Latest / Main Chapter / Debut Novelist & Women's Health Advocate Hayley Fleming x Main Chapter

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Debut Novelist & Women's Health Advocate Hayley Fleming x Main Chapter · Main Chapter

• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: We won over our children growing up in Georgia.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Florida, our favorite, at least favorite book is just such a great conversation that I hope you enjoy.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: So let's go ahead and roll the tape.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Haley, welcome to main chapter.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: I am so excited to have you.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was telling you before we started the interview that I found your book at one of my favorite bookstores in LA, The Road to Bodice, and I was immediately drawn to it.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so glad I did because I absolutely loved this book.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was probably one of my favorite reads of the year.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: And seriously, the best the best thing I hear from readers is like, oh, I found your book at a bookstore.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's the best way to just randomly discover a book.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so that makes me so happy.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: I love bookstores.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And the Rip Bodice, it's a romance bookstore.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like exclusively romance, all types.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And yours was like, I believe I was there in July and it was under the new release table.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how I saw it.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm so glad I did.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it came at a very interesting time in my life because, of course, the main character, Emma, is confronting her diagnosis with vaginismus.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And literally just the week before, my friend had told me that she was diagnosed with it.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I never heard of the term or before.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, it was like the universe knew I needed this book.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I actually referred it to her as well.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that makes me so happy.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: I very much, I mean, I think that this book does certainly would not just appeal to people with vaginismus.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: But every time someone reaches out and they're like, I gave this book to my friend who has vaginis, or like, you know, I have vaginis and I just gifted this book to my pelvic floor therapist.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's like the best thing anyone's ever said to me.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm so glad to hear that.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Your book is doing so much work.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so people who are listening, if they aren't unfamiliar with vaginis, from my understanding with the book and then some research I did on my own, it's basically a medical condition where the vaginal muscles they kind of tense up at any type of contact.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you said it's different for everyone who has it.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it could be like stabbing, it could be like cramps, pressure.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's just really, really painful.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I was wondering if you could elaborate for people who might not be familiar with the term, what it's like.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a relatively common medical condition, depending on what source you're looking at, anywhere from like 3% to 11% of women experience vaginism at some point during their lives.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And just as you described, it's basically like the uncontrollable tensing of your vaginal muscles when they come into contact with something.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: So like any type of penetration, whether that's like a tampon or like a gynecological exam.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's something that I have experienced, and that is something that I gave the main character of my novel, Emma.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: So her journey goes into kind of a lot of detail about what that looks like for her, what her doctor's appointments were like, what her, you know, pelvic floor therapy to heal from that was like.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because as you can imagine, it, you know, has a big impact on like physical intimacy and like not just literally being physically intimate, but also like how Emma, the main character, thinks about intimacy and how how she, you know, talks to people about it.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so yeah, I mean, I think what what I always start by telling people about bagginismus is that it's quite common, um, which is important to know because most people have never heard of it.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I'm trying to change.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I thought it was really interesting.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: I read it was your author's note or your essay that it's like between five and seventeen percent of women who have it, there's not a defined statistic.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that just feels so insane to me because there's a condition that could affect up to a tenth of women or a twentieth of women, and we aren't doing anything about it, or there's not as much awareness for it.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like it just highlights like the injustices in medical research and the healthcare system as well.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if you if you Google it, you get such a wide array of information, like you know, completely different percentages when it's talking about how many people have it and like totally different descriptions of what it feels like.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that was just one of the really interesting things that I I learned when researching this book, um, just to make sure I like had all the medical background on it, was like the information is just so varied in a way that is honestly really unhelpful.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I have a medical condition completely different called Marfans, and it's a little more research, but it's a connective tissue disorder and similar to vaginism, it's different for everyone who has it.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: So when trying to explain it and saying how it can affect you, like it impacts my lungs, but for my mom, it impacted her heart, and for my aunt, it impacted her eyes.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so I can resonate with the fact when you have something, but then trying to research and understand it and getting a variety of different resources and information about it, it can be a little daunting.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yes, it makes you feel like really untethered to your body, is one way to describe it.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, exactly.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: But my mom always says like knowledge is power, and I feel like just the more research you have and you can be prepared, that's so, so important.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I really learned a lot from your personal essay that you did for people that was about the book.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: I thought of course.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was so beautifully done.