full-length episode, trailblazers Jennifer Prokop full-length episode, trailblazers Jennifer Prokop

S04.05: Radclyffe: Trailblazer

This week, we’re continuing our Trailblazer episodes with Radclyffe—author of lesbian romances and founder of the LGBTQIA+ publisher, Bold Strokes Books. We talk about her path to romance as a reader and an author, and a publisher, about the early days of queer romance, about the importance of independent booksellers to the queer community, and about how readers find themselves in books.

Thank you to Radclyffe for taking the time to talk to us, and share her story.

Transcript available

Our next read along is Uzma Jalaluddin’s Hana Kahn Carries On. Find it at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie.

Show Notes

TRANSCRIPT

Radclyffe 00:00:00 / #: What we're seeing in romance fiction has changed unbelievably from 50 years ago in terms of sexual content, gender diversity, the issues that are dealt with, the power of romance that most people do not appreciate is that you can write about anything. You can write about all the challenges of human life in a way that readers will find approachable, that they will relate to, they will think about, there's nothing else that does that. I'm a little prejudiced, but still it's an incredibly powerful genre.

Sarah MacLean 00:00:38 / #: That was Radclyffe the next in our Trailblazers series. Welcome everyone to Fated Mates. I'm Sarah MacLean. I read romance novels and I write them.

Jennifer Prokop 00:00:49 / #: And I'm Jennifer Prokop. I am a romance reader and critic.

Sarah MacLean 00:00:54 / #: And Radclyffe is the founder of Bold Strokes Books, which is an important LGBTQ publisher. She is a writer and one of the important and long-time voices for lesbian and queer romance.

Jennifer Prokop 00:01:12 / #: Today we'll be talking about her journey to romance, the founding of Bold Strokes Books, why it is important for LGBTQ publishers to exist, and how the romance landscape for queer literature, queer bookstores and queer romance has changed in the many years that she has been reading, writing, and publishing.

Sarah MacLean 00:01:33 / #: Here's our conversation. Thank you so much for joining us, Radclyffe. We're thrilled to have you.

Radclyffe 00:01:41 / #: Well, thank you for asking me. I'm really glad to be here.

Sarah MacLean 00:01:44 / #: So we're really interested in journeys and we've talked so much over the years about our journeys as romance readers and writers. So could we start there? Let's start with how you came to write and write romance.

Radclyffe 00:02:01 / #: I think that part of my story, I'm sure you've heard many times before, which is almost and probably experienced yourself, which is anyone who writes has always written things. For me as a small girl growing up, I will say this, in the '50s, there were very few things that I saw in the world around me that reflected what I wished I could do on television or the books that I read, the games that people played. Although I was fortunate to have an older brother, so I learned to play a lot of sports.

00:02:39 / #: So I started writing things when I was really young, putting girls and then women in the scenarios that I didn't get to see anywhere, including in the books that I read. But I didn't really think about writing anything, "Big," quote, unquote, until I was actually a surgery resident, and I was really, really busy and pressured. And it was a world where I also felt like a little bit of an outsider because I was a woman in surgery when there weren't a lot of women in surgery either. So I started writing just to kind of express the parts of myself that weren't being expressed.

00:03:19 / #: So I wrote my first full-length, what I would now call my first lesbian novel in 1980, with absolutely no anticipation that it would ever become anything except this thing that I had written that pleased me. No one ever read it, no one ever saw it. And I just put it in a drawer. And as the years went by, I did that again and again when I had free time, often on my vacations, I would write another one of those until I had eight of them in my drawer. Maybe my girlfriends of the time would read them or one of my best friends, but no one else ever read them and I never anticipated that I would be a, quote, unquote, "Author."

Jennifer Prokop 00:04:00 / #: The difference between growing up in the '50s and the '80s, did you still feel that there was this dearth of stories that you wanted to read? Even then, there was no little change between growing up and then being a doctor?

Radclyffe 00:04:14 / #: That's a great question. And the answer is there was a change, but it wasn't enough of a change or a big enough of a change. And that's another part of my story, a cool part of my story, actually, when I was 12, I used to read everything I could find. And mostly they were paperbacks that came out of the drug stores and supermarkets and whatever my mom was reading.

Sarah MacLean 00:04:34 / #: Same.

Radclyffe 00:04:34 / #: And I somehow-

Jennifer Prokop 00:04:37 / #: One of us.

Radclyffe 00:04:37 / #: Yeah, I somehow, I don't know how, found this book written by Ann Bannon called Beebo Brinker, and I was 12, and it's the first time I ever read anything that had two women involved in it. And I was 12, and I was starting to realize that I wasn't like everyone else. And this book really made a huge impression on me, but I also knew it was probably something that I wasn't supposed to show anybody else. And I kept it behind the other books in my bookcase.

00:05:10 / #: And I didn't hear the word lesbian until I was 18 years old. So it wasn't that, it was a sense in the world around me that what I was feeling was probably not what I ought to be feeling. But that book made a huge impression on me. And I went to school in Philadelphia where one of the country's oldest gay and lesbian bookstores was established, Giovanni's Room.

00:05:35 / #: And in 1973, I discovered in this bookstore that had two shelves and about 10 books, the first lesbian romance that Naiad Press ever published called The Latecomer by Sarah Aldridge. And it was the first lesbian romance I had ever read, although interestingly from a historical point of view, they did not call them romances. They called them lesbian novels at the time for about another eight years. And I read that book like a million times.

Sarah MacLean 00:06:08 / #: Can you ground us with a date for this?

Radclyffe 00:06:11 / #: 1973?

Jennifer Prokop 00:06:12 / #: Now that's when you found it. Was that also when it was published?

Radclyffe 00:06:15 / #: That's when it was published, 1973. Naiad Press was established in 1972 by Barbara Grier and two other women.

Sarah MacLean 00:06:24 / #: Was Naiad exclusively publishing lesbian novels?

Radclyffe 00:06:27 / #: Yes, Barbara Grier and Sarah Aldridge and Muriel Crawford were the three women who established it. And that went on to be the premier lesbian press until the late '90s when Barbara sold it and it changed names. So I would go there every week looking for another book, and there was never another book. They published one nine months later, and then maybe another nine months, and then eventually they would do three or four a year and then two a month, which was like, but that took years to get there. So I started writing my own and I didn't really think about publishing them.

Sarah MacLean 00:07:05 / #: Can you tell us what kind of stories were these?

Radclyffe 00:07:08 / #: My very first one was a western, of course, because when I grew up, I wanted to be a cowboy. I had a little star and I had six shooters, and I played soldiers a lot too, which actually when I tell you about what I write, you'll probably understand exactly why I write what I write. But I was the girl on the block with all boys, and I had an older brother, so I had six shooters and rifles and badges, and I wanted to be a cowboy. So I wrote a western, and it's called Innocent Hearts. And it's the first one I wrote, it's not the first one that was published. I think it was published probably fourth, and it took place in the west around the 1860s or so.

Sarah MacLean 00:07:57 / #: So like historical western?

Jennifer Prokop 00:07:58 / #: Yeah.

Radclyffe 00:07:59 / #: Yeah. It features an 18-year-old rancher. No, she's about 20. And the young woman she gets involved with came from Boston with her family, and her father was going to start a newspaper there. They're both very innocent. When you write in that era with two young women in particular, you really can't use the language we use today. So anyways, that's the first one I wrote because I wanted to be the one with the horse, the guns and the girl.

Sarah MacLean 00:08:30 / #: Nice.

Jennifer Prokop 00:08:33 / #: And so at the time, you said you started with Ann Bannon, and was there a sense of romance as a genre? Did you know you were writing something called a romance?

Radclyffe 00:08:45 / #: I knew I was writing a love story. I didn't really think of it as a genre because I wasn't really thinking about writing and publishing at all. I was just thinking about writing the stories that really moved me and with the kind of characters and the kind of situations that really touched me and I was writing the characters that I wanted to be. One of the next book I wrote was a police officer, which is Safe Harbor, which was the first book that was published. And so that's the next one I wrote. Then I did a police procedural stories, the Justice series with cops.

00:09:28 / #: So throughout the '80s I was writing these books. And I'll tell you a story, which I have told a couple times. In 1988, I decided I would try publishing one of them. So I sent it to Naiad Press, and the submission procedures was a lot different then. You had to send them a little query and tell them about your book and your writing experience and all that sort of thing. And my only writing experience was medical papers. But the publisher at the time would then call you and say, "I would like to read your manuscript." So she called me on a Sunday morning at 7:30 in the morning.

00:10:03 / #: And I should preface the story by saying that I have a tremendous amount of respect for this person. And without her, many of us would not be here. So she called me 7:30, and I told her I had read every book that they'd ever published. And she said, "Well, send your manuscript and let's see if you've been washed in the blood of Naiad." So, "Okay." And I sent it, right?

Jennifer Prokop 00:10:30 / #: Wow. I'm going to start using that phrase with people, "Have you been washed in the blood of Fated Mates?" "Fine."

Radclyffe 00:10:36 / #: Yeah. So I waited and waited and waited, and I'm doing my office hours one afternoon at the hospital, and my secretary gives me this message and it says, "Barbara Grier called." And I'm like, "Oh." So I run to my office and I call her back and she says, "Well, we're interested in publishing this book." She said, "But it's really not very good." And she said, "You're kind of a mediocre author and you'll probably never be anything more than a mediocre author." And I thought-

Jennifer Prokop 00:11:07 / #: My face right now. I know. I'm like, "Ah."

Radclyffe 00:11:11 / #: Please remember what I said about Barbara Grier.

Jennifer Prokop 00:11:13 / #: No.

Sarah MacLean 00:11:13 / #: Yeah.

Jennifer Prokop 00:11:13 / #: Sure, of course, of course.

Radclyffe 00:11:13 / #: She's one of my heroes, okay? And they didn't like the fact that I opened the book with a scene where the major character is at a party and she is drinking a little too much and has a history of using drugs. Now, this was 1980, right?

Jennifer Prokop 00:11:31 / #: Right.

Radclyffe 00:11:32 / #: Because me, I write dark heroes who are wounded and because eventually the process of falling in love allows them to heal those wounds, they have to start there. She wanted me to change that. And I thought about it, and I didn't want to do that. And I said, "I am really honored that you called me, but I don't think I want to do this." And there was complete and total silence on the line for like 30 seconds. I don't think anybody had ever said, "No."

Sarah MacLean 00:12:06 / #: "Barbara, hello?"

Radclyffe 00:12:07 / #: And so that was that. And I was so mad.

Jennifer Prokop 00:12:08 / #: Yeah.

Sarah MacLean 00:12:08 / #: Of course you were.

Radclyffe 00:12:10 / #: I was so mad that I went home and I wrote another book, so that was really inspiring.

Sarah MacLean 00:12:19 / #: Yeah. Well, but I think this is really interesting. I think for a lot of romance writers, often this story is told, this kind of, "I gave it to a gatekeeper, and the gatekeeper said, 'No, no, you can't come in here with this.'" And I mean, it happens with, "You can't have a character who has a history with drugs." It happens with, "You can't have characters who look, love, et cetera, the way that these characters do." And these gatekeepers often say, "Well that, it just doesn't sell or that's just not what romance is."

Jennifer Prokop 00:12:55 / #: There's no market for it.

Sarah MacLean 00:12:56 / #: It doesn't follow the rules. And those of us who have succeeded, many of us have succeeded because we've said, "No, that's not a good rule. I don't want to be gate kept in that way."

Radclyffe 00:13:08 / #: I think the other thing is if you really believe in what you've written and you've written it because you have something to say in a particular way, then that's not the right place for your book. I think in 1988, maybe it wouldn't have sold. Maybe it wouldn't have appealed. She certainly felt that way, and Barbara was very successful. And in later years we were good friends and she was kind enough to tell me once that I was a mistake on her part. So that was really nice of her.

Sarah MacLean 00:13:39 / #: That's nice.

Jennifer Prokop 00:13:40 / #: Yeah, that is nice. You're the one that got away.

Sarah MacLean 00:13:43 / #: Vindication.

Jennifer Prokop 00:13:44 / #: Yeah.

Radclyffe 00:13:47 / #: So I began sharing the things that I had written through fan fiction which is a roundabout way to answer your question. And that was the first time I had really started sharing the things that I had written with people I didn't know with people that I had no idea how they were going to respond to the things that I wrote. But it was a really energizing kind of exhilarating experience to put the things I had written out there and have people comment on them and like them and I became enthusiastic and developed a big fan fiction following. I was writing X-Files fan fiction.

Jennifer Prokop 00:14:23 / #: Oh, right on. Yeah, sure.

Sarah MacLean 00:14:25 / #: Perfect. A good fandom too to be a part of.

Jennifer Prokop 00:14:30 / #: Sure, right.

Radclyffe 00:14:30 / #: Yeah, it was great. It suited me really well. And I had created fan fiction with an original character called Marshall Black who became Scully's lover. And people afterwards have said, "I started reading watching the X-Files, but I couldn't find Marsh in the stories," because they were looking for her. So I started a website and I put the original fiction that I had written all those years ago on my website.

Sarah MacLean 00:14:56 / #: Does this still exist?

Radclyffe 00:14:58 / #: Yes, it does, on my RedFic.com website. It's still there. Three publishers contacted me and wanted to publish my original fiction just out of the blue. And I really, well, naively number one, I said yes to everybody, which was a bad mistake. And number two, I had to think really hard about whether I wanted to do that. Whether I wanted to hand it over. Whether I wanted to sort of give away ownership of this work because I understood that being published, that's what happens and that is what happens.

00:15:32 / #: And I think that as authors, we have to understand that, that we enter into a partnership that isn't always a partnership because we have similar goals, but not always the same goals. But I said yes, and I loved the process. As soon as I started publishing, I wanted to understand everything about it, and that's what led to me eventually starting my own company.

Sarah MacLean 00:15:55 / #: Yeah. So talk a little bit about Bold Strokes Books and how that came to be?

Radclyffe 00:16:02 / #: It pretty much grew out of my experience with publishing with these small publishers. And I call them small publishers, mostly because of the model, and it's not in a negative way at all, but they were POD publishers, relatively small.

Jennifer Prokop 00:16:16 / #: So that, everybody, means print-on-demand.

Radclyffe 00:16:18 / #: Which is not what it is today. Today print-on-demand pretty much rolls right over into all of the pretty much normal distribution, but at that time it didn't.

Jennifer Prokop 00:16:27 / #: What year do you think this was?

Radclyffe 00:16:31 / #: About 2000. Yeah, and Safe Harbor was published in 2001.

Sarah MacLean 00:16:34 / #: Do the publishers still exist?

Radclyffe 00:16:36 / #: One of them does. That was Regal Crest Enterprises, and it's just this past year changed hands and I believe changed names, but some of the same authors. But the other two, one went out of business very quickly and the other one went out of business after she failed to pay anyone royalties.

Jennifer Prokop 00:16:54 / #: Well, some things-

Radclyffe 00:16:56 / #: That happens.

Jennifer Prokop 00:16:56 / #: That will happen [inaudible 00:16:57 / #], yeah.

Radclyffe 00:16:58 / #: That does happen. So I very quickly realized that the model wasn't going to work because it limited distribution and it limited exposure of the titles. And I learned that from going to some bookstores, particularly in Provincetown. And one of my first books was set in Provincetown, it's Safe Harbors, the first in the Provincetown Tales, and they wouldn't order it or couldn't order it because of the way it was being produced. And I thought, this is not right.

Jennifer Prokop 00:17:27 / #: And it's worth saying Provincetown is like a premier vacation destination in the summer for many gay and lesbian Americans.

Radclyffe 00:17:37 / #: That is true.

Jennifer Prokop 00:17:37 / #: This is like my brother and his partner were there this summer. It's ground zero.

Radclyffe 00:17:41 / #: So was I, everybody went back as soon as we could get out.

Jennifer Prokop 00:17:44 / #: And that's it. So what I'm saying, this is what I want people to understand, if Provincetown couldn't get their hands on this book. So I just think it's really important to place that in-

Radclyffe 00:17:53 / #: Yeah, the context. And that said to me that this model is not going to work. And it wasn't just about my books, it was about all of our books because if queer authors didn't have access to the same kind of distribution and exposure and marketing that everyone else got, we would not reach our readership. And that to me has always been critical.

Sarah MacLean 00:18:17 / #: To that end, can we talk about what we would call traditional publishing today? The kind of big five, at the time there were many more than five, but the big houses.

Radclyffe 00:18:27 / #: Now there's like four and a half or something.

Jennifer Prokop 00:18:27 / #: Yeah.

Sarah MacLean 00:18:30 / #: Right, it's just the numbers are dwindling. What did romance look like there?

Jennifer Prokop 00:18:36 / #: Or queer fiction even?

Sarah MacLean 00:18:37 / #: Or, yeah-

Jennifer Prokop 00:18:38 / #: I mean maybe-

Sarah MacLean 00:18:38 / #: ... I mean-

Jennifer Prokop 00:18:38 / #: ... queer romances and even-

Radclyffe 00:18:40 / #: In the mainstream?

Jennifer Prokop 00:18:40 / #: Yeah.

Sarah MacLean 00:18:41 / #: Yeah.

Jennifer Prokop 00:18:41 / #: Or did it exist at all?

Radclyffe 00:18:43 / #: Not much. I mean, if I think back to that time, I will say this, in the late '60s and early '70s, mainstream publishers were publishing mostly in paperback. And there were a lot of works featuring both lesbians and gay men for a brief period of time. Fawcett and the paperbacks, that's where Anne Bannon's books were published. One of the very first lesbian romances, a Place of our Own was actually published, and I don't remember which mainstream publishers, but then it disappeared and I'm not sure why.

Jennifer Prokop 00:19:22 / #: When was Sarah Waters writing? When was Tipping the Velvet?

Radclyffe 00:19:26 / #: I would say in the '90s. Remember, it's also British and-

Jennifer Prokop 00:19:31 / #: Not short.

Radclyffe 00:19:32 / #: ... not traditionally romance. Her books are historical works, and that's how they were marketed well.

Jennifer Prokop 00:19:38 / #: That's how they kind of... okay.

Sarah MacLean 00:19:38 / #: And then Anne Allen Shockley was writing for Avon before Avon was HarperCollins, but when Avon was a pulp fiction house?

Radclyffe 00:19:47 / #: Yes. And that was 1971, I think.

