On How Do I Book?, Christina had the opportunity to interview Beth Reekles about rom coms and why we love this kind of lit!

Sincerely Yours, Anna Sherwood (releasing in the UK on November 9, 2023!)
Faking It (US release is February 13, 2024!)
The Kissing Booth
Lockdown on London Lane

The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas
Tis the Season for Revenge by Morgan Elizabeth
A Merry Little Meet Cute by Julie Murphy & Sierra Simone
The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer
Lovelight Farms by B. K. Borison
Girl, Goddess, Queen by Bea Fitzgerald

It's Library Week! Not only that, but today is Library Workers Day, so please celebrate with us by giving our chat with Nico D'Archangel, library technician and chair of the Virginia Library Association's LGBTQIA+ Forum, a listen.

Grace Ball  00:23
Welcome to How Do I Book? by Wildling Press. We like to chat about book writing, book publishing, book marketing, and of course, book reading. We're trying to help new and experienced authors develop their craft, widen their perspectives, and learn to get a little wild every once in a while. I'm Grace and I am so stoked, because, in case you haven't heard, today is Library Workers Day. And in fact, it's Library Week, all week long. So the celebration will continue. But today we're celebrating by having a little chat with the one and only Nico D'Archangel, who is a library technician at the Richmond Public Library and currently the chair of Virginia Library Association's LGBTQIA+ Forum. So, Nico, thank you so much for joining us.

Nico D'Archangel  01:17
Thank you for having me.

Grace Ball  01:18
Yeah! Alright, so before we get started, Nico, what are your pronouns?

Nico D'Archangel  01:22
My pronouns are he/him, please.

Grace Ball  01:25
Nico, would you mind just letting our listeners know a little bit about yourself?

Nico D'Archangel  01:28
Sure. I've got experience in archives, interlibrary loan, use services, and circulation so far, but of course, it being a library, there's always more to learn. And I'm very much an activist for accessibility in libraries, as well as making sure libraries are safe places for both queer and BIPOC staff as well as patrons.

Grace Ball  01:49
Yes, thank you so much. That's awesome. So just a little bit of context for our listeners, Christina and I had the opportunity to connect with Nico at the Queer and Trans Author Expo event here in Richmond. And we've basically wanted to be your best friends ever since. So I'm super excited to get to talk to you today! So let's get into the interview. Nico, how long have you been with the Richmond Public Library?

Nico D'Archangel  02:21
I've been with Richmond Public Library for four years. I started out part time in the children's department here at Main. And then a few months in, I got snagged over to the West End branch. And I got full time over there since then.

Grace Ball  02:36
Awesome. That's cool. What kind of led you down this career path?

Nico D'Archangel  02:40
No joke, I literally wanted to be a librarian since I was in the second grade, I just absolutely loved reading. 

Grace Ball  02:44
That's so cool!

Nico D'Archangel  02:46
I would help out my school librarian, like making sure all books are in order--they've got to be alphabetical, Dewey Decimal. I just thought it was the best thing ever and absolutely loved reading. And so I started off volunteering at my local library and working my way up, worked in my college library, worked at this library, this part of archives, because I grew up with my dad doing genealogy. And so that's very tied to history and libraries. It's the best thing ever. And one of these days, I will get my master's degree so that I can earn that capital L in librarian.

Grace Ball  03:19
Oh, yeah. Man, I know you'll do that. So it sounds like your position, at least with Richmond Public Library, has kind of changed a bit over the years. I'm interested to hear kind of what that transition looked like. And if you could describe a day at work four years ago versus what a day at work now kind of looks like.

Nico D'Archangel  03:39
Sure I can do that. Whenever I was hired in the children's department, I was their nights and weekends person. And so I'd be coming in when most of the main staff was getting ready to go home, and then I'd have the late shift, three or four hours at a time, rarely saw anybody. Just got to have fun playing with the books, looking at the new things that come in. I wrote pretty often for the blog in the early days, because I'm like, I'm sitting here, there's no shelving I can do. There's nothing else, so I'm gonna read this book and I'm gonna write about it kind of thing. Today, though, it looks very different from the full time. First thing in the morning, we always get there roughly an hour before we open, do our registers for the day, we print off a holds list. So that's the items people have requested in the last twenty-four hours that are at our branch. And so we go through the whole building trying to find all these books. The list can be anywhere from two to fifteen pages long, depending on the day.

Grace Ball  04:36
Wow. Oh my gosh. So do you kind of have an idea of what your day is going to look like before you go in? Or is it a bit of a mystery?

Nico D'Archangel  04:44
If it's coming back after a holiday we know it's going to be busy. If it's a really nice day outside we don't have as many people coming in. So one of those rainy, drizzly days we get a lot of families coming in. The West End branch has like a little puzzle and Lego table. Parents will bring their kids in and they'll spend forty-five minutes to an hour, if not all day there, instead of going to the park or whatever, on a Saturday. We get the outside book drop in the morning, before we open and again in the afternoon, just before we close. And as we start off the day, we've got a desk schedule. And so like, usually no more than two hours at a time on the desk. But the desk can consist of answering the phones, helping patrons check out, keeping an eye on the self-checkout station, helping people on the computers, opening the doors for people in the study room. And then when we're not on desk, we've got extracurricular-type programs. So if we're getting ready, like I'm going to be doing a book art program coming up, and so I've gotta like, make sure all my demos are ready and make sure I have all the books I need and all the materials. The children's librarian is looking around for this material for that program, or this the other. So there's a lot of off-desk work that happens that a lot of people don't see.

Grace Ball  06:01
Yeah, I bet. What would you say is like the aspect of your job that you love the most?

Nico D'Archangel  06:06
Besides my fantastic immediate co-workers, I would not be as happy in the job if it wasn't for them. We're a really good, cohesive group. I like that no two days are going to be the same. There's always something a little bit different, a little bit intriguing, interesting going on. Like, I'm never really going to be bored at the library. Even if I'm just sitting at the desk, I can be writing blogs, I can be researching because someone asked me "What kind of books are like this author?" well, let's find out kind of thing. So I like that flexibility of days, and how every day is a new adventure.

Grace Ball  06:47
So kind of the flip side of that question. What would you say is the most challenging part of your job?

Nico D'Archangel  06:53
That was the question I had the hardest time thinking about, I think, I would say, managing patron expectations. Because sometimes they come into the library, and they think that we're going to do everything for them. Like we're gonna sit down at the computer next to them, type in their passwords, fill out their resume, submit the job application, or something to that effect, because someone else in another thing that doesn't come to the library says "Oh, yeah! Go to the library. They'll do that for you."

Grace Ball  07:24
Right.

Nico D'Archangel  07:25
We can help you get on, but we can't handhold and some people really do need that step-by-step help. And because we're having to do so many things, we can't always get that help. And it's frustrating, because we can see the need, but we aren't able to fill it because there's never enough of us at any one time to meet every need.

Grace Ball  07:44
So it sounds like you've wanted to be working at a library basically your whole life. But once you really got into it, were there any aspects of working at a library that surprised you or that you think might surprise people?

Nico D'Archangel  08:00
I don't know if it's a surprise, per se, but one of the most fascinating things that I think about working at the library is access to books before they're published. Advanced Reader Copies, whether they're digital or physical, I think that's one of the best little perks about working in a library. Read a book before it comes out, and that way you're like, "Hey, this was really good. You should read this." Or, "You like fantasy? Have I got the book for you!" kind of thing.

Grace Ball  08:28
That's so fun. You get a little sneak peek.

Nico D'Archangel  08:31
Yeah, yeah! It feels like I get to help build the excitement and be a part of the process, helping people enjoy reading.

Grace Ball  08:42
Yeah. In what ways do libraries positively impact the community?

Nico D'Archangel  08:48
So many different ways: We are warm places when it gets cold. We're cooling stations when it gets hot. People can come into the library for as many hours during the day that we're open, and there's no expectation of spending any money while you're here. You can just exist. You can't go to sleep, but you can exist. So we're help for transient people. Someone that might not have anyone in their family to talk them through a difficult thing online, we can help them figure it out. We have notaries on staff at all our branches, and so we're able to help people notarize things. Some branches only get about ten in a month, but some branches do 150 notaries in a month. So that's obviously something the public uses often. We give community spaces for different people to host programs. If someone wants to make friends doing a crocheting club, they can book up the meeting room every third Saturday and like hey, this is now crochet group, come on and join us. There's all kinds of networking and community building. At our branch we have movies. We show matinees every Tuesday, pop our own popcorn, and for so many people afterward they end up thanking us like, "Thank you so much. We don't have to go to a movie theater and spend this much on a ticket and this much on popcorn. And I have something I'm looking forward to every week." And that's the only day they get out of their house, and the library is that community for them.

Grace Ball  10:22
So what can the community do to support libraries?

Nico D'Archangel  10:27
Two big things: getting a library card and walking in the building. So getting that library card, that's a statistic that our board and foundation are looking at, like how many library cards do we have versus how many people are in the population. And we have door count every day, like how many people walked in and out of our door? There's not that many, or we've got so much we need to put more programs here. Let us know what kind of programs you want to see if there's nothing that's there for you. Pre-COVID, there was a group that met at like a pub to do trivia kind of thing. But it was led by the library. 

Grace Ball  11:05
Cool!

Nico D'Archangel  11:06
So it's just like, get a library card and visit the library. That way it shows everybody we have the statistics to say, yes, the library is important.

Grace Ball  11:16
That makes total sense. So I know that Richmond Public Library has a volunteer program. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about that?

Nico D'Archangel  11:26
Sure, you can apply either online or in person. You can specify which branch you want to work at or just say any of them. Our person in charge of the volunteers will give specific jobs if you don't know what you want to do. Or say you're a grandparent and you miss your grandkids, so you want to do a storytime kind of thing. We can help facilitate that through the volunteer program. There's weeding our shelves to make sure we have room for new things, shelving, all the new things. There's different projects and events. Unboxing items that come in from publishers, like there's so many things to do that people can volunteer and help with. Our book sale that happens twice a year. It's always exciting! There's always a rush. And every time afterward on social media, "Look at all these books I got for just this much!" It's so cool. And it all comes from either donations or things that were weeded out of our collection--that's all the book sale is--and it does a lot to help the library and a lot of our money come from the book sales now.

Grace Ball  11:36
Yeah, the book sale is one of my favorite things. I gotta say.

Nico D'Archangel  11:36
Teens can volunteer if they need hours for schools. I know some schools require a certain number of volunteer hours, we can do that. The only thing our volunteer hours can't do is be like court ordered mandated things. We can't work with that one. 

Grace Ball  12:47
Oh, I see. 

Nico D'Archangel  12:47
Yeah, there's lots of volunteer options and things that can help any branch.

Grace Ball  12:53
So any final thoughts you have on the importance of libraries?

Nico D'Archangel  12:58
If I can plug a post I wrote for the library recently?

Grace Ball  13:03
Yeah, please!

Nico D'Archangel  13:05
It's called Library Myths. I narrowed down like fifteen different myths that people in general say about libraries. And I showed how that's not all of our libraries, like libraries aren't just for kids, they aren't quiet places where you can be shushed if you start talking louder than a whisper. We don't have just books, and a library card doesn't cost any money. Librarians don't get to read all day, even though we would very much like to. Richmond specifically, there are so many counties that we give free library cards to. It's not just people living in the city of Richmond, it's Hopewell, Petersburg, Williamsburg, Chesterfield, Goochland, Hanover, Powhatan, Prince George, they can all get a free library card at Richmond Public Library. Another important thing specifically about Richmond is we got rid of our late fees back just before COVID started. It wasn't helping. The late fees were going to the city, we might see 5% of it. It wasn't helping the library. But once we got rid of it, more people and more items started coming back to the library because there was no longer that financial worry about coming in. They're not going to be hounded for this much money. Because sometimes things happen and books and items get lost. So I like knowing that we only charge if items are lost or damaged now. If you find it, and it's good, we're golden. You don't have anything to worry about anymore.

Grace Ball  14:31
Bring it back any ole time. 

Nico D’Archangel  14:33
Yeah. 

Grace Ball  14:34
Nice. That's excellent. Great! Well, thank you so much, Nico. As we wrap up, I wanted to give you the opportunity to plug anything you'd like, social media accounts, personal projects. Is there anything you'd like to share?

Nico D'Archangel  14:48
If you're a social media person, follow Richmond Public Library, as well as the Virginia Library Association's LGBTQIA+ forum. We're doing a lot in the forum. It started off for like people who work in libraries, but we also do things for the general public, and it's all across the state, not just Richmond-specific, the forum.