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you said that you basically decide to write thighs wide shut, so to create representation in romance books where intimacy is part of the issue in the relationship because a lot of times intimacy that's the easy part for these couples in these books.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: But walk me like through what was that point where you were finally like, okay, I'm actually gonna put Emma on paper and make her come to life?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I um gosh, I started reading romance novels um in like 2021.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: So um I was kind of a late bloomer in the romance genre.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then I just, you know, churned through a bunch of them, as many of us do when we discover our first romance novel, and very quickly realized that like I did not, I I think did not see the way I thought about intimacy or like the struggles that I had had with intimacy represented in all of the like most popular romance novels that I was reading.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I do some research and like I just couldn't find anything like that.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, considering how common this condition is and like how many women experience it, and not even this condition specifically, but just like any kind of like sexual dysfunction.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's crazy that like that's not well represented or even represented at all in the genre or even like broadly in media, with like a few exceptions.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: So um I, you know, I I when people ask me why I write romance novels, I tell them that I like to think about them as a puzzle, both in writing them and in reading them.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know what the end result is supposed to be.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so the process of writing it, or the process of like reading one and trying to figure out how you get to the ending, is all about like how the pieces connect together.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the part that is hard as a writer is trying to figure out how to how to keep that interesting and like take a winding journey to get to a defined endpoint.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like you know that they're gonna end up together, you know there's gonna be a happily ever after.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: So the challenge is like coming up with something interesting that happens in the middle.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so for me, I was like, well, I I want this to be something totally different than what I've read in other romance novels.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't want it to be, you know, like she's off limits because she's his brother's sister, or like, or his his like friend's sister, or like they work together, so they can't date.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I wanted it to be the opposite where like everything felt perfectly set up, but then there was this like huge physical block that she felt.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And like we know as like readers, um, that like when she talks about I can't date him because of this, we're like, girl, you're being so stupid right now.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's crazy.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: But she has to go through the process of figuring that out for herself, right?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I just never seen something like that done in a romance novel before.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a really fun puzzle to just try to figure out how to incorporate that in a way that felt authentic to her character and still really interesting to readers, even though you knew like it's a romance novel, they're gonna end up together at the end.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: But like, how how is she gonna get through this big issue that she says she has in order to get to that ending?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was fun as a reader because looking down at your at it, like from Bird's point of view, you're like, girl, you're so stupid.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, just tell him, like, it's gonna be okay.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: He's like the most patient and kind man I've ever met.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be okay.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: But she also did have to come to terms with it herself.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And what I found really interesting in your articles, you said that writing Emma helped you also heal you in a way, understand that like you're not a bad partner just because you have this condition.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, going back to like when you first started writing or when you were first diagnosed with vaginism, what would you say to that part of yourself that was carrying this shame?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think Emma's big problem in the book is she just like doesn't know how to talk to people about it.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, it was important to me that everything in the novel was not resolved when she eventually did talk about it because, like, you know, readers are tired of the miscom miscommunication trope.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: I also like I can't stand reading novels where the only thing between them is like a conversation.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so, like, it was really important to me when I was writing this book that like the reader knew that when the conversation happened, that would not solve everything because there were deeper issues in play.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: But I do still think that like one of the primary challenges Emma had to overcome was figuring out just how to talk about it, not even with Harrison, the love interest, but also like with her friends and and like with her doctors.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's the most important advice that I would give my younger self as well is like figure out who your trusted people are and don't be afraid to overshare to them because you need those people in your life who you can just tell everything to so they know what's going on and they can support you, and also because it feels it feels good to open up to people like that.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: The inner circle is so important.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: What I really liked about the epilogue to a little bit of a spoiler alert, but I'll do a disclaimer in the beginning, was that it ended like with basically them trying penetration for the first time.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't like this magical, like, oh, I'm cured, this was the best like sex in my life.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: It left it like open ended in a way that this was still something that they were actively working towards in their relationship.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And just because they were together and had the conversations, like your medical conditions stay with you for life, and you're always dealing with them.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: You just don't necessarily have to look at them as a burden.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I found that really refreshing because, of course, we love a happily ever after, but it's also nice when that happily ever after is dosed in a little bit of reality as well.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: No, I I love that you brought that up.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: That that scene, that epilogue was a pretty late edition in the process.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it it didn't exist for the first like eight drafts of the novel.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then after I signed with a literary agent and she was helping me work through a revision before we started sending it to publishers, she was like, You need to write in a scene where they like try to have penetrative sex.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, girl, no, like that defeats the purpose of the novel.