Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / Tia Williams on What We Want Out of Modern Romance + Why She'll Never 'Raise a Man'

Transcript

Tia Williams on What We Want Out of Modern Romance + Why She'll Never 'Raise a Man' · QUESTION EVERYTHING

0:04
Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
0:08
Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe, and each week my guests
0:12
Speaker 1: and I have conversations that put a new spin on
0:15
Speaker 1: pretty this is pretty smart. Hello. Hello. Usually I would
0:23
Speaker 1: call you wonders or part of the Curiosity Club, but
0:27
Speaker 1: today I feel like I have to call you all
0:29
Speaker 1: lovers because V Day is coming up. So hello lovers. Okay,
0:34
Speaker 1: before we get into today's episode, I have to tell
0:36
Speaker 1: you two things. One is that I learned something recently
0:41
Speaker 1: on Instagram called push and pull marketing that I thought
0:44
Speaker 1: was really interesting. Poll marketing is about creating something so
0:48
Speaker 1: good that the audience naturally wants to be a part
0:52
Speaker 1: of it. You don't have to push it on them,
0:56
Speaker 1: meaning like you don't have to say please like or
0:58
Speaker 1: subscribe or follow or download my song or whatever it is,
1:02
Speaker 1: because they naturally want to do it if you're pulling
1:04
Speaker 1: them in. And I've gotten yelled at tons of times
1:09
Speaker 1: from people on this show because I hate saying like,
1:13
Speaker 1: please write a review, please like, please subscribe, because I
1:17
Speaker 1: just like who. I don't want to be told that
1:19
Speaker 1: when I'm listening to a podcast, Like I think poll
1:21
Speaker 1: marketing is so much more effective. So today I'm gonna
1:25
Speaker 1: push and pull a little bit because something big is
1:28
Speaker 1: coming and I don't want you to miss it. If
1:31
Speaker 1: you've ever enjoyed this show, hit the follow button on
1:34
Speaker 1: Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. But it's important
1:37
Speaker 1: that you actually hit the follow button because there's a
1:40
Speaker 1: huge change happening, and if you're not following, I'm worried
1:43
Speaker 1: the show might not pop up for you when it drops,
1:46
Speaker 1: and I really feel like you're gonna want to be
1:50
Speaker 1: there from day one. I'm gonna let you in each
1:53
Speaker 1: week more and more about like in terms of what
1:56
Speaker 1: I'm doing, but I really am changing things up in
2:00
Speaker 1: a fun way and in a way that I think
2:01
Speaker 1: is going to bring you a lot more value. So
2:04
Speaker 1: this is me very lovingly pushing and pulling, saying please
2:09
Speaker 1: go hit the follow button so we can all dive
2:12
Speaker 1: into this next level together. And the second thing is
2:16
Speaker 1: just a quick reminder that I constantly video chat with
2:19
Speaker 1: at least one person who listens to the podcast a week,
2:23
Speaker 1: and I do that based on you guys emailing me,
2:27
Speaker 1: sending me a screenshot of you sending the episode to
2:30
Speaker 1: your friends, and we get to connect and talk about
2:35
Speaker 1: your life and your work and if I can connect
2:39
Speaker 1: you with anyone or help you with anything, or just
2:42
Speaker 1: have a fun fifteen or thirty minutes. And I actually
2:45
Speaker 1: talked to two of you this week because we had
2:47
Speaker 1: an influx of people reaching out and I just didn't
2:51
Speaker 1: feel like one was enough. It's probably my favorite part
2:53
Speaker 1: of the week is connecting with you, because you're all
2:55
Speaker 1: so smart and interesting, and you have cool jobs and
2:58
Speaker 1: passions and are doing cool things. And so I just
3:01
Speaker 1: want to give a shout out to Bethany and Lou
3:04
Speaker 1: who I chatted with this week. Bethany and her partner
3:08
Speaker 1: own and started a company called the Funkbusters, which is
3:11
Speaker 1: a beer line cleaner, and she was formerly a brewer
3:16
Speaker 1: and so like as you can imagine, there's very few
3:18
Speaker 1: female brewers in the country, and she has such a
3:22
Speaker 1: foothold in the industry. She was teaching me so much.
3:25
Speaker 1: I had so much fun talking to her about ways
3:29
Speaker 1: that I think that she could curate her social media
3:32
Speaker 1: to amplify business. And Lou was video chatting all the
3:36
Speaker 1: way from Brussels. She's a consultant and had a big
3:39
Speaker 1: presentation coming up, so we were chatting about that and
3:42
Speaker 1: we also just key keyed a lot, to be honest,
3:45
Speaker 1: but both conversations were so soul fulfilling for me in
3:49
Speaker 1: very different ways. So if you're interested in that at all,
3:52
Speaker 1: you can apply as many times as you want. Just
3:54
Speaker 1: send me a screenshot of you either writing a review
3:58
Speaker 1: or sending the episode to two friends or family members,
4:03
Speaker 1: and we'll enter you in the raffle and you can
4:06
Speaker 1: either DM it to me at Danielle Robey on Instagram,
4:09
Speaker 1: or I'll probably see it better if you email me
4:12
Speaker 1: Danielle at beprettysmart dot com. Okay, now let's get into
4:16
Speaker 1: the episode. Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, so I post a
4:19
Speaker 1: little tradition on Instagram, and it's five questions to ask
4:22
Speaker 1: whoever you're spending the day with, even if that person
4:24
Speaker 1: is yourself, and then I write this quote every single year,
4:29
Speaker 1: Happy Valentine's Day to all of the wonderers. I'll wander
4:32
Speaker 1: with you anytime, because you guys are wonderers. And right
4:37
Speaker 1: now I'm picturing you wandering in your car, on a
4:41
Speaker 1: walk in the kitchen, maybe aimlessly around Target because capitalism
4:45
Speaker 1: got you in a choke hold. Today, whatever it is
4:48
Speaker 1: and wherever you are I'm right there with you. You are
4:52
Speaker 1: my people. I only want to wander with wonderers. And
4:56
Speaker 1: this holiday, in this episode is about love, and it
4:59
Speaker 1: really had me wondering what are the roots of this holiday,
5:02
Speaker 1: and it turns out they go all the way back
5:04
Speaker 1: to ancient Rome. Some say it was inspired by the
5:06
Speaker 1: festival of Lupercolia, a wild, chaotic celebration of fertility and matchmaking.
5:13
Speaker 1: Others credit Saint Valentine, who was a priest who secretly
5:16
Speaker 1: performed marriages in defiance of the law. That's cool. Over time,
5:21
Speaker 1: the day evolved. It was shaped by poets and then
5:24
Speaker 1: Hallmark and really our collective longing for grand gestures of love,
5:30
Speaker 1: and yeah, speaking off Hallmark, Valentine's Day can be Hallmark.