Sarah MacLean 00:19:51 / #: The early '70s. Yeah.

Radclyffe 00:19:52 / #: Right, so it was a very small window. And I don't know what actually happened culturally, socially, at around that time to basically say to publishers, "We're not going to sell enough of them." Maybe they just didn't sell enough of those books. I do know that over the years when there were several very, very, very popular lesbian authors, for example, particularly writing mysteries, and they got picked up by mainstream publishers, they didn't make it. They didn't sell enough to continue to publish with them. And I think part of it is audience size, and I just think it's a smaller audience.

Sarah MacLean 00:20:35 / #: Okay. So we have these small publishers in the early thousands, early 2000s that are trying to make a go of it, but they can't get the print on demand books into stores. And then you think to yourself, what?

Radclyffe 00:20:50 / #: I think we need the same model that everybody else has. So I very naively, since I don't know anything about publishing except what I've been doing, decide I'm going to start a publishing company, but the very first thing I did was figure out how to get distribution. And I was very fortunate that at just about the same time, another lesbian publisher of size had decided that she wanted to start a distribution company. So she said-

Sarah MacLean 00:21:17 / #: And who is that?

Radclyffe 00:21:18 / #: Bella Books, Linda Hill. And I'm just a small fry. So Linda said, "If you're interested, I'm going to start this distribution company and we can, essentially, umbrella your books into our distribution system." And I said, "Yes," which from the get-go gave me mainstream distribution.

00:21:37 / #: So all of our print books have always been distributed like everybody else's. And then the challenge became getting the people at the other end to actually buy them. That's a different story.

00:21:50 / #: So we've had mainstream distribution from the beginning and that gave the authors that I signed I think, the best chance for international exposure and to get into bookstores and libraries and places that they couldn't at the time.

Sarah MacLean 00:22:04 / #: So how were you finding authors at this point? Because obviously there's no shortage of authors to find, but what's the vision at this point for you?

Radclyffe 00:22:14 / #: I'll tell you the mission statement. There were two things that I wanted to do. I wanted to publish quality queer fiction, and I did not want to only publish lesbian fiction. So my goal was always to publish queer fiction. That was good stuff, and I wanted to create a platform to support authors and help them with their careers. So those were my two goals, and that's what we've worked on since the company has started.

00:22:47 / #: Early on, most of the authors that I signed were people that I had met at conventions and FanFic places, so a lot of them came out of fan fiction that first year. I think every single one of the authors I signed had been writing fan fiction.

00:23:03 / #: And then as we began to create a profile and our books were out there and we were going to events and people were getting to know us, we began to expand. And it's been years since and some of the authors still write fan fiction, because they really like it, but they're not coming out of the fan fiction community anymore. Not in any large numbers at all for at least a decade, probably more.

Jennifer Prokop 00:23:27 / #: I think one of the things that's really changed is if you had asked me in 2000 if a lesbian romance was for me, I probably would've said like, "No." But now I do feel like that romance readers who love romance read all kinds of romance as those times have changed. Or maybe you feel like they haven't. Do you still think there's the perception that the queer fiction and romances that you are publishing are only for queer readers? Do you see that that's changed on your end or is that just me being like pie in the sky?

Radclyffe 00:24:00 / #: It's hard because as you know, from a demographic point of view, you can't pinpoint who is buying a book. But I think overall, there's not very much crossover. I know that there is some, there's certainly, when I was writing fan fiction, I know that there were people who would write and say, "I'm straight," so that I would know that and say, "But I love it."

00:24:21 / #: People tell me that they give their books, my authors tell me they give their books to people in the office, and some of them really like it. But I don't know that those are people who are seeking out these works. But it's very much like if you look at how do people find books, it's very often word of mouth or personal recommendation. And I think that you're probably far more aware of what's out there. I think the average reader would still think, "This is not for me. I won't to understand it, or I won't relate to it, or it's not my life."

Jennifer Prokop 00:24:56 / #: And I just want to say, I don't want to suggest that you should be writing for the straight gaze, but I just was curious if in the 20 years you have seen a difference. So I just wanted to not sound like a [inaudible 00:25:09 / #].

Radclyffe 00:25:09 / #: I mean, I can tell from our reading community because we have a really vibrant web store and we sell a lot online, and we've really pushed for direct to customer sales, that it's mostly still queer. But again, I don't know, but I think it's probably a tiny percentage. I would love it if it wasn't, I mean, people have often said, "Oh, well, probably it's men buying your books." Hallelujah. I would love for men to buy my books. Please buy my books. But it isn't, it's lesbians and other queers.

Sarah MacLean 00:25:44 / #: We're sponsored this week by Radish, Romance that Feels You. Radish is a comprehensive romance fiction library penned by talented, popular writers, bottomless content, one cute app. So what I think is interesting about Radish is that aside from being a kind of huge catalog based on many, many, many tropes, it's really, really well-structured.

Jennifer Prokop 00:26:06 / #: Oh, it is a romance reader's dream. I mean, honestly, if you haven't played around with it, it has everything so clearly organized and really easy to understand. And I feel like at Radish, they really have the finger on the pulse of what a romance reader wants to read and the most popular tropes.

Sarah MacLean 00:26:27 / #: Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of conversation right now in romance, in the romance ether about tropes and why we love them so much and why we're also compulsively brought to them. And I think Radish gets that, but also I think it's a pretty cool system. So the way that Radish works is you pay per episode, which is a little bit like a chapter, but you don't actually pay for the whole book. You just pay for usually about the first 10 or 15 chapters or 10 or 15 episodes are free. And then there are coins to pay for the rest of the book if you want them to go quickly or you can just wait.

Jennifer Prokop 00:27:06 / #: Right, or you can just wait because the new episode will release every hour. And that's really great. I think I found that I really love Radish when I'm running errands, I'm waiting for the car wash, things where I can just, I only have a minute or two to read something and I can get to the end of the chapter. But oh, then I'm home and the next chapter is available for me.

Sarah MacLean 00:27:26 / #: Yeah, and if you are a chaotic reader like me and you read lots of books at the same time, this is actually pretty great because Radish will remind you when a new chapter is available of any of the 25 stories that you're reading. So anyway, if you're a romance reader and we know you all are and you've never tried Radish or you've been thinking about Radish, give it a try.

00:27:49 / #: Our friends there are offering 24 free coins when you sign up through the special link radish.social/fatedmates, you can use those coins to read a book that we've recommended here on another episode, or you can try one of their exclusive episodic series that just go on and on like soap operas. Either way, we think it's something any enthusiastic romance fan will want to check out.

Jennifer Prokop 00:28:15 / #: Thanks again to Radish for sponsoring our show.

Sarah MacLean 00:28:21 / #: At this point, you're really starting to leave a mark, right? I mean, this is your one of Bold Strokes becomes a premier queer publisher, one of the ones that people in the industry have heard of and know and trust. And so I'm curious at this point, who's your community here? Who are the authors who you are feeling are your family here? Who are the other people in publishing who are supporting you?

Radclyffe 00:28:53 / #: There are. When I started, there was a lot of support. I think there was when I started Bold Strokes Books, it was 2004. So queer publishing was still very fragmented and small. There was one big gay male publisher, Alyson, and then there was Naiad out here, and then Bella was Naiad's. Naiad became Bella when Linda bought it, and little here and little there.

00:29:18 / #: So everybody kind of felt like more of a community than we do today in a different way. It was fragmented then because we were geographically separated and probably financially separated, and we didn't have the avenues of marketing that we have today. So there was a fair amount of support from other publishers. Most of the authors came out of the reading community, they were reading these books, they wanted to write these books, and that's where they came from.

00:29:47 / #: Now they're coming, I think, primarily, again, they're all readers, but they're coming internationally, not people that I have individually met early on. Many of the authors I met at events and conferences and could talk to them and they would pitch to me. So there was a much more one-on-one very early. But now we're bigger and we get lots more submissions. So I don't personally know everyone. Our authors are super tight.

00:30:14 / #: When we have a newbie, all of our authors contact them, we put them in contact right away. It's really important, as I'm sure you know, when you write, it's a very solitary experience and we really try to create a community. I want them to know that this is a real company. It doesn't exist out there in the ether somewhere. This is a real entity. There are people behind it that work to help them publish their works, help them better their craft. We introduce them to everyone.

00:30:48 / #: For me personally, my wife, who basically when I said, "Well, I think I'm going to retire from medicine and start this company, and I have no idea if it's going to do anything." And she was just finishing her postdoc. And so we had to move. So we sold our car and we sold our house, and I didn't make any money from the company for almost three years. Just put money in because you got to put money in to publish those books and nobody pays you for a long time.

00:31:18 / #: And I was really fortunate, the people that are with me now have been with me from the beginning. Many of them, my editors, my graphic artists, the authors, we have a very low attrition rate. People do not leave. Thank you. I mean, people stop writing, their life moves on, or they find that maybe the model doesn't suit them, but not many. I mean, I looked at our attrition rate and it's really low.

Jennifer Prokop 00:31:46 / #: So you've talked about the authors, but what do Bold Strokes' readers tell you about what it feels like to have this space for them?

Radclyffe 00:31:55 / #: I know that they're very devoted. All of the authors and myself have really active social media platforms, so we hear from them all the time. But more importantly, we try to do as many in-person events as we can so that we can meet the readers. And it's really important to do that. And for example, every Women's Week, which is a week in Provincetown, starting with Columbus Day, we do a book event for five days.

00:32:23 / #: And we have many readers who come back year after year after year. It's all free. We do readings, we do panels, we do signings, we do chats, whatever we can do that they enjoy, it's for them. So we get a lot of positive feedback. And for me personally as an author, I've received countless emails from people of all ages who've said how important it is for them to see in fiction the life they wish they had or the life they do have that others don't know about.

00:33:03 / #: It's tremendously important for marginalized communities to be able to see themselves in a positive way. Probably one of the earliest and neatest experiences I ever had was I was in Saints and Sinners, which is an event in New Orleans, and it was one of the first erotica readings I did in public, and it was okay. It was a mixed group too. So, "Okay, I'm reading to the guys and I'm reading to women."

00:33:25 / #: And afterwards this young woman who was probably 15, came up to me with her mother to tell me how much she loved my books. And she said, "Oh, Above All, Honor, is one of my favorites." And I'm thinking, "Oh man, it starts with this graphic sex scene in chapter one." And it was awesome. I mean, it was so incredibly gratifying to know that this young person was there with her mom and had found this book and it meant something to her. And all of us, all the authors that I publish have experiences like that.

Sarah MacLean 00:34:03 / #: So let's talk about challenges though. So it's not easy to start a business. It's not easy to start a publishing business, that is for sure. And then you have on top of it, starting a romance business in a romance world that can be very gatekeep-y and conservative, I think we would say, in a lot of ways. So can you talk a little bit about how it is to be Radclyffe in the world of romance?

Radclyffe 00:34:34 / #: Well, first of all, I was nobody to start. I think that almost everyone has to adjust their expectations. And I didn't have any. I didn't set out to be a bestselling author. What I wanted to be was a good author. I wanted to get the books to people who wanted to read them. That was my goal. My goal was not to sell 50,000 books or 500,000 books or to make a lot of money, because I honestly did not think that I would.

00:35:05 / #: So I didn't have the expectations that I think sometimes other authors do, particularly today. I think that a lot of authors think they're going to sell a whole lot of books and make a whole lot of money, and generally that doesn't happen. I wanted my company and my authors, and I'm being a little possessive here, to have everything that everybody else had. So I thought, well, I should be part of the RWA. So that's one of the first things that I did.

00:35:33 / #: One of the very first things that I did to get exposure was join the RWA and go to the RWA, which was terrifying because I didn't know anybody. I didn't look like everybody else for the most part. I didn't write what everybody else was writing. Nobody was talking about what I was writing. And this was just another one of those experiences where you don't fit.

00:35:58 / #: But it was also exhilarating because I went to the classes and the seminars and this is the stuff that I needed to know. So it was amazing. And so then I went through all the hoops so that the RWA would recognize Bold Strokes as a legitimate publisher because we ticked all their boxes. And I made sure that we ticked all their boxes so that we could begin to build a profile as a legitimate, significant publisher of queer fiction.

00:36:31 / #: And every chance I got, every venue that I could go to, I fronted the company. I went there and I said, "This is who we are. This is what we do. We're really good at it." And I think that's my job. My job is to create a profile for this company so that the authors who sign here will have that benefit.

Jennifer Prokop 00:36:54 / #: So looking forward then, do you feel like we're on the precipice of anything? What are your hopes for what romance will look like in five or 10 years? I mean, have you seen positive change that you think will continue?

Radclyffe 00:37:09 / #: Oh, I think romance has changed tremendously. I mean, and as historians, if we're looking at the history of romance fiction, we can go back to Jane Austen, but really it's very compressed in terms of what we as contemporary readers are looking at 50 years maybe. I mean certainly for queer romances, we're looking at 50 years. That's just a little tiny piece of time. And yet so much has been crammed in there.

00:37:36 / #: And for us, for queer romance writers and queer authors in particular, our entire industry really parallels social change. I mean, the more visibility, the more exposure, the more authors, the more work, the more things we're writing about that are relevant to the community. So I think that what we're seeing in romance fiction has changed unbelievably from 50 years ago in terms of sexual content, gender diversity, the issues that are dealt with.

00:38:08 / #: The power of romance that most people do not appreciate is that you can write about anything. You can write about all the challenges of human life in a way that readers will find approachable, that they will relate to, they will think about, there's nothing else that does that. I'm a little prejudiced, but still it's an incredibly powerful genre.

00:38:35 / #: And that's been very true in terms of queer romances where initially we were dealing with the challenges of coming out. What it meant professionally for someone to be queer, to have a queer relationship that wasn't hidden. How do you deal with families? How do you deal with religious prejudices? And then that began to change, and you don't see as many coming out stories. We still do. We still write them because people are still coming out and people are still coming out in places where it's not safe.

00:39:07 / #: But romance has expanded and now we deal with gender diversity and challenges for YA, queer youth. And I think that's only going to continue. I mean, nothing is ever going to stop the romance genre because it deals with human relationships. It deals with what's most critical in our experience are the relationships in our lives. So it's never going to stop, but I think it will continue to transform as the issues that we face as a community, as a civilization change too.

Jennifer Prokop 00:39:44 / #: We say all the time, that romance really iterates on the time that it's in. When it was the AIDS crisis, was queer romance responsive to... I mean, again, did queer romance even exist in the same way? Especially as a doctor, did you see the way that there was fear about HIV? Did that play out in queer romance?

Radclyffe 00:40:12 / #: It played out in queer fiction, but I think that if you look at queer romance, it's just like romance in the mainstream. It's predominantly female oriented. Predominantly written by women with the expectation that the readers will be women. So that the men were writing about it, but that you were seeing it more in the context of the mysteries that they were writing or the general fiction that they were writing.

00:40:38 / #: And I'm not going to say that I didn't see a lot of it in lesbian fiction. Certainly I think in the non-fiction, in the essays and the other works. But in the fiction per se, I would say, it was secondary. And there is that divide, but there's that divide always in romance, what women are writing about and what men are writing about or what women are writing for men to read.

Sarah MacLean 00:41:05 / #: So you said earlier that, "I didn't have expectations," but I'm curious because at some point you did become a name that people know in the world of romance. And I wonder if there's a moment or at what point did you realize like, "Oh, I'm Radclyffe, I'm doing a thing and people know who I am?" And I asked this, and I've asked this of several of the people who we're interviewing for this series, when did you know you were amazing? Because we are, right? You are.

Radclyffe 00:41:42 / #: Okay. I don't know that I'm amazing. People tell me that I am one of the most determined and self-directed people that they know. And I think that that is true. I also have a sense of my own worth, which I think is probably why I said no to Barbara Grier back in the 1980s. But I didn't know what I would become as an author or a publisher. I only knew that I would do my best to do it right and that if anyone could do it, then I could do it.

00:42:14 / #: I mean, that's like we have a saying in surgery, "There's always room at the top," and I believe that. It's hard for someone who didn't train to be a writer, who doesn't either have no background in writing or literature or any of those things to believe. You kind of have that imposter syndrome a little bit at the beginning because I came out of a totally different world. So external recognition of my work for me personally was important and it bothered me. Now, do you know what the Lammy's are?

Sarah MacLean 00:42:55 / #: The Lambda Literary Awards?

Radclyffe 00:42:58 / #: The Lambda Literary Awards are like The RITAs. And it really bothered me the first few years that I was publishing that I didn't get nominated, really bothered me.

Sarah MacLean 00:43:06 / #: So can you explain how does the Lambda work? Because we of course in romance know how The RITA works and it has a lot of problems along the way. But how do you get nominated?

Radclyffe 00:43:18 / #: Well, you can submit your book just like you do to The RITAs, which are now the Vivians. And then basically, if you nominate it, they'll review it pretty much the same way.

Jennifer Prokop 00:43:31 / #: Was there always a romance category? Because that was my question, if this is a category they had to add?

Radclyffe 00:43:37 / #: There wasn't at the very beginning, there were only a few categories, but there has been for many years. And there's always been a little bit more of a literary event, a literary bent as opposed to genre fiction bent in those awards. But they do have genre categories. So if you send your books in, they will review it and then you become a finalist and then you win.

00:44:06 / #: And so I never got to be a finalist, and I couldn't figure out why that was. And it wasn't until really the company got bigger and the company had some recognition and more of my titles were out there and they knew who we were that I won a Lammy. I can't remember the first year, 2005, 2006. That meant a lot to me. Now, some people say those things, you know what they say about awards.

Jennifer Prokop 00:44:36 / #: They are great. That's what they say about them.

Sarah MacLean 00:44:38 / #: It's fun to put them on your shelf.

Radclyffe 00:44:40 / #: It meant something to me because it said to me, at least the people who are looking at similar works see this, they see me. I became visible. So that was important.

Sarah MacLean 00:44:51 / #: And I also have to say that I think that there is a massive difference between the Lambda Literary Award and The RITA or the Vivian in that the discoverability of queer, if I'm looking for great queer romance, I'm going to go to the Lambda Award and look at the winners there. I don't really feel like romance readers feel like, "I'm looking for great historical romance, I'm going to go check out the Vivians." Not because those books aren't maybe great, but-

Jennifer Prokop 00:45:21 / #: Right. They're going to go to the bookstore and look at the table. Right.