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: And she was like, she was like, I I hear that, like how about you just write it?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then if you hate it, like you don't have to include it, but just humor me and write the scene.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: And of course I wrote the scene and I was like, like I hate that she was right.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: I did need that.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and now I I love that that's the epilogue.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: And and I had, well, no, honestly, I hate writing sex scenes.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: So like I would not say that I had a lot of fun writing it, but I'm really glad I did because of what you said.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like I, you know, kept the same like very realistic view of intimacy that I kept throughout the whole novel.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: And like um it it's fun to like see how that plays out and like how Harrison responds to it and how they're both just like really mature about it in a way that Emma would not have been able to been to be at the beginning of the novel, like before she processed everything she was going through.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm really glad that that did end up as the epilogue.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I thought it was the perfect ending.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm also laughing because I think I just started doing this in January, but you're the first person on the show to say they hate writing sex scenes.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought really yeah.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, like that's so funny.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've had like a lot of hilarious stories.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like I had an author a few months ago who lived in Texas, and she talked about like writing them in public is really awkward because there's always like someone with a Bible or like some type of Jesus loves you pin next to you, but I've never Oh well that would be even worse.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: No, I can't even like sitting at home writing them.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, this is like this is crazy of me.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I man, I know why they're important for the genre, and like I I love like like reading them and seeing how characters interact in that way.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's so important to like move a novel forward or move the plot forward.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: But writing them is hard, and what's even worse is having someone else edit them.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: So gosh.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like I feel like reading them in public is like even hard.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, even just in the privacy of my own room, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is so awkward.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: And my mom will sometimes like read the same books as me, and we'll be like on a plane next to each other, and I look over because she like has no shame.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: She just like has the books played out, and I'm like, oh my gosh, he's on the.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I were like that.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: My favorite, the the classic is like holding your kindle or book like like six inches away from your face.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: I have like the window obviously.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: I have like the window seat, like I'm like up against the wall.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, don't like that when I'm reading.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Moving on.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is your debut novel, and it's about yeah, it's like so.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Congratulations, that's thank you.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's such a vulnerable topic.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: What was it like having your friends and family reading this?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, was there at any point where like, oh my gosh, like my mom and dad are basically reading about a version of my sex life or something that's like really important.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, oh my God, that's so funny.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: I I did let my parents read a very late draft of the novel, but I remember when I emailed it to them, I was like, I'm sending this to you.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: And here are the ground rules.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like, number one, if you use this as an excuse to ask me about my personal life, you will never read anything I write ever again.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like, not just this novel, but like ever, nothing, ever.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they took that very seriously, which I really appreciate that they did that.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think, you know, by the time we got to PubDate, I was just like so desensitized to talking about vaginis.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm talking about it at work, I'm talking about it at the grocery store, my hairdresser knows about this book.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I I sometimes forget, like when people are like, wow, like this is such a sensitive topic that you're talking about.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're so brave.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, man, maybe I should like think twice about this before I talk about it very publicly on the internet.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but also even in those moments where I'm like, ooh, like that's kind of crazy that I did that, it's kind of balanced out by the DMs that I get on Instagram from people who are like, I've had vaginismus for 15 years and I've never read a book with it.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: And like, I wish I had been able to hand this book to myself when I was 18.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Or like this book encouraged me to go back to pelvic floor therapy.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, like in those moments where I'm like, that is absurd that I wrote an essay about vaginismus for People Magazine.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why did I do that?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm also like, but this is exactly what I needed when I was diagnosed with vaginismus.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: And like, I'm so glad that I am able to put this out in the world so that other people who need it have it.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's so important.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: I just saw, I think it was a TikTok last week.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's like your for you page knows about a girl talking about how she feels so rich in life because she found a partner who's supportive of her with her in her vaginismus.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then the comments I saw that TikTok.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and then the comment section was filled with like a bunch of people talking about it.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, wow, like look, the the world is changing.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: People are talking about women's health, and it needs to be in that direction.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: I had actually like I had like six people send me that TikTok, and they were like, they were like, you need to get in this girl's DMs.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I yeah, like I need her to read my book, exactly, and then make a TikTok about it.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, even more, even more exposure.