Latest / Radio 831: A Romance Podcast / Publishing Cadence, NYC Romance with Tia Williams, and Favorite Books Set in the City

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Publishing Cadence, NYC Romance with Tia Williams, and Favorite Books Set in the City · Radio 831: A Romance Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome to the Radio eight three one podcast.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: We're your hosts, Sinjon Obasker and Tyler McCall, and.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: We're so excited to talk everything romance, from the novels
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: and the tropes, to the book to screen adaptations and
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: of course the drama of it all. You know, unpacking
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: what the genre says about who we are and how
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: we love big stuff, important stuff.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: So this week we've.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Been thinking a lot about publishing cadences in romance, and
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: by that I mean how often authors are expected to
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: put out new work in romance. I think this is
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: a really interesting conversation in part because we know romance
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: readers to have like incredibly voracious reading appetites, Like most
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: of the romance readers in my life are reading well
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: over thirty forty fifty books a year, and they all
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: have day jobs.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: And that's not even their job. They're just doing it
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: for the love of the game.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: For the love of the game. And I think that
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: part of this long standing pattern of romance readers having
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: voracious appetites means that romance publishing has also been known
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: for a little bit of churn.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: And I don't say that in a negative way.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: I think it's just that romance readers become very accustomed
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: in some ways to seeing books come out by certain
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: authors every year or on some regular cadence, Like, yeah,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: it was a little surprising to folks that Emily Henry
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: didn't have a book this year, yes, or that Allie
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Hazelwood isn't doing a trad pub First of all, Tyler,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: I'm curious if you've noticed that as well, like if
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: this is like a real pattern that you're seeing, and
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: also what you think about that, both as an author
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: and as a reader.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I did pick up on the Emily Henry thing
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: because I'm used to it getting to be this time
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: of year and being like a new Emily Henry and
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I don't have one, and that's fine. She deserves a break.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: She's been very busy. But yeah, I have noticed it.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: I've noticed it being a big conversation. Obviously, when Rachel
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Read announced that she was actually going to t a
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: little bit of extra time with the next book in
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: the Heated Rivalry series, I know that was a big
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: topic of conversation. I have noticed it's such a spread
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: because I feel like you have authors like Tessa Bailey
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: who publishes a Cadence that I'm just like, how are
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: you doing this right? Versus other authors who are once
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: a year and it's usually around the same time of
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: the year. Alli's another one who publishes. I mean last
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: year she published like eighteen million things, and I was like, girl,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: when do you sleep? She's built different. But it's something
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: that I think about in contrast to like a literary
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: fiction author who can take years, if not decades. Think
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: about like Donna Tart specifically, who wrote The Secret History
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: and then didn't write anything again until The Goldfinch, Right,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: it was like, yeah, set like almost like a couple decades,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I think, and kind of the luxury of time of
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: sitting with something and tinkering with it. And to your point,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I think romance readers expect to be fed new books
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: regularly at least once a year, if by authors that
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: they like, if not more. As an author, I mean,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm just now working on my first book, and
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I have to say, like, now that I'm in the
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: editing process, I really can't imagine what it's like to
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: juggle that frequency of publishing because the edits take so
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: much time, or they do for me anyway, And you
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: want to be able to as an author really sit
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: in that world and sit with those characters. It's not
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: my skill set, it's not my ministry. I can't bounce
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: between different worlds in my head. Like I need time
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: to like settle in and sink in, and then once
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: I'm there, I like to stay there again. Churn is
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: not the right word, but it's not wrong. Like it's
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: a little bit like a conveyor belt. Sometimes, I think
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: from publishing, I wonder if some of that stems from
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: the fact that, like category romances are a huge part
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: of the genre, Like this whole subsection of romance publishing
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: that is specifically about like fulfilling reader appetites, and like
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: that isn't in any way meant to be like terrissive
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: towards categories. Like some really really great authors come up
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: through categories before publishing in different traditional publishing contexts.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, the length of those novels are shorter, and
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: that sort of turnaround on them that many more are
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: coming out annually.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: And when you're talking like category romances, what specifically are
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: you referring to, So.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Like Harlequin, for example, Sure these imprints have these like
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: really short, tightly written romances that are like under sixty
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: k words, which is quite short, right, Like the traditionally
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: published romance novel is closer to like eighty ninety much
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: even longer these days. But categories under Harlequin, for example,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: are all geared towards like really specific reader requests, so
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: they're organized by like heat and spice level, like how
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: much sex is in them, the kinds of tropes that
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: are in them there are much more specific, like I
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: want doctor nurse romance that has a secret baby plot,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: and that is going to be fed to me in