Radclyffe 00:45:25 / #: Well, I will tell you that one of the things that made the biggest impression on me was winning The PRISM because that's not my audience. That made a difference to me. They didn't know me at all, I'm a name on a book that they would not recognize. So I knew that when I won that, that said that my work was a good work. And that meant a lot to me as an author.

00:45:54 / #: In terms of, I guess, the thing that makes me feel like I've made an impression in the publishing and the world of queer fiction is all the authors that I've published and how well they've all done. They have surpassed me on every level hundreds of times. And when people say, "What's your legacy?" That's my legacy. They are. And so it doesn't matter if I'm forgotten, they won't be, because there's too many of them.

Jennifer Prokop 00:46:28 / #: When we do think about your books though, do you think there's a hallmark of what makes a Radclyffe romance?

Radclyffe 00:46:35 / #: I've thought about that because we talk about branding a lot, and I think so. I remember that I read at the York Lesbian Arts Festival in the UK or in the mid-2000s I guess, and I read, and the person who was moderating said, "Oh, it's all about the characters for you, isn't it?" And I looked at her and I said, "Of course," because I think that is, to me, what it's all about is the characters. And I think that that's what pulls the reader in and holds the reader.

00:47:11 / #: So I think that they remember. I know that readers remember my characters because they write to me and they talk about them by name, like they're real people. I think that when I think of my work, then I don't know that readers will actually recognize it, but I write archetypes. I specifically write hero archetypes, and I always have. And that gets back to the little kid who wanted to be the sheriff and who wanted to be the one.

00:47:39 / #: I wanted to put women in positions of authority and power. So I write about positions of responsibility more than power. I like to write about people who are responsible for others at cost to themselves. To me, that makes a hero. So many of my works, and they're not all military or law enforcement, but they're people who have assumed responsibility and they're generally wounded. So I write wounded heroes who are saved by love.

Sarah MacLean 00:48:10 / #: I love it.

Radclyffe 00:48:11 / #: Because that to me is a romance. That's what I wrote, read as a kid, and that's what I write. I mean, is there anything better than that?

Jennifer Prokop 00:48:18 / #: No.

Radclyffe 00:48:19 / #: No?

Jennifer Prokop 00:48:20 / #: I'm a simple woman.

Radclyffe 00:48:21 / #: Yeah, totally.

Jennifer Prokop 00:48:22 / #: No, is the answer.

Sarah MacLean 00:48:24 / #: So do you have a book that is the most popular with your readers? You have one that is a fan favorite?

Radclyffe 00:48:33 / #: I totally do. I totally do. I mean, they always-

Jennifer Prokop 00:48:36 / #: And we all do. We all make that face.

Radclyffe 00:48:39 / #: And is it like one of the first ones you ever wrote?

Jennifer Prokop 00:48:40 / #: It's the first one.

Radclyffe 00:48:43 / #: Because mine is, yeah. And it's like, "What happened after that? You just fell apart?"

Jennifer Prokop 00:48:48 / #: This makes me feel better.

Radclyffe 00:48:50 / #: Mine is Fated Love. I wrote it. It was one of the first ones that was really widely disseminated, so that may be part of it, but it was published in 2004 and absolutely almost everybody picks that book.

Jennifer Prokop 00:49:07 / #: I'm going to tell you two why you all are crazy. It's because when a person who has been reading for a long time decides to finally write a romance what they are doing, and every single person who has gone on to write many books after that first one has said, "I wrote in this book the things I wanted to see."

Radclyffe 00:49:30 / #: It's true.

Jennifer Prokop 00:49:32 / #: And I am going to tell you right now, that is why they resonate with readers, not because it's the best book you've ever written, because it is the book of your heart. And our hearts are all looking for a lot of similar things. So it's not that we don't think you've grown and changed and written great books. It's that first book is often so steeped in the kind of longing for the story that you desperately wanted to read. That is why we love them.

Sarah MacLean 00:50:02 / #: It is, it's a love letter.

Radclyffe 00:50:03 / #: So why can't we do it again?

Jennifer Prokop 00:50:04 / #: I know, "What have you done for me lately, Jen?"

Radclyffe 00:50:06 / #: Why aren't we doing that every time?

Jennifer Prokop 00:50:07 / #: Well, because, look, then you all are like, "Okay, but now there's a market and now there's the possibility of disappointing readers. And now I have to find new readers." It's, right-

Radclyffe 00:50:16 / #: And I have to write better sentences.

Jennifer Prokop 00:50:18 / #: Yes.

Sarah MacLean 00:50:20 / #: That's nonsensical.

Radclyffe 00:50:20 / #: And I have to pay attention to my point of view.

Sarah MacLean 00:50:22 / #: Exactly.

Jennifer Prokop 00:50:23 / #: Sorry.

Sarah MacLean 00:50:23 / #: Head hopping, what's that?

Jennifer Prokop 00:50:24 / #: Sorry for explaining the world to you two. I don't know what is even going on.

Radclyffe 00:50:30 / #: It's the first book I wrote with a kid, and I think that it was one of my earliest books, but I didn't want to write children because I was absolutely certain that I couldn't write children, but I decided that I would. Not a young child, but I think when I started, she was nine. I've written five in this universe since then because these characters are so popular.

00:50:51 / #: And it was a book about family, and I think that that's what people really loved. I mean, it was a romance, a really emotional romance, but it was also about family and community. So it hit a lot of buttons. That's the one that people like the most. I think one of your questions was, if I could pick one book to be remembered by, I think it would be one of the ones I wrote most recently, because I think it's better written. So I'd rather be remembered by that. And it also kind of comes full circle for me. It's my take on du Maurier's Rebecca, which is one of the most formative books of my life. I read a lot of gothic romance when I was young.

Sarah MacLean 00:51:38 / #: That's why you love a wounded hero, Radclyffe.

Radclyffe 00:51:40 / #: Totally.

Jennifer Prokop 00:51:41 / #: Serious, hello?

Sarah MacLean 00:51:41 / #: Right there. That's imprinted on you.

Jennifer Prokop 00:51:46 / #: Okay, is the cover a woman running away from a house? Because-

Radclyffe 00:51:47 / #: It should be.

Jennifer Prokop 00:51:47 / #: ... that is my paragram.

Radclyffe 00:51:47 / #: No, it isn't. As a matter of fact, it's this one right here. It's this one.

Jennifer Prokop 00:51:56 / #: Unrivaled, yeah.

Radclyffe 00:51:56 / #: It's a medical romance, but it has many of the themes of Rebecca. Actually, the other one is Jane Eyre. And one of the first books I wrote is called Love's Melody Lost. So one of the very first ones I wrote is based on Jane Eyre, and this one is du Maurier, 66 books just there in between. But yeah, I really like gothic romances.

Sarah MacLean 00:52:22 / #: Well, the book is Unrivaled. Because you feel like Bold Strokes is such a part of your legacy, I wonder if you could talk... I have the same question about Bold Strokes that I did about your own books. Is there one moment of Bold Strokes that you can point to as, "This is the time when we knew we would succeed at this, we knew that we could make this work. This is the book that we knew or the author?" Is there some sort of turning point for you that you can point to? The answer may be no, but-

Radclyffe 00:52:57 / #: I think the answer is no. Really. It's an organic sort of body of people and work that simply has grown and never stopped. But from the very beginning when there were just five of us and then there were 10 of us, and then 25 of us, we were connected. And I think that that's what made me realize and our books were really good and people really liked them. And I think the success of our early titles sort of confirmed for me that we were on the right road.

00:53:36 / #: And we've continued to really push and have a lot of the most popular authors that are publishing, writing queer stuff today. And we're expanding all the time, and we have many more diverse authors and diverse stories. So we're growing. We never have stagnated.

Jennifer Prokop 00:53:54 / #: So you talked about the discoverability problem and print on demand. And so when the Kindle came online, when eBooks really became a thing, and for those of you who are five years old or whatever, I'm sorry, I don't mean that I'm old. I remember for years they were like, "There's going to be digital books one day," and we were all like, "Whatever." And then boom there were. Did that help with discoverability? Did that change your business model when books became available directly to people?

Radclyffe 00:54:25 / #: Yeah, totally. Actually, I'm a big numbers person. I believe in the numbers. And so I've looked at a lot of these things and presented some of these things. And when the Kindle came out, and then the iPad shortly after, it became very apparent to me that we needed this platform. And I asked our eBook tech, who at the time was just making PDFs that we were selling from a web store. So I got a contract with both Amazon and iTunes right away, and I said, "Tony," I said, "We need to convert our catalog." Well, we had 800 titles then, and she did it in six weeks.

Sarah MacLean 00:55:06 / #: What?

Jennifer Prokop 00:55:07 / #: Oh, wow.

Sarah MacLean 00:55:08 / #: That's unbelievable.

Jennifer Prokop 00:55:09 / #: And there you go, right? There you go.

Radclyffe 00:55:13 / #: And see, when you're an independent publisher, you can move.

Sarah MacLean 00:55:15 / #: So nimble. Yeah.

Radclyffe 00:55:15 / #: The next year, we saw a 30% increase in our backlist sales, in our backlist title sales.

Sarah MacLean 00:55:21 / #: Now what year do you feel like this was?

Radclyffe 00:55:25 / #: 2010, 2011.

Sarah MacLean 00:55:26 / #: Yeah, it was right. I mean, that felt like that it was electric that time.

Jennifer Prokop 00:55:30 / #: It was electric.

Sarah MacLean 00:55:30 / #: And it was the Wild West in a lot of ways in that if you had a Kindle or if you had a Sony eReader, which is what I had to start, you were just reading whatever there was. I mean, I think people who now come to romance and come to independent publishing have no frame of reference for how little there was at the beginning, which is why so many of these authors and publishers who were on the early crest of this wave-

Jennifer Prokop 00:56:02 / #: Early adopters.

Sarah MacLean 00:56:03 / #: ... were making so much money. I mean, because we would read everything.

Radclyffe 00:56:09 / #: The thing that was so important for us is that we could reach the community that didn't have access to us before. It's been both a blessing and a curse for queer publishing because I think that digital publishing has destroyed the network of queer bookstores. In the '70s and '80s and '90s, there were probably 1,200 feminist and queer bookstores in the United States, and now there's probably less than 10. I mean, they just cannot survive because there's not enough concentration of readers.

00:56:48 / #: Womencrafts in Provincetown is one of the oldest still existing, and I mean, they're still going strong, but Giovanni's is gone. I mean, in all the major cities, they're gone. Because there's not enough in that one place to buy print. So we're reaching more readers, but it's flipped the paradigm. So eBooks are selling much more than print, which is true for genre fiction and romance in particular, which everybody knows. And that's a loss. That's a tremendous loss for us not to have those bookstores anymore.

Sarah MacLean 00:57:23 / #: Where is the community finding books?

Radclyffe 00:57:26 / #: Well, they find them online like most readers, but very fortunately for us, they find them with us because we have our own web store. We send out all our new release newsletters, we discount our titles so that they can find them. We do daily bargains. We do every possible thing we can to get our books to our readers. But interestingly enough, the vast majority of readers are still getting them outside of our direct connections. They're still getting them. They're looking on the internet. They're hopefully going to bookstores and finding them there, because we still do release all of our titles in print and libraries. We have a pretty good library distribution, both eBook and paperback. So they find them the way everybody else finds them.

Sarah MacLean 00:58:19 / #: Yeah, but it is sad to lose the community of booksellers.

Radclyffe 00:58:23 / #: It's very tough.

Sarah MacLean 00:58:25 / #: And also, we didn't talk about this, but you have one of the largest collections of lesbian romance in the world, in your house, behind you.

Jennifer Prokop 00:58:35 / #: [inaudible 00:58:35 / #] behind you.

Radclyffe 00:58:35 / #: There's 2,000 books right there behind me.

Sarah MacLean 00:58:38 / #: I feel like we should take a picture of this. I'm going to take a picture of you. Let's take this, yeah.

Radclyffe 00:58:42 / #: This is a little tiny piece of the set, eight bookcases, that I started collecting every single one that I could find throughout the country after that first book in 1972. And then I went back and found some of the older ones. And then very honestly, probably eight or nine years ago, one, I ran out of space. Number two, very happily, there were so many coming out that I couldn't read them all at once.

Jennifer Prokop 00:59:08 / #: You couldn't do it anymore, yeah.

Radclyffe 00:59:08 / #: And so a lot of them now, I just read on Kindle or I read on the iPad, but I have them, they're 40 years old now, some of them. But this is the lifeblood behind me. This is what, for our community-

Sarah MacLean 00:59:28 / #: This is what you've bathed in the blood of?

Radclyffe 00:59:29 / #: ... this is life giving. That's I am bathed in the blood.

Sarah MacLean 00:59:31 / #: I love that.

Jennifer Prokop 00:59:35 / #: Well done. What a way to end.

Sarah MacLean 00:59:38 / #: Radclyffe, this was amazing. Thank you so much for joining us.

Jennifer Prokop 00:59:38 / #: It was amazing.

Sarah MacLean 00:59:41 / #: Thanks for telling us your stories.

Radclyffe 00:59:43 / #: I hope it was enjoyable for everybody who's listening too.

Jennifer Prokop 00:59:48 / #: If people aren't interested in this, then they just aren't us because I can't get enough of it.

Radclyffe 00:59:53 / #: I know, I could talk about it forever.

Jennifer Prokop 00:59:53 / #: Forever. Forever.

Sarah MacLean 00:59:56 / #: Yeah, yeah. I have a feeling that every one of these interviews is just going to be-

Jennifer Prokop 01:00:03 / #: They're amazing.

Sarah MacLean 01:00:04 / #: ... better than the next. It's crazy how great they all are.

Jennifer Prokop 01:00:07 / #: It really is amazing. I think one of the things that really struck me, there are so many about this conversation is once again, the real importance of representation.

Sarah MacLean 01:00:18 / #: Yeah, and also the idea of how she thinks about her own books and the archetypes that she writes, reflecting herself and other people. And talk about somebody who understands why she's sitting down every day. And I think that is a struggle for some of us, but it's not for her. And interestingly, I mean not to spoil who else we have coming and what else we have planned, but I think one of the things that I'm already seeing just so early in the conversations that we're having is these people all know why they sit down every day, and that is a huge piece of the puzzle, I think.

01:00:56 / #: I do just want to shout out, also, we talked about this during the Sandra Brown episode or after the Sandra Brown episode, but again, this sense of community. This idea that the work for so many of these trailblazers is to lift up other voices and to help other people come to the table. And that's really cool.

Jennifer Prokop 01:01:15 / #: This question of the losing of queer bookstores, we talk a lot about, okay, the Kindle revolution has meant that your reading can be private, but that in this particular case, it has also taken away a space that has been so powerful in the queer community.

01:01:37 / #: And when she talked about not being able to put books on the shelves in P-Town, right? And so that whole question of books on the shelves is one, I think, that you and I offline talk about all the time, "Where are people finding romance on the shelves?" And that is something that is even more urgent. And I think really is so interesting to hear that perspective from Radclyffe.

Sarah MacLean 01:02:04 / #: Well, and this idea of losing queer bookstores being scary in a lot of ways. Like this idea that these bookstores, and we all know this intuitively as readers, that bookstores, libraries, these are usually safe spaces for us to do our exploration around identity. But for queer kids, for LGBTQIA+ kids, these are spaces that when they're lost, they are a loss, a more powerful loss.

Jennifer Prokop 01:02:36 / #: This is also one of our first Trailblazer episodes where someone had a really different full-time job and was writing on the side. So you don't know who else we've interviewed or those people didn't talk about their other job. But being a doctor and then becoming a romance writer is sort of just for-

Sarah MacLean 01:02:58 / #: And publisher.

Jennifer Prokop 01:02:59 / #: And publisher, right? And so that journey, I think also just goes to show that romance is so powerful for so many people that it's a way of really expressing something that's deep in our hearts. And I was just really interested in hearing that, I really liked that.

Sarah MacLean 01:03:21 / #: Can I also say Radclyffe was the first writer we've had who we've talked across all four seasons where we talked about writing, and she spoke about it as something that she did to relax that she never expected anybody to look at?

Jennifer Prokop 01:03:40 / #: Right, right.

Sarah MacLean 01:03:41 / #: And I'm really charmed by that. And I know that she's not the only one out there, but often we fall into this mythology of like, well, people write in order for other people to read. But Radclyffe was really writing for herself first. And I think that also gets back to this question of representation and identity and experience. But I think that's really fabulous. And I think if you're out there and you're just writing for yourself, that's fine too.

Jennifer Prokop 01:04:08 / #: Yeah, and I think one of the things, and we have had Christina and Lauren on to talk about FanFic. We have talked with Adriana and Alexis who are also big FanFic people. And Adriana especially has talked really explicitly about how fan fiction, these are spaces where marginalized characters can get the full treatment of their humanity.

01:04:33 / #: And so it was also really interesting to think about the ways in which those are avenues where we are going to have so many amazing writers coming up through as, "I wrote this for me, because I wanted to see these characters have a happily ever after, or I wanted to see them experience love the way I feel love." So just really, I think, that was not a surprise to me at all to hear that she'd had a little dabbling in FanFic also in her story.

Sarah MacLean 01:04:59 / #: Yeah, those cowboy books. I love it, I want them. Anyway, everyone, this is Fated Mates. You have been listening to a Trailblazer episode. We're doing those in addition to our regular read-alongs and interstitial episodes over the course of season four and maybe beyond.

01:05:16 / #: We're trying very hard to add to the romance history here, along with other podcasts that are doing the same thing. You should head over, speaking of other podcasts that are doing the same thing, to Julie Moody-Freeman's Black Romance podcast where she has been doing this for several seasons with Black romance writers.

01:05:34 / #: And you can otherwise hang out with us, FatedMates.net. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at FatedMates and at FatedMatesPod respectively. You can find gear and stickers and links to other cool stuff at the website. And otherwise, head over to your pod catching app, your favorite one, and like and follow us there. And you will never miss an episode of us in your ear holes.

Jennifer Prokop 01:06:02 / #: Have a great week, everybody.