Grace Ball  15:10
Awesome. Yeah. And I can list those handles in the show notes, so look there for those. 

Grace Ball  15:17
Thank you again, so much for coming on the pod today, Nico, I had so much fun chatting with you and celebrating you and all the library workers. And I just want to say thank you for all that you do.

Nico D'Archangel  15:17
Yayyy! 

Nico D'Archangel  15:29
Thank you very much. Libraries work because we do.


Episode transcribed by Grace Ball

It's National Poetry Month and Wildling is diving in deep. Poetry is so much more than just pretty words. Poetry is community, poetry is healing, poetry is a revolution. Don't miss this powerful conversation with spoken-word poet GM about how making space for poetry in your writing community creates a safe space for all of us. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  00:23
Welcome to How Do I Book? by Wildling Press. We like to chat about book writing, book publishing, book marketing, and of course, the book reading. We're trying to help new and experienced authors develop their craft, widen their perspectives, and learn to get a little wild every once in a while.

Mary-Peyton Crook  00:26
I'm Mary-Peyton, and today I have a very special guest with me! I'm so excited to be joined by GM. GM is a twenty-two-year-old trans non-binary poet and dessert baker based in Richmond, Virginia. Over the past year, they have dedicated themself to introducing the writing community of the city to the experiences of qtpoc individuals. Before debuting as a slam poetry artist, they wrote an anthology of poetry and prose, which they plan to publish--a body of work that removes the burden of gender from its characters. You can find them and more of their work on Instagram @o.k.gm. Welcome, GM, and thank you for being with me today!  

GM  00:41
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  00:45
Of course. So GM, what are your pronouns? 

GM  00:48
They/them. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  00:54
Okay, perfect. I know we just did an intro about you, but tell us a little bit in your own words about you and your life so far with poetry. 

GM  01:35
I actually love this question. Because I feel like, in short, I've been writing my whole life. I grew up with readers--me, my mom, and my sister, we used to go to restaurants together, and when we would wait for our food, we'd all pull out our books and we would read.

Mary-Peyton Crook  01:49
Oh, I love that. 

GM  01:51
Yeah! For most of my life, my sister (she's seven years older than me) . . . we would all kind of pass around our books after we were done with it. And seeing their love for reading made me want to write something that they would be proud of, and that they would enjoy. So I've spent my entire life trying to craft something that would bring my family joy in a way that tethers us. 

GM  02:14
It's really exciting because even though I've been writing for such a long time, it's been very recently that my family has started to see me actually on stage. I'm a little bit of an introvert and perfectionist, so I try to like . . . once I'm proud of it, that's when I want to share it with them. So it means a lot that they've stepped in on this journey once I feel like I'm in a place where I'm proud of the work that I'm sharing. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  02:36
That's awesome. That's got to be a great feeling. 

GM  02:38
Thank you. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  02:39
So for listeners who may be unfamiliar with the poetry that you specifically do, which is performance poetry, spoken word poetry, and specifically slam poetry, give us a little insight into what that is. 

GM  02:52
So for a really long time, I was mostly a poet on paper and I was going to a lot of slam events, but I never saw myself getting on stage. But I think that I grew such a respect for the vulnerability that people displayed in front of audiences of people that don't know them. And there's something so special about work that is meant to be shared through oration. You can feel the emotion, you can feel like there's a there's a cadence, there's a rhythm. Especially in Richmond, Virginia, there are so many powerful people with powerful stories, and hearing it come from their mouths and seeing the whole room share in this experience and hold the artist on stage . . . I think that's what spoken word is about. I think poetry in and of itself is very important, but I think there's something very niche and specific about sharing the story through oration. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  03:43
Yeah, absolutely. A lot of people, when they think of poetry they think of on the page. But poetry started as an oral practice. So, naturally, poetry is about that cadence like you're talking about, that sound. And so hearing it spoken out loud is a completely different experience than reading it on the page. It's an important part of that experience. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  04:02
I love that I'm getting to talk to you today just in general, but also because I used to be really into watching and listening and going to spoken word and slam poetry events. I never did it myself. I never got up the courage to do that. But I love listening to it and I used to listen to videos all the time because of that. There's something so soothing--even a really strong, intense poem--something so soothing about hearing another person's voice speaking those words, especially when they've written it beautifully in that cadence, you're right. And hearing, like you said, hearing the audience respond when they hear a really good line is so cool. It gives me goosebumps. 

GM  04:40
Yes. It's my favorite part to hear. I love being on stage and knowing something resonated with someone because I can I can hear that response. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  04:48
Absolutely. 

GM  04:49
It's very like we're experiencing this all together. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  04:52
I love that. Yeah, I feel like a lot of parts of the writing community are very formal, you know, on-the-page kind of stuff. And I feel like a lot of people should really check out performance poetry, because it is such a beautiful experience you can't get from just reading on a page. 

GM  05:08
I think it's very similar to performance art, when people are demonstrating a piece of art and there's like . . . the audience is there to watch them and take what they want from it. I feel very similarly about poetry being on the page versus seeing it in real life. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  05:22
And you mentioned being an introvert, which doesn't surprise me--a lot of writers tend to be introverts, you know? But then you do this performance . . . and I've gotten to see a few of your performances through your Instagram account, which are fantastic! Absolutely shook me. They were so good. And so I really was like, "Wow, here's a writer who is not an introvert, because they're out here performing, and performing so confidently and beautifully." How do you do that? What is that like for you? 

GM  05:50
I think that's an interesting question, and I think that it is slightly tethered with gender in a way. When I get on stage, it feels like I'm performing drag. I am a very characterization of myself, whether it's like the outfit . . . the energy that's coming from me is very not what is offstage. It's a lot of getting myself into this mindset of like, "I'm a performer right now." 

Mary-Peyton Crook  06:14
Cool.

GM  06:14
Yeah, and so many of my loved ones perform drag as well, and so there's so much inspiration. . . . I love that art form, and having them support me in that way. My roommate (who I live with, love him to death), he's a drag performer. And so he's a very big part of building me up before I get on stage . . .

Mary-Peyton Crook  06:30
That's awesome.

GM  06:31
. . . as GM versus who I am in real life. Yeah, I think a lot of times, I think that when you get on stage, it does seem like I'm a lot bigger than I actually am. I love crafting a space for myself to be loud, while also having space for myself to be small and alone and enjoy that time with myself. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  06:54
Oh, that's awesome. As an introvert myself, that makes sense to me where that would really help, you know? The idea that when you are performing, you can put on this persona, even if it's not like in drag where there's that full costume, right? You're still thinking of yourself as a different person in that moment, so that you have that confidence and that ability to say these things out loud, especially since a lot of your poetry is very personal, that you're able to say these things to the audience and perform it in a more comfortable space for yourself. 

GM  07:24
I feel like GM is kind of like the shield for the person that I am. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  07:29
I know that you have also written poetry for the page. What does your process look like? Do you make an active choice to make something performance versus written? What is that like, that decision when you're writing a poem? 

GM  07:43
I think that when it comes to performance . . . well, one of my favorite prompts of all time is The Audre Lorde Questionnaire to Oneself. And it's a four question prompt, asks you: What are the words you do not have yet? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies that you swallow to make your own? And lastly--and this is in short, but--what is the worst that can happen if you speak this truth? 

GM  08:06
And I feel like when I really have something that I want to say that I want to share, I feel like those are the things that I bring to the stage especially because, differing from that, one of my favorite messages from Toni Morrison--and I may misquote this, but--she talks about how if there's something that you want to read that has not been written yet, it is up to you to write it. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  08:27
That's one of my favorite quotes too! 

GM  08:29
I spent a really long time in the audience of slams. And though I felt this connection with the poets, I also felt that I wasn't seeing enough queer and trans people of color on stage. And I think that's when I decided that I would like to do that. I would like to create a space for us within this space. And it's been a really beautiful process of when I feel like I have something to say, it gets really scary getting on stage, but for . . . I want to say the last couple of times I've done it, there's always been at least one queer person in the crowd that comes up to me and says, like, "I have never seen someone share our story on stage like that, and I really appreciate that." And I appreciate them! Because I feel seen and I feel held in those moments. And I'm like, "You are here with me, and we are sharing this experience together." So that's definitely what I bring to the stage, what I want to spread awareness [about]. I want to share these stories that I think that we're either not listening to or moving past, if that makes sense. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  09:26
Yeah, absolutely. It's very cool that you can see the need that you felt going to those events and seeing that space that's open for trans non-binary people, and deciding that instead of waiting for someone else to make that happen and make that safe space, that you're like, "I can be this person for other people." 

Mary-Peyton Crook  09:44
Have you read--not to put you on the spot about what you've read, but--have you read All Boys Aren't Blue? 

GM  09:49
Uh uh, I should write that down. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  09:51
It's a series of personal essays by George M. Johnson, and he's a queer Black man and also a journalist and activist, and (I actually just read this quote earlier this weekend) apparently when he wrote it and he wanted to publish it, he said [something] like, "I don't care if this book is a huge success, or if it's a flop, as long as there's one person out there who sees this, sees themself in it, feels seen, then . . . that's the goal." And that book has become a really huge success and also is banned in a lot of places, unfortunately. But yeah, that just sounded very similar to your experience of wanting to get up there and make that space for someone else too.

GM  10:33
Yeah, I think--speaking of things being banned, and like there's a little bit of unsafety of sharing stories--I recently made the Writer's Den poetry slam team, and the nationals competition that we're going to is actually based in Tennessee . . . 

Mary-Peyton Crook  10:48
Oh, wow. 

GM  10:48
. . . which, I don't know if you know what's going on right now, but it's a very daunting feeling going into a space like that and still speaking, because I know, I know that there's going to be someone there that needs to hear it, especially in a place like that. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  11:05
That's so scary, though. I am a straight, cisgender white woman--my experience, my fear of getting up on stage is, like, "I'm afraid because I don't want to be embarrassed," you know? And so I don't have that perspective of real fear of something like that, like being in a space that's unsafe to exist in. 

GM  11:26
But I will say that I think it is like a genuine fear to get on stage regardless. Roscoe Burnems, the poet laureate of Richmond, he always says that the number one fear amongst the populace is public speaking, and that death is number two . . .

Mary-Peyton Crook  11:41
Oh my god.

GM  11:41
. . . so, completely . . . 

Mary-Peyton Crook  11:44
I believe that. 

GM  11:45
I one-thousand-percent get it.

Mary-Peyton Crook  11:48
Well, congratulations on making the team! That's so exciting. 

GM  11:51
Thank you. I'm really excited regardless. I know it's gonna be a fabulous time. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  11:56
Good. Why do you think that it's important for a community to have a space for poetry, whether spoken word or on the page? Why do you think that's important for a community? To you, what does poetry do for a community? 

GM  12:10
I find that poetry spaces are incredibly therapeutic. Especially because therapy in a lot of spaces [is] inaccessible to a lot of people, but the ability to write down and share an experience and be held in those moments is really important. And I think fostering artistry, no matter what age you are, even just for yourself, or for other people, I think that it's incredibly important to have that ability to release in front of people and have people give you that, "Yes, yes, I see you, I hear you, and you are valid for feeling this way. And you're not alone." 

Mary-Peyton Crook  12:45
That's cool. So you're based in Richmond, Virginia, which is where I am based as well. Do you feel like Richmond has a decent space for that? Do you think they have that space for poetry? 

GM  12:54
I think there's definitely a lot of spaces, you just kind of have to look for them. A lot of people reach out to me and they're like, "Ah, you're doing open mics! Where can I go to?" And I have done my digging. So I will send them away. There are so many lovely spaces. I think my favorite space has to be The Verses [aka Tuesday Verses] open mic, happens every Tuesday at Addis Ethiopian downtown. It's the best open mic in Richmond! Maybe I'm a little bit biased, but you have poets that are going there and singers and you have rappers and there's a band in the background, and everybody kind of just enjoys having this experience together. It's always so much fun and I always meet so many different people. It's beautiful, being able to come back and be like, "Oh my gosh, you're here again!" 

GM  13:42
And then so many of them they also go to these other open mics, like there's Open All That Soul, which I don't remember exactly where it is, but it's on Instagram at @openallthatsoul. The Writer's Den, they have slams every month. I want to say it's every Sunday or every first Sunday. There's so many spaces, you really just have to look for them, because I feel . . . At the Visual Arts Center yesterday there was the Poetry Festival--so much fun, so much fun--but I feel like there are a lot of people in Richmond that are like, "I'll go next year, I'll go next year, I'll go next year." And it's like, "You should come now!" 