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: a tightly written sixty k words category romance, and there
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: are going to be several options for me to choose
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: from within Harlequin, So like that's what category is. Yeah,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: And I think because category is such an important part
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: of romance publishing overall, it maybe feeds this broader feeling
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: that like romance writers are expected to publish quite a lot.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: And I think the other piece of this is that
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: self publishing and indie publishing those timelines are way more aggressive.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Like I think self pub and indie pub writers are
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: typically asked or expected to publish every.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Six months at least.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: I guess it depends on the author. But like when
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking about like self pub romance, that's the timeline
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Of, and I think it makes it self publishing in
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: the indie aspect of it makes that more possible because
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: publishing moves notoriously slow. It's kind of insane sometimes how
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: slow publishing publishing can move versus in nindie publishing, where
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: you're not determining when you release your book by the market.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: You're determining the book by when your reader wants a book, right,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: You're not like when's the best time of year? Who
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: else has books coming out at this time? Like you're
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: not doing all those mental calculations. It's I've built a following.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: I want to keep this following of people who like
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: my writing, and I need to keep up with that.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: The other aspect of it that I'm also wondering about
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: is how much the rise of popularization of fanfic is
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: also doing that where you have a reader who comes
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: to expect a regular publishing cadence, even if it's not
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: new material. You're used to being delivered like a new
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: chapter every week.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of on that subject, I think it would
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: be really cool if romance and prints were able to
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: do like serial publishing in that way, yeah, like old school,
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: like a chapter every week or a chapter every couple
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: of weeks or something like that. Maybe fan fiction has
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: an influence, but in my experience I have unfortunately faced
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: too many fanfics that were like almost completed and then
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: the author totally abandons it for like, yeah.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: And years, devastating.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Much love to them. I support you for doing this
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: free project for people, But like Heather Gahre actually did
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: like a romance fantasy novel, like she released it via
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: her newsletter for like weeks and weeks, which was so cool. Yeah,
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: And I think I'm also really accustomed to stuff like
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: that because I love reading, like web tunes, like romance
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: web tunes are also sort of serialized. I think part
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: of it is also that we forget that the timeline
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: of romance publishing is quite long, and that romance is
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: so vast. Yes, authors like Sherry Thomas and Laura Kensel
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: did take much longer to actually form their books and
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: publish them. Or Elizabeth Kingston dropped a novel years and
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: years after the third in a series that she was
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: doing on medieval romance. There are people who take their time.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: I think the incentive structure is there for fast turnaround.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah. I think it feels very similar to me
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: of like being in a boy band, where it's like
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: the iron is hot and we got to keep striking
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: while that iron is hot. If the reader is that
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: voracious and the reader can churn through as many I
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: keep using the word churn, which feels like it has
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: like a derogatory connotation. But if the reader can be
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: reading in some cases like hundreds of books a year,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: you need to feed that reader.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking about you know who's like a really prolific
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: writer and publishers, Katie Robert. Oh, yeah, when I was
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: reading a lot of her work a few years ago.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: I mean I think I heard her talk in interviews
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: about how she realized this was a singular skill of
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: hers and just like totally took off knowing that she
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: could do that, which I think the hope is that
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: there is room in publishing for the people who want
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: to produce at that rate and can produce at that rate. Yes,
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: and there is also room for people to make work
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: on much slower terms because each is going to feed
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: something different for a reader like voracious and also.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Vast appetites totally. Some people are really nourished by being
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: able to bounce around and work on different things at
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: different times. Like I know writer friends who are like that,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: who it's like it's very creatively nourishing for them to
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: be working on just like and I mean like completely
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: different projects. That is a recipe for me to never
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: finish anything, So.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: To get sixty percent of the way through sixty.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Percent of the way through many things and finish exactly
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: none of them. But yeah, I think it also just
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: comes down to finding what works for you, and hopefully
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: readers understand. I think that readers certainly seem empathetic to
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: that need to like take a pause or Yeah, writing
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: and creative work in general is such a fickle process
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: that I kind of think that's just the way the
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: cookie crumbles. I think that's part of a broader conversation
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: about how art sort of ceases to belong to the
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: artists and it belongs to the fans. Like he a
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: rivalry is definitely something that it feels like that fandom
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: has taken control of and like doesn't really give Rachel
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, the space, yes for it
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: to be her thing anymore. I'm trying to phrase this
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: as politely as I can, what could you possibly mean
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: by that? Possibly mean?