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S04.04: Ravished by Amanda Quick: The difference between fossils and Fossils

At some point, we were going to have to talk about fossils, right? Ravished is the bluestocking book that started it all for Sarah, and an absolute classic for Jen. On the reread, we absolutely loved it, which just goes to show that Amanda Quick (aka Jayne Ann Krentz) is a total legend. We’ll talk about the appeal of big heroes who know what they want and just go for it, about how difficult it is to write two people who genuinely enjoy each other’s company from the jump, about how awesome it is when a heroine is totally down with doing it in a cave, and about the broad appeal of greatcoats.

Our next read along is Uzma Jalaluddin’s Hana Kahn Carries On. Find it at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie.

Sponsored by Radish: Bottomless content; one cute app. Visit radish.social/fatedmates for 24 free coins and to read your first Radish story.

Show Notes

  • Ravished was originally published in 1992 by Jayne Ann Krenz, who has a lot of pen names, including Jayne Taylor, Jayne Bentley, Stephanie James and Amanda Glass. Now she publishes under 3 names: Jayne Ann Krenz (contemporary), Jayne Castle (PNR), and Amanda Quick (historical). She has said, “I am often asked why I use a variety of pen names. The answer is that this way readers always know which of my three worlds they will be entering when they pick up one of my books.”

  • The Bluestocking archetype is about a woman who is interested in science and learning in her own right, and is a reference to the Bluestocking Society, which was founded in the 1750s by Elizabeth Montagu and Elizabeth Vesey. 

  • Some hallmarks of a gothic novel are “the discovery of mysterious elements of antiquity” and also handsome men in great coats. 

  • All about the waltz and why it was so scandalous. 

  • Jen’s thread about fossils, which are just a McGuffin. 

  • Maybe you are more interested than Jen and would like to learn about how to fake a fossil. 

  • Author Vanessa Riley is committed to reviving bananas regency names for men. In A Duke, The Lady, and a Baby, the hero’s name is Busick.

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S04.03: Secret Baby Interstitial

We’re doing a big one this week — secret babies! We’re talking the babies and the pregnancies—and why they are such a juggernaut in romance. We’re talking about why people are all in on secret babies or absolutely all out on them, we’re pinpointing the itch they scratch and why have they installed such buttons in so many of us, and we’re getting to the bottom to why these secret babies are often sired by billionaires. It’s a ride.

Next week, our first read along is Amanda Quick’s Ravished—which Sarah describes as “Harriet, in a cave, with a rake.” It’s great. Get reading at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie.

Sponsored by Radish: Bottomless content; one cute app. Visit radish.social/fatedmates for 24 free coins and to read your first Radish story.

Show Notes

The secret baby trope can be broken down into secret baby or secret child. Secret pregnancy is just earlier on the timeline, while surprise pregnancy. Often, a secret baby plot happens because there is a fear that the baby is in danger.

More about the word Interstitial.

We recently re-released our bodily autonomy interstitial from 2019.

If you are on Facebook, join Sarah’s OSCRB group (Old School Romance Book Club) if you want more romance talk.

On some old school covers, you see lots of people with gravity defying hair.

Sarah mentioned the “Four Js” and she meant these old school historical romance powerhouses: Johanna Lindsay, Jude Deveraux, Julie Garwood, and Judith McNaught.

The most dangerous third rail in romance is cheating.

More about “the heir and the spare.”

The Right Stuff is a movie about astronauts, but Terms of Endearment is the movie where Jack Nicholson plays an astronaut. The movie was released in late 1983, and Long Time Coming was released in 1988.

The Cut went ahead and published two pieces about Sally Rooney’s latest book, and they loved the sex in Rooney's book and think folks want more, but somehow they’ve never heard of genre romance.

Given that description of the book Sarah was looking for, Jen thinks if it exists, it could have been a Harlequin Blaze, rather than a Loveswept or a Desire. But who knows!

Next week, we’re reading Ravished, a 1992 historical about fossils by Amanda Quick. Yes, actual fossils.

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S04.02: Sandra Brown: Trailblazer

The Trailblazers conversations begin this week with the brilliant, fearless Sandra Brown—aka Erin St. Clair and Rachel Ryan. We talk about everything from her first books, acquired by Vivian Stephens for Candlelight Ecstasy, about how Slow Heat in Heaven was her personal game changer, about the beginnings of romantic suspense, and about what makes a Sandra Brown novel, the most recent of which, Blind Tiger, was released last month.

Thank you to Sandra Brown for taking the time to talk to us, and share her story.

Transcript

We’ve got an interstitial episode coming your way next week, but our first read along (in two weeks) is Amanda Quick’s Ravished—which Sarah describes as “Harriet, in a cave, with a rake.” It’s great. Get reading at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie.

You have two weeks to read, but in the meantime, sit back, relax, and let us give you a preview of what's to come! Don't forget to like and follow in your favorite podcasting platform!

Show Notes

Welcome to our first trailblazer, romance legend Sandra Brown. Her latest release is Blind Tiger, which was her 73rd book on the New York Times bestseller list. Blind Tiger is a thriller set in Texas during the 1920s.

Prohibition went into effect on January 1, 1920. In Texas, the town of Glen Rose was the Moonshine Capital of Texas.

The Ford Model T was the first mass produced American car. Here’s a video of the actual driving experience of the 1915 model. If you’d like to see a bunch of Model Ts in the same place, you can visit the winter home of Thomas Edison in Fort Myers, Florida. Henry Ford visited so often that he eventually bought the home next door. Prohibition and moonshining gave birth to NASCAR.

Sandra’s first books were bought by Vivian Stephens for Candlelight Ecstasy under the pen name Rachel Ryan. She wrote for Silhouette under the name Erin St. Clair, and for Pocket as Laura Jordan. Carolyn Nichols at Loveswept wanted authors to use their real names, and now all of Sandra's books have been rereleased under her own name.

Sandra appeared on the cover of one of her own Loveswepts, The Rana Look, with actor Mclean Stevenson.

Some of the romance authors Sandra mentioned: Paris Afton Bonds, Candace Camp, Mary Lynn Baxer, Nora Roberts, Jayne Ann Krentz, Barbara Delinksy.

Some of the thriller/mystery writers Sandra mentioned: Helen MacInnes, Evelyn Anthony, Gayle Lynds, David Morrell, and Lee Child.

TRANSCRIPT

Sandra Brown 0:00 / #
I think there were several of us who say, hey, we have romance roots, but we still love the mystery. We still love the suspense, we still love wartime books, or we still love, you know, spy novels, and so the way I felt about it was that the attraction heightens both elements of the story, because you're never more afraid than when someone you care about is in danger.

Jennifer Prokop 0:28 / #
That was the voice of Sandra Brown.

Sarah MacLean 0:32 / #
Welcome, everyone, to Fated Mates. I'm Sarah MacLean. I read romance novels, and I write them.

Jennifer Prokop 0:37 / #
I am Jennifer Prokop. I am a romance reader and editor.

Sarah MacLean 0:41 / #
And this week, for our first Trailblazer episode of Season Four, we are absolutely beyond thrilled to have had a conversation with absolute fucking legend, as Tom Hardy would say, Sandra Brown.

Jennifer Prokop 0:59 / #
We recorded with Sandra, in August, I think.

Sarah MacLean 1:04 / #
That sounds right.

Jennifer Prokop 1:05 / #
And we will be talking with her today about her life in romance, about her new novel Blind Tiger, about her many, many, many New York Times bestsellers, and just about all the amazing history and story she has, as a romance writer, and how she started in the business and where she is now.

Sarah MacLean 1:28 / #
I think that was the best part of the conversation. This sense that we were talking to somebody who knew everything. Had been there from the start, and really had a lot to say about how the genre has grown and where the genre was and where it could be.

Jennifer Prokop 1:45 / #
So without further ado, here is our interview with Sandra Brown. Enjoy it as much as we did everyone.

Sarah MacLean 1:57 / #
Well, we are thrilled to have with us Sandra Brown. Welcome Sandra.

Sandra Brown 2:02 / #
Thank you very much, Sarah and Jen, I've looked forward to this.

Sarah MacLean 2:07 / #
Well, we're super excited about Blind Tiger, which is, did I see correctly on your Instagram? It is your 73rd New York Times bestseller?

Sandra Brown 2:16 / #
As of yesterday, I found out that it will be on the Times list a week from Sunday, but we find out like 10 days before, as you know, and so yeah, like last night, we had a little celebration here because it's officially my 73rd New York Times bestseller.

Sarah MacLean 2:38 / #
Wow! I mean, living the dream!

Sandra Brown 2:41 / #
Well, thank you. I've been very fortunate and all the people that I've worked with, and my fans have followed me from, you know, one genre to another, one type of book to another, shorter books, longer books and Blind Tiger was the longest book I've ever written.

Jennifer Prokop 3:00 / #
Oh, interesting.

Sandra Brown 3:02 / #
Yeah. So it and in itself, it was so different because I kind of switch, you know, time periods. I went back 100 years. So that was kind of a, you know, leap of faith and a trust that my readers would follow me, and so I'm pleased to say so far it looks like as though they are.

Jennifer Prokop 3:24 / #
So what was it like to go back and do research for a historical again, especially in 1920? Which is, you know, you wrote historical historicals in romance, but to have 1920 be the year.

Sandra Brown 3:38 / #
It was hard, actually, but the reason I did is because when it got time last year, to begin my next book, I thought, how do you write a book where people are wearing masks and the news was so bad every night and I hated even watching the evening news because it always left me so depressed and in a bad mood, and I thought, you know, I want some escape, and I figured if I felt that way that readers would feel that way. So that what was happening 100 years ago, and lo and behold, things aren't that different. (laughter)

Sarah MacLean 4:15 / #
I was going to say, so you went back to a different pandemic.

Sandra Brown 4:17 / #
Right, a different pandemic. There was another women's movement that resulted thankfully and separate. Soldiers were coming home from a very unpopular foreign war with post traumatic stress, but they didn't even know the name -

Jennifer Prokop 4:34 / #
Have a name for that.

Sandra Brown 4:35 / #
At that point in time, and as if things aren't bad enough, nobody could buy a drink because Prohibition had gone into effect January 16th of 1920. So then I did, I just researched what was happening prohibition in Texas, which is where I live and who knew, but 50 miles down the road from where I have lived most of my life, was a town that was nicknamed the Moonshine Capital of Texas. (laughter)

Sarah MacLean 5:09 / #
Perfect!

Sandra Brown 5:09 / #
I thought, Little Glen Rose? And you know, had all these bawdy houses and speakeasies and a lots of moonshining, because geographically, it was perfect for it. So I started doing research on that, the more I got into it, the more fun I started having, but Jen, you asked me about the research. It was so fun in one way, but in another way, it's very time consuming, because I would have to stop and look everything up, you know, it was like, and at one point in time, I said, Laurel, my heroine, floorboarded her Model T. She drove a 1915 Model T, so after I'd written that scene, and I went back thought better do some deeper research how to drive a Model T.

Sarah MacLean 5:55 / #
Sure, because someone is going to email you about this car.

Sandra Brown 6:00 / #
And so, lo and behold, a Model T 1915 model had three pedals on the floor. One was the clutch on the left, in the middle was reverse, on the right is the brake. The accelerator was on the steering wheel. So you actually controlled your velocity, your speed, by levers on how much, you know, gas you gave it, was controlled by a lever on the steering wheel. So I could have made that really terrible mistake had I not gone back and checked that.

Jennifer Prokop 6:34 / #
Done that research.

Sandra Brown 6:36 / #
So I couldn't say that she floorboarded it. (laughter)

Sandra Brown 6:39 / #
My dad lives in Florida and we went to visit, I think it's Edison's Florida home, and there's a huge collection of Model T's there.

Sandra Brown 6:46 / #
Really?

Jennifer Prokop 6:47 / #
And the whole time I was reading this book was really thinking, I wonder what it would be like if these moonshiners had access to a Ford F 150 instead? (laughter) Because these things, they really are small. I mean, it's really kind of a miraculous to think about, I mean, it seems so big and fast to them, but you know, to us.

Sandra Brown 7:10 / #
Well, one thing they did, and this was also interesting, Ford would sell the chassis, the main chassis, but people would adapt. Before they started making pickup trucks, per se, people would add beds onto their Model T and kind of customize them. So customizing your automobile is not a new science that we figured out this century. They were already doing it, and so they were very innovative even before Ford started manufacturing all these things. So all of these little facts, you know, came out and then the part about moonshining was really fun to research because most of the stories, the tales that people had to tell, I would just laugh out loud because you'd be like, you can't make this up! I mean it was wild, and in terms of the speed with which they had their cars to go, that's where NASCAR started was because the moonshiners.

Sarah MacLean 7:10 / #
Wow.

Sandra Brown 7:18 / #
That's right. So our NASCAR came to be because moonshiners would soup up their engines to outrun the cars that lawmen had, and that's where NASCAR was born, in the Carolinas, actually, but yeah, so all of this was just fun. You know, it was, it was a fun departure, and I think from a creative standpoint, it's good for writers to try something different, to go at a different pace. I've always, throughout my career, just spanned 40 years now, but just to try something different to challenge myself. And I think the worst thing that a writer can do is to become complacent, and just rely on you know, their history in the marketplace, because the market is constantly changing. It's an evolution every day and it's a learning curve every day. So in order to keep up and to remain vital in the marketplace, I think it's good for writers to challenge themselves. I've never tried this, you know, wonder if I can do that, and at the same time, maintain the expectations of their readers. You know, so I think Blind Tiger, yes, it's set in another century, and yes, I had to do a lot of research on historical facts, but the bottom line is it still has, I believe, the trademarks of a Sandra Brown novel, that when one opens it and starts reading, they more or less know it's still a Sandra Brown novel.

Sarah MacLean 10:02 / #
Oh, 1,000%. We were talking about that before the interview, that we just, I felt like I just fell right into it, to the Sandra Brown world. One of the things that I think is really interesting about this, and you've written historicals before, this is not your first historical. People who listen to Fated Mates know that, and one of the things that I think about a lot as a historical writer is we tend to be judged. There's often a sense in the world that, oh well, when you're writing historicals, you're just writing, you're closing the door on current day and just writing the past, and I mean, we know that's not true. And one of the things that really echoed for me in this book was how current it felt in the sense of, as you said, a hero coming home from war, the Spanish flu. These kind of large scale things that felt so, it's almost impossible to read the pieces where, because Thatcher, our hero, has had the Spanish flu, and it's impossible to read that without thinking, oh my gosh, we're -

Sandra Brown 11:06 / #
Yeah.

Sarah MacLean 11:06 / #
We're doing that now. So I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how modern the book is, too, in that sense. How are you thinking about the world that way?

Sandra Brown 11:16 / #
Yeah, well, thank you for that, but that's how I made my pitch to the editor. (laughter) Guess what? I want to do a historical, you know, and it kind of took him aback, and because he's only edited my contemporary, thrillers or suspense novels, and he said, "Well, like where to?" (laughter) "Where are you going?"

Sarah MacLean 11:44 / #
What are you doing, Sandra?

Sandra Brown 11:46 / #
And so I started drawing for him all of the parallels that we've talked about, and I said, and when you really get down to it, I said, Shakespeare would have made the same pitch to his editors, because the human condition does not change. It hasn't for millennia, you know, and so, when you, when you start talking about human emotions, they're all still there. Greed, lust, jealousy, rage, you know, sorrow, grief, all of these things are still identifiable by every human being, and so I think if you tell a story correctly, and if you reveal to your characters, the emotions, you know, to your readers, the emotions of the characters, then they're going to relate to that. Because if you have, if you lose someone dear to you, beloved to you, you're going to feel the same thing that someone did hundreds of years ago. You know, that hasn't changed. Human heart has not changed. And so even though our devices certainly have, and I can't tell you what a relief it was to write a book without everybody's cellphones. (laughter)

Jennifer Prokop 13:11 / #
I bet. I bet.

Sandra Brown 13:13 / #
Because I think technology, in some ways, has ruined suspense, because you can't make people disappear as easily as you used to. But in answer to your question, Sarah, the emotions, human emotions, if you tell a story well, and you really explore the mind and the heart of your characters, then the story should be relatable, no matter where it's at and what time period. And so I wouldn't give too much credence to someone who says well, you're leaving contemporary life behind, because when you strip it all away, we're people and we've been people for a long time, and we've experienced the same emotions at one point in our lives or another.

Jennifer Prokop 14:02 / #
Okay, so, my dad was a soldier in Vietnam, and one of the things Sarah and I have talked about, sort of over and over again, and I joke that if I ever got a PhD in romance, it would be about the Vietnam hero returning home. Is a lot of your early romances - most of them, featured men who were, who had been in Vietnam, and Thatcher is a man coming back from World War One, so is this something that is of particular interest to you? Or do you, like me, sometimes think this is just an American story? I mean, maybe it's a story everywhere, but a particularly American story, about a man coming home from war and not knowing where he fits in. Thatcher can't even afford to get home. They've taken his uniform from him, and I was really fascinated to think about that in parallel with some of your early romances.

Sandra Brown 14:57 / #
Well, that and that's true and I have to confess, I guess that's an accidental thing, Jen, because I don't really set out to make any kind of, you know, political statement. That's not my role. I'm a fiction writer. I tell stories, but it's interesting, now that you mentioned it, because I really, really hadn't thought of that. But I suppose because the Vietnam War was so, you know, part of my development, as when I was in, well, I guess, junior high, high school, college, and then early adulthood, I knew people that were lost, you know, in that war and, and it was so much of our culture, and it was so much of a culture change in our country. So I guess, in the background in my mind, that was omnipresent, didn't even recognize it, and it's interesting that you should say, because even recent books, the hero in Thick as Thieves is an ex-soldier. There have been many who have served. The character in Lethal, what was his name? Oh dear? Coburn! (she laughs)

Jennifer Prokop 16:23 / #
73 bestsellers later, you're gonna forget some names, right?

Sarah MacLean 16:26 / #
It's really fine.

Sandra Brown 16:27 / #
I have a little glitch every now and then. (laughter) Yeah, and so that influenced, you know, his character and how he was very tough and cold toward the world until he meets this little five-year-old girl who totally disassembles him. So it's, I think in the back of my mind, possibly, it's kind of that injured male, whether the injuries are physical or emotional or mental. It's kind of that, you know, the beast, that by the end of the book is more or less tamed, but there's a reason for the way he acts. And I think that war and war experiences, you know, play into that in some regard. But it's a subconscious thing. I really never had thought about it until you mentioned it, but now that you do, I can see, oh, there's a pattern there! Thanks for pointing that out.