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: And what was really interesting about this book was like with Emma, you were putting parts of your childhood and yourself into her.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like you talked about how she wasn't able to use tampons and all these things.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, what was it like putting kind of these parts of your childhood into this book for the world to see?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I I think it's interesting because the the first drafts, like drafts one and two, Emma was a lot more like I am as a human being.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then as I continued writing it, I was like, I gotta up the stakes and I was putting her in situations that I would never allow myself to be in.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and sorry to Emma, but like things really, really unfortunate things were happening to her that are a lot worse than things that I have experienced.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: So um, I will also say that I as a person have have really always been like pretty open to talking to people about this, and and that's been a a journey.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: But I think Emma is really closed off about her struggles in a way that I'm thankful that I I am like not typically like.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I actually think that in the final draft, like I'm a lot more like Harrison as a person than I am like Emma, but I did, you know, it felt very therapeutic to still give Emma parts of my story.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like she talks about trying to wear a tampon for the first time and what that felt like.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, I got to write that part of myself in.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: And like there are also other little tidbits throughout, like she, you know, talks about how her sex education in Florida public schools was so bad.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that is something that I gave her from my own childhood, or like totally alternatively, Harrison talks about how he drove a light blue Volkswagen Beetle in college, and like that's what I drove in high school.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I loved putting like little little Haley tidbits in there, um, so that my friends could read that and be like, oh, I know that that's true.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's also fun to just kind of use that as a launching pad and then create a character who's like really chaotic and ends up in really chaotic situations.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I'm like living vicariously through her, even though my life is pretty boring.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that's like so like fun though, getting to like create this character that's like a little bit like you, but you have liberty to create their path.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: I love that you brought up the Florida public school's sex education, because that kind of leads into my next question.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because I resonated with that.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm originally from Georgia, so neighboring Florida.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up going to Florida consistently.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: My parents actually live there now, so I consider myself like a part-time Floridian.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And Georgia, while they were vague, they loved using their terror tactics.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like my first experience with sex education is we had a slideshow just that lasted 30 minutes showing different pictures of genitalia that had different STDs.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: No way.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, we actually we didn't even we didn't even get that much in Florida.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't get any real photos, actually.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: Illustrations and nothing about STS.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it was like they were like, we'll go vague when they're like in elementary in middle school, and then we're just gonna terrify them when they're in high school.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember just being so traumatized from seeing all that.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: We got like these little cards that looked like debit cards or credit cards called ATM cards, abstinence till marriage, and like the expiration to like wedding date, and you were supposed to sign the back of it, like how you sign a credit card, like that was like your edge to say abstinent.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it definitely did, I feel like still impacts my like relationship with intimacy because it was like basically framed at like you're gonna die if you have sex like before marriage.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was also like going to a Sunday school at the time that basically pictured like sex before marriage as this moral failing.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, oh my gosh, like am I ever supposed to do this at all in real life?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I really That makes me so sad.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm laughing, but I'm like, actually, that's devastating.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: I know, I know one of my favorite things too is like specifically with the condoms, they would say, like, yes, like condoms are 98% effective, but it would you it would suck to be in that 2%, wouldn't it?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I like you still use that motto in life.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I like love hiking, and my friend wanted to go to Wyoming, and I but I was like, I don't want to go there because there's grizzly bears.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And she was like, Do you know like the percentage of grizzly bear attacks?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's like 2%.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Well, you remember in health class when they said it would really suck to be in that 2%?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: It would suck to be in that 2%.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: It sure would be.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: So my gosh.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I'm I'm so passionate about sex education, like comprehensive.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Sex education could solve all of the world's problems.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if we stopped teaching kids things like what you're describing, the world would be a better place.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I just like, you know, when you when you read about the impacts of comprehensive sex education, like the way it's like really research-backed and like the really positive impacts that it has on kids, um, it's it really boggles the mind that we still do not do a good job of it.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, it really does.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: It really doesn't.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you kind of like answered like my question, but I was basically like not to make you like the poster child for like the benefits of good sex education.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I was like, like, what are like your hopes like for like a more comprehensive, like an increased vaginismous awareness for young women?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what what are your hopes for like the next generation of women who are in high school or middle school now, like learning about their bodies?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I just you know, gosh, so many things.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I wish that all all of us, like all human beings, were taught more about how our bodies worked.