been so incredible without you. Thank you very much for that.

Heather: Well, thank you very much. I and a lot of others, because a group of too could never have done something like that without Kathryn to get all of us together to, you know, to create that, so, lot of very good things came out of it too.

Sarah: It’s true! And I don’t think it’s possible to understate the influence Kathryn Falk had on the romance genre. As just one –

Heather: Yeah, you can’t.

Sarah: – person.

Heather: Yeah.

Sarah: Her influence is in every part of where the genre is now, and it’s fascinating to sort of trace that back to the origins of when she started writing about romance. It’s like, I think it’s so interesting. And you’re a major part of that, you know, foundation, so thank you so much for taking the –

Heather: Thank you!

Sarah: – thank you for talking to me today. Like, this has been so fun.

Heather: [Laughs] Thank you so much.

[outro]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you so much to Heather Graham for sharing the story of her career and of RT. I feel like this is a really important part of romance history, and I am just giddy to explore it, and I’m really, really happy that you like doing this exploration with me.

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

Why should you never ever get someone an Excel mug as a gift?

Why? Why should you never ever get someone an Excel mug as a gift?

Well, it’ll pivot on the table.

[Laughs] And the funny thing is, there’s actually an Excel mug that has all the shortcuts on it! No, no, no word as to whether or not it pivots on the table!

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and we will see you back here next week! And in the words of my favorite retired podcast Friendshipping, thank you for listening. You’re welcome for talking!

[end of music]