Jennifer Prokop 16:32 / #
You're welcome.

Sarah MacLean 16:48 / #
It's interesting, because as I was reading Blind Tiger, and knowing we were going to have this conversation, I was thinking a lot about heroes in thrillers and mysteries versus heroes in romance and how that sort of loner archetype really fits both worlds, and what you, I think, do so beautifully, in all of your books, is you deliver your loner hero a community, in a lot of ways. And Thatcher, for me, feels like your romance roots, kind of delivering these thriller heroes a different kind of happiness at the end, a different kind of satisfaction.

Sandra Brown 18:09 / #
Right.

Sarah MacLean 18:09 / #
But I also want to talk about your heroines, because for me, a Sandra Brown heroine always has a purpose outside of the hero. That has, I mean, as a reader that inspired me, as a writer. I said on Twitter the other day that you were one of the reasons why I write romance. I think your heroines have really kind of imprinted on me in a lot of ways, the DNA of the Sandra Brown heroine. You know, the heroine who is backed up against the wall, we love, Jen and I love a heroine backed up against a wall -

Jennifer Prokop 18:35 / #
100%.

Sarah MacLean 18:43 / #
Who ends up a bootlegger because that's the avenue and also she's super badass!

Jennifer Prokop 18:56 / #
The minute she learned to drive, but the whole part where she says too, I mean, there's a part, I wish I would have marked it, where she says, once she decided this was her task, she was going to be the best at it, and I was like, "There is a Sandra Brown heroine!"

Sarah MacLean 19:10 / #
That's the Sandra Brown heroine.

Sandra Brown 19:12 / #
Well, I have to admit, when I first pitched the book to my editor, and it was going to be Thatcher's story. It was going to be his story, but once I started writing it, as my characters typically do, they took over, and the book actually turned out to be Laurel's story. Because beyond not, you know, he changed careers from that of a cowboy, and we see the potential in him early on to do more than just go back to the ranch, you know, and do that and he would have been happy to do that for the rest of his life, but he didn't. When the book is ended, he's more or less the same individual that he was. He still thinks the same way, still got that laconic cowboy nature, that code of honor that he lives by. You know, I'm not gonna look for trouble, but you don't mess with me or somebody I care about, or you're going to be in trouble, and so we get that early on, and we still feel that at the end of the book. Laurel is the one who has the character arc. It became her book when she said, "You are teaching me how to drive." And her father-in-law starts sputtering and she says, "Today."

Jennifer Prokop 20:47 / #
Today. (laughter)

Sandra Brown 20:51 / #
We weren't going to and I thought, huh, she's kind of taken over this, and then I loved you know, all of the things that she does. The limbs that she goes out on.

Sarah MacLean 21:06 / #
I mean, the whole operation being her brainchild, the pies and the -

Sandra Brown 21:10 / #
It's not just to survive now, it's not just to put food on the table. It's I'm going to thrive, and if I'm going to do, if I'm going to be a lawbreaker, I'm going to be the best at it. And of course, and another element, which I believe it was one of the questions that that you were going to ask me, what makes a good romance, and we can get to that, but one of the main elements is that they need to be forbidden to each other. And so in every Sandra Brown book that I've ever written, I've tried to make it if he's a fireman, she's got to be an arsonist. For whatever reason, this cannot happen. They cannot possibly get together because they're on opposite sides of something. And in this instance, it was so obvious, you know, when I first started plotting it, and I thought, Okay, can I really do that with a heroine? Can I really do that? And yes -

Sarah MacLean 21:10 / #
Yes.

Jennifer Prokop 21:10 / #
Yes

Sandra Brown 21:21 / #
Laurel was like yes, you know, hell yes, if you're going to write me, then I'm going to take over. And she did. And, you know, I think every reader, I hope every reader, male and female, will admire her gutsiness. You know, they might not admire the enterprise, but they, I think they will admire and can identify with somebody who says, "Okay, I've been knocked down twice, really hard." And that doesn't even count her upbringing, her parents, you know, her domineering father. So, she's refusing and resolved never to depend on anyone to take care of her again, and I think that is a lesson in what contemporary women in our society are learning, is that you know, as much as you love somebody, as kind of someone is to you, but you need to be able, because you don't know what fate is going to throw on your path, you need to be able to take care of yourself. Not depend on other people, anyone.

Sarah MacLean 23:41 / #
It was a joy to read Blind Tiger, and to return to your books, to your historicals. I mean, as an adult, as an avowed, we did a podcast where I said it out loud, as an Another Dawn fan, here we go, yeah! A dusty Texas. I'm ready.

Jennifer Prokop 24:03 / #
Yes.

Sandra Brown 24:04 / #
So funny, a little backstory on that. I wrote Sunset Embrace, and I sent it into my editor at the time. They were published by Bantam, and my editor at the time, after a month or so had gone by and the book was in production, and she called me one day and said, "The ladies here in the office have a request." And I thought, you know, signing books for their aunts, their grandmothers, their moms, and she said, "They want you to write another book and make Bubba the hero." And I went, "Ah! Well, let me see what I can do."

Jennifer Prokop 24:54 / #
The ladies in the office always know.

Sarah MacLean 24:58 / #
They know.

Sandra Brown 24:59 / #
So I set out to plot Another Dawn, and it was difficult because I had to age him 10 years because, in Sunset Embrace, it was really kind of a coming of age book for him. So I had to age him 10 years, and I thought, "Do I really want a hero named Bubba? I think I'm going to have to give him a new name." (laughter) And so I did that, and then thinking of the plot, and the plot broke my heart, actually, and I think it broke the heart of a lot of readers.

Sarah MacLean 25:39 / #
Of a lot of readers.

Sandra Brown 25:40 / #
It was essential to his and Banner's book, you know, the plot development there. So anyway, thank you for the compliment. I love cowboys. I'm from Texas. I'm a sucker at cowboys, as Thatcher, as Thatcher is, you know. I loved his bow-legged walk and his cowboy hat and his spurs and all of that.

Jennifer Prokop 26:08 / #
Everything.

Sarah MacLean 26:11 / #
Same. Well, I would love to hear about your journey into romance, because we've talked on the podcast about how you were really there at the start of Harlequin American with Vivian Stephens. We talked about Tomorrow's Promise on the podcast.

Jennifer Prokop 26:25 / #
Loveswept.

Sarah MacLean 26:26 / #
Yeah, the early Loveswept books. So I wonder if you could give us a sense of, paint us a picture of those early years and how you became a romance writer.

Sandra Brown 26:36 / #
My first five books were for Vivian Stephens in another house in another line. It was called Ecstasy, and it was published by Bantam Doubleday Dell. And how all of that happened, first of all, I got fired from my job. And I was working in television, for the ABC affiliate here in Dallas, and they came through one day and fired all of us who were on-air contributors for this magazine show. They said they needed fresh faces. So God bless my husband, who's still my husband. He's put up with me all these years, but he said, "You know, you've always said you want to write fiction, and now you've got time and opportunity to do it." And I had two babies at home. I mean, they were toddlers, my children. And I said, "Gosh, but you know, I don't know how to, I don't know how to do that." He said, "You won't know if you don't try. And you can either keep talking about it or you can do it." So I sat down and proceeded to start writing, and he had a talk show. This is a long story. But anyway, he had a talk show in the morning. He interviewed all the authors who came in on tour. So one was a local woman who wrote romances. Her name was Paris Afton Bonds. She volunteered as a favor for him having her on his show, to read one of my manuscripts, and she said, "You ought to be writing romances." And I was like, "What's a romance?" I didn't know, but you know, and she said, "Well, like a Harlequin romance." And that Harlequin was the only show in town, and they were, of course, a British company, so most of their writers are British, but I went bought 12 or 15 of them, started reading them, I thought, "Yeah, I think I can do this." So I proceeded to and Paris invited me to go with her to Houston to a writer's conference.

Sarah MacLean 28:44 / #
Oh my gosh.

Sandra Brown 28:45 / #
And there I met a woman named Candace Camp.

Sarah MacLean 28:48 / #
Oh my god!

Jennifer Prokop 28:49 / #
Of course!

Sandra Brown 28:51 / #
Who had first published The Rainbow Season, and that was one of the best books I had ever read, and I loved it! I couldn't speak when I met Candace, Candy, I called her. I was just like, "Uhhh!" She wrote that book under a pseudonym, Lisa Gregory. So I met her at that cocktail party, and also at the cocktail party, I met a woman from a small East Texas town, that had a bookstore, Mary Lynn Baxter, who later wrote for Silhouette. And she said, "Well, I've read everything ever written, and I have the ear of every editor in New York. So when you get a manuscript you like, send it to me, and I'll read it and I'll tell you whether or not it's any good." So about three months later, she had given me your phone number, three months later, I called her and said, "Do you remember meeting me and dada - " and, "Yes! What have you written?" And I said, "Well, I'm going to send you something." And she called me a few days later and said, "This is exactly what a woman named Vivian Stephens is looking for, for a new line of romances called Ecstasy."

Sarah MacLean 29:56 / #
Oh my gosh!

Sarah MacLean 29:58 / #
I have shivers.

Sarah MacLean 30:00 / #
I know, this is the greatest story! Do you have five or six hours to stay with us? (laughter)

Sandra Brown 30:06 / #
Vivian bought my first book about two weeks later, and then 13 days, she said, "Do you have another one?" And I said, "Yeah, I'm finishing it up." And she said, "Well send it. Is it same orientation?" And I said, "Yeah." "Same level of heat?" And I said, "Yeah." So she, I sent it to her, and she bought my second book 13 days after the first one. So I sold my first two and then she bought the next three, and then she moved to Harlequin, and that's when she she bought Tomorrow's Promise. And so, by then, at that point in time, every publisher was developing their own line. Jove had a line called Second Chance, and I later wrote for them. Silhouette had a line - Pocket had a line called Silhouette, and then Silhouette Desire, and then, what was the other - anyway, ultimately, I was writing for four different houses under four different names, including my own.

Sarah MacLean 31:12 / #
The pseudonyms. I'd love to talk a little bit about that because, was it four different houses under four different names, because each House wanted a different name?

Sandra Brown 31:20 / #
Right, right. My first pseudonym was for Vivian for the Ecstasy line, and I used Rachel Ryan, because those are my children's names.

Jennifer Prokop 31:32 / #
Oh, okay.

Sandra Brown 31:33 / #
And it was a bribe. If you let mommy work, (laughter) and leave me alone -

Jennifer Prokop 31:41 / #
That's awesome.

Sandra Brown 31:42 / #
We'll go get ice cream, and I'll put your name on every page of the book. (laughter)

Sarah MacLean 31:49 / #
Oh my god.

Jennifer Prokop 31:51 / #
Perfect.

Sandra Brown 31:51 / #
I also felt Rachael Ryan sounded a whole lot more like a romance writer than Sandra Brown, but when I started writing for Carolyn Nichols, for the Loveswept line, Carolyn wanted to, instead of featuring the series, or making the series the selling point, she wanted the authors to be more spotlighted. She wanted the authors to be the prominent name and develop the trademark, of course, but also to really emphasize the individuality of the authors. And so she said, "I want to use your real name." And I said, "It's about time, too." You know, that idea. So that's the history.

Sarah MacLean 32:39 / #
So as we're talking about that question, I feel you you must know what's coming, but the Loveswept line, and them wanting readers to know authors, can we talk about this? Which is that Rana Look!

Sandra Brown 32:53 / #
You mentioned that to me. I had forgotten that. (laughter)

Sarah MacLean 32:57 / #
First of all, I love that you have forgotten this.

Jennifer Prokop 32:59 / #
Imagine being so cool that you forgot that you are your own cover model. That's all I have to say about that.

Sarah MacLean 33:07 / #
And we have lots of serious questions too.

Sandra Brown 33:10 / #
How did that come about? Honest and truthfully, I cannot remember. I just remember being asked.

Sarah MacLean 33:17 / #
I don't think you were alone, because I think Nora Roberts was also on one around the same time. I feel like they they did this with a few people.

Jennifer Prokop 33:25 / #
There were a of couple people, I think. There was another one, I can't remember the name though.

Sarah MacLean 33:28 / #
Beautiful writers got to play model.

Sandra Brown 33:31 / #
My hair has never been that long. (laughter)

Sarah MacLean 33:35 / #
I was going to say is this your actual hair?

Sandra Brown 33:39 / #
And I never had a dress that gorgeous either! So what I think they did, I think what they did is take our picture in that pose, and then they had, you know, the painting done, and it was a really pretty good rendition -

Sarah MacLean 33:57 / #
It's beautiful!

Sandra Brown 33:57 / #
Of my face, but I didn't have the hair -

Jennifer Prokop 34:00 / #
Flowing, locks.

Sarah MacLean 34:03 / #
We've talked about this on the podcast before, but this is McLean Stevenson from MAS*H, right?

Sandra Brown 34:09 / #
Yeah.

Sarah MacLean 34:09 / #
Did you get to pick? Was he a favorite? Or were they just like, "Sorry, Sandra, you're going to have to be here with this guy."

Jennifer Prokop 34:14 / #
He's our local hottie.

Sandra Brown 34:17 / #
I don't know. I don't know how he got selected either.

Sarah MacLean 34:24 / #
He needed the press. He needed to hang out with you. He needed the glow up of Sandra Brown. So going back to those kind of early days, because we always think about that as it must have felt a little like there was an explosion of popularity, because prior to that it was so historic. We know that in the '70s it was big historical times, but this is really the burst of contemporary romance.

Sandra Brown 34:48 / #
Yes.

Sarah MacLean 34:48 / #
Did did it feel like it to you? Did you feel like you were on the precipice of something?

Sandra Brown 34:53 / #
Yes. In a way, because as I said, all of it up to that point in time, Harlequin published in London and in Toronto, and they had, I think the first American author that they bought was Janet Dailey. And I could be wrong on that, but I think that's right. And so it was like, well, duh, you've got a whole continent over here of women writers yet untapped. The competition among the houses, this is a great time to be starting, I've often said that I hit it at exactly the right moment in time, because the competition among the houses to sew up, you know, the Nora Roberts, the Jayne Ann Krentz, the Barbara Delinski, the -

Sarah MacLean 35:57 / #
Sandra Brown.

Sandra Brown 36:00 / #
I could go on and on and on, all the writers that, you know, came up out of this. And so it was very competitive among the houses to publish quickly. Well, I wrote like a frenzy all the time. I mean -

Sarah MacLean 36:18 / #
I was going to say -

Jennifer Prokop 36:19 / #
It must have been.

Sandra Brown 36:20 / #
When my kids got old enough to go to kindergarten and they were in school, because it was like I need to write without - so I think the year 1983, I think, which, oh gosh, that sounds so long ago. It was so long ago, but I think I had 11 books published.

Jennifer Prokop 36:44 / #
Wow.

Sandra Brown 36:46 / #
I had one a month except for one month, and so it was a juggling act. Each line, whether it was Silhouette, Loveswept, Second Chance, the American Harlequins, whether each line had nuances that were uniquely theirs, there was just something you know, a little bit different. And so I would tailor a story, if I thought of a plot, I would kind of tailor the story, oh, that would make a good Desire. Or, oh, that would make a good Loveswept. And then there were some differences in the lengths, so if a story was going to be a little bit longer, you know, I would tailor it. But it was a, kind of a juggling act. And I have to say, one lesson I learned early on, is I didn't talk about my business with anybody. I wouldn't share anything that I had spoken about with one editor with another. I kept very close counsel, and I wound up on speaking terms with everybody with whom I've ever worked. (laughter) I think one reason was because I didn't discuss my business, nor anyone else's with, you know, with anyone. So that might be a word of advice for a starting author. You know, hold your cards close to your vest and concentrate on your business and nobody else.

Jennifer Prokop 38:30 / #
One of the things that's really interesting, is you were just talking about how fertile a time it was for authors, but this is when, Sarah and I both kind of came up reading at this time. I mean, we were young. It's fine. It doesn't matter.

Sarah MacLean 38:45 / #
Barely even born.

Jennifer Prokop 38:46 / #
Doesn't matter. We were reading romances when we were 10, and I don't, I'm not sad about it. But I also think this was an incredibly, then fertile, time to come up as a romance reader. So can you - are there - do you have stories? Do you get letters from fans? These books mean something to people!

Sandra Brown 39:05 / #
Yeah, and it's so humbling. It really is. But before we had email and social media, you know, fan letters, I would collect them from the mailbox. And I would dedicate, you know, like one day a month to answer, you know, by hand, all of these letters. It took a lot of time, but right now social media takes a lot of time. So, you know, but I was always so touched by the stories that people would tell me about how my story affected them. And to this day, it's really humbling and gratifying and validating because I can bang my head against the wall, think nobody is going to read this crap. (laughs) This is just a, just another, unhhh! You know, trying to get it right. And I struggle with that. I struggle with the insecurity of I'll never write another, you know, sentence again. Every day I do that. But when you get a letter that says, "This touched me. It's such a needful time in my life." Whatever it is: an illness, the loss of a partner or child, or something really tragic. And they say, "Your books just saved me through this." And that's when it's like, you know, if that one person is the only person who took something from that labor that I put in, it was worth it. You know, it makes those long hours and days at the keyboard really, truly worthwhile.

Sarah MacLean 40:54 / #
We'll get to the shift, the way that you moved from romance, to thrillers, but I'm curious, particularly about readers and the separate genres, because it often feels when I'm at events, or you know, when Jen is at events, it often feels like people always say, "Oh, romance is totally different than everyone else." The thriller audience isn't like this. It doesn't become as personal. Do you, have you had that experience? Or because you're sort of still Sandra Brown? Your books still feel Sandra Brown-y. Do you still get the feedback?

Sandra Brown 41:28 / #
Sometimes, from really dumb people. (laughter) And I, you know, if someone says, "Well, I don't read those kinds of books." And I say, "Well, have you ever read one?" "No." "Well, then how do you know what kind it is?" (laughter)

Jennifer Prokop 41:46 / #
Right.