Mary-Peyton Crook  14:15
I think that's a human thing to always put things off, you know? To be like, "I'm too busy right now. I don't want to go right now. I'll go next time." That's such a human thing to just keep putting things off. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  14:25
What would you . . . What advice would you give to someone who is looking to get into either writing poetry or performing poetry? 

GM  14:32
I would say to write as yourself and not as another person. I think a lot of times, especially when you're in the audience at first, you have this knee-jerk reaction to be like, "I want to write like this person." But truly I think that you should write the best version of yourself. I journal constantly and a lot of my poems actually come from journal entries where I'll take a specific feeling or a specific image and then I will translate that into an artistic piece to share. Definitely writing all the time . . . and again to talk about Toni Morrison, I've watched her documentary multiple times. It's incredible. I want to say it's called The Pieces of Me [correction: The Pieces I Am]. But she talks about how she always writes in the morning because she's more tender, and I think that after you wake up, there's something so soft about yourself. And I always find that that is the best time to write, starting the day that way and starting the day off peacefully, and crafting a good space for yourself to be vulnerable. I think it definitely has to do with writing as much as possible. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  15:33
It's the people who actually write every day and get into that practice that really find themselves open to ideas. And so therefore, they end up having more to write about in the future, because they're in that practice. 

GM  15:46
I think a lot of people will judge themselves before they actually start writing. And the real tea is that you've got to just throw it out there! Like mad-man writing . . . no one can judge you but yourself if you are in your journal. You just write as much as possible and let yourself sound cringy or not good or . . . a line doesn't actually work. You can always go back and change something or alter something or flesh out an idea more. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  16:14
Yeah, I love that. I love the idea of having your writing space to be a journal. I feel like people . . . a lot of times writers will separate their kind of journal-writing from their "Okay, now it's time to write something that I want to get published," or "I want to write something more formal to share with other people." And they separate those. And I also hear a lot of writers say, like, "Sometimes it's hard to sit down with my writing [notebook] or at my computer to actually start writing something. It's hard to freewrite." That's a good point that maybe if it's your journal where you do your writing, you can be comfortable with the fact that "No one's gonna read this, I can embarrass myself, I can write something ridiculous, I can write an inner thought that I'm ashamed of." And you never feel like you have to share it with the world. But you can take from that, which is very cool. I like that. That's smart. 

GM  17:00
I'm also a bit of an eighty-year-old man on the inside, so the computer is very, very daunting. I'm very much so a handwritten person, and then when it comes to a final draft, or when I was writing my manuscript, it was transferred from writing onto the computer. Thankfully I have friends that love me a lot, and so when I get tired, they'll read what I've written to me so I can jot it down. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  17:23
Aw that's beautiful! I love that, that's so nice. 

GM  17:24
It means so much to me, because it's always something that people have heard before, or that I've been talking about a lot. And I think it's also very vulnerable between the both of us, seeing something that I wrote and seeing my handwriting and seeing the smudges on the page, or maybe it was something really sad, so you can see some wet spots. There's a very, I don't know . . . I feel very connected in those moments when people are reading my own work to me. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  17:48
I feel like that would be a really strong friendship moment to be able to share that with each other, and also supporting your art, they're supporting your art. They're also there to listen and to read your thoughts. You're open to sharing that with them. That's a beautiful exchange in a relationship. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  18:06
How do you then take something that's so personal and try to edit it? Especially something like poetry where poetry can be so freeform, can be so open to however the writer wants to put it together. How do you take it and then sort of edit your own work and get it ready for either page or stage? 

GM  18:26
I really like to read everything out loud, whether it's meant to be read or meant to be listened to. If I'm not comfortable saying something out loud by myself, then I know that that's probably something that I won't like to share in front of an audience. Or, it's kind of like when you're writing an essay, I feel like teachers are always like, "You should read it out loud, so that you know that it flows really well," almost kind of like a song in a way. And I feel like, especially when it comes to spoken word, a lot of times you have this cap of three minutes, and so you've got to fit "What do I need to say?" versus "What do I want to say?" So once all the necessary information I feel the need to share is in there . . . and also if I finish reading a poem and I'm able to deep sigh, I feel this release and I feel like it's done. I feel "chef's kiss"! 

GM  19:17
I also love talking to other poets and collaborating with them. One of my favorite poets, she doesn't live in Richmond anymore, but Ayana Florence, she actually just won Women of the World Poetry Slam. She's the number one woman in the world.

GM  19:20
What?! Oh my gosh

GM  19:35
Yeah! You can find her on YouTube, on Button Poetry's YouTube . . . one of her pieces that she did at WOWPS, which is Women of the World [Poetry Slam], it's called "Boy Calls Me Pretty." It's fantastic. I love sharing my work with other people and having their eyes on it. And seeing, like, "You should say more here. This is where this part can grow. I think you can extend this part. I think this part is unnecessary." I think that once you start sharing with other writers you kind of get a feel of "This is where I can grow." I also feel like when it comes to writing, you grow by other people being able to see your work, whether they're listening to it or seeing it on a page. I feel like that collaborative process, as a community . . . I think you can build yourself individually. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  20:22
Yeah, if you want to write and keep it in your bubble that is totally fine. Writing is good for a lot of things. But I agree if you want to grow, then you've got to be allowing others to see your work, give you feedback (even if it's feedback that you don't eventually end up taking, that's fine). But you know, being open to learning from other writers is crucial, for sure.

Mary-Peyton Crook  20:45
So what do you think--this might be a little hard to to answer, but--what do you think is the hardest part about writing poetry, for you? 

GM  20:54
That's a great question. I want to say, I think it's hard to be honest and vulnerable with another person if you're not honest and vulnerable with yourself. I think once you overcome that hurdle within yourself, it's so much easier to do it with another person. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  21:11
Do you feel like you had a time in your life where you finally broke through that? Because I know that you are open and vulnerable with the with the room when you're performing; do you feel like there was a time in your life when you were younger that you finally understood that honesty actually helps in your writing? 

GM  21:27
So I think there were a lot of things that were happening in childhood that I had a really hard time processing on my own, and so in my poetry, I felt like I was expressing these feelings and I was saying something without saying something. And I still think that that was very powerful, and I look back on these pieces and I . . . I think I started being really honest on stage once I was able to process things in therapy. For instance, one of my favorite pieces that, if I'm able to share, I would love to . . . 

Mary-Peyton Crook  21:57
Yeah, absolutely. 

GM  21:58
. . . I talk about something that happened [that was] really hard, after I came out to my family. And this is now eight years ago, and I had only shared it for the first time this year. It was in February. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  22:12
Oh wow.

GM  22:13
It was really scary getting on stage with it, because, prior to that, most of my friends had no idea. It's not something that I talk about. But after that, being able to be honest, not only with myself, and relinquishing blame and just saying, "This is what happened and these were my emotions," being held by that audience and being appreciated, even with people that don't have that shared experience, honestly propelled me to get more raw on stage. But it definitely took a really long time processing those feelings on my own. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  22:47
That's wonderful. It sounds like being on stage and having that moment and having people react positively and kindly and with gratitude when you're sharing those stories is almost like the opposite of what can be really traumatizing in life, [which] is when you're expressing yourself and what you need and people respond negatively to that. That just is such a beautiful . . . it sounds like it's such a beautiful full-circle moment to come to that and realize that you can help other people through being that honest, even if it's hard to do. 

GM  23:20
I remember after I performed it for the first time, there was this lady who was kind of in the front row, and after I got off stage, she pulled me and she was like, "Can I give you a hug?" and just embraced me so tightly. And it was someone that I don't know, and someone that does not share that experience. Being validated and [told], "It's okay that this hurt," made it not hurt as much anymore. It was a very healing process. It feels really special to be able to share something that was buried deep for a very long time. And then in conjunction with seeing other queer people in the audience when I share that story . . . I know that they know. I know that they know, and they feel it as well.

Mary-Peyton Crook  24:04
That's so beautiful. I love . . . you know, I think about how much I love writing and reading and books and poetry all the time, and it's for moments like that, that really solidify how magical writing and communicating with each other can be. That's the whole point there. 

GM  24:23
I would say poetry is for everyone. And above that I think poetry and sharing spoken word is a revolutionary act. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  24:35
Ooh, yes! 

GM  24:35
Especially . . . I'm so excited to go to nationals. It's called the Southern Fried Poetry Festival. I feel like that is such a revolutionary space that all of these people, and above that, queer folk in the South, are coming together to storytell with one another. I think that that is a revolutionary act. I think it's an act of rebellion being able to connect in a community, because I feel there's an emphasis on being an individual and doing things solely by yourself. And I don't think that that is a way to heal. I think that we heal together in a community and lift each other up.

GM  25:12
I think that even if you are in the audience, there's just so much love in the room. It's such a healing experience of like, even if you're not getting on stage, feeling fulfilled in the art that you have heard and knowing that you were able to hold someone, whether or not you went up and spoke to them. It's a beautiful thing. I think that poetry saves lives; especially in the spoken word community, a lot of times we're talking about really niche, taboo things, and saying that it is okay to talk about them, and feeling not alone when someone shares it or you share it and someone gives you those good snaps! I feel like it removes you from isolation in a way, being able to share experiences. 

Mary-Peyton Crook  25:56
Would you be willing to share with us a piece of your poetry?

GM  26:01
I would love to. I'm gonna flip through my little journal really quick.

GM  26:09
This poem is titled "Mirror".

When I was a child, 
my mother and sister, seven years my senior,
would sit me down on my childhood home’s porch
and beg me to use my angry voice.
to get mad at my tormentors in grade school.
but little did they know,
that the bully who would truly bend me
until my spinal cord folded
had at one point lived in our house.
And that even as a teenager,
I still hadn’t found the angry voice in me to talk back–
to tell that middle aged black boy
that the privilege he chewed up and spit in my face 
made his breath smell
like that of a deadbeat uncle
rather than a father of two black women–
one he would disown at 15 for being transexual.
outside of a Starbucks
that I can’t bare to step foot in again,
drinking black coffee that would claw its way up my gullet
every time someone would express care towards me,
and I would feel the decade old caffein high
every time I felt that bittersweet abandonment again.

Ironic to now know,
that I was raised by a raging narcissist,
destined to become his warped reflection,
yet I left home a shattered mirror,
and promised to never harm someone the same way,
whilst piercing the skin of every soul
that attempted to scoop my fragments
into uncalloused palms
and I told each of them
not to look too closely,
as they would only witness the worst of themselves staring back at them.

I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder
in February of 2020,
five years after he promised to pray for me
but I gather that his words weren’t holy enough for God.
Though he cries he is a christian man, 
I guess he believes that thou shalt love thy neighbor,
but not thy children
that you should not pass judgment
unless it’s to shove his youngest child into a box
where their pieces would just never fit.
That if he did not like what he saw in the mirror,
he should shove his fist through it.

A few years back,
I had a spiritual awakening
and cried so hard that the breathless silence resonated off the walls of my church,
and felt inside me that my father
would die before I celebrated 20 years.
And the summer before my birthday, 
he stumbled into a fire. 
Barely survived but now walks around carrying the trauma on his now scorched skin,
and if my life were written by Toni Morrison,
then this would be symbolic.
And the flames that engulfed him,
were actually just my angry voice 
and God had heard his hateful prayers and smited him
so that he could no longer avoid the mirror to hide from his sins.

But,
I do not look much like him,
I have my mothers dutch facial features.
Yet I still sometimes contemplate my reflection for hours,
just to see him again.
And I realized that my eyes actually belong to this boy,
And we were witnessing the world through the same brown orbs.
And if I let reality slip through my fingertips
like polluted sand,
I could wave goodbye to his memory at any time.
And only hope he saw me looking back at him,
and his own mirror would begin to crack.



​
Episode transcribed by Mary-Peyton Crook

Christina Kann  00:24
Welcome to How Do I Book? by Wildling Press. We like to chat about book writing, book publishing, book marketing, and, of course, book reading. We're trying to help new and experienced authors develop their craft, widen their perspectives, and learn to get a little wild every once in a while. I'm Christina.

Grace Ball  00:41
I'm Grace.