5:33
Speaker 1: I used to sort of side eye at this holiday,
5:35
Speaker 1: especially growing up, but I love love, and so as
5:39
Speaker 1: I got older, I just wanted to reframe the day
5:43
Speaker 1: celebrating that love in all forms, and I think it's
5:46
Speaker 1: kind of a nice reminder. It's cool to celebrate the
5:49
Speaker 1: kind of love you pour into your friendships, the care
5:52
Speaker 1: you show yourself when no one's watching, the deep, unwavering
5:56
Speaker 1: love of family, the love that exists in small, quiet moments,
6:00
Speaker 1: not just the ones wrapped in roses and chocolate and candlelight,
6:03
Speaker 1: even though those are nice too sometimes. So my question
6:06
Speaker 1: for you today is what kind of love are you
6:09
Speaker 1: craving this year? Romantic love, friendship, self love, maybe all
6:16
Speaker 1: of it, And no matter where you are or who
6:18
Speaker 1: you're with tomorrow, I hope you're taking a moment to
6:21
Speaker 1: reflect on the love that fills your life and the
6:24
Speaker 1: love you still want to create.
6:26
Speaker 2: Now.
6:26
Speaker 1: If you've ever lost yourself in a great romance novel,
6:29
Speaker 1: one that makes you swoon, laugh, or just feel deeply seen,
6:33
Speaker 1: there's a good chance Tia Williams had something to do
6:35
Speaker 1: with it. Her books like Seven Days in June, a
6:39
Speaker 1: Love Song for Ricky Wilde, they don't just tell love stories.
6:43
Speaker 1: They're kind of rewriting the script. They show us what
6:46
Speaker 1: romance could look like, what it should look like. And
6:50
Speaker 1: here's something I've learned about love stories. The ones we
6:53
Speaker 1: consume shape the ones that we expect. And for a
6:56
Speaker 1: long time, those stories followed the same tired formula. A
7:00
Speaker 1: woman waiting by the phone, a man who just needs
7:02
Speaker 1: time to grow, a romance that's really just a survival
7:05
Speaker 1: course in patience and sacrifice, for the female lead. I
7:09
Speaker 1: remember watching those, reading those growing up and thinking, I
7:14
Speaker 1: really don't want that to be me. Why do women
7:17
Speaker 1: always have to sacrifice? And I guess Tia was the
7:20
Speaker 1: same way because she refuses to write those stories.
7:27
Speaker 3: I just don't believe in raising a man. I don't
7:29
Speaker 3: believe in it like hard stop, and my female characters
7:33
Speaker 3: would never entertain that, and the men I write don't
7:37
Speaker 3: want that.
7:38
Speaker 1: She doesn't write women who tolerate bad behavior in the
7:40
Speaker 1: name of love, and in her books, the men have
7:44
Speaker 1: all been to therapy. And in preparing for this conversation,
7:49
Speaker 1: I had been thinking a lot about what modern romance
7:51
Speaker 1: stories should look like, because the world has changed and
7:54
Speaker 1: it's continuing to change, and so is the way that
7:57
Speaker 1: we love. I feel like the old rules don't have anymore,
8:00
Speaker 1: but the new ones aren't always clear. What does it
8:04
Speaker 1: mean to romanticize your life in twenty twenty five? What
8:09
Speaker 1: are women craving in love stories?
8:11
Speaker 2: Now?
8:11
Speaker 1: What kind of love and partners are we craving? And
8:14
Speaker 1: how do we break out of the roles that we
8:16
Speaker 1: were raised to play in relationships while still maintaining some
8:20
Speaker 1: of the gender roles that we are craving Tia Williams
8:24
Speaker 1: has a lot to say about this.
8:27
Speaker 2: We still sometimes want to be saved, but everybody.
8:30
Speaker 3: Men do too, Like I don't think that's like a
8:33
Speaker 3: feminine trait.
8:36
Speaker 2: I think it's a human trade.
8:37
Speaker 3: When you're lost and you're lonely and one day bleeds
8:43
Speaker 3: into another and the job off.
8:47
Speaker 2: I mean, I was so lonely at some point in
8:49
Speaker 2: my life.
8:49
Speaker 3: I felt like there was no one to witness my exist,
8:53
Speaker 3: you know, And you want.
8:56
Speaker 2: To be safe, you do? You do?
8:58
Speaker 3: You want someone to sweep in whatever that save even means.
9:03
Speaker 1: In this episode, she shares how her own love life,
9:05
Speaker 1: including a toxic relationship with a quote charismatic psycho, inspired
9:10
Speaker 1: her first novel. We talk about how romance novels have changed,
9:15
Speaker 1: why some women are swearing off dating altogether, and what
9:18
Speaker 1: we get wrong when we talk about what women want.
9:21
Speaker 1: She also drops some really great beauty advice because she
9:23
Speaker 1: happens to be a former beauty editor, and she explains
9:27
Speaker 1: how her husband now sort of inspires her books, and
9:30
Speaker 1: she shares the one book that changed her life. This
9:34
Speaker 1: episode is for the romantics, also the skeptics, and everyone
9:38
Speaker 1: in between, whether you're in love, looking for love, or
9:43
Speaker 1: just focusing on loving yourself. I really hope today reminds
9:46
Speaker 1: you that you're worthy of all the love you desire.
9:50
Speaker 1: And I'm saying that because I always need to remind
9:52
Speaker 1: myself with that too. So today's episode is all about love,
9:58
Speaker 1: the real, the fictional, the messy, and the magic. Let's
10:02
Speaker 1: get into it with Tia Williams. Tia, I don't know
10:13
Speaker 1: how I didn't know this about you, but you're a
10:15
Speaker 1: former beauty editor. When in the world did you decide
10:19
Speaker 1: you were going to write novels?
10:21
Speaker 2: Well, the funny thing.
10:22
Speaker 3: Is is I've always done both at the same time,
10:25
Speaker 3: so I was a very focused, clear child.
10:29
Speaker 2: I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
10:31
Speaker 3: I had two obsessions growing up, and they were fashion
10:34
Speaker 3: magazines and writing fiction.
10:37
Speaker 2: And I've always done both, and I always knew that.
10:40
Speaker 3: When I grew up, I wanted to work at magazines.
10:42
Speaker 3: We're talking print magazines back in the dark ages. But
10:47
Speaker 3: I wanted to work for a magazine and I wanted
10:49
Speaker 3: to write novels, and I always knew that. So after
10:52
Speaker 3: I graduated college in nineteen ninety seven, I moved right
10:56
Speaker 3: to Brooklyn and started working at a teen magazine called
11:00
Speaker 3: Why I am young miss Yeah. And then I moved
11:04
Speaker 3: on to l and I moved on to Glamour. I'm
11:07
Speaker 3: working in the beauty department, but I haven't done my
11:10
Speaker 3: second thing yet.
11:11
Speaker 2: You know, it's like when am I going to write
11:12
Speaker 2: this novel? But I never felt like I.
11:14
Speaker 3: Had enough material yet or like life experiencing. You know,
11:18
Speaker 3: I'm a kid, not a kid, but you know, extremely
11:21
Speaker 3: early twenties, and then my twenty fifth year happened. I
11:27
Speaker 3: was dating a very charismatic psycho, as one does at twenty.
11:31
Speaker 1: Five, I did the same thing.
11:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course you did.
11:35
Speaker 3: I had a high powered job at Glamour magazine. I
11:39
Speaker 3: was a beauty editor there, the first black beauty editor.
11:42
Speaker 3: That's a lot on your you know, to have on
11:45
Speaker 3: your back. And this was I don't know if you've
11:50
Speaker 3: read or watched Devil Worst Product like it was during
11:52
Speaker 3: that era.