Sandra Brown 41:48 / #
You know, I'm less sensitive to it than I once was, because then in the same breath, they'll say, "Gosh, it but it must be really, you know, how do you write a book?" And I'll go, "Yeah, that's, that's kind of tricky." You know if it were easy everybody would be doing it, because the writer's life is a great life. So I kind of dismiss that anymore, you know, and, but because I know how hard it is, and my husband knows how hard it is, and my children and grandchildren know. And my colleagues that I care about deeply know how hard it is, and we commiserate. Sarah, you know how hard it is. And so it's, it's really, I just, I don't bother with that anymore. And also, I fall back on a book that really inspired me, and I thought, "You know what? You can combine thrillers and sex." And the book that did that for me was Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett. That was one of the sexiest books, because you talk about forbidden, and you talk about the isolation, which I always tried to build. You said you bring your character into a community and form a community around that character, is very insightful of you, because I do try to create a world where the rest of the world is kind of just disappeared. It's that world and the characters, it's a microcosm. They have good people, bad people, but their lives are really uninfluenced by much that's going on. It's within that tight community that they're orbiting. And so when I read Eye of the Needle, I thought, here they are. It's got all the elements I loved. They're alone on this island, nobody knows where. The communication is gone. The weather is prohibitive. They're forbidden to each other, and yet that allure, you know, just that allure, and of course, he's an assassin. He's a horrible person, but the love scene -

Sarah MacLean 44:30 / #
We're for it.

Sandra Brown 44:32 / #
You know, it's just great. And so I thought now if somebody like Ken Follett can do this - (laughs)

Sarah MacLean 44:41 / #
What if you did it!

Jennifer Prokop 44:42 / #
What if you did, right?

Sandra Brown 44:45 / #
So that book really influenced me a lot, in terms of you can mix the two, and it has to be, integrated into the story and when people are running for their lives, it's a little bit impractical and implausible to think, "Oh, timeout. We've got to have sex." You know, so - (laughter)

Sandra Brown 45:06 / #
We have a name for that, Sandra, "the danger bang!"

Sandra Brown 45:10 / #
(laughter) I've never heard that term before.

Jennifer Prokop 45:16 / #
You're welcome.

Sarah MacLean 45:18 / #
It's yours now.

Sandra Brown 45:21 / #
Here's the thing, and I've done questionnaires and things on this before and asked, did you realize you were creating a genre or helping create a genre? No. No. It was a subconscious thing and I'm given far more credit than I deserve, because I read Helen MacInnes. I read Evelyn Anthony. I read all of these writers, again, mostly British, who were writing basically books during the Cold War. It was after World War Two, but still that influence, you know, the Nazis, the spies, the all that, and they had wonderful sexy books! Especially Evelyn Anthony was a big influence on me, her books are amazing! And the tension, because here again, the forbidden, and so I really get more credit than I deserve, because I felt like I borrowed, you know, so much from them, from other writers, and from my contemporaries. I think there were several of us who saw, hey, we have romance roots, but we still love the mystery. We still love the suspense, we still love wartime books, or we still love, you know, spy novels, and so the way I felt about it was that the attraction heightens both elements of the story, because you're never more afraid than when someone you care about is in danger. Even more than yourself. So it heightens that suspense. It heightens please don't let anything happen, and it heightens the urgency. If this is going to be the only time we have, then we're going to make the most of it. So it heightens both elements. It heightens the relationship and it heightens the danger, because they work against each other, with each other.

Sarah MacLean 47:35 / #
As you're talking about this community of these other writers who were doing it at the same time as you, because there were, it felt like something broke, meaning the tide broke, and suddenly there was romantic suspense everywhere in the genre. Did you have a community of other writers who were doing the same thing? Who were the members of that community?

Sandra Brown 47:56 / #
Well, I have to say, I have to give credit to International Thriller Writers. I was asked very early on, Gale Lynds asked me, and David Morel, who I didn't know at the time, Lee Child, some of these that were saying, "Would you like to become part of this - we're going to form a league of writers called International Thriller Writers and we're breaking barriers." They did. I mean, it was like, we wanted to incorporate mystery. We wanted to incorporate suspense, it can incorporate fantasy, it can incorporate romance, but every book should be a thriller, no matter what book you're writing, it should thrill your readers. So they were very democratic, you know, in this organization, and I think they possibly as much, if not more, went out of their way to include writers from another genre that wasn't so steeped in espionage, or so, you know, which we called a mind thriller. They had horror writers. It was everybody, and so I really have to credit that organization a lot with bringing everybody in, and recognizing the contribution that women writers had made to the marketplace. They were really a fundamental group that brought to the publisher's attention, "Hey, we got all these great writers over here and guess what, you know, they're women!" (laughs) What a concept!

Jennifer Prokop 50:00 / #
When you look back on your career, is there a book that you can point to where you thought, "Oh, I, I'm feeling my direction change, and I'm moving away from straight romance." Or was it just really a smooth continuum for you? There's not a Slow Heat in Heaven was the one or whatever.

Sandra Brown 50:21 / #
Yeah, well it was Slow Heat in Heaven. (laughter)

Sarah MacLean 50:24 / #
There it is. That's the one we hear about all the time.

Jennifer Prokop 50:28 / #
All the time.

Sandra Brown 50:28 / #
Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah MacLean 50:29 / #
I mean, it's the book you hear about when somebody says, "Sandra Brown," if you're not us going, "Another Dawn! Tomorrow's Promise!" (laughter)

Sandra Brown 50:37 / #
It was kind of a breakthrough for me, but apparently for a lot of romance readers, it was like, "What happened to that nice girl we used to know?" (laughter)

Sarah MacLean 50:53 / #
Yeah! It was so gritty.

Sarah MacLean 50:54 / #
I can still remember where I was when I read Slow Heat in Heaven. I was in my sister's apartment in Waltham, Massachusetts, sleeping on an air mattress, and there I was.

Sandra Brown 51:06 / #
I've been to Waltham, Massachusetts! Anyway, I remember, I had finished the Texas! Trilogy. Lucky, Chase and Sage, who were the most, they were the most fun books I'd ever written, and they are in their 45th printing domestically. And so they have resonated with a lot of readers, and I love those characters, and they were so much fun. And I think I only wrote one other Loveswept after that. And then I had signed a contract with, it was the Warner books at the time, and they, I had kind of gotten to where I was, like, you know, I've got to stretch. I've got to do - I had written like 45 romances, and I thought I really want to kind of get past these boundaries that you know now, anything goes, but back then it was like, you know, you can't do this, you can't do gun play, you can't, you know, language had to be controlled, and there were certain plots, I was, as I said, always giving my editors heart attacks, because they were going, "(gasp) Sandra!" and you know, one of the characters in Texas! Trilogy, the plot, she was married, and when I told my editor I was going to do that, well, when I told my editor, who was Carolyn Nichols, and when I told her, I said, "I want to do these books from a male point of view." And she said, "Well, you can't do that." And I said, "Well, you kind of can." (laughs) I can!

Sarah MacLean 52:52 / #
Let me show you.

Sandra Brown 52:55 / #
They're thinking such wonderful things. I think this would be and I want to make them longer, and I will throw in a third book. I'll give you a woman point of view, I'll give them a bratty younger sister, and so that's where that came about and -

Sarah MacLean 53:14 / #
That's so fascinating. I mean, that changed the game!

Sandra Brown 53:18 / #
I had to fight for that, and when I told her that the heroine, you know, in Lucky was going to be married, she said, "Your readers will never forgive you, if you use, if you have an adulterous, you know." and I'll go, "Carolyn, how many books have I written for you? You're just going to have to go out on a leap of faith on this." And so, you know, made it that way. But when I, after I finished all those romances, I thought, I want to do something where I don't have any kind of parameter. I'm having to stay with that. No borders. No fences. So I signed this book with, this deal, with Warner, to write a standalone novel, and it was Slow Heat in Heaven, what became Slow Heat in Heaven. And from the get go, I loved Cash Boudreaux. And I said -

Sarah MacLean 54:15 / #
Same. Obviously.

Sandra Brown 54:17 / #
I said, "This is gonna be the Sandra Brown hero. It's the one that needs redeeming.

Sarah MacLean 54:24 / #
And did you know in the moment? Were you like, "Oh, I knew I was writing "the book.""

Sandra Brown 54:30 / #
The minute he showed up with that hoe across his shoulders and then he kills the snake. And I thought, "This is the Sandra Brown hero." And it's the one that, you know, needs love, that needs to be loved. It's hardened by life and the -

Sarah MacLean 54:54 / #
Poor baby. Poor baby. Also, someone else kills a snake.

Jennifer Prokop 54:58 / #
Thatcher kills a snake too. So you're going back to your roots. You might not know, but we do. (laughter)

Sarah MacLean 55:05 / #
We're paying close attention here.

Sandra Brown 55:07 / #
I thought it the minute he walked on the page, and a lot of people, you know, it took them so aback. The sexuality was a whole lot more graphic and everything, but I remember you had Susan Elizabeth Phillips on.

Jennifer Prokop 55:23 / #
Yes.

Sandra Brown 55:24 / #
And I definitely remember a, I guess it was Romance Writers of America, some writer's conference, where she and I were both attending, and I think that's first time I met her. I think it was. Maybe not, but anyway, we were both there, and we were very friendly. Love her. Still love her. Sterling lady. And she was making a speech at lunch. She was the keynote speaker. And she was going on about she said, "We as writers have to be fearless. We have to be fearless. We can't be inhibited by our own timidity." And that was her point, you know, be fearless. She said, "I have a post it note on my computer screen, "be fearless."" You know, take the chance. And she said, "Sandra Brown." (laughter)

Sarah MacLean 56:26 / #
She called you out.

Sandra Brown 56:27 / #
Strawberry shortcake is - (laughter) and she said, "She shocked us all with Slow Heat in Heaven." And she said romance readers all over the country were saying, "(Gasp!) How dare she?" And she said they couldn't get enough of it.

Jennifer Prokop 56:53 / #
How dare she. Can I have some more? Yeah.

Sandra Brown 56:56 / #
And so she said and it was kind of, it was definitely a turning point in my career, but it was also a book, that as you both have mentioned, kind of put readers back on their heels with what, I didn't know you could do this, you know.

Sarah MacLean 57:13 / #
It felt different.

Jennifer Prokop 57:14 / #
It did.

Sarah MacLean 57:14 / #
It was different. It's interesting because you brought up the Texas! Trilogy, and I feel like in Texas! Chase, which we did a deep dive episode on, so we read it and thought about it. You were moving into romantic suspense. There are too, there's a whole stalker -

Sandra Brown 57:32 / #
Yeah.

Sarah MacLean 57:34 / #
Threadline through that book, and it's clear that that was the path you were on, even before.

Sandra Brown 57:42 / #
Yeah. I never felt like I've deserted the romance genre. I felt like I learned so much from writing the romances. First of all, when they were, when your page count was dictated you know, you had to be, I had to learn to get into the action immediately, join the scene in progress, and that didn't come with the first several books. I spent a lot of time you know, tiptoeing through the tulips and describing everything and showing off to the reader how much research I'd done about a place. Really what they wanted to know was when are they going to meet, what, you know, what's going on?

Jennifer Prokop 58:25 / #
When are they gonna kiss?

Sandra Brown 58:27 / #
I was learning.

Sarah MacLean 58:28 / #
It feels very real.

Sandra Brown 58:29 / #
And I got better at it, but little tools like that, that I had to learn when writing romance, I brought with me. I don't feel like I deserted anything, and as you say, the books always had shadings. I remember even my fourth book, A Treasure Worth Seeking, was about an FBI agent having to move into the heroine's apartment because her brother is escaped jail or something like that, and they're kind of hiding out hoping he's gonna show up. So there was always that, that thread in there.

Sarah MacLean 59:06 / #
So you move to Warner to publish Slow Heat in Heaven, and so I guess my question is, did you move to Warner because you knew Warner would let you do something that maybe romance wouldn't let you do?

Sandra Brown 59:20 / #
My agent kind of threw the idea out there, and they were the first to, you know, to really bite. I think I did a three book contract, my first one. The first two books, Slow Heat (in Heaven) and Best Kept Secret had basically had a terrible cover on it, and we had a meeting and I said okay, and what they had suggested is that if I was going to establish myself as as a, you know, more suspense or mystery, then perhaps I would rethink writing category romances. And that was a tough, that was a, it was a, that was tough to leave that safety net, than it was, you know, on the high trapeze without one, and I couldn't, you know, I had to make up my mind, and I thought, yeah, this is where I want to go. So that was a career decision. So we had this meeting, and it was so, it looked like a historical recycle cover that had been recycled from historical because you've got the heroine lying back with the bosoms falling out, and the shirtless hero with the biceps and everything, and so, and I said, "This is set on a horse training ranch. I haven't seen any body in West Texas who dresses like this." (laughter) And so I said, "No more bosoms and biceps." I said if you're going to ask me to kind of start edging away from the romance elements into more mystery and suspense, then you've got to give me covers. that also indicate that.

Sarah MacLean 1:01:24 / #
You have to help me succeed.

Sandra Brown 1:01:26 / #
That's exactly right. And so on Mirror Image, they did a completely different type of cover, and guess what? It was my first book on The New York Times bestseller list. So I made my point. And from then on, I didn't have to, you know -

Sarah MacLean 1:01:43 / #
Fight for it.

Sandra Brown 1:01:44 / #
I had a little bit more cool.

Sarah MacLean 1:01:47 / #
Was there any discussion of changing your name?

Sandra Brown 1:01:50 / #
No. No. I wanted to publish under Sandra Brown.

Sarah MacLean 1:01:54 / #
That's great. You hear other people having to, you know, make that switch. It still is a thing that people say in romance. You know, well, if you want to write something else, you need to change your name. I'm just going to tell everybody, "No. Sandra Brown didn't."

Jennifer Prokop 1:02:07 / #
Sandra Brown didn't, you shouldn't have to either.

Sandra Brown 1:02:10 / #
And that also is my real name.

Sarah MacLean 1:02:14 / #
That helps too. So let's talk about Sandra Brown, because we've already talked about you know, what makes the Sandra Brown romance a little bit, but what do you think, kind of is the hallmark of the Sandra Brown romance? What do you think saying to readers?

Sandra Brown 1:02:27 / #
Well I don't know about the same two readers, but I had a, I've worked this out over time. I have four elements to me that are critical, and in every book, and I've carried it over into the suspense novels, but the romance aspect of that. The first one is that the hero and the heroine must be codependent to solve their problem. In other words, they share a problem that each has to try and overcome. They're coming at it from different angles, and willingly, they have to work together in order to solve it. That's the first thing. So build in, if I can, a problem they're going to share, and they're dependent on each other. Not liking it at first, but that's the way it is. The second thing is they've got to share space, and this is the hardest thing to do. Because you got to keep them together. And that, you know, all of the peripheral characters in Blind Tiger, were a lot of people, but I tried as much as possible, even though Thatcher and Laurel were not living with each other. He kept showing up. He was always showing up.

Sarah MacLean 1:03:59 / #
I love it.

Sandra Brown 1:04:01 / #
And so I kept them together as much as possible, but in a romance novel, I think it's almost essential that they're on every page together. The desire is a given. It's going to be chemistry from the get-go. First time they see each other sparks are gonna fly, even though they don't demonstrate it. Sparks can fly in anger. but there's going to be that static electricity, you know, automatically. So that's a given. And then the one that we've touched on in this, I think is as important as any if not the, it can't be easy. They've got to be forbidden, for one reason or another. So you've got them a problem they've got to solve together. You've got them to share space. They're gonna have the desire but they can't give into it.

Jennifer Prokop 1:04:54 / #
This explains everything about the kind of romance reader, I mean, it's just hard wired right into my system. Because I say that a lot, a thing I struggle with, I think, in modern romances, they aren't trying to solve the same problem. They have separate problems, and I'm always like, okay, but I don't care. What are they doing together? And I know that makes me old-fashioned maybe, but I don't care. Solve a problem together. That's what I want to see you do.

Sandra Brown 1:05:18 / #
I think old-fashioned works, if it, you know, if it's written correctly. A contemporary book by contemporary writer and I read them and I love them, eat 'em up. And as I said, the human emotions have not changed. So, you know, we can go back and we can read, you know, books written hundreds of years ago, Dickens, Shakespeare, you know, Wilkie Collins, anybody, and those, those emotions are still there, identified.

Sarah MacLean 1:05:56 / #
I would love to hear - one of the questions we sent you, and I think it's so important for these interviews and for women in general, in publishing, is, when did you know you were Sandra Brown? Right? When did you know you were a big deal? Was there a moment when you were like, oh, no, I'm a thing. I'm leaving a mark.

Sandra Brown 1:06:17 / #
I can't wait for that day. Because I still feel, I mean, very much, a yeoman. I mean, I am, I work hard. And every day when I come to this computer, it's like, I've never done it before. I start from scratch every day. And so I know, I don't think of Sandra Brown as Sandra. In fact, my friends have heard me say before, my family has heard me say, frequently, I've got to go be Sandra Brown today.

Sarah MacLean 1:07:03 / #
A separate entity. Sure.

Sandra Brown 1:07:06 / #
It's like, you know, I don't fluff up every day. And so it's, it's like, I still consider myself, you know, just a, someone who works very, very hard, and has been blessed with the opportunities that I have been given and, and to be able to do what I love doing and, and make a living at it. And I know that a lot of people, you know, just take their jobs, but they're necessary. And I get to do what I love doing and get to have a job out of it. So I'm grateful every day and I never, I think the you know, it's really bad for a writer to start reading the press releases, because when you start getting complacent about what you are, you can get really lazy and so I face, I am very paranoid and very fearful that whatever talent, I don't even like to use that word, but I guess that's the word that has to suffice, but whatever storytelling ability that I may have had or forming a sentence or creating a character yesterday will have left me last night, and I live in the fear of being exposed as the biggest fraud that ever pulled off, you know, a hoax.

Sarah MacLean 1:08:39 / #
That just sounds like you're a writer. This is all very comforting for me, but I think we, Jen and I, will say you are obviously a legend to us and to many.