Christina Kann  00:43
We are so excited because we have a very special guest with us today: Lucy Holland, author of Sistersong and the Worldmaker trilogy, host of Breaking the Glass Slipper, an intersectional feminist podcast celebrating women in genre fiction, and a pretty freakin cool person. Lucy, welcome to the show.

Lucy Holland  01:03
Thank you! That makes me seem cooler than I actually am. I'm really happy to be here.

Christina Kann  01:09
I just read facts. That's exactly how cool you are.

Lucy Holland  01:13
Well, thank you. It's really nice to be here, too.

Christina Kann  01:16
We are so excited to have you here. Before we move any further, please tell the listeners your pronouns.

Lucy Holland  01:22
She or her.

Christina Kann  01:24
Awesome. Thank you so much. We invited you on this podcast because last year, Grace and I both read Sistersong. Not to fan girl too hard, but I read 100 books last year, and it was my favorite book of the year.

Lucy Holland  01:43
Oh, wow. Okay! Thank you very much.

Christina Kann  01:49
I'll just let you tell the listeners a little bit about Sistersong, in case they haven't read it.

Lucy Holland  01:55
Sistersong is a reimagining of an old English murder ballad called "The Twa Sisters." It is also called "Bonny Swans," "Binnorie"; it has many names. It is basically the story of sibling rivalry. Two sisters fight over a man in the ballad. The older one kills the younger one, and the younger one gets made into a harp. It's usually a harp; sometimes she turns into a swan. But the version of the ballad that I heard first was when the sister gets made into a harp. That intrigued me so much that I wanted to do a retelling of it. So my retelling is set in sixth-century Britain. It restores and resituates the history of the stories of women in the period. At the same time as retelling the ballad, I thought it would be a really great opportunity to look at women in the period, and also marginalized identities in the period as well.

Christina Kann  02:56
It does such a wonderful job of all of those things. We read it with a book club that we're both a part of, and someone did share that legend. I'm the person where, when I'm reading, I can really turn off my critical brain. I'm just like, "Wow, what a cool story!" But other people were like, "This seems like it's based on something." But they were sure to say, "Don't read this if you don't want any spoilers." Reading the myth and then reading your story was a really cool thing.

Grace Ball  03:24
Yeah, I went into it in a similar way as you did, Christina. I'd never heard the myth or the ballad or anything. So I was along for the ride. Let me tell you, I had no idea what was coming.

Christina Kann  03:35
And what a ride it truly is. Yeah, it can be a bit of a shock if you're not expecting the -- the "thing." Read the book to learn more about what we're talking about.

Grace Ball  03:55
Lucy, you mentioned that you'd heard the ballad and the myth, but what actually inspired you about the ballad so much that you wanted to write this book?

Lucy Holland  04:06
I heard the ballad first by Loreena McKennitt, who is one of my favorite artists singers.

Christina Kann  04:13
Oh my gosh. I know her!

Lucy Holland  04:19
Wow, fangirl moment!

Christina Kann  04:23
Oh my god. Yes. I've watched her live concerts or whatever, her concerts on streaming. I love that so much.

Lucy Holland  04:32
I love meeting Loreena fans as well.

Christina Kann  04:34
She has Celtic Women energy, you know, like, very ethereal and timeless. I don't know. You'll just have to check it out for yourself.

Lucy Holland  04:50
I love Loreena's music and her version of "The Twa Sisters," which is called "The Bonny Swans." It's my favorite rendition of the ballad, and I've listened to quite a lot of them. There are many, many good versions out there. But Loreena's remains my favorite. I first heard it about, gosh, getting on for 10 years ago now. My colleague at work brought Loreena in one day and played it to me. From the first moment I heard it, I was intrigued by the weirdness of the story. The sibling rivalry is not weird; we see this quite a lot, especially jealous women. We often see tensions between siblings in ballads, but not at this extra level, which is this girl being dismembered and then made into a musical instrument. In the ballad, I just thought that was such a weird image, and also a powerful image, this heart that is made of bone that sings the story of what happened to her and condemns her sister. I just thought that was so so weird. But at the same time, because it is, after all, just a ballad, we don't really get a good idea of who these women were. We have no idea what really motivated them. They've become very stereotypical. On one hand, we have the evil older sister who is jealous and lustful and scheming. And on the other hand, we have the younger, chaste, virginal, innocent victim. And these two very different roles, our women often have to play them. We see them a lot in traditional folk ballads and throughout stories. It's why it's one of the reasons why I feel like women's stories are important, because we just don't get to hear them actually speak authentically. They all too often fall into these very broad, very tropey, very stereotypical roles. So I wanted to get behind the ballad and find out what really happened.

Christina Kann  07:01
And you did a wonderful job! Teading this, I felt so much for Riva the whole time. I didn't necessarily support her actions, her positions, but I really understood where she was coming from. And Sinne as well. It is pronounced like that? "Sinnuh"?

Lucy Holland  07:17
I mean, you can pronounce it however. I just made it up. It was the one name in the book that I literally made up.

Christina Kann  07:28
Sistersong has three siblings in it. Is the eldest sibling part of the original ballad?

Lucy Holland  07:38
In lots of versions of the ballad, there are two sisters. And it is called "The Twa Sisters," two sisters. Loreena's version was, I think, adapted from James Child, who was a folklorist in the Victorian age. He collected about 10 or 11 variations of the same ballad. But a couple of those variations have a third sibling in there. This third sibling is mentioned in the first verse, and then totally disappears from the rest of the story. This was another one of the reasons why I wanted to retell or reimagine the ballad: I was so intrigued as to why there was a third sibling, and they just didn't do anything, and they didn't feature in the story. That was fascinating. I will talk about this a bit later, but it was the idea of erasure, and how some people are erased from history, and why are they erased from history? What was it about their identities that the dominant narrative has overridden? So that is a really big part of Sistersong as well.

Christina Kann  08:46
How did you conduct your research? I know that you said you read like, a million different versions of this ballad, but what other kind of worldbuilding research did you do for this?

Lucy Holland  08:56
My first idea was to write it as a secondary-world fantasy novel, which is where I came from, because I've also written epic fantasy. And then I felt like I wanted to grow a bit as a writer, and I also thought it might be really interesting to choose a real time period in which to set the story. But I obviously hadn't decided which one that would be. I don't even know how it happened. I just got really interested in very early medieval Britain. The great thing about this time period is that there's not a lot of information about it, which can be a boon because it means you can slot your story in there.

Christina Kann  09:45
Right, it's hard for historians, but it's good for writers.

Lucy Holland  09:49
Exactly. Once I'd settled on the period, I started doing research. The internet is an amazing, amazing resource, particularly things like local archaeology sites by amateur archaeologists. Sistersong is set right here where I live in Sidmouth in Devon. So it's set really right here, and in Dunbriga, which is the main settlement in Sistersong, where all the siblings live. That was inspired by, about a mile and a half from my house, up on Peak Hill, they discovered the remains of the Neolithic settlement. On top of the Neolithic settlement were sub-Roman remains, which date exactly to the time when Sistersong is set. So conceivably, there could have been a Dumnoni settlement up there. The Dumnoni tribe controlled this area of Devon in the sixth century AD, and they were kind of itinerant; they moved their capital around the area, and this conceivably could have been one of the places that they had their capital. So I was really interested.

Christina Kann  10:59
That's so cool! And you can just walk there easily in like under an hour. Oh, my God, that is so cool. I have chills right now.

Grace Ball  11:12
That's awesome.

Lucy Holland  11:13
So that was part of my research. I went up there and stood on the hill. And there's nothing there. It's just a hill. And there's a bit of information. But I had a look at the cliffs. You're right on the cliffs. On one side, you're looking out across the ocean. And the other side, it's forest and fields. And I just went up there, I came back down, and I did some stream-of-consciousness writing to try and get the feel of what this location was like at the edge of the world, because that's kind of what it feels like for the characters.

Christina Kann  11:45
Oh my god. Wow. So cool.

Grace Ball  11:49
So you're obviously very versed in the fantasy genre. So what's the importance of the fantasy elements in Sistersong?

Lucy Holland  12:00
The magic in the book is chiefly the means of articulating one of the central narrative tensions, which is the conflict between Christianity and the established paganism of the native Britons. That came slightly later in the novel process, and it really came from me reading about Gildas. Gildas is pretty much one of the only contemporary sources we have from this period. His treatise on the ruin and conquest of Britain is not so much a history as a rant. He's very angry, angry man, and he rants a lot about the state of Britain, how the Saxons are the natives' punishment for not being very pious and not embracing Christianity as they should. He had a very big rant about Constantine, one of the British kings, as well as another four British kings. In fact, he devotes one entire half of this tract to insulting them and calling them all sorts of names. I thought he would make a great character because of that.

Christina Kann  13:24
He probably didn't realize how much he was discrediting himself by being so violently opinionated.

Lucy Holland  13:31
So opinionated! I'm sorry, Gildas, you're 1500 years dead, but you're a character now. The other part of the magic was also a vehicle to illustrate the bond between the king and the land, which is another really big theme in Sistersong. Obviously, it showed the disastrous consequences of forsaking the bond we have with the land. A reader pointed out to me later -- and this shows how everything is subconscious -- they were like, "Oh, it's more relevant than ever," because we live in the era of climate change, where humans are basically shitting all over the world in which we live, which nourishes us. This is more relevant than ever, that we recover what was lost. I feel like it's very important to remember that we are the world and the world is us; we come from the world, and we come from the Earth, and to the Earth we return, and that kind of cyclical nature.

Paganism includes the idea of living as one with the seasons -- like the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth itself. These elements were so important to the native Britons, early practitioners of paganism, across a whole region. That was really, really intriguing for me to dig into too, and that again feeds into the encroaching Christianity and how that was not always a good thing. People who preached Christianity thought they were saving the natives. And native Britons were like, "Well, hang on a second! We've already got our own beliefs." And they possibly didn't sit very well together.

Christina Kann  15:24
That kind of answered our next question about how you balance fantasy with historical facts. It seems like a lot of the fantasy came from things that were inspired or directly connected to historical facts. Do you have anything else to add to that?

Lucy Holland  15:38
The facts are so scarce or contradictory. As I mentioned before, it's a really interesting period to set a story in. This carries over with the rest of my work that I'm still doing with this time period. I'm really interested in the line where history becomes myth, and you can't begin to distinguish between the two of them. A perfect example of this is the Arthurian legend. This time period is basically squarely in Arthur's time. I was quite careful not to belabor anything, because the Arthurian myth is so powerful, if you let it into your story, it can overtake what you want to say. So I was quite careful not to make too many references to that. But the Legend of Arthur is so powerful that multiple nations have adopted it as part of their country's cultural narrative. That began with Geoffrey of Monmouth in this country, and but it's amazing how powerful it became.

This is a little like mini anecdote. I went to Glastonbury Abbey a few months ago to do some research. The history of the abbey is really interesting. At one point in the 12th century, I think, there was a big disaster, some of the abbey crumbled, and they ran out of money. And amazingly, soon after that, the monks were digging in the gardens, and they unearthed these amazing skeletons. And the skeleton was a grant of a grand man and a beautiful -- well, as much as a skeleton can be beautiful -- and delicate skeleton lying beside him. They decided that these were obviously the bones of Arthur and Guinevere themselves, lying in Glastonbury all this time, amazingly! These people have no proof that they actually lived. They're mostly just a folk story. But it was such a big deal that the bones were removed, and they were reburied in this lavish ceremony that Edward I came and attended in the beginning of like the 1300s or so. Obviously the abbey needed money, and lots of people came and donated money. The fact is that the Arthurian legend is not history, it's not fact. But it's so strong and so powerful. People want to believe it. It's part of the fabric of Britain now.

Christina Kann  18:19
I think most cultures have those stories that are not proven or patently false. I'm thinking about here in America, some of the super false historical narratives we get taught in elementary school.

Grace Ball  18:34
Yeah, absolutely. Getting to the actual characters in the book, how did you conceptualize the three siblings? How are their similarities and differences important?

Lucy Holland  18:49
With Riva and Sinna, who are the sisters -- the two sisters of the ballad title -- I began by using their basic characters, just how are they described in the ballad, identified those traits, and then explored why each sister might have those traits. This is all part of trying to make them less stereotypical. You know, there's always two -- or in this case, three -- sides to every story. For example, the bitterness in Riva; she is described as bitter in some of the ballads, she's jealous. There's obviously a darkness in her, and I wanted to think about that and how it could be more nuanced. And Riva had a really tough hand. She had a terrible accident when she was young. It's left her with disabilities, and she's shunned in some respects by the people around her. They don't like how she looks, how her injuries have made her look. They've made her feel like she's not ascribing to the perfection that a young princess has to ascribe to. I thought that there's got to be a reason for this seed of this jealousy. Where did it come from? And with her, I thought, it's got to come from somewhere.