11:53
Speaker 2: You know, I had an editor throw a babel at
11:55
Speaker 2: my head.
11:56
Speaker 3: You know, my life was stressful between the relationship and work,
11:59
Speaker 3: and also I suffer from depression and chronic migraines. I
12:02
Speaker 3: was like, you know what, I need to get out
12:05
Speaker 3: of here, So I quit my job very two thousand
12:08
Speaker 3: and one story, like I would not recommend just up
12:11
Speaker 3: and quitting your job these days. But I quit my job,
12:15
Speaker 3: put everything in storage, broke up with the boyfriend, and
12:16
Speaker 3: I moved to Sabill, Spain to teach English to third
12:19
Speaker 3: graders for six months, just to take a sabbatical for
12:21
Speaker 3: my life. And while I was there, I started rewriting
12:26
Speaker 3: the love story that I just had with my boyfriend,
12:28
Speaker 3: but rewriting it in my favor, so that he was
12:32
Speaker 3: a great guy and there was a happy ending, and
12:34
Speaker 3: there's all this stuff. And when I moved back to
12:36
Speaker 3: New York six months later, I started working magazines again.
12:39
Speaker 2: I realized, oh, this is my book, this is the first.
12:44
Speaker 3: Book, and so I had that published in two thousand
12:50
Speaker 3: and four, The Accidental Diva, And ever since then, I've
12:53
Speaker 3: been beauty writing and book writing at the same time.
12:57
Speaker 3: So two years ago I finally quit my day job.
13:02
Speaker 2: I was executive editorial director at Essay Laughter Companies, because
13:05
Speaker 2: I can finally afford to write full time.
13:09
Speaker 1: That's so huge. That must feel amazing.
13:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fantastic. It's yeah.
13:14
Speaker 3: Being a full time novelist is not something that I
13:17
Speaker 3: take for granted.
13:18
Speaker 2: It is extremely.
13:20
Speaker 3: It's a tough act to sort of pull off because
13:25
Speaker 3: you know, you just don't get pay very much as
13:28
Speaker 3: an author, and so if you reach a point in
13:30
Speaker 3: your career where you're doing well enough to just do that,
13:33
Speaker 3: is it's a major milestone. Yeah.
13:36
Speaker 1: Do you still pull from your personal life and write
13:41
Speaker 1: about it in your novels?
13:43
Speaker 2: I do. I always do. That's the only way I
13:46
Speaker 2: know how to write. Yeah.
13:47
Speaker 1: Do you think you have to be like a romantic
13:49
Speaker 1: person at heart to write romance novels? I think you
13:53
Speaker 1: have to.
13:54
Speaker 3: And I think you know the word romance, you know,
13:57
Speaker 3: you think picnics in the park and is, But that's
14:00
Speaker 3: not really what romance is. It's it's about finding the
14:03
Speaker 3: romance in everything. It's almost it's like the act.
14:07
Speaker 2: Of mythologizing your life, mythologizing other people's lives.
14:11
Speaker 3: Like even the most you know, banal, like regular, normal
14:14
Speaker 3: moment can be elevated to this like highly romantic spectacle.
14:19
Speaker 2: And I've always thought of life like that.
14:24
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I was up for a late
14:26
Speaker 3: night feeding last night, and I grabbed a handful of
14:28
Speaker 3: frosted flate, literally a fistful of frosted flakes and ate.
14:31
Speaker 2: Them like an animal from my hand, and I was like,
14:35
Speaker 2: this is fucking delicious. It's just delicious, and the crunch
14:40
Speaker 2: is so satisfying, and it's just this private, you know,
14:45
Speaker 2: kind of naughty, wonderful, basic moment that I'm having right
14:50
Speaker 2: now with my frosted flakes in my fist, in my
14:53
Speaker 2: darkened kitchen.
14:55
Speaker 3: And that's what I mean by like a romance romanticizing,
14:58
Speaker 3: you know, just normal stuff. And yeah, I think you
15:01
Speaker 3: definitely have to have that impulse if you're going to
15:04
Speaker 3: be a romance writer.
15:05
Speaker 1: This is the most la question of all time. But
15:07
Speaker 1: what's your sign Leo? Is that part of a Leo's characteristics?
15:14
Speaker 1: Do you think?
15:14
Speaker 2: Yeah?
15:15
Speaker 3: Of course, because Leo's we tend to center ourselves sometimes
15:22
Speaker 3: and when you do that, you can't do that and
15:26
Speaker 3: think your life is boring or think life is boring,
15:31
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Like, you have to in
15:34
Speaker 3: order to want to put yourself in the middle of things,
15:38
Speaker 3: you have to find yourself interesting. And so in order
15:42
Speaker 3: to find a regular life interesting, you have to think big.
15:47
Speaker 3: And I think that that is definitely a Leo trait.
15:51
Speaker 1: I've been thinking lately a lot about what types of
15:55
Speaker 1: modern romance stories women are craving, and we're at a
16:00
Speaker 1: time that I actually think it's really hard to be
16:03
Speaker 1: a romance writer, a TV writer, even because I don't
16:09
Speaker 1: know if the modern woman really knows what she wants
16:13
Speaker 1: or what's right and what's wrong, because the gender roles
16:16
Speaker 1: that we've all been socialized to know are just flipped
16:19
Speaker 1: on their head, and that really affects romance. I'm curious
16:24
Speaker 1: what you think we're craving right now. When I say were,
16:27
Speaker 1: I mean like me, my friends, your friends, Like what
16:30
Speaker 1: are we wanting to sink our teeth into in twenty
16:33
Speaker 1: twenty five.
16:35
Speaker 3: I mean, I still think that it's about escape. There's
16:39
Speaker 3: some writers that do this very well, like you know,
16:42
Speaker 3: friends to lovers romances, or like some very low you know,
16:48
Speaker 3: low steaks sort of romance where not a lot happens,
16:54
Speaker 3: but it's just like soft, nice feelings.
16:56
Speaker 2: I love those books.
16:57
Speaker 3: But that's not what I'm craving, because I don't know.
17:03
Speaker 3: Sometimes real life and real life gender dynamics and real
17:07
Speaker 3: life relationships can be pretty depressing, especially like you know,
17:11
Speaker 3: sometimes I get in the weeds and comments sections, you know,
17:15
Speaker 3: on Blue Sky and Twitter that we're not on Twitter anymore,
17:19
Speaker 3: you know, And I just read some of the things
17:21
Speaker 3: that men and women think about relationships or you know,
17:26
Speaker 3: things that men think about women, and still to this day,
17:30
Speaker 3: you know, just really like not progressive, very limited sort
17:34
Speaker 3: of ideas about what women are and what they're supposed
17:37
Speaker 3: to do and what it means if they act like this,
17:40
Speaker 3: and you know, what's their body count? And you know,
17:43
Speaker 3: you don't want a woman that's too focused on business
17:46
Speaker 3: because then she's not going to.
17:47
Speaker 2: Be focused on her. You know, that kind of stuff
17:49
Speaker 2: people are still talking about, you know, that is that's that.
17:53
Speaker 3: Is real, And I don't want to write about anything real.