Sandra Brown 1:08:52 / #
Well, thank you. Thank you. That means a great deal, and I love to, to hear other, I mean, you know, I'm buddies with a lot of other writers and some are, you know, very fearful the same way I am. Some are very, you know, laid back something, you know, gosh, you know, isn't this fun, and I remember being, it was actually at George and Barbara Bush's home in Houston for a luncheon, for one her foundation's literacy programs. And Harlan Cohen and I were there and we had our spouses with us, this lovely lunch. And so we were outside in their garden, having our picture made with him and everything and he, you know, he's very, very tall, and he leaned down and he said, "Do you believe we get to do this?" And I said, "You know, I pinch myself all the time." I mean, telling my stories, writing my stories has enabled me to do amazing things, meet sports stars and movie stars and rock stars and go on two USO tours, an opportunity that would not have been afforded me, had I not been, you know, a writer. And so I'm forever grateful. But yeah, I don't look at you know, Sandra Brown the mom is just mom, believe me, Sandra Brown, the grandmother is just that, you know. And Sandra Brown, the one that goes to work every day is the different one that shows up to make a speech.

Jennifer Prokop 1:10:43 / #
So as we wrap up, though, one question that I think, it's just a reflective question, and you've seen this in advance is, when you think about your body of work, especially romance, since this is a romance podcast, although you're welcome to talk about any one of your books. Do you have a favorite? Do you have a book that you are especially proud of, or that you hope will outlive you?

Sandra Brown 1:11:08 / #
Well, I make, when I'm asked this in a public speech, public arena, I always say my favorite is the one that you're about to buy.

Jennifer Prokop 1:11:23 / #
Great answer.

Sarah MacLean 1:11:24 / #
But let's say you're asked for posterity.

Sandra Brown 1:11:29 / #
I think if, if I hadn't, well, of course, and this is not, I'm not being facetious on this, I was very proud of Blind Tiger. Because it was a, it was a different kind of book, and I hope it has long legs. I hope it, you know, lasts for a long time, I hope that word of mouth will spread, because it is a different kind of story, and it's kind of a yarn, you know, in a way and I want people to read it. I thought there was some very interesting character development in it and social implications in it, and so I'm proud of it. A book that comes around a lot is Envy. People - there's a lot of fan base that say Envy, you know, was one that I really loved. And so I think it might, it might live a longer time. And I think the trilogy will, just because they're so much fun. And they're still wanting an e-book. I can't get them an e-book, and because -

Jennifer Prokop 1:12:41 / #
Oh, yeah! 'Cause we had to order, I had to order paperbacks.

Sarah MacLean 1:12:44 / #
We had to read them in print. Why can't they be an e-book?

Sandra Brown 1:12:47 / #
Well, it's all contractual stuff. I hate that side of it, because, you know, well, I could comment more, but I'm not.

Jennifer Prokop 1:13:02 / #
I'm sure.

Sarah MacLean 1:13:03 / #
That's fine. You can come again, when you're ready.

Sandra Brown 1:13:06 / #
Let's put it this way. As soon as it becomes feasible, I would love to have them available to readers in e-book. Yeah. And I love people that read them. You know, in the whole volume, the one volume, because then they can read it like one thousand page book. Yeah.

Sarah MacLean 1:13:26 / #
I love, I mean, this is such a tiny, tiny thing, but that exclamation point really does a whole lot of work!

Sandra Brown 1:13:33 / #
You know what, I heard you comment on that.

Sarah MacLean 1:13:39 / #
Did you hear me call them sex-clamation points!

Jennifer Prokop 1:13:44 / #
We're teaching you all the good stuff.

Sandra Brown 1:13:47 / #
I may be wrong, but I think you attributed that to the publisher, and that was me! Because I thought when I can't just say "Texas Trilogy" because that doesn't say anything, and so I thought what if I put an exclamation point? And I did and so when I sent the manuscript in -

Sarah MacLean 1:14:08 / #
It's perfect.

Jennifer Prokop 1:14:09 / #
It is.

Sandra Brown 1:14:10 / #
I said now, the exclamation point is part of the title, and it's gonna be on all of the books. So yeah, that was my idea.

Sarah MacLean 1:14:18 / #
We're going to put, I'm going to put a special beginning on the text of that episode to make sure that we get this correct.

Jennifer Prokop 1:14:18 / #
Get it right.

Sarah MacLean 1:14:18 / #
I want to correct the record. Those exclamation points are glorious, and I love them very much.

Sandra Brown 1:14:30 / #
Thank you.

Sarah MacLean 1:14:31 / #
So this is sort of a separate question that I would love for you to answer. But is there anybody lesser known in romance, who, from, you know, who you think, as we're, Jen and I are planning to interview, you know, as many people as we can over the next few years for this kind of a conversation? Is there anybody who you absolutely think we have to talk to? And not just authors.

Sandra Brown 1:14:53 / #
I don't know who you have lined up? I think the contemporaries of mine that I mentioned before, I think Jayne Ann Krentz, because she writes multi-genre, and she does them all extremely well. Nora Roberts, of course.

Jennifer Prokop 1:15:13 / #
We'd love to get Nora Roberts, of course.

Sandra Brown 1:15:16 / #
And Candice Camp, because she has written contemporaries and historicals, and she's been around more than 40 years, and still turning out great books. And so she would be one I would suggest, because they do have that history, you know, they do have that longevity. And recently, not too recently, but someone asked me, "What are you most proud of?" You know, and it can't be your children, and it can't be your long marriage, and it can be anything easy like that, but from a writing standpoint, from your, what, what's the thing you're most proud of? And I said, "My longevity. It's not easy to maintain." And I respect authors, like, you know, like the Dean Koontz's and the Stephen King's, and they were all, they had all just started, you know, when just years, a few years ahead of me. And I read their works as inspiration when I first started out, and, and Dean Koontz is a great plotter. I mean, he just, and he wrote a book on how to write fiction and it became a bible early on. So all of these writers who year after year and decade after decade are still on the bestseller lists. That speaks well of not just their talent, but their work ethic.

Jennifer Prokop 1:16:54 / #
Well, I also think it's nice as a genre reader, to see people I deeply respect becoming more widely respected. I mean, when I was younger, Stephen King was just a horror writer. But now Stephen King is Stephen King.

Sandra Brown 1:17:10 / #
Yeah.

Jennifer Prokop 1:17:10 / #
And I think that there's a way in which, I appreciate deeply, this, the idea that great storytelling and great writing is isn't just found in literary fiction, right? It's found in thrillers and horror and romance, and I think that that's one of the things that's so nice about seeing those people on those lists and seeing that longevity, is there's readers now who read Sandra Brown that wouldn't read, you know, Demon Rumm, and that's too bad, right?

Sandra Brown 1:17:40 / #
Yeah. You're right. You're exactly right. And so I think there is a, sometimes there is a prejudice there, you know, but it speaks well of a storyteller who can come up with that many stories and over a period of decades, I mean, just decades, and remain a marketable commodity to publishing houses. And so I'm proud of that longevity, and it's work. I mean, it's just work, and it speaks not just to, you know, sit and wait to get inspired, you really have to put your butt in the chair, you know, and get your head out of the clouds and put words on paper. That's the only way I know how to do it. There's no other way that I know to write a book except one word at a time. And I had another brilliant thought, now it's left me, but back to the longevity and just working at it, just working at it. I never aspired to do anything except entertain. I don't care if I win prizes, but my books are collecting dust on somebody's bookshelf. I want to be the book they take to the beach, into the bathtub, you know, to bed with them at night, that have the coffee stain, the Coca-Cola stain, the suntan oil, you know, they're frayed from taking on the subway, because, you know, that's the one you don't want to put down. That's the one you're carrying around with you, and that's the one that keeping you engrossed, and so if I entertain my reader than I can go to sleep at night, that I've done my job for the day. That's, that's the one thing that I always set out to do, is entertain my reader. Tell the reader a story.

Sarah MacLean 1:19:43 / #
Well, you have done it very well. Thank you so much for so many years of fabulous books and writing.

Sandra Brown 1:19:52 / #
Thank you. Y'all are so sweet! I'm very honored.

Sarah MacLean 1:19:56 / #
On a personal level, thank you for inspiring, I mean, you are the reason I write romance, so it is a huge honor to talk to you.

Jennifer Prokop 1:20:06 / #
It is an honor.

Sarah MacLean 1:20:07 / #
We just learned that we have, you have imprinted on our on our reading.

Jennifer Prokop 1:20:13 / #
I was trying to be real cool, but when you described you meeting Candace Camp that was me meeting you. It's fine.

Sarah MacLean 1:20:23 / #
Sandra, this was an absolute delight. Thank you so much.

Sandra Brown 1:20:27 / #
Thank you. It was my pleasure.

Sarah MacLean 1:20:31 / #
Man, when that was over, I was like, that's why that's Sandra Brown. That's why she's Sandra Brown. She was the best.

Jennifer Prokop 1:20:42 / #
I'm like not even really making words. I'm surprised I did when we talked to her because I don't think people realize, this was such a formative author.

Sarah MacLean 1:20:53 / #
We were really, I mean, I think longtime listeners will not be surprised to hear that we were very stressed out about doing this right.

Jennifer Prokop 1:21:03 / #
Y'all, we prepared. We prepared so hard for it.

Sarah MacLean 1:21:06 / #
Almost too much. I was a little worried by how much we prepared.

Jennifer Prokop 1:21:08 / #
Yeah.

Sarah MacLean 1:21:09 / #
I was like, uh-oh, what if we lose our mojo? But it was so great. I loved her. I love just how she - I loved her wisdom. I loved that when she, when we asked her about the hallmarks of a Sandra Brown novel -

Jennifer Prokop 1:21:22 / #
She had a list.

Sarah MacLean 1:21:23 / #
She knew exactly what she wanted, what she was. And she knew exactly how Sandra Brown novels feel. And I mean, the second she said, "And they're pretty fearless." I was like, that's it. That's the whole ballgame. And we've talked so much about that over the last three years, not just about her, but about all the books that we've loved.

Jennifer Prokop 1:21:43 / #
Yes.

Sarah MacLean 1:21:43 / #
Just that there's this sense of fearlessness in them, and so it just reminded me that as writers, our work is to swing for the fences, and maybe we clear them and maybe we don't but you swing.

Jennifer Prokop 1:21:57 / #
We're going to talk a lot this year about the history of romance, and you know, The Flame and the Flower was this really important kind of marker. Romance existed before in a lot of different iterations and a lot of different ways, but you know, sort of genre romance. And the thing that I have been thinking a lot about is, the romance reader you are is really formed by your primordial romance texts. And when Sandra Brown talked about what makes us Sandra Brown romance, it was so, this is what is romance is to me.

Sarah MacLean 1:22:37 / #
Yes! Like she unpeeled you, straight to your core.

Jennifer Prokop 1:22:40 / #
Right there, she made me who I was. But I think the other thing that's really interesting is that can be true at the same time that I can see how romance has really changed.

Sarah MacLean 1:22:40 / #
Yeah.

Jennifer Prokop 1:22:52 / #
And so that's the part that I think continues to astound me, is outsiders to romance are kind of like, aren't the books all the same? And I was like, no. Yes and no, right? Yes, there's something that delivers to me every time and hearing Sandra Brown verbalize what she wants to do in her books really made that clear to me, but also, so much has changed.

Sarah MacLean 1:23:18 / #
Yeah. Well, it was interesting because reading Blind Tiger, which is probably 60% mystery/thriller, 40% romance really gave me a feel for it. There were so many moments where I thought, oh, that's Sandra Brown. That's it. This feels, it's a lesson in authorial voice reading that book, you know, 30 years after I read my first Sandra Brown novel, because I can still hear her in it. And then after meeting her, you sort of have this moment where you're like, oh, it all connects in this really cool way. But also, it feels like the romance there is a Sandra Brown romance, not a romance of an author who just started this year, and that is also very cool. I think, the work of what we have talked about, us wanting this season to be, feels like we're really, in that first interview, it just felt like okay, we're starting to see already the long road, and I'm really excited about that.

Jennifer Prokop 1:24:23 / #
I think one other thing I've been thinking a lot about is, I think I've mentioned a couple times here and there, there's a podcast I really enjoyed listening to with my husband called Hit Parade, which is about pop music. And it talks about, sort of opens with, we're going to talk about disco and Donna Summer, but then it traces back all of the people that sort of influenced that music, and then there's sort of a part where it's like, who has Donna Summer influenced, right? That's a really good episode, everybody, by the way. One of the things I was thinking about as we talked to Sandra Brown was Tia Williams. So we interviewed Tia Williams about her book, Seven Days in June -

Sarah MacLean 1:25:03 / #
Last season.

Jennifer Prokop 1:25:03 / #
Last season, but Tia Williams talked about her love of Slow Heat in Heaven and Sandra Brown. And when I thought about it, it made perfect sense, because I could see sort of the influence. And I think that's the part about knowing I mean, you know, my brain's got to be good for something, I guess, is it is really fascinating. We talk about like the romance family tree and sort of how, who influences who. I think that's another thing we are hoping that these Trailblazer episodes can do is really show you the people who, you know, these things are all connected. Every romance has that common DNA, but some people tune in more to some authors than others, and it's really, that was another fascinating thing for me.

Sarah MacLean 1:25:51 / #
What's remarkable to me is how all of these people that we've talked to have been able to name other authors who inspire them, push them, kept them moving, you know, helped them in the early days of their career. And I think that is, when, as I think about this piece of it, I keep coming back to this heroine's journey question that we've talked about so much when we're talking about the actual books, but the heroine's journey is really the journey of a lot of these writers too. Just finding community, in general, writing is such a lonely road, but I don't think any of us in romance or out of it, get anywhere without a community. So it's really wonderful to hear those names spoken.

Jennifer Prokop 1:26:36 / #
Yes. Yeah. So I hope everyone enjoyed this conversation as much as we did.

Sarah MacLean 1:26:42 / #
It was the best.

Jennifer Prokop 1:26:43 / #
There are some - we have a lot of awesome things teed up for you. We have written some - talk about swinging for the fences. If you even knew the emails we've been sending to people.

Sarah MacLean 1:26:54 / #
We're not clearing all the fences, but we sure are trying.

Jennifer Prokop 1:26:56 / #
We're trying. And you know what? I think the other thing that I will try and do in Show Notes is maybe put some of our favorites of these authors. So they're talking, we've asked about their favorites books that they love, but so, Show Notes I hope will be something else.

Sarah MacLean 1:27:15 / #
That's right. I did just have a moment where I was like, should we read Slow Heat in Heaven when we read the Texas! book, but -

Jennifer Prokop 1:27:21 / #
You know what, I did when we read that book.

Sarah MacLean 1:27:24 / #
Did you reread it?

Jennifer Prokop 1:27:25 / #
That's one re-read when we did Sandra Brown, so I will make sure we link to that episode as well.

Sarah MacLean 1:27:31 / #
That's right. Oh, also, how cool was it that she clearly listened to our Sandra Brown episode?

Jennifer Prokop 1:27:36 / #
I don't even want to talk about it.

Sarah MacLean 1:27:37 / #
It was amazing! It was amazing! She had prepped information about our favorite books and honest to god, what a class act.

Jennifer Prokop 1:27:47 / #
Yeah.

Sarah MacLean 1:27:49 / #
Sandra Brown. You're the best. Thank you so much. Come back anytime. And that's that. You've been listening to Fated Mates. I'm Sarah MacLean.

Jennifer Prokop 1:28:02 / #
I'm Jennifer Prokop. You can find us on Instagram @FatedMatespod, on Twitter @FatedMates and in your earholes every week.

Sarah MacLean 1:28:09 / #
Every week at FatedMates.net or on your favorite podcatcher. You can like and follow us on your favorite podcatcher and you won't miss a single episode. We've got a lot cooking for Season Four. Also at FatedMates.net you can buy merch and stickers from Best Friend Kelly and Jordandené. There's also, ooh, you guys, for Season Four there's a Fated Mates tote bag now and a Fated Mates mug, so don't say we never do anything for you. Have a great week. We hope you're reading something great. Next week is an interstitial week. We haven't talked about the trope yet. We're going to do that now.

Jennifer Prokop 1:28:42 / #
We'll figure it out everybody.

Sarah MacLean 1:28:50 / #
We prepped for Sandra Brown and not for next week. So.

Jennifer Prokop 1:28:53 / #
On brand as always.

Sarah MacLean 1:28:42 / #
We'll be there

Read More
S04, mini-episodes, Milestone Episode Jennifer Prokop S04, mini-episodes, Milestone Episode Jennifer Prokop

S04.01: Welcome to Season Four: Trailblazers and More

Season Four starts today, you Magnificent Firebirds!

Season One gave us a full lAD deep dive (if you’ve never read Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark, general existential malaise is a really good reason to start), and Season Two gave us The Books That Blooded Us -- the books that made us the romance readers we are. Season Three was during a pandemic, so just let us live (but also, there was a Roy Kent episode)!

Now, Season Four is here, and we have — dare we say — a plan? We’re going to deep dive on books that are new and fabulous, old and transformative, and generally reveal how vast and magnificent the romance pool can get. We’ve got some great interstitials planned, including some fabulous, brilliant guests on deck…and when Munro is released, we’ll (obviously) drop everything and read with you!

But we’ve got something new and different to add to the mix — a collection of interviews with trailblazers of the genre—the people who have built the romance house over the last fifty years. We’re already blown away by who we have on deck, with many many more to come! Stick with us, it’s going to be a terrific ride.

We begin our read alongs in two weeks with a delicious book that did not bring romance the bluestocking, but definitely made sure we all knew who she was. It’s Amanda Quick’s Ravished—which Sarah describes as “Harriet, in a cave, with a rake.” It’s great. Get reading at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, or at your local indie.

You have two weeks to read, but in the meantime, sit back, relax, and let us give you a preview of what's to come! Don't forget to like and follow in your favorite podcasting platform!

Show Notes

The only Fated Mates episode where one of us was absent was back when Sarah was sick and Kate came on to talk about sickbed scenes--It was March of 2020 and we weren’t as Coronavirus-aware as we thought.

Keeping our fingers crossed that the FDA will approve the vaccination for kids between 5 and 12.

Health care workers are facing increasingly hostile and frightening aggression from anti-vaxxers.

We were ahead of the ball on calling Ted Lasso as a romance. You should follow Phil Dunster, the actor who plays Jamie Tartt, on Twitter. Last week, Roy and Jamie had a heartbreaking and perfect moment.

All about gaffing and scatting.

Hannah Waddingham is from the theater world, so maybe that’s why we didn’t realize her brilliance before this show. Apparently we just didn’t realize she was on Game of Thrones, which sounds terrible.

Kresley sent a newsletter and let everyone know that she might have news this month about Munro and the next book in the Arcana chronicles.