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think you know, it's good to understand your body, but also that makes it easier to advocate for yourself in medical settings, which is the really hard part, right?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like if if you're experiencing something weird and the doctor says, like, oh, like it's fine, or it's just this, like if you have more knowledge to be like, no, like I know what this is supposed to feel like, or you've you've talked to your friends about what they've experienced and you know you're an outlier, or like anything like that, uh it's a lot easier to ask questions of your doctors and your nurses and and make sure you have uh full information about what's going on with your body.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think um comprehensive sex education, in addition to it just being powerful, like you said, like that knowledge is so powerful about your body.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it also helps you advocate for yourself, which is so important.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that definitely is needed to be done, whether it's for women's health or other condition, which is why I think I loved this book so so much, because it really resonated with me.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we've talked about Vaginism and Emma a lot, but I really do want to talk about Harrison because of course he's a really big part of the book.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: And what I loved about him is that as I said, he's so patient, he's so calm.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: When you were building his character, what was the main thing you wanted people to take away from him?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: I just wanted people to be like, oh, what a softie.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you love a man who yearns.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's a yearner.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: He like really he's a yearner.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I I wanted, you know, I I mentioned earlier it was important to me that like all all was not solved by them having a conversation at the end of the book, but it was also important to me to read that readers like saw Harrison's character and knew from the beginning that like the problem was not Harrison.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like the problem was like what Emma was dealing with, or like the problem was that she didn't know how to deal with what she was dealing with.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I didn't want like Harrison necessarily to be the one like getting in the way of that, because I think that would kind of take away from Emma's journey in a way.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I just wanted to be here, wanted Harrison to be someone who was like really there for her, which is not to say that he doesn't, you know, struggle with several things throughout the novel.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like when the novel picks up, they haven't spoken in five years.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: And he's he's really hurt from the way their friendship ended in college.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and he doesn't really know how to deal with that.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like he he didn't think that there would be kind of a second chance for them to get to know each other and like relearn their friendship.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so he kind of like waffles in between being excited that she's back and being like scared of getting hurt again and being kind of angry for the way things left off in college.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: So um he does very much go through his own journey, even though the book is like not really about Harrison's journey, it's about Emma's Emma's journey.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I did love getting to write Harrison's character.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I I love writing A Man Who Yearns, you know?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and people love reading Men Who Yearn.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously, I feel like yearn has had like a resurgence in 2026.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: People use it all the time, and sometimes incorrectly, too.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, that's not what yearning is, but everyone just wants to use the word yearn.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: Which is fair because it's a great word.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: It is a great word, it's even like fun to say, so it's like nice on the tongue, yearn.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: True.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: It feels rich, it does, it feels rich in your mouth, yeah.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, exactly.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: What I really loved about Harrison, too, kind of talking about that he didn't take away from Emma's story, is it was even that point where she finally tells him, like, what's happening, and she's like, I'm going to therapy and I'm doing all this for you.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like, You're not supposed to do this for me.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I can't be like the reason you're doing this.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you have to do this for yourself.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like it was just like such a level of maturity.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because of course, you want to be the best version of yourself for your partner, for your friends, but you also at the end of the day have to do it for you first and foremost.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I loved that he highlighted that.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit of a lighter note there's 39 footnotes in the book that are all about Harrison's facial experience.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, I wow, I didn't even know it was 39.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: I love that you had that number ready.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: You had it on your Instagram when you were like marketing lines.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: I must have counted it at some point.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you were like one guinea pig, 39 footnotes.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so what did made you decide to like add this like little footnote emotional dictionary thing into your book?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, people keep asking me that, and I wish I remembered, but it's been in there for like four years at this point.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: I did, I don't know if it was in the very first draft, but they were definitely in there by the second draft of the book.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: So if you listeners, if you have not read the book, essentially um Emma has this like mental dictionary where she catalogs Harrison's facial expressions.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: So like he, you know, quirks an eyebrow and has like a lopsided smile to the right, and his shoulders go up.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: And like that means, I don't know, but like she has these dictionary entries where she catalogues like what each movement of his face means.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I wrote it in there as kind of a way to show how deeply she knew him.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like we've all read books where authors talk about the kind of unspoken language of knowing someone very intimately, like the idea that, and not just for a romantic interest, but like the idea that you can even look at your best friend from across the room and they shoot you just like the tiniest little change of expression, and you know exactly what they're trying to say to you.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: And like we've all read that in books before.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, what is like a unique way that I could kind of show this level of intimacy that they have?