Christina Kann  20:32
Very real trauma.

Lucy Holland  20:34
I mean, it's physical trauma, and then it's mental trauma and emotional trauma from having to live in a society with such strict gender roles and assumptions about how women should look and what women should do. And then on the other side, we have the innocence of Sinna, who is the younger sister, who is always described as the wronged character, the victim. She didn't do anything wrong, her only crime is to be beautiful, all of this stuff. For me, that ended up becoming the immaturity of a slightly spoiled child, who was the youngest, she'd been given everything she always wanted. She didn't have Riva's problems and her difficulties. She chafes against -- like all the siblings do -- they chafe against the rules of their society and the bones of the cage that they're locked in.

Christina Kann  21:31
So to speak.

Lucy Holland  21:35
Yeah, so that's where I began with that, trying to dig down past, "You're lustful and jealous; you're chaste and innocent." I wanted to find out what traits those actually were, where they came from. For Keyne -- or Constantin --

Christina Kann  22:04
We've been ducking around his character because I don't want to spoil anything, but he makes it pretty clear on like, page three that he is trans. There's not really ever any question about it. So it's not really a spoiler.

Lucy Holland  22:19
No, no. And Sistersong was published in the UK in April 2021. My God, almost two years ago.

Christina Kann  22:29
Congrats!

Lucy Holland  22:30
I just don't know where the time has gone. Yeah, I'm just gonna call him Constantine. Hey, spoiler, Constantine is his name by the end of the story. Constantin is a little bit more complicated, because this is the person who was missing from the ballad. And it's a difficult one, because a lot of people say that he is the main character of Sistersong.

Christina Kann  23:09
I totally agree.

Lucy Holland  23:10
Yeah, I would agree as well. But the irony is that he's still invisible in the ballad, because the ballad is a binary song. It's actually a horrible song that I do recreate in Sistersong. It is a horrible song. And it doesn't tell the truth. It's literally just about a murder. It's not fair. It doesn't portray either of the women in truthful, or at least in three dimensional, terms.

I wanted to echo the fact that Constantin is not part of that. He belongs to a better world, a world that is forward thinking, forward looking, that is embracing every different identity. It's not prescribing to people all the roles that we should play when we're just children. It was a journey of discovery, because I'm cisgender. I don't share Constantine's life experience. So it was a journey getting to know him and figuring out how I could tell his story. I did my own bits of research for that. I have a couple of friends who were very, very helpful early on in the book, and he was so kind to share their insights. My sensitivity reader, she's wonderful. She's a transgender historian. I learned an absolute ton. Some of the transgender history in the book wouldn't be the same without her insights. So I was so lucky to find her and so so happy that she agreed to sensitivity read for me.

But yeah, I suppose, obviously, Constantine was my favorite character to write, because it's wonderful, right? It's wonderful writing any sort of human being who discovers themselves and blossoms and fights and achieves what we all deserve, which is to be ourselves and to be recognized as who we are and lauded and respected for who we are. So that was very close to my heart. It was really wonderful to go along the journey with him.

Christina Kann  25:28
During his story, particularly in the third act, I was just weeping. I was nannying when I was reading it, and I was like, "I hope they don't come home and find me just like blathering on their couch." Because it's hard to explain to people who don't read, "Sorry, this book is just really affecting me right now."

Lucy Holland  25:50
Thank you. The extra theme running through the whole book is that it's the power of stories. The fact that we like to tell stories, and stories have a life of their own. They outlive us by thousands of years, and they always will. But, you know, their stories have power. And it depends who's telling the story, as to what survives throughout the years. It's really important to reclaim our stories. It's important for women to reclaim their stories. It's important for marginalized people to say, "We lived in this time period. We have always been here." Kameron Hurley's essay "We Have Always Fought," I love it. I love "We Have Always Fought," this idea that women have always been warriors. We've been here. It's only the dominant narrative has overridden the roles and the very existence of people who've always existed. So that idea of reclaiming stories, reclaiming identities, reclaiming the truth of ourselves in the world is at the heart of Sistersong.

Christina Kann  27:08
Amazing. So is Constantine your favorite of the three siblings in this book?

Lucy Holland  27:15
I mean, it would be a lie to say no. He's definitely my favorite. But because I feel like she she's probably the least liked of the siblings, I always like to give a shoutout for Riva, because she is dealt a really tough hand. And like Constantine, she really struggles with being different in a very unaccepting and intolerant world. And she chooses to defy tradition. She trusts her instincts. And even though everyone tells her that those instincts are monstrous, she sees it through. She sees her choices through to the end, and that takes integrity. And it takes self belief. So I feel like giving her a bit of a shoutout.

Grace Ball  28:09
Honorable mention.

Christina Kann  28:11
She follows through on her choices way farther than I would ever have a dreamed. That was very shocking. No spoilers, but the end of her story really shocked me, which is cool. I love when a book just really catches me by surprise.

Grace Ball  28:31
So on the flip side of your favorite characters, which character did you hate the most?

Lucy Holland  28:39
It would be easy to say Gildas, but I think he's a love-to-hate character. I so enjoyed writing him. I loved coming up with the image of him gliding around as a kind of carrion bird. I thought he was actually really enjoyable to develop as a character because he's so he's such a great antagonist and a great foil to Myrdhin. They kind of play off one against the other.

Grace Ball  29:16
I liked that dynamic a lot.

Lucy Holland  29:18
They were great rivals across the board. I don't know. I actually think the most horrible characters are like the kings and lords who are just so intolerant. Even when Constantine is standing in front of them saying, "I am king. It's my right. I am your lord. I'm going to give my all to preserve our people's lives and our traditions," they're still going, "This is wrong. You're a woman," and trotting out that level of ignorance is in a way more dangerous than Gildas's active defiance. In a way is a defiant ignorance. "No, this is the way it's always been, and I'm continued going to continue to behave like you don't exist and you haven't changed anything." Unfortunately, it's that kind of character that we see a lot in the people around us. It's a really horrible thing to say, but you know, they're out there. They're exemplified by those lords who cling to what they know.

Christina Kann  30:41
Yeah, I think for similar reasons, I also had a really hard time with the mom. The unwillingness. You're making changes in the wrong direction with this Christianity thing, girl. Come on.

Lucy Holland  30:58
She's not a lovable mom. Definitely not a lovable mom.

Christina Kann  31:04
Yeah, she's cold. And that one scene with Constantine and the clothes was awful.

Lucy Holland  31:10
Yeah, that was not a nice scene to write.

Christina Kann  31:13
I'm sure.

Lucy Holland  31:15
That was really an unpleasant scene. I think I actually ended up toning it down slightly. I think the first version was just a bit worse. It was physically painful for me to write this. I think I made her a bit more sympathetic as well, in the sense that she knows she's done wrong. She knows what she's done is wrong, and I'm not sure if she was quite so sympathetic before then. But I thought it was important to know that she has this internal struggle, that there is a voice in her saying, "I don't think what you're doing is a good thing." That was important to have, because I think every character has to have a little degree of sympathy and also a bit of nuance. But ultimately, she is a headstrong person who sticks to her beliefs to the detriment of those around her.

Christina Kann  32:14
Yeah, absolutely. You touched on this earlier, but I definitely want to drive this home considering that this is Women's History Month. Why is writing history from women's perspectives important?

Lucy Holland  32:26
I mentioned the need to challenge the dominant narrative already is really important. We're going through this amazing, like, a renaissance. It's this wonderful movement with reclamation of women's voices in established epics, stories, we think we know. I know everyone's doing Greek myth at the moment, and actually, it's almost too much.

Christina Kann  32:56
Um, yes. We've read Ariadne, Circe. I know there's more than just those two, but those are the two that come to mind.

Lucy Holland  33:06
Yeah, there's like a dozen Persephone retellings, Medusa.

Christina Kann  33:10
People are very into the Persephone/Hades as like a sexy thing right now. There's a lot of it, but I'm still down.

Lucy Holland  33:20
I'm a massive Hadestown fan. So yeah, I'm really into that. But yeah, women's stories. Yeah, it's great. This is happening. It's really, really wonderful to see. And I think it's very important to say, "Hang on a second. Women are present in all of these stories." Like Penelope, Odysseus's wife, is obviously a named part. But in the original Odyssey, what does she do, but remain as a shadow figure far away? And when we do get to meet her, she's not had the best of times. She's never given any kind of chance to say what's actually been happening from her point of view.

Christina Kann  34:04
If you think about the strength she must have had all that time, not knowing anything about her husband. And the tapestry! Isn't it that she unravels every night to try and keep the suitors at bay?

Lucy Holland  34:18
It's like Scheherazade in One Thousand and One Nights.

Christina Kann  34:24
It's like exactly like One Thousand and One Nights!

Lucy Holland  34:26
Yeah, she's obviously very clever. She's come up with this plan, but it's awful because it's also a plan born of desperation, because her husband's off somewhere and might never return. I love that we're getting these stories. I love that these these women are like, "Hang on a second. We've always been here." It's not only important, but it's also extremely entertaining and vital. I just love reading their stories. It's not just like, "This is something that must be done so we can have a broad understanding of women's stories." They are exciting stories. I want to see women on the page; I want to see mothers especially on the page. Mothers have always been a group of people who are unfairly dismissed in so many great mythological tales. Grendel's mother from Beowulf is a wonderful character, but does she have any time to shine? She almost defeats Beowulf himself, and this is the great undefeatable warrior. And in the end, she's just slaughtered, so it's kind of frustrating. But here was a great character; you could have done so much more with her.

Grace Ball  35:51
Do you have any advice for people who are interested in writing historical fiction?

Lucy Holland  35:58
I suppose I'd say read some historical fiction.

Grace Ball  36:02
That's a great start.

Christina Kann  36:03
That is a very good start.

Lucy Holland  36:04
I don't actually read that much historical fiction. I know it's bad. I should read more historical fiction. I tend to read a lot of speculative fiction, because it's my genre. Breaking the Glass Slipper is mostly focused on women in speculative fiction. It's interesting, because I'm trying to develop a workshop at the moment that looks at cross genre writing, specifically historical fiction and fantasy, and how to weave these two genres together, and how they complement each other. So it's difficult to talk about advice for specifically historical fiction.

I think the exciting stuff that I've watched and things that have excited me is like looking into my local area. Wikipedia gives quite a broad sweep of what's been going on, but you don't really get the interesting details that you get on a local historical level, things like visiting the Abbey and hearing the stories about Gweneviere and Arthur; finding out that Peak Hill, a mile from my house, had a settlement there. You can't, say, type in "sub-Roman Britain" and Google will say, "Oh, there was a sub-Roman British settlement in Devon!" You just can't find out that sort of stuff on these broad Google searches. Rather than starting from a very broad place, how about you start from a very narrow place and expand outward? Because I learned a lot about the Saxon invasion just from focusing on how Devon changed how Dumnonia, this area where I live right now, how it evolved from the departure of the Romans, through to the invasion of the Saxons, and that really turbulent liminal period. It was vying for power; it was also the birth of the country. But all of that came from a very local angle. What was happening right here, where I live on this soil? What impressions have those kind of cataclysmic events left behind? I feel like that's a nice way to get into it.

Christina Kann  36:27
Yeah, that's awesome. Probably makes the story you're telling so much more important to you because it hits close to home. It super literally does. I guess that's where the expression comes from. Is there anything else you'd like to say about Sistersong or about women's history in fiction in general?

Lucy Holland  39:08
I feel like I've talked for ages. I feel like I've covered quite a lot of what I wanted to say. It is a serious book, I suppose it is a serious book. But I also hope that it's -- I hate to use the word "entertaining," but it also is a fun story to read. It's got characters you come to care about and maybe leads some people to have a Wikipedia page open at the same time and learn a little bit about history as you go along. That's the best thing, when you open a book and you're like, "Oh my god, this is made me interested to find out what else was going on at the time because I didn't know anything!" That's a wonderful thing when you can enjoy a book but it also makes you think about like the wider concerns.

Grace Ball  40:00
A bit of a selfish question. Are you working on any other book projects right now that we can be looking out for? Because we definitely are.