17:55
Speaker 3: I still want to write escapist sort of fantasies. And
17:59
Speaker 3: my book all the men have gone to therapy and
18:03
Speaker 3: either black men.
18:04
Speaker 1: You are writing our ideal world.
18:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, like it isn't really stuff that happens, you know,
18:11
Speaker 3: every you know with the girl in your friend group.
18:14
Speaker 3: You know, there's always exceptions, of course, I mean, but
18:17
Speaker 3: for the most part, a lot.
18:20
Speaker 4: Of times you can feel like we're still stuck in
18:22
Speaker 4: the sixties out here, and because the last five years
18:27
Speaker 4: have scrambled all of our brains, like we're all just
18:30
Speaker 4: aliens wandering around like trying to figure out even how
18:32
Speaker 4: to talk to people, like how to remember how to
18:35
Speaker 4: even be in a social setting.
18:37
Speaker 1: Can you think of any hallmark challenges of modern love?
18:41
Speaker 2: I think breaking out of how we're raised.
18:45
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, depending on what generation you are, you're
18:48
Speaker 3: still kind of going to feel like, you know, if
18:51
Speaker 3: you're a man, like the woman is supposed to cook, well,
18:54
Speaker 3: I just don't know how to do that, you know,
18:56
Speaker 3: throwing up your hands and you know, cleaning, I'm not
18:59
Speaker 3: that good at.
18:59
Speaker 2: It then, like weaponizing your incompetence.
19:02
Speaker 3: And you know, women are brought up to thing that
19:06
Speaker 3: all of the kids stuff in household stuff, you know,
19:10
Speaker 3: is their job.
19:11
Speaker 2: And this is.
19:13
Speaker 3: On top of having an outside of the home job.
19:17
Speaker 3: You know, there's those very basic sort of roles that
19:20
Speaker 3: we might have grown up seeing our parents do that.
19:23
Speaker 3: Even even if you're super progressive and have evolved beyond it,
19:28
Speaker 3: like it's in your DNA sitting in your body somewhere,
19:32
Speaker 3: and I think it's still something that we're fighting, especially
19:38
Speaker 3: I mean I'm gen X, like that was just what
19:40
Speaker 3: it was, you know, that's what we were expected to do.
19:45
Speaker 2: So yeah, I know that that's tough.
19:49
Speaker 1: Have you heard the term single story?
19:53
Speaker 3: No?
19:54
Speaker 1: Okay, So I think about it a lot when I
19:57
Speaker 1: read your books, because one of my favorite TED talk
20:00
Speaker 1: is from a Nigerian author, Chimamanda Andngzia Dchia, and so
20:06
Speaker 1: you know her.
20:06
Speaker 2: She's an American writer and Americana.
20:10
Speaker 1: Yes, And she talks about this idea of a single
20:14
Speaker 1: story and how perilous it is to cultures to basically
20:19
Speaker 1: any marginalized person, to women. And there's this line that
20:24
Speaker 1: I think about when I read your book. She said,
20:26
Speaker 1: power is the ability not just to tell the story
20:28
Speaker 1: of another person, but to make it the definitive story
20:31
Speaker 1: of that person. I'm really curious your opinion on the
20:38
Speaker 1: single story of a fairy tale like romance and how
20:42
Speaker 1: it affects the perception of the genre and how it's evolved.
20:47
Speaker 3: Oh, that's so interesting, the single story.
20:52
Speaker 1: Because if I can get more specifics, I think it's
20:54
Speaker 1: like so many romance novels have been about white people
20:58
Speaker 1: for so long, and it's like literally one single story.
21:02
Speaker 1: And I know even for me growing up, there was
21:04
Speaker 1: like a very single romantic story about a woman kind
21:08
Speaker 1: of waiting by the phone, powerless. Yes, like every Jennifer
21:11
Speaker 1: Aniston ram com and I love her, but like they
21:15
Speaker 1: plagued me.
21:16
Speaker 2: M of course, they do.
21:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think with I mean fantasy as a definition,
21:23
Speaker 3: like it should open you up to accepting any any
21:28
Speaker 3: sort of reality. Yeah, you know, I know with a
21:31
Speaker 3: love time for Ricky Wild, which isn't fantasy. It isn't
21:34
Speaker 3: even romance romanticy. It just has a sprinkling of magical realism.
21:39
Speaker 3: But yeah, there are there were no American black fairy tales,
21:45
Speaker 3: you know when I was growing up. Princess Tiana happened
21:48
Speaker 3: the year my daughter was born and beyond like you know,
21:54
Speaker 3: classic fairy tales, like you rarely saw black women in
21:58
Speaker 3: modern fairy tales or like in any to get swept
22:00
Speaker 3: away by love or have some you know, magical things
22:03
Speaker 3: happened to them or not to be symbols of oppression
22:06
Speaker 3: and abuse. And so for me, when I was writing
22:11
Speaker 3: a love song for Ricky Well, which I do kind
22:12
Speaker 3: of refer to as like, you know, a modern fairy tale,
22:17
Speaker 3: I wanted to turn you know, those ideas on their
22:23
Speaker 3: heads because that there was the single story of you know,
22:27
Speaker 3: a fairy tale is a beautiful white princess you know,
22:31
Speaker 3: gets the prince in some enchanted way, you know. I
22:35
Speaker 3: wanted the enchantment to happen to you know a black woman.
22:41
Speaker 1: My associate producer's name is Alandria, and she's probably your
22:45
Speaker 1: biggest fan. And she told me, I have to ask
22:49
Speaker 1: you this question. So this is her question. So she
22:52
Speaker 1: and she lives in Las Vegas. She's a twenty six
22:55
Speaker 1: year old black girl. Kyle Andria woman, I should say yes, okay,
22:59
Speaker 1: So she's a girlfriend of mine. Was telling me that
23:02
Speaker 1: there's a discussion going on in black literature entertainment about
23:06
Speaker 1: steering away from consuming the single story of trauma. She said,
23:09
Speaker 1: think waiting to exhale soul food or baby boy. She said,
23:13
Speaker 1: many previous black romances consist of saving a man and
23:17
Speaker 1: making him a man worth being with or bearing with
23:19
Speaker 1: him until he grows, like builde beart. That's funny. I've
23:23
Speaker 1: never heard that term.
23:24
Speaker 2: She's so right.
23:26
Speaker 1: Many women are looking to these other modern romance takes
23:30
Speaker 1: like yours as a reprieve. Modern romance is turning that
23:33
Speaker 1: on its head, and the new books of the genre
23:35
Speaker 1: are established women looking for an established counterpart. How do
23:40
Speaker 1: you think your novels capture the complexities of this modern love.
23:45
Speaker 3: I just don't believe in raising a man. I don't
23:48
Speaker 3: believe in it, like hard stop. My and my character,
23:52
Speaker 3: my female characters would never entertain that. And the men
23:56
Speaker 3: I write don't want that.
23:58
Speaker 2: I think.
23:59
Speaker 3: I think it's it's such a disservice that we, and
24:02
Speaker 3: especially you know, in the black community and a lot
24:05
Speaker 3: of black church communities, kind of teach women that it's
24:09
Speaker 3: their job to hang in there and help turn your
24:14
Speaker 3: husband from a boy to a man, and a faithful,
24:17
Speaker 3: god fearing woman would stand by her man no matter what.