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, that is how the dictionary entry footnotes were born.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I had so much fun writing them.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you have to imagine me hunched over my laptop, like making crazy facial expressions and trying to write down exactly what my eyebrows were doing.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I had, you know, a word doc with an ongoing list of every every dictionary entry that I'd used.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I had so much fun doing that.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: I love the way they look in print.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, just like flipping through my book and seeing the little footnotes is so fun.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I just I get a kick out of them.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm I love hearing that readers do too.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, footnotes are so fun.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is like the only other romance book that I've read where there's footnotes.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: The other one is a Magnolia Parks book when all the Daisy Hates books have footnotes that talk about like her internal monologue, where like it's but it's only Daisy's books.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's not Magnolia's books.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like she'll have like an asterisk and she'll be like, actually, I'm feeling this, even though I said this.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like they're very fun.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's so fun.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: I wish it's something that people incorporate it more.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, footnotes don't just have to be for academic research papers.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I appreciate it.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, okay.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to go check that out.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: I love when characters, even if they're not footnotes, have little left sides like that.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like she said this, and then it's like, you know, the narrator's like, she did not mean that.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's so funny.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: So they're fun, and like those are like long too.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like yours, some her footnotes are long too.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes like there's this much text on the page, and then there's this many footnotes at the bottom because she's just going at it in her mind.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think you seem to see.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: I love when when romance novelists like play with form that way.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's really interesting.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's very, very fun.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of my favorite scenes between Harrison and Emma is Rose's party when they're in the backyard and they're dancing, there's just so much tension going on.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a very will they, won't they moment.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have a favorite scene writing between them?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, that that might be it.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: I have like 12 favorite scenes.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: All of them are favorite scenes.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: I will say I do think like if I had to pick a favorite scene, it would actually probably be chapter two, which is the first flashback.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: So it takes place when they're like 18 and they meet for the first time.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: But the scene where they're dancing in Emma's coworker's backyard during a house party is probably my second favorite scene.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the novel, when I first wrote it, like before I got a publishing contract, was actually a dual-timeline novel.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, like every other chapter took place in college.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: And um then I ended up rewriting it.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it was mostly single timeline, but there was a scene as a flashback where she, Emma, went to go visit Harrison when he was studying abroad in Paris.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that scene, like that sequence where they like dance to a Joni Mitchell song and almost kiss.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: Spoiler.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um they they kiss in this novel.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that happened in a flashback scene when they were studying or when he was studying abroad in Paris, and it was like a lot more romantic than the setting of the scene, which is like kind of a gross, you know, group house backyard in like probably a really cheap area of Boston.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: So um when I cut that chapter, I was like, I I literally cannot cut the sequence.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is this is just the most beautiful, like rich part of the novel.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so I wanted to put it somewhere that still kind of captured the energy of bit them being like young and outside of time and space.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so the setup for that scene is that Emma has this young coworker at the coffee shop she works at.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like the coworker's like probably 21, 20, 21 in college.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: And she kind of uh forces Emma to come to a house party that she's hosting.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: And Emma like really wants this coworker to think she's cool.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: So she's like, fine.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: So Emma goes with Harrison and another one of their friends to this house party.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so they're in this, like they're in this space where they're surrounded by people who are mostly younger than them.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like everyone's drinking out of red solo cups, like, you know, they're playing like college rave music, like that, that kind of environment.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then they step out of that party.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I I loved I loved writing them in that setting because it it kind of brought them back to that space where they were in college, like before they got into a fight and stopped talking, like before all of the shit that went down between them.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they were kind of reminded of their younger selves because they were in a setting like full of people like that.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um and, you know, it's kind of a gross setting in a way, like a college backyard house party, but it to them, it's so it's so lush because their memories of that time and like their memories of each other at that age are so like rich.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, they they see it through rose colored glasses and it it just brings them back to that space.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so I love that scene.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm so glad you did too.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: I know, I do.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that it did happen in like a dirty college backyard.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm three years removed from college, but I can like picture it so vividly in my mind.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I know exactly what this backyard is.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's string lights, there's like patchy grass.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's more dust than grass, your shoes are gonna be brown afterwards, absolutely there's crushed plastic everywhere.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: I knew I knew exactly what it looked like.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we have a few minutes left.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so before we end on plot, I really wanted to talk about Joe because I think highlighting women friendships is so big in books.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: And Joe had an important role because even though Emma had to work on communication, Joe is like kind of that safe person who she talks to about her struggles with intimacy and her struggles with vaginism.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: Did you write Joe kind of be as like that representation for female friendships to like guide one another when they're going through struggling times in their lives?