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: But you know who does have a book coming out.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: It is the wonderful Tia Williams, who is the author
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: of many adult romances, including Seven Days in June, a
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: love song for Ricky Wilde, Audra and Bash Are Just Friends,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: which is one of her yas, and most recently the
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: one that kind of inspired this conversation, The Missed Connection,
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: which comes out on June ninth, at twenty twenty six.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: So good, it's so good.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: It's so good.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: But I think it's really exciting to see new work
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: from an author like Tia who is like so skilled
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: and write something so specific and I think oriented to
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: a very specific place and time, Like Seven Days in
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: June feels like it's a time capsule of Bedsteye and
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: of New York in that particular time period, and the
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: misc Connection. I don't wanted to bring her on to
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: talk specifically about New York, about writing in New York
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: as a New York based author, but also writing characters
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: who have these like deep and loving relationships with New
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: York as a city, and what it means to like
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: treat the location of a novel so seriously in the
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: way that she does.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Tia, Hello, welcome to Radio eight three one. We're so
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: excited to have you.
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: So excited to be here, and I'm actually a little
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: nervous because you two are such scholars, You're so brainy.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Oh but me, we both spent the weekend devouring the
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Missed Connection. Devouring is correct, and we're so excited to
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: talk to you today. I specifically have been dying to
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: talk to you about this because one of the things
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: I love so much about your writing is it has
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: such a strong sense of place, especially in and around
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: New York City. Like I'm reading The misc Connection and
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, that coffee shop is up the street
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: from me. I know exactly where that food truck situation
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: is for West There's something in that that feels so
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: fun to me. And so I wanted to get into
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: how you use location as a character.
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's a great question, because yeah, all my books
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: take place in New York they specifically Brooklyn. Like writing
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: about Harlem for Ricky Wilde was a huge, you know,
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: departure for me, which sounds so silly if you're not
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: from New York.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: To be like, Okay, but it's still New York.
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: But all the boroughs, and even like the neighborhoods within
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: the boroughs are representative of a different kind of.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: Person, you know.
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: It's a different way of moving, it's a different way
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: of speaking, a different you know, in some cases, different
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: socioeconomic levels, the way certain neighborhoods change over the years.
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: For kids that were born in Fort Green last year,
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: their life is very different than born in Fort Green
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: in the seventies or the eighties. I just think place
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: informs everything. I mean, look at Weathering Heights. It took
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: place in the moors with like this tempestuous weather, and
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: that elicits tempestuous emotions. I love writing about New York,
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: and I always make sure there's one person who grew
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: up there for real, in another transplant, because what I
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: think is so interesting about transplants, myself included, is that
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: everyone comes here to become something new.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Something that always strikes me is that you're able to
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: so specifically nail down kind of like an archetype of
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: a person using fashion choices, which obviously really tickles me.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: A'm wways like I know exactly who she is based
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: on what she's wearing, but also where they choose to
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: live now, where they're from. All of that, it kind
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: of builds into this person where you're like, I've met
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: this person, I know who this person is. Is that
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: something you're consciously building as you're writing, or is it
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: something that kind of starts to show up as you're going.
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: I was a beauty editor for a thousand years. The
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: thing about old school beauty writing is that it's the
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: same blush, it's the same mESC era. You're describing the
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: exact same concealer every season.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: So you have to like.
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: Make it sing. You have to come up with the
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: most creative language. You have to be so descriptive, it's
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: ridiculous to do that.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: You like zoom in on every fantastic detail you possibly can.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: And it's the same thing with characters.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: That specificity feels so characteristic of your writing.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Like the thing that I kept saying after I finished
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: The Misconnection is that like you could pluck any line
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: of dialogue and without the tag know who is saying it.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Like there's just such a level of specificity to your
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: character that I think is so interesting. And I was
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: also thinking about like specificity of place when it comes
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: to Sasha the main character's actual apartment. Like the fact
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: that at the beginning of the novel you set up
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: this context where she used to live in a brownstone
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: and has now moved into like functionally a gentrifier, white
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: box apartment, and like how that itself is like a
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: symbol of her disconnection from a broader world was really
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: interesting to me, because then there's also this through line
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: of like Fort Green gentrification happening in the background, and
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: I'm like curious about how you think about that, Like
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: physical residence as an extension of character.