24:21
Speaker 2: And you know.
24:21
Speaker 3: That, meme, he's a good man, Savannah Like, Meanwhile, the
24:25
Speaker 3: man in question is not a good man by any
24:28
Speaker 3: modern standard.
24:30
Speaker 2: It's hurtful to women, and it's hurtful to men. Grow up,
24:35
Speaker 2: you know, grow up, Like why the suspended adolescence is
24:39
Speaker 2: so tacky? You know, be a man? So yeah, I
24:45
Speaker 2: just I refuse to engage in those dynamics at all.
24:49
Speaker 3: In fact, in the Perfect Find It's novel that I wrote,
24:52
Speaker 3: the female protagonist is forty. Male protagonist is twenty two,
24:58
Speaker 3: and she is obviously what your dates would have, your age,
25:01
Speaker 3: you know, and those are the ages you would.
25:03
Speaker 2: Be kind of raising your man a little bit.
25:05
Speaker 3: And she was like, you know, I'm I can't do that,
25:09
Speaker 3: Like I kind of I gotta go. And but even
25:14
Speaker 3: in writing Eric the twenty two year old man, I
25:20
Speaker 3: made him very precocious and very confident and you know,
25:27
Speaker 3: not not a baby boy, like even though we the
25:30
Speaker 3: reader are looking at him and being like, oh, this
25:32
Speaker 3: kid is so in over his head, he doesn't see
25:35
Speaker 3: himself like that, you know, so even he isn't isn't
25:40
Speaker 3: sort of subscribing to these notions of a woman should
25:45
Speaker 3: you know, should raise me and and tolerate my bullshit
25:49
Speaker 3: while I get my life together.
25:51
Speaker 1: You know, there's this thing on that's been like pervasive
25:54
Speaker 1: on TikTok over the last year about soft girl era,
26:00
Speaker 1: soft life. And I purposefully try and have friends in
26:05
Speaker 1: every decade or age group because I think everybody has
26:08
Speaker 1: such a different perspective. And side note, my grandfather when
26:12
Speaker 1: he passed away, I asked him if he had any regrets,
26:14
Speaker 1: and he said, I would have made younger friends when
26:16
Speaker 1: I was younger, so that when I was older, like
26:19
Speaker 1: those would have been long term friendships at the time
26:22
Speaker 1: because he lost his friends and I'd never thought of
26:24
Speaker 1: that before.
26:25
Speaker 2: That is wow, that's Steve. Yeah.
26:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so hard to watch like our parents and
26:30
Speaker 3: grandparents get older and lose their people.
26:33
Speaker 2: Yes, I can't imagine what that's like.
26:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think it changes you, it changes them.
26:39
Speaker 1: But I think in terms of soft girl era, a
26:43
Speaker 1: lot of women swoon over the relationship in romance novels
26:48
Speaker 1: and obsess over finding the perfect partner. They're in the
26:52
Speaker 1: ones we grew up with, Like women wanted to be saved,
26:56
Speaker 1: and I think I had to grow out of that
26:59
Speaker 1: having ingested so much of it. There were Sex in
27:01
Speaker 1: the City episodes about it.
27:03
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
27:04
Speaker 1: Do you feel that still even in the younger generation
27:07
Speaker 1: and in women who are reading your books? And do
27:10
Speaker 1: you ever like play with that idea in your writing?
27:15
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean I do because and I intentionally. Here's
27:21
Speaker 3: the thing. We still sometimes want to be safe, you know,
27:25
Speaker 3: but everybody.
27:25
Speaker 2: Men do too.
27:26
Speaker 3: Like, I don't think that's like a feminine trait. I
27:31
Speaker 3: think it's a human trait when you're lost and you're lonely,
27:36
Speaker 3: and one day bleeds into another and the job sucks
27:42
Speaker 3: and there's no one even valid feeling like there's no
27:47
Speaker 3: one to even validate your existence. I mean I was
27:49
Speaker 3: so lonely at some points in my life. I felt
27:52
Speaker 3: like there was no one to witness my existence, you know,
27:56
Speaker 3: and you want to.
27:59
Speaker 2: Be safe, you do?
28:00
Speaker 3: You do you want someone to sweep in whatever that
28:04
Speaker 3: save even means. I think we're speaking generally, just someone.
28:08
Speaker 2: To lift you up and make you feel good and
28:11
Speaker 2: take you out of black and white and into color.
28:14
Speaker 2: You know, forgive the cliche.
28:15
Speaker 3: So I do think.
28:16
Speaker 2: People still want to be saved.
28:18
Speaker 3: But you know, in more practical terms, all of my
28:25
Speaker 3: female protagonists save themselves. And I think that when it
28:30
Speaker 3: comes to long lasting emotional health, I think that's the
28:34
Speaker 3: safest thing to do, because once you've done it, you
28:37
Speaker 3: know that you are good alone, and so whoever else
28:41
Speaker 3: comes into your life. Is this fabulous like frosting on
28:45
Speaker 3: your cupcake, But you're already the cupcake.
28:47
Speaker 2: And that's a great feeling, it really is.
28:50
Speaker 1: Oh, I love that. I've never heard anyone say that
28:52
Speaker 1: you're already the cupcake. Yeah, that's great. I heard your
28:57
Speaker 1: husband loves your writing.
29:00
Speaker 2: He does, Yeah, he is a fan.
29:04
Speaker 1: Does he ever pick up on things that you don't
29:06
Speaker 1: pick up on even or like didn't even mean to
29:09
Speaker 1: write certain nuances.
29:11
Speaker 3: All the time he did, Or he'll he'll be like
29:16
Speaker 3: I said that, like you took that.
29:19
Speaker 2: I'm like I'm the one who and I'll be like, yes,
29:21
Speaker 2: you know, you inspire me all the time. It really
29:25
Speaker 2: in a love song for Ricky Wilde.
29:27
Speaker 3: What was happening in the background while I was writing
29:30
Speaker 3: that was that his mother was passing well, she had
29:36
Speaker 3: terminal cancer. And he's Danish and so she was in
29:41
Speaker 3: Denmark and he was here.
29:44
Speaker 5: And I've never had a death you know like that
29:49
Speaker 5: in my personal life, you know, like inappropriately young death.
29:55
Speaker 2: I mean, she was sixty seven.
29:56
Speaker 3: You know, I've had my grandparents who are very old,
29:59
Speaker 3: you know, like I've never had like.
30:00
Speaker 2: A shock or you know, anything like that.
30:03
Speaker 3: And watching him sort of engage with that grief and fear,
30:09
Speaker 3: and him telling me about you know, when he would
30:12
Speaker 3: go to Denmark and visit her, and kind of how
30:15
Speaker 3: sometimes she would be talking to him and then she
30:17
Speaker 3: would just sort of fade out a little and look
30:22
Speaker 3: to be engaging with something else, you know, in the room,
30:26
Speaker 3: and then she would come that he couldn't see or
30:29
Speaker 3: you know, and then he would she would come back
30:31
Speaker 3: and just kind of experiencing this transition she was making
30:38
Speaker 3: that gave me mastella. And I didn't know that until
30:41
Speaker 3: he read it. Yeah, sometimes you're so deep in it
30:45
Speaker 3: you don't even know where your music is coming from.