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Joe serves so many important purposes, like to Emma and to the novel.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: She's definitely um, you know, the person who Emma feels most comfortable talking to about what she's going through, simply because she's she's like known Emma for the longest.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like they were roommates in college.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: So she was there when Emma met Harris and fell in love with him for the first time.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and she was also there when Emma was diagnosed with vaginis.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so she, you know, knew what was going on because Emma, like, probably in a moment of weakness, like unloaded everything onto Joe.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: And from that point on, like Joe was able to be Emma's voice of reason when Emma was like thinking unreasonable thoughts about what was going on with her body and her dating life and things like that.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Jo is also kind of able to be Emma's voice of reason when it comes to that like sex education aspect that we talked about earlier.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like Jo does not date men.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so she kind of is able to have these conversations with Emma when Emma is like, I can't date because I can't have sex.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: And she's like, No, girl, like you can't have penetrative sex, like that's different, and you're being insane right now.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: And Emma's like, I know, I know, I know.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: And Joe's like, no, clearly you don't know because if you did, then it would not be like this.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so Joe is able to have these like come to Jesus conversations with Emma about her dating life that Emma has just like never had people to talk to about that.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: So um Joe is just like so important.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: And the other thing that I love to read in romance novels is when there's like some kind of like character journey between not just the main couple, but between friends.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: So like Emma and Joe get into a couple tiffs throughout the novel.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's one point where they get into a pretty big fight, and um, I love writing that because I think that's I mean, it's not like it is realistic, right?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like, not that people are getting into fights with their friends all the time, but like, but like people do um well, a lot of times in romance novels, like when you know, especially when we're talking about female friendships, you see the like main woman in the novel just like talking about guys to her best friend all the time, or like they're talking about you know, doing whatever.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like it works for the purposes of the novel, but is not always true to like what a really rich friendship looks like.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that part of having a rich friendship is that when Emma is talking to Joe all the time about Harrison, Joe is finally like, literally, shut up.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, you can't stop you, you have to stop talking to me about Harrison, especially because you're talking in circles, and I literally cannot deal with that anymore.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's really realistic and also kind of helps Emma to be like, I'm being an idiot and I need to like, I need to get myself in check.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I really love Joe T because I think Emma is an only child as well, and I'm an only child.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like I rely on my friend sometimes to step into like that sisterly advice role that I don't always like, you know, get from my nuclear family.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I love I love that.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then, like, of course, I feel like the friendships were realistic because they're not always gonna agree, they're gonna hurt each other's feelings.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're true friends, you just like yell it out and then move past it.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is okay.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's just as important, it's just as important to have friends to like cry with as it is to have friends who will be like, You're being stupid right now, like come back when you're not.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: You need people who will do that.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was important to me that Emma did have someone who was like that.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I always like to end with some fun questions.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I saw that Thighs Wide Shut, which was one of the reasons why I picked up the book anyway, because I was like, This is such a funny title, was actually come up with by your fiance.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I hear he's quite talky about the fact that he made this, uh he came up with this title in his head.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: So do you like remember the moment when he proposed, like, oh, like you should do this, or this should be the title?
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what was that like?
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: What was that pitch for you?
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my God.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was gosh.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: So the first, like, I don't know, three or four drafts of the novel, I was calling it opening up, which I think is like a pretty it's a it's a funny-ish title.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's a little bit of a double on top, or whatever.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like it works.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then he started jokingly calling it thighs wide shut.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, that's not funny.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this is a very serious literary work.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like, do not, like, that's not funny.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: This is then, yeah, this is really serious.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then like he would repeat that to someone, or like I'd repeat that to a friend, and they'd like piss themselves with laughter.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually I was like, okay, like this is this is very like I'm taking this book very seriously, but also it is a funny book.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's it's a rom-com that's pretty heavy on the comm.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: And like that title is hilarious.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I'm a debut.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: So like at when I was writing this, I didn't have a book deal, I didn't have a literary agent.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: And when I started looking for a literary agent, I was like, what I need them to do is open my email.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like that's step one.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, well, if the subject line of the email says thighs wide shut, you know, query letter in all caps, like they're gonna open that email because they're gonna be like, what the hell is that?