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: It's true that we know authors take from their own
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: life and as a person who you know. I moved
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: to Fort Green in nineteen ninety seven with my girlfriend
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: straight out of University of Virginia.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: We lived in a little shitty like.
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: Fourth floor apartment walk up in a brownstone.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: You heard people all the time.
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: You could lean outside your window and have a full
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: conversation with someone. Everybody was on the stoops, there was
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: hardly any separation. Also, no one had ac so we
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: had to be outside. And now I live in a
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: high rise and I don't even hear my neighbors at all,
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: and there's a coldness to that, and it changes your
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: lived experience in New York, and I think that's important
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: for context and telling the story too, that our female
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: protagonist is in an almost literal.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Bubble, like her pursuit of safety becomes like agoraphobia kind
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: of quickly, which is challenging in a city where everyone
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: is on top of each other all the time.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we've brushed against this a couple of times. And
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: I want to ask, Obviously, gentrification is a huge issue
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: and topic of conversation in Brooklyn, like across many many
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: neighborhoods in Brooklyn right now. But I'm curious how you
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: choose to kind of weave that in and work it
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: into a romance and how you balance that structure.
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: People always ask me that, Like, you know, with seven
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: days in June chronic illness, it's like it's dark. How
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: do you make any sort of light, sexy romance happen
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: around something like that?
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like the same thing here. That's how
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: life unfold.
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: And I like to in my writing show what the
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: lives are really like when the love happens, because rarely
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: is it not. Are you not bringing the most complicated
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: situation to the falling in love portion of the program.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: It's also funny you say that.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: As you said it, I was like, you've got mail.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: It's about gentrification, Like he literally he.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Literally downsizes her small, local Upper West Side business for
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: a big box store.
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, as they're falling in love, gentrification is happening, and
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: that's frustrating. And I always like to find a way
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: to focus on complicated, maybe darker themes, like while exploring.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: The Love, I want to talk to you about the
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: research that you put into these locations. I want to
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: know how you pick specific locations versus when you make
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: things up. Because as I was reading again the Disconnection,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: I was like, I know exactly where that is, but
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: that I think I was a googling stuff. I was
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: googling the laundromat where West lives, and I was like,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: that's not a real laundramat. So the first question is
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: how are you picking these real life like Walters or
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Brown Butter, these real life locations versus when you're making
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: them up. But also what kind of research are you
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: doing into the neighborhoods, Like when you were writing about Harlem,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: what kind of research did that do Because obviously that
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: also was historical research that wasn't just literal location research.
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I really prefer for everything to be real because
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: people go on pilgrimages.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet they like get.
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: Their girls together and like go for a New York jaunt,
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: and it's like these are all the places in Ricky wild.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: Or whatever, and so that's fun.
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: But I think when I need a place and it
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: just doesn't exist, or it doesn't exist where I need
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: for it to exist, then I make it up. I
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: wanted Wes's apartment to be above or next to I
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: don't remember a laundromat, and I couldn't.
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: Find the right place to make that happen, so I
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: just made it up.
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: And yeah, in the Brooklyn stories, I write about places
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: that I frequent all the time, so I don't really
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: I don't really research them because I know them already.
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: With a love song for Ricky Wilde, Harlem, I don't
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: know at all.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: I know Harlem Renaissance.
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: The thing that really struck me about Harlem was that
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: it felt like a city built on top of the city.
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: You could be walking down some block and then just
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: see a plaque on the side of a building.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: Random. It would be like.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: Billie Holliday was discovered here in nineteen twenty eight at
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: age fourteen. Or it's like this building is a CBS now,
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: but it used to be the Cotton Club. That research
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: lent itself to this sort of magical realism feel of
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: Ricky Wild, you know, and these like flashbacks back to
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: the nineteen twenties where these fantastical things happened one hundred
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: years ago.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: I think the thing that you were so good at,
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: and I hope that you like just continue to do
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: forever and ever, is treat romance like they have big
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: brains and want to use them when they read the thing.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: Is like, that's not incompatible with it being so fun
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: and funny. Like I literally giggled my way through the
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: whole book. But like it also made me think, which
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: such a gift?