You can change the time zone of your Kindle, but I don’t think the books arrive any earlier.

The Flame and the Flower was published in 1972. We will not do a read along of the book, but we will talk about its influence on the genre.

Julie Moody-Freeman, host of the Black Romance Podcast, was a guest on Fated Mates at the end of season two.

Here’s a New Yorker profile of Nora Roberts from 2009, and a People magazine story on Danielle Steel from 2014.

Many of romance's writers and editors have already passed. Two we mentioned: Carolyn Nichols, the original editor for Loveswept, died in 2017, and legendary author Johanna Lindsey died in 2019.

24 ounces is a lot of fluid.

Our first season four read-along will be Ravished by Amanda Quick.

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Fated Mates LIVE! Bombshell Launch Event

We promised you fun stuff while we are on Hiatus, and here we are!

Last week, more than 700 of you joined us for a Fated Mates LIVE to celebrate Sarah’s new book, Bombshell! We had a great time talking to some of our favorite people, playing games, talking about thighsexuality, 19th Century surgery, and, of course, girl gangs in pop culture.

Thanks to our faves: Andie J. Christopher, Kate Clayborn, Alexis Daria, Adriana Herrera, Sophie Jordan, Christina Lauren, Tracey Livesay, Diana Quincy, Kennedy Ryan and Joanna Shupe for celebrating with us, and to Northshire Bookstore, East City Bookshop, Katy Budget Books, Old Town Books & Mysterious Galaxy for being fabulous independent bookstores that always support romance novels.

We’re starting Season 4 in two weeks…we hope this helps tide you over until then!

For more from the event, check this Twitter thread.

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S03.54: Bombshell has Landed!

Sarah has a new book out, so Jen is playing host this week, and Sarah is playing guest, and Jen is really extremely good at it…so pour yourself a glass of whatever you’re drinking and get ready! And don’t miss the first two chapters of the Bombshell audiobook at the end of the episode!

If you haven’t purchased Bombshell yet, you can find it wherever books are sold, and at Amazon, Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, or Bookshop.org.

This episode wraps up Season 3! Jen’s taking Lil’Romance to college, Sarah’s taking a break from social media, and we’ll be back in September with Season 4. Don’t worry, though, there will be a few little audio treats dropping on Wednesdays so you don’t miss us too much. (we will miss you, though. obviously.)

Thank you, as always, for listening! Please follow us on your favorite podcasting app, and if you are up for leaving a rating or review there, we would be very grateful.

Show Notes

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S03.53: Sports Romance with Farrah Rochon

Today we’re joined by Farrah Rochon, author of The Dating Playbook, to talk sports romances! We talked sports way back in season 1 (links below), but this is one of those tropes we’re always happy to dig into! We get to the bottom of Farrah’s love of football, we talk about competence porn and the human body as a superior tool, and we recommend a LOT of B O O K S!

Don’t miss Fated Mates LIVE! to celebrate the release of Sarah’s next book, BOMBSHELL! Join us and some of our very favorite people on August 24th! Tickets are a copy of the book, and available at five participating romance friendly bookstores. Get them here!

NEXT WEEK IS BOMBSHELL WEEK! Get it at Amazon, Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, or Bookshop.org, or at one of the participating romance-friendly bookstores hosting the Fated Mates Live/Virtual Bombshell Launch! Orders will come with a Fated Mates Sticker!

Thank you, as always, for listening! Please follow us on your favorite podcasting app, and if you are up for leaving a rating or review there, we would be very grateful.

Show Notes

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S03.52: Assassins and Hitmen in Romance

Surprising absolutely no one, we love an assassin here at Fated Mates! We basically love any character who has been through the wringer and also can kill a man fourteen different ways before dinner. Even better if it’s a heroine, and she’s been hired to kill the hero (or vice versa). Anyway, we’re talking about why these books (and so! many! movies!) scratch that particular itch for us. Spoiler: It’s beautiful people blowing things up, obvi.

Don’t miss Fated Mates LIVE! to celebrate the release of Sarah’s next book, BOMBSHELL! Join us and some of our very favorite people on August 24th! Tickets are a copy of the book, and available at five participating romance friendly bookstores. Get them here!

Speaking of BOMBSHELL, it is our next read along! Get it at Amazon, Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, or Bookshop.org, or at one of the participating romance-friendly bookstores hosting the Fated Mates Live/Virtual Bombshell Launch! Orders will come with a Fated Mates Sticker!

Thank you, as always, for listening! Please follow us on your favorite podcasting app, and if you are up for leaving a rating or review there, we would be very grateful.

Show Notes

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S03.51: Mistresses, Courtesans, and Cheating in Romance with Adriana Herrera

Adriana Herrera, a FIVE-TIMER, joins us this week to talk about the third-rail of romance…infidelity! We’re talking about cheating, and about all the other bits related to it: mistresses, courtesans, illegitimate children, sex work…and get your pencils ready because (of course) we’re toppling TBRs with this one.

Don’t miss Fated Mates LIVE! to celebrate the release of Sarah’s next book, BOMBSHELL! Join us and some of our very favorite people on August 24th! Tickets are a copy of the book, and available at five participating romance friendly bookstores. Get them here!

Speaking of BOMBSHELL, it is our next read along! Get it at Amazon, Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, or Bookshop.org, or at one of the participating romance-friendly bookstores hosting the Fated Mates Live/Virtual Bombshell Launch! Orders will come with a Fated Mates Sticker!

Thank you, as always, for listening! Please follow us on your favorite podcasting app, and if you are up for leaving a rating or review there, we would be very grateful.

Show Notes

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S03.50: Unmasked by the Marquess by Cat Sebastian: a Perfect Modern Historical

We’re nearing the end of Season Three and we are so happy to be reading one of the most delightful books in modern historical romance, Cat Sebastian’s Unmasked by the Marquess. We talk about Cat’s masterful plotting within a three-act structure, about friendship, trust and sacrifice in relationships, and about writing a modern historical while still delivering the bananas plots that made the early books in the genre the best.

We also announce our next Fated Mates LIVE! to celebrate the release of Sarah’s next book, BOMBSHELL! Join us and some of our very favorite people on August 24th! Tickets are a copy of the book, and available at five participating romance friendly bookstores. Get them here!

Our next read along is Sarah’s BOMBSHELL! Get it at Amazon, Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, or Bookshop.org, or signed via Sarah’s local indie, WORD, or one of the participating romance-friendly bookstores hosting the Fated Mates Live/Virtual Bombshell Launch! Orders from WORD or the launch sponsors will come with a Fated Mates Sticker!

Thank you, as always, for listening! Please follow us on your favorite podcasting app, and if you are up for leaving a rating or review there, we would be very grateful.

Notes

Books Discussed in This Episode

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S03.49: YA Romance Novels with Nicola Yoon

Two episodes this week! Huzzah!

Today we’re joined by the extremely delightful, extremely brilliant Nicola Yoon to discuss her extremely romantic new book, Instructions for Dancing, and YA Romance in general! We talk about Nicola’s love of romance novels (which she shares with the heroine of her book), about her history with them, and about what makes YA Romance so extremely delicious. We also talk about her new project with the Obamas and her new imprint for young readers at Random House.

Our next read along (next week! we told you it was coming!) is Cat Sebastian’s wonderful Unmasked by the Marquess. Get it at Amazon, Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, or Bookshop.org. 

Thank you, as always, for listening! Please follow us on your favorite podcasting app, and if you are up for leaving a rating or review there, we would be very grateful!

Show Notes

Welcome Nicola Yoon! Along with Instructions for Dancing, she and five other Black women authors just published the Blackout anthology, which has been picked up by the Obamas for TV and film for Netflix. Nicola and her husband David Yoon are also creating the Yooniverse, including a new YA romance imprint called Joy Revolution at Random House.

Poltergeist and its infamous curse scared everyone back in the 80.

Nicola wasn’t sure what imprint she was reading when she found her first romance under her aunt's bed, but she mentioned Harlequin Blaze, one of our all time favorite imprints which was shuttered in 2017.

Just a quick reminder that HFN means “happy for now” and HEA means “happily ever after.”

YA has evolved over time, a process which has ramped up in the past 20 years and is now a publishing juggernaut. YA is far more progressive that adult romance, but also grapples with the influence of adult readers of all kinds and gatekeepers who want to stop kids from reading about sex & gender, race, and other issues around identity.

According to the Library of Congress, most of the earliest entries from Urban Dictionary date back to 2003.

Before Covid, It used to be hard to explain the terrifying rise of HIV was in the 1980s, along with the way the Reagan administration ignored the epidemic. This timeline tells the history of the HIV/AIDS crisis, and here is an explainer for why Covid vaccinations were developed so fast when we still don’t have one for HIV.

The Heads of Your Enemies as love language appears in Shadow’s Claim, when Trehan literally gives this gift to Bettina while they are courting.

The Wrath and the Dawn is a retelling of the Scheherazade story, which is the framing device for The Arabian Nights.

If you are GenX or Millenial and were a reader, you’ll love the book Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of 80s and 90s Teen Fiction. It's full of images, so read it in paper or on a full-color reading device!

Jessica Trent is a different thing entirely than Jessica Wakefield. Along with other changes, the Sweet Valley High twins are size 4 now, which we don’t like at all.

I Believe in a Thing Called Love was also just optioned for Netflix, but they aren’t going to have much luck checking The Wirecutter for road spike recommendations, because this was the closest thing I could find to them.

“The Hellmouth or whatever,” is a reference to Sunnydale, the setting of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

You can pre-order signed copies of Sarah's Bombshell from WORD in Brooklyn, and you'll get a Fated Mates sticker with your signed book!

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S03.48: The Ted Lasso episode: Is Roy Kent a Romance Hero?

“Hang on,” we can hear you saying, “isn’t this a romance novel podcast?” It absolutely is, and that’s why we’re dropping a very special episode about the character who is the most perfect on-screen version of a romance hero that ever there was: Captain of the AFC Richmond team, Roy Kent. Added bonus, we’re joined by Jen’s brother Erik to talk sports stories (and check in on Jürgen Klopp).

Spoilers abound, so if you haven’t watched Season 1, do that first!

Our next read along is Cat Sebastian’s wonderful Unmasked by the Marquess. Get it at Amazon, Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, or Bookshop.org. 

Thank you, as always, for listening! Please follow us on your favorite podcasting app, and if you are up for leaving a rating or review there, we would be very grateful! 

Show Notes

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S03.47: Taboo Romance with Nikki Sloane

It’s Taboo Romance week! We’re thrilled to be joined by Nikki Sloane, whose books we’ve adored for years here on FM. We talk about what makes a romance taboo, about why readers are drawn to taboo stories, and about whether taboo romance is empirically erotic.

Our next read along is Cat Sebastian’s wonderful Unmasked by the Marquess. Get it at Amazon, Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, or Bookshop.org. 

Thank you, as always, for listening! Please follow us on your favorite podcasting app, and if you are up for leaving a rating or review there, we would be very grateful! 

taboo books

Notes

Welcome Nikki Sloane! We discussed her novel Three Little Mistakes in season two. Her latest release in the Filthy Rich Americans series, The Redemption, won the Holt Award from the Virginia Romance Writers Association and has been nominated for the inaugural Vivian Award from the Romance Writers of America.

We had an episode about age-gap romance, but when the woman is older sometimes we use the phrase Cougar, which I do not recommend googling! 

Taboo romance is difficult to define. But on the episode, we talked about three major ideas: it explores power dynamics, it contains an element of the forbidden, and is makes readers viscerally feel that the relationship is “wrong.” However, Nikki also used the phrase “universal taboos” to describe topics so forbidden--beastality and incest--that they could never be a part of romance. 

In a Florida high school, the necklines of women and girls were photoshopped (without their knowledge) if there was too much cleavage.

We’ve been digging the priest taboo since The Thorn Birds, and it was revived in pop culture by the TV show Fleabag. We discussed Sierra Simone’s Priest in season two. 

As we reckon with #MeToo, we are all thinking about and redefining power dynamics in our culture. 

Incest is a common trope in horror and other gothic stories, it didn’t originate with Flowers in the Attic. 

Don’t forget to preorder signed copies of Bombshell from Word in Brooklyn.

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S03.46: Susan Elizabeth Phillips Interview

We are so excited to have absolute romance legend Susan Elizabeth Phillips with us to discuss every fangirly question we had for her! We talked about her new book, When Stars Collide, the latest in the Chicago Stars series, about her role in inventing the sports romance, about the opera and the way she thinks about her career after a few decades of writing. We had the BEST time.

Our next read along, sometime in July, is Cat Sebastian’s wonderful Unmasked by the Marquess. Get it at Amazon, Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, or Bookshop.org. 

Thank you, as always, for listening! Please follow us on your favorite podcasting app, and if you are up for leaving a rating or review there, we would be very grateful! 

Show Notes

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S03.45: Dark Romance: Monsters Need Love, Too.

We promised you an episode on Dark Romance and truthfully we’re pretty proud of how well we’ve delivered. We’ve got Kenya Goree-Bell, Nisha Sharma, Joanna Shupe and Jo Brenner with us today to dig deep on this subgenre that we don’t read regularly. We are endlessly grateful for their guidance through this end of the romance pool! 

We talk about what makes a romance “dark,” about how dark romance differs from morality chain and taboo romance, and about why dark romance resonates with so many readers. Oh, and yes, if you’re curious, we fill your TBR pile (obvi). Stay tuned at the end of the episode for additional reflections from Sarah & Jen.

CONTENT NOTE: Because Dark Romance can include all sorts of problematic content, we don’t shy away from many of those topics in this episode. Proceed with caution, both in listening and in reading.

AUDIO NOTE: Due to countless irregularities, expected and unexpected, the audio in this episode isn’t up to our normal standards. But it sounds fine.

Thank you, as always, for listening! Please follow us on your favorite podcasting app, and if you are up for leaving a rating or review there, we would be very grateful! 

Notes

Welcome our panel of dark romance experts: Kenya Goree-Bell, Nisha Sharma, Joanna Shupe, and Jo Brenner.

The hallmarks and tenets of Dark Romance

  • All dubious consent and non-consent romance is dark romance (although not all dark romance has dubcon or nonconsensual elements).

  • It’s about what the HEA is made up of: If the non-aggressor or non-villian moves into the dark (rather than pulling the other into the light), then it would qualify as dark romance.

  • Often the aggressor/villain is static, while the non-aggressor finds their light or strength in the new world they exist in. This person does all the work and learns how to navigate a life around the aggressor and their world. These are not stories of love redeeming, but rather of learning to find love and happiness with the person (people) in front of you.

  • The characters are suffering from current or past psychological or physical trauma. The non-aggressor represents the last bits of humanity that the aggressor has to hold on to. Dark romance explores a relationship where only one person has strains of humanity and the impact it has on a person without it.

  • The evil and violence of the aggressor must take place on the page.

Some Terms we'll use on this episode

  • Consensual non-consent (non-con): is when romantic partners engage “in behaviors that may include role-playing nonconsensual behaviors, or may involve negotiating sexual behaviors where one partner agrees to give up consent during certain behaviors or relationships.” This can include fantasizing about rape and kidnapping, and lots of women have complicated feelings about these fantasies. 

  • Dubious consent (dub-con): is the gray area between full, enthusiastic consent and rape. A person hasn't give outright consent to having sex and might not consider it rape; however, some other factor prevents them from saying no. 

  • The Aggressor: rather than use hero/heroine, Jo started using aggressor and non-aggressor as a way of talking about chracters who exhibit very non-heroic behavior. 

  • The skin suit: What Jen calls the experience of reading a book where she wants more distance between herself and the main characters.

  • The Murder Meal: Sarah noticed that a common trope of dark romance is a meal where blood is shed and people still continue to eat.

Notes and Other Links

Dark Romance Books

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S03.44: The Stage Dive Series by Kylie Scott: #HeroesWhoEat

We’re back to read alongs this week! We’re big Kylie Scott fans here at Fated Mates, and we talked about her Stage Dive series all the way back in Season One on our very first interstitial, and now we’re doing a deep dive. We’d intended to do book three, Lead, but we ended up talking about all four, and honestly, rereading this was pretty great for us. We hope it was great for you, too.

Our next read along, sometime in July, is Cat Sebastian’s wonderful Unmasked by the Marquess. Get it at Amazon, Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, or Bookshop.org.

Thank you, as always, for listening! Please follow us on your favorite podcasting app, and if you are up for leaving a rating or review there, we would be very grateful!

Notes

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S03.43: Writers in Romance with Tia Williams

We’re welcoming Tia Williams, author of the wonderful Seven Days in June, to talk about her delicious book, about writing writers, about romances set in New York City, about her youth as a romance reader, and about Drew Barrymore as inspiration, and about The Joan Wilder?!.

Our next read along is Kylie Scott’s Lead, one of our longtime favorites. Get it at Amazon, Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, or Bookshop.org! Get the others in the series, too, while you’re at it, because you’ll probably want to read the whole thing.

Thank you, as always, for listening! Please follow us on your favorite podcasting app, and if you are up for leaving a rating or review there, we would be very grateful!

The Books

Notes

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S03.42: Fantasy Romance Interstitial with Zoraida Córdova

This week, Zoraida Córdova (aka Zoey Castile) joins us to talk about fantasy romance and why it is so hard to find it in the romance pool. We talk about speculative fiction, high fantasy, low fantasy, urban fantasy, contemporary fantasy, paranormal romance and more, all while trying to figure out just what makes something fantasy and not paranormal (we think we’ve cracked the code). We also talk world building, about maps, and about merman junk.

Our next read along is Kylie Scott’s Lead, one of our longtime favorites. Get it at Amazon, Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, or Bookshop.org! Get the others in the series, too, while you’re at it, because you’ll probably want to read the whole thing.

Thank you, as always, for listening! Please follow us on your favorite podcasting app, and if you are up for leaving a rating or review there, we would be very grateful!

Fantasy Romances

Notes

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Bonus: 99% Invisible Podcast on The Clinch

Monday Surprise! We’re so excited to share an episode of 99% Invisible with Fated Mates listeners — Sarah’s favorite podcast did an episode about romance covers, and interviewed authors, experts, and the artist and legend Max Ginsburg. It was thoughtful and respectful and perfect….and not only because Sarah was on it.

She’s so grateful to the team at 99% Invisible for having her, and we’re so grateful to them for letting us share the episode with all of you. Enjoy!

Notes

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