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that worked.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, we kind of used the same logic when we were sending it to publishers, and then like suddenly I had a book deal and no one had asked me to change the title.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I love telling that story because it just like started off as a joke that kind of snowballed and and now we're here.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I love the title now.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's so funny.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if anyone like I keep being like you to my fiance, I keep being like, you need to start a business titling people's books.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, people would pay you money to do that.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: So this is my business pitch.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if anyone's having trouble titling their novel, like slide into my Instagram TMs and we can talk about Instagram, and you can you can get a great title too.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm his agent for that.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, that's how that title came to be.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, when I sent it to my friend, that was like the first thing she said.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: She was like, Wow, this title is so real.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: So he did a great job.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: It is a main chapter tradition that I always ask authors what is their least favorite trope when it comes to books.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I've mostly interviewed romance authors.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of people were like, I hate the pregnancy trope, I hate the unplanned pregnancy trope.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard Friends of the Lovers because people think it doesn't make sense.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: Someone came out of like left field a few months ago and was like, you know what?
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: I hate when the character gets cancer.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't like cancer books.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it can literally anything you want.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what's like a trope where you're like, I don't want to read this and I don't think I'll ever write it myself.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um this is so hard because there are so many, not so many, but like there are a few tropes that I claim to hate, but then there are major exceptions to that rule.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I love to be like, I hate fake dating.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's so stupid.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I like my roommates novels to be more realistic, unless they're like literally supposed to not be realistic, like unless we're talking about, you know, magical realism.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um but then like there are so many fake dating novels that actually I love.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I love to be like, I will never read an unplanned pregnancy book.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: But like Ready or Not by Kara Bastone is a masterpiece.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: So there's so many exceptions to that.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I do think I tend to gravitate away from workplace romances, not even because I I'm like, ew, like, why are you dating a coworker?
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: But because I'm like, I don't want to read about work.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm reading outside of work hours.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I don't want to read about you at your desk.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so like I think I will never write a workplace romance because of that.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, there are exceptions to every rule.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm all for corporate doesn't exist in our romance bubbles.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't want to read about like, you know, nine to five capitalism in my romance novels.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: So save the badge, swiping for real life.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: So to end it out going back to Thighs Wide Shut, what is the biggest thing you hope people walk away with after reading your book, whether they're experiencing vaginismus, going through a different medical condition, or even just struggling to deal with intimacy on their own?
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: Two things.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think um my biggest hope for this novel has always been to just increase awareness of this condition.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: So many people have it, and even more people know people who have it.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: And if you think you don't, you're wrong because it's common enough that like you do know someone who has it.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think just you know, becoming more knowledgeable about it and what it what it could look like to go through something like this is is good for everybody, is good for everybody.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then the second thing um is that I really hope this book makes people laugh.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's because it's kind of a serious topic, and I tend to get really serious when I talk about it.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like complaining about the state of our nation's sex education, and I'm talking about like advocating for each help with doctors, but also I wanted the book to be like really funny in order to make it more accessible to readers.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so I hope that in addition to learning something, readers also walk away giggling.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I did both.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I learned a lot, but I was also having a great time reading.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so thank you so much for taking the time to come on and talk about your book.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: I hope it continues to grow even more, and more people get to read it and learn about vaginismus and the importance of women's health.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the book also talks about banned books, which we didn't even get to.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's like also a really important topic that I think we need more awareness of as well.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, definitely.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: So much, so much to talk about in this book.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I could keep talking about it for two hours.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: But thank you so much for having me.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: I had an absolute blast.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoyed that.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: Be sure to follow Hayley on her socials if you haven't already.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: And read that by chat if you haven't already.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, it's an amazing book.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, next week starts October, and it is my dead week for me chapter.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: Next week interview.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have this book in one week.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: So good.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was natural in a romantic setting.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: That was so popular in 2010.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: This one is for you.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: You are going to want to come back for it.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope you see my book butterfly.