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Such a gift.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: I think all things can exist together in a romance.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: I do, like, there's no.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: Reason not to make it smart, there's no reason not
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: to make it thoughtful.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: You know, let's put all the things in there.
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: Words to live by.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: I loved that conversation with Tia. She's the best. She's
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: so much fun.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I love her so much, and I
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: love her writing so much, and she's such a joy
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: and she's so smart about romance.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: As I was saying, if I've a million times to Tia,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: one of the things I love most about her writing
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: is the accuracy with which she captures the spirit of
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: being in New York. We talked about how New York
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: is kind of a character in its own right, and
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: that really got me thinking about New York City romances.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Which is a really specific subgenre of romance. I think, like,
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: there are a lot of New York based romances, and
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: I'm wondering if it's like leftover Nora Ephron influence.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: See that's what I felt too.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it just makes the city feel particularly romantic.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: But there's I think a difference between people who are
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: interested in the like romantic aura of the city and
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: people who are interested in writing about the city as
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: it is. Which isn't to say that like New York
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: can't be devastatingly romantic. Sometimes it can also just be
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: devastating as we know. Well, So I think it's interesting
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: to see authors take either like a more realism oriented
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: spin on New York versus one that is like an
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: affectation of like what New York can be and there
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: are those. Both are valid approaches. That's not like a
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: criticism of one over the other. I'm guess I'm curious, like,
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: do you feel like you have allegiances to New York
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: being represented in a certain way.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: I do.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: I like to feel really grounded in this, I guess
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: what you're saying, that realism thing versus like a thirteen
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: going on thirty or like gossip Girl, which I mean,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: gossip Girl's my favorite show of all time, and I
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: love a highlight reel of New York City. But I
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: also like feeling the kind of grittiness. I like the
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: specificity that different neighborhoods can give you about different characters.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: I like the specificity of where they're going to eat,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: where they're going to drink. Like, I just really love
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: all that stuff. And I really feel like I gain
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: so much from reading that. But that being sad. You know,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: we were talking about this, and I was thinking about
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: how many great romance novels are set in New York.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: What if we just had to pick one favorite romance
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: novel set in New York.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, you look so pained, I know, I like, even
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: in a cursory glance at my favorite romance novels. So
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: many are based in New York. Yeah, like a truly
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: astonishing number are based in New York. So this is
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: quite a tough task.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: What is it about? Is it because you live here
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: and that feels like your most relatable experience or is
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: it like I'm really curious because I feel the same
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: way I love a city based romance.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Well, I think there is like a distinct pleasure in
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: being like, Oh, I know what coffee shop she's talking about.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: I think that sense of familiarity is so sweet like it.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: I think it can make me see New York with
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: like a rosy glow, which I love because that's where
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: I am all the time for the most part. And
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: so there's some sense of like the book feels more
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: intimate to me because the author has intimate knowledge of
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: the place where I live.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, SAME's that's the perfect way to phrase that. That's
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: how I felt reading The Misconnection and being like, Oh,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: that coffee shop is down the street from me, And
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: something about textually feeling like those people exist in my
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: world makes it feel cozier and like more I don't know,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: more real to me, I guess, in a way, which
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: is really interesting. Do you have a favorite that's your
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: favorite New York romance. This is going to surprise exactly
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: no one who yeah, like you know, anybody who follow
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: me knows, like I'm like the number one Kate Goldbeck,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: you again stand on this planet. If Kate o'beck you
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: again has no stands, I'm dead, etc. I love that
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: book so much for so many reasons. But it really
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: does capture New York in that really beautiful way that
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: we're talking about where it's like gritty and it pushes
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: back against the characters at times, like it's not always
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: this easy, beautiful thing. I love the explorations that they
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: do around the city. I love a big romantic gesture
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: in Central Park. Like it's just it's my dream New
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: York City romance novels. So you get through like different seasons.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: I love that. I love that it because it checks
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: in with them at different points in their lives. You
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: get to see kind of how the city changes, but
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: also weather changes, and I don't know, it's just like
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: it's my platonic ideal of a New York City set
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: romance novel because you do have these like really gorgeous,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: beautiful romantic moments and then you have moments where you're
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: like crying at the strand you know, it's like the
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: best most realistic representation of living in New York.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: I remember distinctly being like, I too have cried in
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: a Selka like Selka on the Lower East Side.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: It also is so to your point with the Nora
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Efron of it all obviously takes a lot of inspiration
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: from when Harry met to Ali. Yeah, and I do,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: like anybody else, like I love a good Nora Efron movie.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: You've Got Mail as one of my favorite rom coms
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: of all time because it is again, like just such
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: a beautiful, perfect representation of New York. And I think
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Kate captures that spirit really well. Yeah she really does.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: What about you? Okay?