Lucy Holland  40:12
The next book is waiting to be edited. Actually, it's taken me two years to write it. It's been through a rewrite. And I'm now waiting on the verdict. So let's hope it's -- fingers crossed -- a bit more book-shaped than it was the first time. Don't ever say you can write a book in seven months. Especially when you only have a 50-word concept. You haven't sat down and asked yourself, what do you really want to do with that concept?

Christina Kann  40:51
Writing a book idea and writing a book could not be more different things.

Lucy Holland  40:55
Yeah. It's very different. And it's been the most challenging thing I've ever written. Sistersong benefited from a lot of fallow time, because I couldn't write Sistersong when I first had the idea for Sistersong. I was working on my trilogy.

Christina Kann  41:12
Oh wow!

Lucy Holland  41:15
Yeah, it sat on the back burner for four years or so, and I never forgot about it. But I think that time allowed me to mature as a writer, so by the time I started writing Sistersong, I had the skills to write it, which I wouldn't have had before.

Christina Kann  41:32
Oh, my god, that's so cool.

Lucy Holland  41:34
It is really interesting, especially in the context of my struggles with writing a loose followup. It's had no time. You know, the thing about publishing and the capitalist world in which we live: you feel like, "I've got to be relevant, I've got to keep writing fast, I've got to produce another book." But art doesn't really work like that. And ideas don't work like that. And a lot of thet really good stuff comes from just lying fallow in the back of your mind for an interminable amount of time -- not necessarily very long, but longer than I thought I could write the book in. But it's okay!

Grace Ball  42:22
You just take your time. We'll be here. Okay?

Lucy Holland  42:26
It's coming out next year. It should be here around spring, this time next year, in the US as well as in the UK. I think they're going to be out at the same time. It's called Song of the Huntress. You can read about it on Goodreads. That's the most up-to-date place. I've seen the UK cover. It's amazing. I can't share it yet because it's not finished. They're still tweaking, but it's an amazing, amazing cover. And it retells the story of the Wild Hunt which is a motif that lots of people have probably heard of. The story is just really really fascinating. Actually, because you've read Sistersong, you'll know that Constantine tells the story of Herla and the Wild Hunt in as a mini story.

Christina Kann  43:16
Oh my God. Constantine knew what was gonna happen next all along.

Grace Ball  43:22
We should have known

Lucy Holland  43:24
Actually, that was what gave me the idea. I was retelling the story as Constantin was telling it, and I was like, "This would make a great novel. Maybe I should do this next!"

Christina Kann  43:34
Thanks for the idea, Constantine! Right, I've read a couple of different books about that. It never goes well.

Lucy Holland  43:35
I did do it next. But my my King Herla is not an old British king. My King Herla -- she's actually a woman, for starters. She's an Iceni war chief fighting against the Romans. She's the lover of Boudicca. Yeah, she makes a pact with the king of the other world, which you should never do! You should never make pacts with the fae! It does not go well. You get cursed, and you become the Wild Hunt, and you have to ride eternally reaping souls.

Grace Ball  44:17
Tale as old as time.

Lucy Holland  44:18
So if you don't want to become an immortal reaper, don't do that. Yeah, I love the story of Herla. I love the story of the Wild Hunt, the incarnation of the Wild Hunt, and all of the mythology that goes along with it. And I also wanted to write another historical novel, so this one is even more historical than Sistersong. I think if I redid it -- I wouldn't want to -- but I would want more history. There's few things, a few mistakes I made. I'm a bit better informed now about the period and how things worked. And this this book is set in around 705 AD, so about 175, 180 years after Sistersong, but it's in the same world. If you've read Sistersong, there'll be some Easter eggs in there. The biggest easter egg is that one of the main characters is the direct descendant of Riva.

Christina Kann  45:25
Ah, that's very exciting.

Grace Ball  45:27
I'm really excited.

Christina Kann  45:28
I can't wait to read that. That's amazing. Awesome. Are you reading anything yourself lately that you're excited about?

Lucy Holland  45:35
I am reading this book! *shows in Zoom* It's Sam Shannon's book. It's the prequel to The Priory of the Orange Tree.

Christina Kann  45:51
The cover has a similar tone.

Lucy Holland  45:56
Have you seen how long it is?

Grace Ball  45:57
Wow. That's a chonk.

Christina Kann  45:59
That's like Order of the Phoenix. That's a chunky one.

Lucy Holland  46:03
It's so impossible to read when you're lying in bed.

Grace Ball  46:10
Danger zone.

Christina Kann  46:11
Drop it on your face. Knock yourself unconscious.

Lucy Holland  46:15
It's really good. I'm really enjoying it. I'm interviewing Samantha Shannon, the author, in a week's time in Cornwall. I think she is in the US at the moment doing her US leg of the tour for the book, but I'm gonna meet up with her in Cornwall, so I get to talk to her about it. It's really good. It's really good.

Christina Kann  46:36
I'm excited for you. Because, you know, it's fun to meet the authors you love.

Grace Ball  46:41
Yeah. We're doing it! It's happening right now.

Lucy Holland  46:43
That's very sweet.

Christina Kann  46:46
Lucy, where can people find you on the internet if they want to connect with you?

Lucy Holland  46:50
I am on Instagram mostly. That's my platform of choice. I am on Twitter as well, which is now less my platform of choice. I'm the same handle. I'm @silvanhistorian. "Sylvan" with an I, not a Y, because some other person stole the Y. So I'm @silvanhistorian everywhere. I have a Patreon if you like my work so much that you'd like to pay me some money to carry on writing every month. I post extra stuff about the books and behind the scenes things and research. So if you're into that, then check out my Patreon.

Christina Kann  47:39
Lucy, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today. It's been a delightful conversation.

Lucy Holland  47:47
Oh, it's been so fun. I don't get to talk about Sistersong as much as I did a year ago, so it's lovely to carry on revisiting the book.

Christina Kann  47:56
I just love that throughout this conversation, we've been able to really feel your passion, and that's really awesome, having read it and felt the passion through the words and you obviously put so much of yourself into it. Thank you for writing it.

Grace Ball  48:09
Yeah.

Lucy Holland  48:10
Thank you for reading it!

Christina Kann  48:14
And that's how you book.

Listen to Breaking the Glass Slipper.
Check out Lucy Holland's website.
Subscribe to Lucy Holland's Patreon.

Wildling Press chats with The Book Bar’s owner, Krystle Dandridge, about why indie bookstores matter and why Black and brown books, bookstores, and book communities are so important (and how she manages to run a great bookstore in Richmond, VA!).

 
Mary-Peyton Crook  00:25
Today we have with us a very special guest, Krystal Dandridge, owner of The Book Bar in Richmond, Virginia, which is a Black-owned, woman-owned bookstore that centers BIPOC authors and brands in an effort to uplift and support a culture that is often silenced. Welcome, Krystle, and thank you for being with us!
 
Krystle Dandridge  01:01
Thank you! Thanks for having me.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  01:03
Of course! I know you have a very busy schedule; you had a big event yesterday, which is awesome. Krystle, what are your pronouns?
 
Krystle Dandridge  01:10
She/her.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  01:11
So just give us a little intro to The Book Bar and tell us what it's all about.
 
Krystle Dandridge  01:15
The Book Bar is a bookstore and wine shop. It's really a boutique bookstore. We center Black and brown voices, Black and brown creatives, Black and brown authors, Black and brown wines, art . . . everything in there is very much to promote and uplift Black and brown people. And the events that we do also reflect that. And so it's just kind of a space for community, a safe space for people just to come in and take a load off, you know? A little self care.
 
Christina Kann  01:43
That's amazing.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  01:46
You can definitely tell when you go into that space, that it's set up for relaxation, and for community to be together. There's lots of space for seating and for groups to sit together. It's really awesome.
 
Christina Kann  01:58
Yeah, take away the books, and it even could be like a wellness spa, you know what I mean?
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  02:04
Absolutely. And I love the story on your website of how The Book Bar came to be, how you came to open a bookshop. Can you tell us a little about about that?
 
Krystle Dandridge  02:14
Sure! It's always a funny question, because I never remember what I say to people.   But it really comes down to, I mean, I've been a reader my entire life, and growing up, the difficult thing was finding books by people who look like me with stories about people who look like me and had similar experiences. I've walked into bookstores, and they would have an urban book section, which is fine, that's great, except Black people are not a monolith. So what are some other stories that are not urban fiction stories?
 
Krystle Dandridge  02:44
And that's if I found somebody who looked like me in the store. If they were in the store, it was like, in a section in the corner somewhere in the back with very few books, and I just, I got tired of that. And that was growing up. And so to, you know, now be in my 30s, to still walk into some bookstores, and that's the same exact experience . . . to me, it was problematic. And so I figured why not create a space? Especially given Richmond didn't at the time currently have one, and hadn't had one for some years--well over, I think, two decades going on three decades, Richmond had not had a Black-owned bookstore. And so for me, it was just kind of like, well, this is what I want. Let's create it.
 
Christina Kann  03:21
That's so wild and so important, because there's so many wonderful Black writers and readers here, you know? It's such an important part of the readership community here.
 
Krystle Dandridge  03:32
Exactly.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  03:32
Absolutely. Yeah, it's wild to me because Richmond . . . you know, I love living in Richmond, I've lived here for a long time, but I feel like it thinks of itself as a cool place to be, as really a more modern place to be, but it took until 2022 to get a Black-owned bookstore in Richmond, [a place] that considers itself a really literary town.
 
Krystle Dandridge  03:52
Richmond is full of bookstores. Which is a great thing! Richmond is full of independent bookstores, but you just can't find Black or brown bookstores. And I just, I never understood why.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  04:03
And you talked a little about it, but maybe flesh out a little bit about why it's important that that kind of space is in our community. Why is it important to the community of Richmond or to any community to have that Black-owned, woman-owned, but specifically Black-owned bookstore?
 
Krystle Dandridge  04:17
Representation. Representation matters. At the end of the day, everyone wants to be able to see themselves in any role there is, any role possible, and when you have so many forces kind of working against you, like the media, whatever you have, everything that you're seeing is very much mainstream, very much white. It's like, "All right, so where do I fit in?"
 
Krystle Dandridge  04:39
And so to have representation right in your own backyard is extremely important because it's, you know, yes, times are changing, yes, things are reflected on the TV, but again, I'm in my thirties. That's not how this looked when I was growing up. And so while things are shifting, it's still important because there's going to be a little girl or a little boy who wants to own a bookstore or who loves reading books or who wants to see stories about people like them.
 
Krystle Dandridge  05:04
And so walking into a space where you know it's no question: there is acceptance (because we know that that's not everywhere you go), walking into a space where you know, without a doubt, you're going to be accepted, you're going to find people who look like you, and you're going to have something that you can aspire to--that's important. Representation  just . . . it matters.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  05:21
Absolutely. That importance has been so clear through the outpouring of support and community engagement that you've had for your year that you've been open. You just celebrated your first anniversary on February 5! Congratulations!
 
Krystle Dandridge  05:35
Thank you.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  05:35
That's awesome.
 
Christina Kann  05:36
Incredible.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  05:37
And I know it's just gonna blossom even more as you're running it. What does it mean to you to know that you've successfully provided that space for the community for a whole year now?
 
Krystle Dandridge  05:47
You know, I don't know how to answer that, because I think I'm kind of still processing it. Like, I still am trying to process everything, the fact that I've been around for a year, the fact that it's not the easiest thing to do. And it's interesting, because everyone's like, "Oh, you just, you know, I'd love to own a bookstore, you just kind of read books all day." And I'm like, "I wish! I wish that's all I did!" You guys walk in, and you might see me reading a book; however, that's probably in the midst of everything else I have going on, because I still love reading books, but I also have to read books! So sometimes you walk in to see me reading a book, and I'm actually working, it's not just me lounging around reading.
 
Krystle Dandridge  06:23
So trying to process everything and still stay grounded, still keep the mission forefront, because it's not always the easiest thing to do. It's hard to really understand what it truly means, you know, that it's been a year. And so for me, I'm like, a year's not that long. But on the flip side, I'm also like, but it's been a year, it's been a year.
 
Christina Kann  06:43
So long, yeah.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  06:45
Especially for a business!
 
Christina Kann  06:47
Especially for a business with a storefront. At Wildling, we don't have a location. So it's like, all you have to do is have an email account, you know?
 