30:51
Speaker 1: How long have you been together?
30:53
Speaker 2: Years? Yeah?
30:54
Speaker 3: I swiped right on him in twenty eighteen.
30:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, how quickly did you know? Oh?
31:01
Speaker 3: Instantly, I know, I know that that's wild, but I
31:05
Speaker 3: knew instantly.
31:08
Speaker 1: What does that mean? Like as soon as you swiped her,
31:10
Speaker 1: as soon as you met.
31:11
Speaker 2: No, as soon as you know.
31:12
Speaker 3: When I swiped, I was just like, he is fine,
31:15
Speaker 3: and if anything, this will be like a fabulous story
31:18
Speaker 3: or one night stand or like something.
31:21
Speaker 2: But I actually even thought my.
31:22
Speaker 3: Head, he's too good looking for this to be anything real,
31:26
Speaker 3: because I tend to think that really, like beautiful men
31:32
Speaker 3: all have personality disorders.
31:35
Speaker 1: But he's Danish, so it might be different exactly.
31:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I have come to that realization, like maybe
31:42
Speaker 3: that is just limited to Americans.
31:45
Speaker 1: But because I sort of feel like Idris Alba doesn't
31:48
Speaker 1: have a personality disorder, he's just British.
31:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, or like Pierce Brasient, like, yes, yeah, I see that,
31:57
Speaker 3: but so no, when I swiped her, just like, he's
32:00
Speaker 3: so cute. Then we started talking and I realized that.
32:03
Speaker 3: So my father was in the military and we were
32:06
Speaker 3: stationed in northern Germany from eighty five to eighty nine,
32:10
Speaker 3: which is like an hour and a half from the
32:13
Speaker 3: tip of Denmark s right over the North Sea. And
32:17
Speaker 3: I had been in his hometown. We had been in
32:21
Speaker 3: the same town as children, which is crazy. And when
32:24
Speaker 3: we found out we found that out, Yeah, we had
32:29
Speaker 3: I had gone to his hometown because Legoland was nearby,
32:32
Speaker 3: and my parents took us there one weekend. But then
32:35
Speaker 3: we realized we had all of these cultural you know,
32:38
Speaker 3: we had these cultural touch points. And then we realized
32:43
Speaker 3: we were both pop culture heads and big readers and
32:50
Speaker 3: also we're you know, Layton weirdos.
32:54
Speaker 2: And it was it.
32:56
Speaker 3: That was just it. And then when I met him
32:58
Speaker 3: and I saw a tall he was, then I was like, oh.
33:02
Speaker 2: You're my husband.
33:04
Speaker 1: Did he feel the same way?
33:05
Speaker 3: He felt the exact stay like it was like one
33:08
Speaker 3: of those instant things. And like on our second date,
33:13
Speaker 3: my phone was I was getting like bumbled so Bumble
33:17
Speaker 3: was the dating app we use.
33:18
Speaker 2: I was getting bumbledonifications.
33:19
Speaker 3: He was like, you haven't heard just because I'm not
33:21
Speaker 3: a tech forward person and I didn't think about it,
33:25
Speaker 3: and he was like, you didn't turn yours off?
33:27
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, you did.
33:28
Speaker 3: He was like when after we connected guests like that
33:32
Speaker 3: was it?
33:33
Speaker 1: Like, you know, that's so cool. Okay, I'm going to
33:37
Speaker 1: throw out sort of a depressing Morgan Stanley's study about women.
33:42
Speaker 1: So Morgan Stanley predicts that forty five percent of women
33:46
Speaker 1: aged twenty five to forty four will be single by
33:49
Speaker 1: twenty thirty, which really like aligns with this growing trend
33:53
Speaker 1: of women either swearing off dating. There's like a whole movement.
33:58
Speaker 2: Oh, the Korean movement. Yeah.
34:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, they've just like totally become celibate and sworn off
34:03
Speaker 1: the three Be movement, that's what it's called. Yeah, as
34:06
Speaker 1: somebody who was in the dating world had been through
34:11
Speaker 1: it and now writes about love and romance, what is
34:14
Speaker 1: your advice to women who are dating and frustrated?
34:18
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I have said it so many times.
34:22
Speaker 2: If I wasn't married to this man, married specifically to
34:25
Speaker 2: this man, I would be doing the three Be movement
34:30
Speaker 2: of these men. Look at where they they've landed us,
34:33
Speaker 2: Like they're not thinking about us. There has to be.
34:36
Speaker 2: It's almost like with children now you have to overcorrect
34:39
Speaker 2: for them to understand the lesson.
34:41
Speaker 1: Oh.
34:43
Speaker 2: I feel like we sometimes have to do that with
34:44
Speaker 2: men as well.
34:46
Speaker 1: That's very interesting.
34:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, and also we have the rose Vibrator, like we
34:53
Speaker 3: have all sorts of ways.
34:54
Speaker 2: We have Quinn. I don't know if you were aware
34:57
Speaker 2: of Quinn's.
34:58
Speaker 1: I've never heard of Quinn.
35:00
Speaker 2: Oh, who's Quinn about? Could change her life?
35:04
Speaker 3: Quinn is an app that is just voice actors reading
35:11
Speaker 3: smut anything you want.
35:14
Speaker 1: I've heard of this.
35:15
Speaker 3: Sometimes celebrities will dip in and do it. There was
35:18
Speaker 3: Andrew Scott, the Hot Priest, did a series last summer
35:22
Speaker 3: that That's what brought me to Quinn.
35:24
Speaker 2: I had never heard of it. I was like, wait,
35:26
Speaker 2: and Scott, what's he doing? Because I really like him?
35:28
Speaker 2: And now I can't.
35:30
Speaker 3: Get off of it, Like it is so fun.
35:33
Speaker 1: That is so fun. I'm so glad you told me
35:36
Speaker 1: about it. The people that listen to this podcast are
35:39
Speaker 1: big readers, so they'll if they don't know about it already,
35:41
Speaker 1: they'll love that.
35:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, and book talk girlies are so into Quinn, like
35:47
Speaker 3: because all of the like tropes and kinks that you
35:52
Speaker 3: find in romance are on this site, so you can
35:56
Speaker 3: be like, you know, today, I'm in the.
35:59
Speaker 2: Mood for a slow burn.
36:05
Speaker 3: Enemies to Lovers a Werewolf, Summer Solstice from the Back
36:12
Speaker 3: and sub.
36:15
Speaker 1: Whoa Whoa to Yeah, Yeah it's great. Do you think that,
36:24
Speaker 1: Like when I think about the different generations of romance novels,
36:30
Speaker 1: there are differences, but I think the idea of love
36:34
Speaker 1: is universal and remains in terms of the sex scenes
36:38
Speaker 1: in romance novels. Do you think that this generation's desires
36:43
Speaker 1: are different? Is that sort of reflected in your writing
36:47
Speaker 1: or do you think it's it is sort of the
36:49
Speaker 1: same as it's always been.