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: So I had to narrow down from several contenders. I
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: thought about Love Lettering by Kate Claiborne, which I do
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: really love. I thought about One Last Stop by Casey
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: mcquistin which I also really love.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, I think about every time I ride
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the Q train across the bridge. What a marvel to
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: make the Q train sexy?
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Truly, what a marvel to make the Q train sexy?
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: And I believe they did it. I thought about.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: Joanna Shop because she wrote a bunch of historical set
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: and Gilded Age New York, so it's New York but
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: not it's like a totally different spin, like because obviously
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: they're historicals and so you're not looking at New York
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: as it currently is. But it's like there is a
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: sense of if you've seen Gilded Age the show, and
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: I have right very much of so I need that
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: wreck by the way.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'll.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Send you all the titles. I was thinking about which
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: one I could recommend, and there are a bunch. I
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: think Prince of Broadway might be a good one. But
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: there is actually also an intimacy to being like, oh,
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: I'm seeing the thing that will become a part of
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: my life. Like yes, I'm watching people build, the institutions,
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: the buildings, the features that I recognize and that I know.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying I'm a frequent patron of the met
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Opera by any means, but like the fact that it
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: exists narratively in that story because of other people, I
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: think feels intimate in its own way, and Joanna is
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: doing some of that in her Gilded Age historicals. As
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: well of being like we're talking about the building of
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: New York as we know it, and so I was
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: thinking about that. But the book that I've chosen actually
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: is Truly by Ruthie Knox Oh, which is an older contemporary.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: It's not that old. It's like twenty thirteen. I believe
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: a twenty thirteen really, so it's over a decade old.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: And it is a story about a girl who doesn't
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: really like New York but moved there from Wisconsin, where
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: her family is from. And this book begins with her
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: turning down her famous boyfriend's proposal very publicly, and it's
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: a really shameful experience for him and for her, and
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: she basically is like stranded in the city due to
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: a series of events following this like totally terrible proposal,
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: and stumbles into this guy named Ben, who is such
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: a jerk.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: He's such a jerk.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: He's like a former chef who has anger problems, but
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: he's now a bee keeper in New York who also
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: works in kitchens, and he basically is like, what do
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: you mean you don't love New York? I don't understand
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: that at all, and shows her how to eat in
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: the city. But I do remember the feeling of her
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: falling in love with a place because she's falling in
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: love with a person.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: M hmm, okay, I'm adding that to my reading list.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Teas were on my list, and then also Cara baths
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Stone I think is really good at capturing. I'm thinking
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: specifically of like Promise Me Sunshine, Yeah, the Staten Island Fairy. Yeah,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: capturing the ways the city can be both like deeply
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: aggressive and painful and tough, and also the ways it
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: can be really nurturing and provide a safe haven. And yeah,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: so obviously New York is.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Very special to Tyler and I. I mean, look, then
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: the knicks are up, We're up. It's a beautiful time
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: to be alive. It's a beautiful time to be in
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: New York. But there are obviously lots of other cities
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: that are excellent romance material. I hear allegedly allegedly, but
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: forth your best choices. Give me your best Chicago romance,
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: give me your best La romance.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: I know, I actually would be super into La romance.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: Res Yeah. I actually that was kind of joking, but
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: actually it's a really sincere question. Please give us your
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: La and Chicago romance recommendations. And like. If you have
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: a favorite New York one that we haven't mentioned, let
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: us know that's the show.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Call us and leave us a voicemail with your thoughts
• 29:21
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• 29:24
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• 29:28
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• 29:40
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  Speaker 1: Merchdio three one podcast is a production of iHeart Podcasts,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: hosted by Sandana Bascar and Tyler McCall. The show was
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: produced by Liz Smith and for iHeart. Our supervising producer
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: is Emily Merodoff. Special thanks to the whole iHeart team
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: and especially Ali Perry and Alison Kanter Graper, Our executive
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: producers are Claire Maser and Erica Cerulo. Our music is
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Domino by James Ryan Carr and Love Is What You
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Do by Alibi. We'll be sharing love here again next
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: week