Krystle Dandridge  06:55
The storefront, that's the other piece of it. The storefront has been around for a year, but the business opened Juneteenth of 2021 virtually. So, the storefront has been a year, the business has been around a little bit longer, not much, but a little bit longer. And like you said, that storefront makes the difference, because you don't pay rent on an email! Trust me, I remember those first six months or seven months, and I was like, "Okay, I got this," and then that storefront hit, and I was like, "Okay, what's this?"
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  07:25
Yeah, Wildling, you know, being remote, we still have plenty to fill our days and plenty of work to do all the time. Tell us a little bit about what a day in the life of a bookstore owner is like, because I know you're juggling a million things all the time. Do you get any breaks for yourself? Do you make sure to take breaks for yourself? And what's your sort of day-to-day look like?
 
Krystle Dandridge  07:47
I do my best to take breaks. Just because self care is important to me. So I do my best to take breaks. However, I am still a therapist. I'm still a licensed therapist, and so I am still doing therapy on the days the store's closed.
 
Christina Kann  07:58
Oh my gosh.
 
Krystle Dandridge  07:58
Yes.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  07:58
Wow!
 
Krystle Dandridge  07:59
Yes, so I try to schedule--and I do have someone who works very part time for me, just to kind of give myself a day off. And that took a long time to get to, because for the longest . . . I went almost a year without a day off.

Christina Kann  08:11
Oh my god. 

Krystle Dandridge  08:11
And so there's that. Chaos is probably how I would describe my days. There are some days where it's not, but for the most part, it's chaos, because I've been placing orders, following up on orders, trying to figure out what the next order is going to be, just trying to plan an event, getting events together that are already planned and making sure I have everything in order. . . . Or like if we speak of like yesterday's event, trying to figure out how I'm going to seat everybody, because those tickets sold out and people are still showing up! And you know, now I gotta figure out what to do.
 
Christina Kann  08:43
What a good problem!
 
Krystle Dandridge  08:43
Right! And it's funny, because everyone's like, "That's a great problem to have!" And I'm like, "Yes, after the fact!" In the moment, it's not a great problem to have.

Christina Kann  08:43
Right. 

Krystle Dandridge  08:43
In the moment, I'm like, "I don't want to turn you away, but I don't know where you're gonna sit, and I don't want you to have to stand for two hours," which, you know, doesn't seem like a long time. But I'm like, you know, these people coming in, we're not talking about teenagers who don't have thirty-plus-year-old knees and backs.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  08:56
That's so important.
 
Krystle Dandridge  08:58
We're talking about adults who can't stand that long. So you know, great problem to have, but like, this is where the day-to-day is like, "Okay, do I have all the inventory I need? Oh, shipping is delayed? Okay, how long is shipping delayed? Okay, so I won't have any books for the holidays, I have none, like none of my books are coming, none of the hundreds of books I ordered. Nothing's showing up? Oh, okay. No, that's, that's fine. I can be a bookstore without books. Why not? Who needs books in a bookstore?"
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  09:35
You have to really learn to pivot.
 
Krystle Dandridge  09:37
You adapt. But I'll also say the community has been super supportive. Because I'm very transparent. I will tell you, "Hey, I ordered books; I don't know where my books are. I can order some more for you." And they're like, "Oh, it's okay, we'll wait! Let's go ahead and place an order. It's okay." And you know, that to me is the support that I need and the support that is helpful because that's what kind of keeps me going. I feel bad when I don't have books, but I'm like, "I promise I ordered them. I just don't know where they are!"
 
Krystle Dandridge  10:06
I just had a shipment of over a hundred books come in on Friday, and I placed that order like three, three and a half weeks ago. And I placed it knowing I had this event. I was like, "Let's over-order, let's get some books." And I'm like, "Okay, well, you know, I placed the order. I don't know where my books are, but I placed the order, and I'm about to have over 100 people in the store, and I don't have a book for them! I don't have anything!" It showed up, thankfully, but . . .
 
Christina Kann  10:33
We can definitely relate to that, trying to get authors their books in time for their events as well. There's so many elements of buying books that are just out of your hands.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  10:42
Yes.
 
Krystle Dandridge  10:43
Most of it is out of our hands.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  10:44
You try to really prepare well in advance, but it still can show up late even then. It's crazy.
 
Krystle Dandridge  10:50
It's, you know, it's part of the business. But again, it's that year, that year is learning. I learned over that year a lot.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  11:00
Yeah, and it's great that you still have that support. I remember, on your grand opening day, obviously, you know, it's grand opening day, day one of the first year, so anything could happen. And I remember you coming out and right before we were able to go in you were talking about the fact that you didn't have the books that you had ordered yet, you were still waiting on so many books. And I walked in, and I know that it's much more full now, but it still was so beautifully set up and the books looked great. You had them facing out, which I love because that lets you see the cool covers. And people were still just flooding in and having the greatest time.
 
Krystle Dandridge  11:37
It was great.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  11:38
You know, I think that's because you've created that sense of community and the sense of space over just a place to buy books. Ordering that book is important, but I don't think you'll ever run out of people that still support you and love that space.
 
Krystle Dandridge  11:52
That's the great part about it. The grand opening was a shocker for me. I don't know what I expected to happen, but when I walked out and saw the number of people . . . in my mind, I was like, "Oh, it'll probably be like twenty, maybe fifty people, it won't be a whole lot. Very naive of me, because I walked out and like . . . My family was there. If you came to the grand opening, you saw my family because they were everywhere helping everyone--
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  12:15
Oh awesome!
 
Krystle Dandridge  12:15
--behind the register, mostly, but they were definitely everywhere, them and my friends. And prior to the grand opening, as we were standing inside, I was like, "No, I'll cut the ribbon. A few people are coming, but you guys can probably just go back to my house and just, you know, relax. I won't need any help." And then we opened the doors, and everyone came in, and I was like, "So y'all can't leave. You have to stay, I just need all hands on deck. Don't ask me what I need you to do, because at this point, I don't know, I wasn't expecting everybody to be here, so thanks for staying. Sorry you're hungry, but we're here now. We're in this together, we're gonna make it through, and I appreciate the patience."

Krystle Dandridge  12:16
That line . . . if you were there, that line was wrapped around the store. And there were just all these people, and the store was packed. I'm in panic mode because I was like, "Oh, the city said my capacity is this, and we're like, way over that. Should I put people out? Like what do I do?" Again, I was brand new to retail. I was like, "What do I do? Do I not let them in? It's cold outside. It's February. It's freezing outside. Do I take a chance? Because I don't want anyone catching pneumonia trying to get into a bookstore! That's ridiculous.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  13:32
Maybe those rules are a little bit soft for a grand opening.
 
Krystle Dandridge  13:35
Let's hope!
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  13:36
It was great. It was so much fun.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  13:37
What's your favorite part of running a bookstore?
 
Krystle Dandridge  13:40
The books.
 
Christina Kann  13:41
Yeah. That's a good answer.
 
Krystle Dandridge  13:44
Getting the books early, because if you're a book addict like me, then your TBR is ridiculous, but you still want the next book. I think it's a tie. I'll say there's a tie between the books and the authors. I have posted about it. I absolutely love meeting authors. Authors are my rockstars. You guys can have all the music artists you want. I love them too, but there is nothing like meeting authors, especially because they're down to earth! They're down-to-earth rockstars, or at least the authors that I've met. They are down-to-earth rock stars! They're like "Yeah, sure, let's chat!" And I'm like, "Really? You wanna talk to me?" So I think that's amazing. And the books! I have arcs sitting right in front of me right now. I get so many arcs (way too many sometimes, but I'm okay with that. I give a lot away, actually.) But getting those arcs, being front and center trying to see, like, what's coming out? Can I read it? When I read it, I'm like, "Oh, let me make a video about it. Let me post on social media but try not to spoil it. Let's talk about this book and not tell you all why it's so amazing when I just want to be like, "Oo, and then they did this and then they did that."
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  14:54
That's so hard, because the ending can really make or break (obviously) a book, and and it would be so hard if you're genuinely giving your reviews to not include that part of it.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  15:06
And that brings me to talk about your social media presence @rvabookbar on Instagram and Tiktok. Those are my favorite places to find you, because your presence on social media on those channels is so authentic. I was thinking about it, and I think it's obviously because so many of the posts are just you talking to your followers, talking to this community of readers, and giving genuine book reviews. And you seem to post a lot, which I can't imagine with your schedule.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  15:35
What kind of advice would you give to--I know you're in a particular position as a bookseller--but what advice would you give to someone looking to create sort of an authentic, compelling Bookstagram, BookTok, whatever channel they want to use?
 
Krystle Dandridge  15:49
Ignore what's already out there. And I say that because when I first opened my IG account, I was going with, you know . . . Well, when you're on Bookstagram, all you see is the mainstream, white faces, that is what you see. You have to literally search for people who look like me. What you see are aesthetic pics, that's what you see. And there is nothing wrong with the aesthetic pic; I actually think they're pretty, I just don't get anything from them, personally. But when I started, that's what I was doing. I was like, "Okay, well, people want to see aesthetics, because of course, these people's aesthetics got thousands and thousands of likes. So that's what people want." But then I realized I wasn't using my voice.
 
Christina Kann  16:27
Right.
 
Krystle Dandridge  16:28
And then again, going back to the [book] reviews, you would see the aesthetic, and then you would see the synopsis of the book. I don't like that, because I can read the back of the book myself. So because I can read the back of the book myself, you're not really helping me want to buy the book, because you just told me what the book was telling me anyway. How was that helpful? And what I learned was I was actually getting better traction when it was my voice versus the voice that matched what you saw on Bookstagram, which was, "Here's a picture of a book. Here's what the back of the book says."
 
Christina Kann  17:01
Right.
 
Krystle Dandridge  17:01
Cool. But I see that on the hundreds of profiles I see every day. So that's not helping me, versus people who are like, "Okay, but why should I buy this book?" which is what people want to know. They're looking for book recommendations.
 
Krystle Dandridge  17:12
There are a lot of people that are cover buyers; I'm a cover buyer. So yes, the pretty book catches my eye because I'm like, "Ooh, what's that?"
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  17:19
For sure, for sure.

Krystle Dandridge  17:20
But now what? Why should I buy it? So the advice that I have is for BookTok and Bookstagram, because BookTok is very much videos, Bookstagram is both pictures and reels. But I say use your voice. Like for me, my personality comes through in my videos; it's kind of like talking to me. I love books, and I love talking books. So I'm just kind of like, "Hey!" I'm animated. I like to be very animated. And so I'm like, you know, "What would make somebody really understand why you should get this book?" 

Krystle Dandridge  17:54
And I'm recommending what I like, I'm not just kind of like, "I'm a bookseller, here's a book that's in my shop and I have to sell it." No. Some books are just not for me. And that's okay. So when people come into the shop, and they're like, "Well, what about this book?" I'm like, "Well, if you like XYZ, then you'll like it. It's just not my cup of tea, because I'm not an XYZ reader." But on my Bookstagram or my BookTok, I'm like, "Oh, did y'all read this? Let me tell you why you should read this. Because you're not going to regret it!" I like the books that I'm recommending. So I'm not just going to be like, "Oh, I have to sell this. Let me just shove this down your throat and hope that you believe me and come by. No, I thought this was amazing."
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  18:32
Yeah, I love watching your book recommendations, because you are so passionate about them. And for lack of a better term, you give more of the vibe of the book; you talk about what it's really like versus just, "Okay, this is a mystery. This is fantasy." You really give us the elements of the book that are a reason to read that book over others. Which is what what we're looking for as book readers.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  18:56
And that's such a strong case for why it's so important to buy from local bookstores over things like Amazon over even looking on Instagram or Booktok. Because the bookseller should be a book reader like you are. And that's where you're really going to have a conversation with someone about what kind of books are coming up, what book recommendations they can make for you, and it just makes the process so much better than, say, just scanning on Amazon for a book. That's why bookstores are so important.
 
Krystle Dandridge  19:29
Bookstores will forever be important. Bookstores . . . first of all, they're in your community. So we're talking about tax dollars, all of that, that goes back into your community. So why would you not want to support a bookstore that's in your community? I understand the ease of shopping online and just having it delivered to you in a day or two. I get that. But there are so many reasons to choose an independent bookstore over choosing shopping online and supporting something that isn't in your community. It's not in your community, it's not benefiting your community in any way, shape, or form. And then the interesting thing is people wonder when they're like, "Oh, well, bookstores are obsolete" or "They don't stick around, they don't stick around," because instead of walking in and talking to a person, you decided to click on it.
 