36:51
Speaker 3: I don't think the desires are different because people have
36:54
Speaker 3: always been people, even if back in the day we
36:57
Speaker 3: didn't have names for the category thing that turns a
37:01
Speaker 3: song or that we want to read or that we
37:02
Speaker 3: want to fantasize about but maybe not due in real
37:05
Speaker 3: life or you know, so I think the desires are
37:08
Speaker 3: the same. I think what's allowed is different. What's allowed
37:12
Speaker 3: to be in a book, you know, a mainstream book
37:16
Speaker 3: is different. Like you know, I was a kid in the AD.
37:20
Speaker 3: I grew up in the eighties and that's when I
37:22
Speaker 3: started reading romance, and back then it was all about
37:28
Speaker 3: virginal Dewey, you know, a milky.
37:33
Speaker 2: Side blonde, you know, winsome virgin.
37:38
Speaker 1: Being milky side is hilarious.
37:42
Speaker 3: It's always her milky thighs, like come on, being in
37:45
Speaker 3: flats and hair, being overwhelmed and overtaken by the dramatic
37:50
Speaker 3: masculinity and testosterone of you know, a rake. And it
37:54
Speaker 3: was always like dubious consent and no, no, no, but yes, yes, yes,
38:00
Speaker 3: there's you know, the term bodice worker comes from something,
38:02
Speaker 3: you know, and I actually grew up thinking.
38:06
Speaker 2: Oh, that's how to be like, even if you're not
38:08
Speaker 2: super virgil, you have to pretend that, oh, I've never
38:10
Speaker 2: done this before.
38:11
Speaker 3: You know. It was really just that one way it
38:14
Speaker 3: was like considered really wild if the woman had a
38:19
Speaker 3: high libido or was like like you know, like Jackie
38:21
Speaker 3: Collins would do with Krantz. Like those novels were really
38:24
Speaker 3: frisky because the women were you know, wow, you know,
38:29
Speaker 3: like they were taking control, but they were taking control
38:33
Speaker 3: in like expected ways. They were behaving like men.
38:38
Speaker 2: You know.
38:39
Speaker 3: But now and everything was straight and everything was white,
38:42
Speaker 3: and everything was you know, one gender identity, and now
38:45
Speaker 3: there's just a million different you know, a million different
38:48
Speaker 3: sex scene vibes, like you know, all you can eat.
38:52
Speaker 1: I interviewed an author yesterday who writes a lot about
38:55
Speaker 1: the nineties, and I was laughing to myself, thinking, that's
39:00
Speaker 1: sort of nostalgic now for ya authors. Is there something
39:05
Speaker 1: about this time that you think people will be writing
39:08
Speaker 1: about nostalgically later? Like what is particularly romantic about the
39:12
Speaker 1: time that we're living in?
39:15
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a really good question. I think, like, you know,
39:19
Speaker 2: when we romanticize.
39:21
Speaker 3: The late sixties early summaries, like sort of like free
39:25
Speaker 3: love hippie.
39:26
Speaker 2: Stuff, like we like, oh, free love. You know, everyone
39:30
Speaker 2: was sleeping with everyone else, and you know, there were
39:32
Speaker 2: all these.
39:33
Speaker 3: Happy hippie feelings. And what came after that, like the
39:37
Speaker 3: super like hardcore, extremely republican, ice cold eighties. After a
39:42
Speaker 3: movement that seems to be very low forward, there comes
39:46
Speaker 3: conservatism and that always happened, So who knows what's going
39:50
Speaker 3: to come after this? All sexualities, all genders, like inclusivity
39:57
Speaker 3: with our new president that's coming, and the way the
40:01
Speaker 3: world is turning, and legislation and who knows.
40:06
Speaker 2: We're about to go where we're about to go.
40:09
Speaker 3: I think that the big thing that people will were
40:12
Speaker 3: romanticize about this era is that we were so accepting.
40:16
Speaker 1: I love that. Yeah, I hope that's true because.
40:18
Speaker 3: I don't think it's going to last or it's going
40:20
Speaker 3: to take on another form. It's just if you look
40:22
Speaker 3: at history, every like bohemian moment comes right before the
40:28
Speaker 3: tightening of the belt, and I worry that that's what
40:30
Speaker 3: we're in for.
40:33
Speaker 1: I'm wondering why you chose to go Ya for your
40:36
Speaker 1: next book, A love song for Ricky Wilde. Oh, I'm
40:40
Speaker 1: excited about it. I love Yevo.
40:42
Speaker 2: Yes, me too.
40:43
Speaker 3: I Actually it wasn't about choosing Ya. It was about
40:46
Speaker 3: choosing Audrey. So Audrey is the daughter of Eva Mercy,
40:53
Speaker 3: who is the protagonist in my novel Seven Days in June.
40:56
Speaker 3: And she was twelve in that book, and she's a
41:01
Speaker 3: fan favorite, Like, there's people who read the book and
41:05
Speaker 3: just want.
41:05
Speaker 2: To talk to me about Audrey.
41:08
Speaker 3: And so I was actually asked to by my publisher
41:13
Speaker 3: to write an Audrey novel because she's someone that people
41:17
Speaker 3: aren't finished with. So it's four years later in real time.
41:22
Speaker 2: And so she's sixteen, and so I made it a
41:27
Speaker 2: teen rom com. And yeah, I love teen rom coms.
41:31
Speaker 2: I love them when I was a teen of them.
41:33
Speaker 2: Now I have a teen living in my house and
41:35
Speaker 2: she loves them.
41:36
Speaker 3: So yeah, and it was so exciting to revisit this
41:42
Speaker 3: beloved character who I love so much, and it's actually
41:45
Speaker 3: inspired by my daughter, so she gave me a lot
41:49
Speaker 3: of inspiration as well.
41:51
Speaker 2: It was great.
41:52
Speaker 1: That's so cool for your daughter to see parts of
41:55
Speaker 1: herself reflected in a book. That's that's never really happened
41:59
Speaker 1: before for you because you have adult character.
42:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, I know she loves that.
42:03
Speaker 1: It'd be cool for her. Yeah, is there anything that's
42:07
Speaker 1: off limits? Does she ever get mad? Like, don't put
42:09
Speaker 1: that in there.
42:09
Speaker 3: Every time I think something is off limits, she's like no, Like,
42:13
Speaker 3: are you like she has a very I'm shocked that
42:15
Speaker 3: she's not a leo like.
42:16
Speaker 2: She's like absolutely.
42:18
Speaker 3: You know when Seven Days in June came out and
42:22
Speaker 3: people we saw on social media people loved Audrey so much.
42:25
Speaker 2: She would always be like, you're welcome.
42:27
Speaker 3: You know, she's definitely into it.
42:31
Speaker 1: So cute. Okay, quick, rapid fire before you leave me.
42:35
Speaker 1: The best tip you have for overcoming a creative.
42:38
Speaker 3: Block, don't do the creative thing. I think so often
42:42
Speaker 3: like we get this advice to try to push through it, but.
42:46
Speaker 6: I feel like if I am having a block, that's
42:50
Speaker 6: my body in the universe telling me that you need
42:52
Speaker 6: to be doing something else right now, and usually the
42:54
Speaker 6: doing something else brings me right back, like you know,
42:58
Speaker 6: I get an idea or you know, I rethink something
43:02
Speaker 6: and I think that advice is not given up.
43:05
Speaker 3: My daughter is actually a visual artist, and when she
43:10
Speaker 3: hits a bump, I always tell her then you have
43:13
Speaker 3: to stop, don't try to work through it.
43:15
Speaker 1: Time to go for a walk or something. Yeah, what's
43:18
Speaker 1: the best beauty tip you have? Coming from a former
43:21
Speaker 1: beauty editor?
43:23
Speaker 2: Oh god, so many.
43:24
Speaker 1: Something that's worth the hype or something that you do
43:27
Speaker 1: that you that you feel like moves the needle.
43:30
Speaker 3: Tap on your concealer with with your middle finger like
43:34
Speaker 3: the pad of your your f you finger instead of
43:37
Speaker 3: a brush like rapid and it'll look just like skin.
43:43
Speaker 3: A brush brushes it away like it doesn't. Like if
43:46
Speaker 3: you want to cover something, it's better to press it
43:50
Speaker 3: in than brush it on, because the brush is removing
43:54
Speaker 3: the product from the thing that you are trying.
43:56
Speaker 2: To cover up.
43:57
Speaker 1: Okay, I love how specific you got. That was a
43:59
Speaker 1: great one. Fill in the blank. The older I get,
44:03
Speaker 1: the more.
44:03
Speaker 2: I realize adulthood is a scam.
44:06
Speaker 1: A book that you've read that changed your life. Something
44:08
Speaker 1: that you think everybody should read.
44:10
Speaker 3: The Westing Name by Ellen Raskin.
44:13
Speaker 1: That's a great one. Yeah, okay, I do a question
44:16
Speaker 1: everything card game, So tell me when to stop stop. Okay.
44:23
Speaker 1: What's the story behind your name? Do you have a nickname?
44:26
Speaker 1: Who gave it to me?
44:27
Speaker 2: Oh? Tiyah has no story. But my middle name is Aisha.
44:32
Speaker 3: And it is Aisha because I was born in nineteen
44:34
Speaker 3: seventy five and in nineteen seventy five TV Wonder had
44:38
Speaker 3: a daughter named Aisha, and my dad was a massive
44:41
Speaker 3: Stan and he continues to be a massive Stan. So
44:45
Speaker 3: I was named after Stevie Wonder's daughter, and it is
44:48
Speaker 3: It means light in Swahili. It also has a Arabic
44:53
Speaker 3: meaning that I can't think of right now. But yeah,
44:56
Speaker 3: that's the story. And I have a few nicknames. Tewe
45:00
Speaker 3: is my family nickname. I was called tea Pet in
45:06
Speaker 3: high school because it's a pun from Chiapet And yeah,
45:13
Speaker 3: I think that's it for nicknames.
45:15
Speaker 2: It's hard when you have a three letter name. You know.
45:18
Speaker 1: TV is really cute. Yeah, it's very cute because it's
45:22
Speaker 1: like Kiwi, but it's your name. Okay, My last question
45:25
Speaker 1: for you is how has curiosity played a role in
45:28
Speaker 1: your life?
45:29
Speaker 2: It's everything. I follow it everywhere.
45:32
Speaker 3: The house we grew up in it was a follow
45:34
Speaker 3: it everywhere kind of a house. It doesn't matter how
45:37
Speaker 3: weird or embarrassing the interest is. It doesn't matter if
45:40
Speaker 3: it doesn't align with like who people think you are,
45:43
Speaker 3: who you think you are, Like, just go figure that out,
45:47
Speaker 3: you know. Like my middle sister, who is now a
45:51
Speaker 3: lawyer at Netflix's a perfect job for her because she's.
45:55
Speaker 2: An entertainment savant.
45:57
Speaker 3: But she would when we were little, she would be like,
46:01
Speaker 3: all right, I just discovered the Kennedy's.
46:03
Speaker 2: Now you have to sit down.
46:04
Speaker 3: And listen while I give you an entire speech on
46:08
Speaker 3: the genealogy of their entire family, and while I walk
46:14
Speaker 3: you through why they are cursed, literally, like at eight
46:17
Speaker 3: years old, that's a curiosity.
46:19
Speaker 2: She followed you.
46:21
Speaker 3: Just The thing about curiosity is you never know what
46:24
Speaker 3: you're going to get from it, you know.
46:27
Speaker 2: M h.
46:28
Speaker 3: We were watching Bram Stoker's Dracula when I was home
46:32
Speaker 3: in Virginia with my sisters a while back, and there's
46:36
Speaker 3: a scene where Dracula says, I've crossed oceans of time
46:40
Speaker 3: to find you and my sister and I looked at
46:43
Speaker 3: each other and she was like, that's that's where that's
46:46
Speaker 3: Ricky and a'sra And I was like, sure is, which
46:50
Speaker 3: I didn't even realize, but that's one of my favorite movies,
46:53
Speaker 3: and the whole structure of that is Ricky Wilde.
46:57
Speaker 1: Wow.
46:58
Speaker 3: And Dracula was an itch that I always loved scratching
47:02
Speaker 3: when I was growing up. I took a class on
47:04
Speaker 3: Dragula college. Like, it's a curiosity. Every time I go
47:08
Speaker 3: to London, I like do a brand Stoker like tour
47:12
Speaker 3: or whatever. And I say all that to say, you
47:15
Speaker 3: never know where it leads you, So yeah, all in
47:20
Speaker 3: for curiosity and curious people.
47:22
Speaker 1: What's one thing every woman should try it once?
47:25
Speaker 2: Trapiez.
47:26
Speaker 1: I love drappies tee wee.
47:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love.
47:31
Speaker 3: I've always done it once and I've never gotten back
47:33
Speaker 3: to because I have chronic migraines and you don't really
47:35
Speaker 3: want to.
47:35
Speaker 2: Like be upside down and all that stuff.
47:37
Speaker 3: The day I tried it, my head wasn't so bad,
47:39
Speaker 3: so I had a good time.
47:41
Speaker 2: I still like when you're doing meditation rituals or.
47:45
Speaker 3: Like, you know, a lot of time for paint therapy,
47:48
Speaker 3: they do biofeedback stuff where you you know, try to
47:52
Speaker 3: cool down or warm up your body just from like
47:55
Speaker 3: thoughts and like you'll you'll be given this prompt like
47:59
Speaker 3: what's you know, when have you felt the most free
48:02
Speaker 3: and light, you know, light and unburdened by pain? And
48:06
Speaker 3: I think of flying through the air, like honestly, and yeah,
48:11
Speaker 3: it was so cool.
48:13
Speaker 2: It was Yeah, everybody should try it.
48:16
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes I get repeat answers when I ask
48:19
Speaker 1: these rapid fire questions, and you gave me all very unique,
48:22
Speaker 1: original answers. So thank you for that. That was very
48:25
Speaker 1: fun for me to be on the side of Oh.
48:28
Speaker 3: I always worry that I'm just you know, a cliche spowder.
48:33
Speaker 1: No, I think we're all worried. We're like that. It's
48:35
Speaker 1: just there's so much information online now it's hard to
48:37
Speaker 1: not regurgitate.
48:38
Speaker 2: It's true.
48:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Tiya, thank you so much.
48:42
Speaker 2: Thank you. This was so fun.
48:49
Speaker 1: Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good day.
48:52
Speaker 1: To have a good day. I'll see you
48:54
Speaker 3: Next week is the shop Shop Shop Home