Krystle Dandridge  20:13
And I'm not against online shopping, but there are also ways to shop online to purchase books that are not through Amazon so you can still support what's in your community: Bookshop.org! Independent bookstores through Bookshop.org. You can go through Bookshop.org, choose the bookstore you want to select (The Book Bar) and your purchase benefits that store. It still supports the store in your community, and you can get it shipped directly to you, easy.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  20:40
That is so nice. We love Bookshop.org. I literally just used it the other day, and my purchase . . . I bought one book, one paperback book, and it said it gave $5.99 to a local bookstore, which is crazy considering that the book was like $18, you know, so that's a huge amount for online, which is awesome.
 
Krystle Dandridge  20:59
It's great. We get a huge portion of that percentage. And then you also have Libro.fm for those who are like, "I only do audiobooks." Libro.fm, same concept.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  21:09
Yes, absolutely.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  21:11
To sort of wrap up, what are ways that people can support RVA Book Bar if they don't live nearby?
 
Krystle Dandridge  21:18
Online! You can always support me online, RVABookBar.com, www.rvabookbar.com. Events are posted there, and there is a link to my Bookshop page. You go under "Shop," it'll say "Shop Books," and you can search all of the books you want. You can always come inside! You can't lose with that either. But there are so many ways you can follow me, on IG, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube @rvabookbar. Or come down to the store: 1311 East Main Street in Richmond, Virginia.
 
Mary-Peyton Crook  21:47
Well, thank you so much, Krystle, for being with us today, for taking time out of your busy schedule. I love The Book Bar, we all do at Wildling, and however we can support you, we are here to do that.
 
Krystle Dandridge  22:00
I appreciate that.


transcribed and edited by Mary-Peyton Crook

Join us for a chat with C.K. Fullerton as we talk about all things romance: how she got into the genre, her tips and tricks for writing in the genre effectively, book recommendations, and more! 

Grace Ball  00:23
I'm so excited today because Mike and I are joined by Wildling's very own C.K. Fullerton, author of the upcoming Blood and Brujeria.

C.K. Fullerton  00:54
Hi, I'm so excited to be here.

Michael Hardison  00:56
Yeah, we're definitely happy to have you here. Thanks for joining us.

Grace Ball  00:59
Thank you so much for coming on the pod today. Okay, first things first, what are your pronouns?

C.K. Fullerton  01:05
She and her.

Grace Ball  01:06
Awesome. Well, Happy Valentine's Day, everybody. We asked C.K. to come on the show on this particular day of love because we want to talk about romance baby. We consider C.K. to be an expert on the romance genre, so we want to pick her brain a bit. But before we get into it, C.K., do you want to tell the listeners a little about your book and how you got started writing in general?

C.K. Fullerton  01:37
Yeah, definitely. Blood and Brujeria: In the Shadows is the first book of three. And it's a paranormal urban romance about a half witch half vampire named Cassandra, who comes from a family of vampire slayers that protect the city of San Diego. And while she's out slaying vampires, she discovers an influx of all these new vampires coming into the city causing trouble. And so she works together with her friends to try and figure out where all these vampires are coming from. And on the way she rescues a troubled vampire named Landon, who ends up kind of being a part of the mystery, but not everything is as it seems with him. So the first installment of this book of the series features a plus size Chicana female lead, a diverse found family, lots of magic, and lots of unapologetic smut.

Grace Ball  02:26
Yes!

Michael Hardison  02:27
Sounds awesome.

Grace Ball  02:29
We are so excited about this book. I've had the pleasure of working with C.K. on it throughout production so far, and we're super excited about it. It's going to be awesome.

Michael Hardison  02:40
Yeah, even with the sneak peek that I got of it, it was just really exciting. I can't wait to read more of it.

Grace Ball  02:45
Yeah, C.K., I don't know if you know this, but Mike is actually the one who, like, acquired and like recommended your book to the rest of us. 

C.K. Fullerton  02:53
Oh, how cool! I didn't know that. Well, thank you.

Michael Hardison  02:55
Yeah, that was me. It was one of my first like entrances into reading romance. And I've read a few before, but this one just really piqued my interest, because of the paranormal side of it too, just that combination was just, it was fun to be part of, and you know, dive into that world.

C.K. Fullerton  03:10
Awesome. Yeah, and I feel like the genre is really exploding right now. So I consider like paranormal romance to be a subgenre of fantasy romance. And in general, it's just having a huge upsurge. You know, one of the reasons I got into writing again, I wrote when I was a teenager, and then kind of fell out of it in college. But during the pandemic, I rediscovered reading, like so many people, and I used to love fantasy, YA fantasy, and then I discovered fantasy romance. I was like, oh my god, this is like the adult version of what I loved as a teenager. But these characters are dealing with things that I deal with, you know, and so I got to still get my fix of escapism with fantasy, and it was like going into a new world, but also it was for an adult. So I actually related to the characters because when I would read YA as a thirty-year-old woman, it was like, it wasn't really hitting the same way because my life changed. So that was really what inspired me to get involved in the genre as well.

Grace Ball  04:11
That's so cool. So you said you did some writing in like high school?

C.K. Fullerton  04:14
Yeah.

Grace Ball  04:15
What kind of stuff would you write?

C.K. Fullerton  04:18
Still paranormal. I mean, I was a huge Anne Rice nerd, so lots of witches, lots of vampires. Some of the stuff I read back, I'm like, that was Anne Rice fanfiction. I read like so many fantasy romance novels in 2020 and 2021. Like once I got into it, I was like I'm gonna just immerse myself, and I read like, probably forty books in two months. Like it was like really intense. And like a book a day sometimes. Yeah, and then not all of them were great. Like I feel like I went from like the really top tier down into like, some of the stuff that was not so great. And that's when I went you know, I could . . . 

Grace Ball  04:55
Kind of spiraled

C.K. Fullerton  04:55
Yeah, I was like, I could probably write something, and like I want to because I'm running out of good stuff. So I really wrote it because I was like, I am at a loss here like I'm, I haven't found anything good. I think it was like I read like, probably four or five just really bad books back-to-back, and then I was like, okay, I'm gonna do something about this.

Grace Ball  05:15
C.K. write the book you want to see in the world, am I right? 

C.K. Fullerton  05:18
Exactly. Yeah, and then you know the other thing too is that so many of the books I was reading were really focused on white characters. There are not a lot of brown vampires out there. And then not a lot of like representation in the genre, and then plus sized characters as well. I feel like, even if there is that representation, it's still in kind of, sometimes a fatphobic lens, where we're still kind of focused on their body size, almost like hyper-focused. 

Grace Ball  05:49
Yeah, that's so true. And I feel like that comes up a lot in the romance genre, just as like an issue, because, you know, there is so much body description.

C.K. Fullerton  05:59
There is and it can be so unrealistic as well.

Grace Ball  06:03
Yeah, that is so true. So, you said that you read just an insane amount of books, particularly during the pandemic, were they all sort of romance related?

C.K. Fullerton  06:15
Yeah, I like kind of hyper-focused on fantasy romance right at the beginning of my reading journey. Now, I've really gotten into contemporary romance as well.

Grace Ball  06:24
Do you have any recommendations? 

C.K. Fullerton  06:25
Oh, yes, I wrote them down. For contemporary romance, anything by Emily Henry, like she deserves all the hype she's getting on social media. I'm so glad they're making a movie out of one of her books. And like they're just all fantastic. Great romance, but also just wonderful, like character development. And she's just really smart and her characters have really great voices. So I love her. I also really enjoyed It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey. Really good dirty talk in that one, if that's what you're into. 

Grace Ball  06:58
Okay!

C.K. Fullerton  06:59
And then, Set on You by Amy Lea has great plus size representation. Delilah Green Doesn't Care is a super cute sapphic romance, if you're looking for that, that female/female. And then from the fantasy romance perspective, I really love Scarlett St. Clair's Hades X Persephone series. Also, we can't talk about fantasy romance without mentioning the queen, Sarah J. Maas.

Grace Ball  06:59
It's true. 

C.K. Fullerton  07:01
She's popular for a reason. They are really good. The hype is true. Crescent City is like one of my all time favorite books. So you really can't go wrong with those.

Grace Ball  07:35
Do you think that's a good place to start for anyone who's wanting to get into the genre?

C.K. Fullerton  07:40
I would actually recommend Scarlett St. Clair's Hades X Persephone series to start, or "The Bridge Kingdom" series by Danielle Jensen. They're just not so long. So with Sarah J. Maas, they get really long and there's a lot of them, so that one's an investment. So if you know you really like the genre, after you kind of do some of these smaller series, then you can really dive into those books. Because, you know, buying books is expensive. I mean, I'm a library person. So that's, that's great, too.

Grace Ball  08:00
Oh my gosh, that reminds me that we also have to wish, in addition to Valentine's Day, wish everyone a happy Library Lovers Day. Because that's what today is too!

C.K. Fullerton  08:22
That's so cool!

Michael Hardison  08:23
I'll celebrate that one. That's a single one. I'll celebrate Library Day. I love the library!

C.K. Fullerton  08:30
Me too! Thank god I have a library because I would have gone broke reading all those books.

Grace Ball  08:37
We love our libraries. So with writing romance, there's probably a particular approach to this genre. It sounds like maybe you've written just mostly in this genre, but how would you say that it might be different from writing in another genre, if that makes sense?

C.K. Fullerton  08:55
Yeah. I think that, you know, falling in love takes a particular kind of self-awareness and some compromise and empathy. And so I think if you're going to write about that experience, as an author, you really have to be able to dive into that. And so you really need to come from an empathetic place, you've got to dive into your characters' thoughts, their emotion, and really look at your characters' personal grow, because usually they need to do some sort of growth in order to make a relationship work. And so you can build the most complex world with like, epic fantasy, like, you know, this great world building, but if you are not rooting that love story in some very familiar human experiences, it's just not going to click. So I think that's the biggest aspect of it, and that I see across the whole genre--contemporary fantasy, paranormal--and that's one of the things I really love about it is that it does have this very human aspect to it no matter if you're on a planet with blue aliens, like you still have this very familiar experience that most people have had. And so I think that's the the thing to focus on.

Grace Ball  10:06
That's a great way to approach writing in the genre, because that's ultimately what people are looking for is to like see a human experience reflected in a story. And it's fun to have all these cool, different realms and settings, but I think you're right that people are looking to really read that human experience. So I love that. So when you are writing, are there any aspects particular to this genre that you find to be difficult? And if so, how do you meet those challenges when come up against them?

C.K. Fullerton  10:44
It's so funny, because, romance, of course, we're talking love, love scenes, sex scenes, and those were actually the hardest parts for me. 

Grace Ball  10:52
Really?! 

C.K. Fullerton  10:53
Yeah, because you can just get so in your head about it, and you kind of have to let go of it feeling a little cringy sometimes. Particularly when you have characters like talking about being in love, it can feel very cliche and cheesy. But you want these heightened experiences and moments, you want it to feel climactic, you want it to really jump off the page. And so you've got to be able to go there and laugh at yourself and let go of the fact that some of the things that you're saying, maybe seem cheesy, but if it's rooted in the truth of the character and what they're feeling, and it makes sense, then it works. So to overcome that, definitely, I just let myself be playful with it. And part of that was I wouldn't read over anything that I had written while I was writing. So I was only allowed to go forward, I wasn't allowed to go backward until the scene was fully fleshed out. Because I felt like if I was in a good flow with it, whatever they were saying, or whatever was going down, it was meant to happen that way. And then I could go back and say, oh, that line didn't work, or does this physically make sense? Like, logistically, how are they doing this? But I will say it did help to have Grace as an editor because you did an amazing job of of being like, I don't think that they would say that or, like how, how is this happening? Which is one of my biggest complaints in romance in some of the sex scenes is like, I just don't understand, like, physically, I can't see it in my mind.

Grace Ball  12:25
Yeah, because you are visualizing. 

C.K. Fullerton  12:28
Right!

Grace Ball  12:28
So if all of a sudden somebody's doing something crazy, you're like, well, I'm not sure exactly how we got from point A to point B.

C.K. Fullerton  12:36
Exactly. Exactly. 

Michael Hardison  12:38
That makes me think too, talking about the logistics of the scene and everything, and I wish I had pulled some up before we started this interview, but when you go back and read the excerpts people find of men writing women badly in romances. 

C.K. Fullerton  12:51
Yes!

Michael Hardison  12:52
That brings me so much joy to read how cringy those sections are, just like, you didn't go back and read that? Is the woman's body really shaped in a way that you can do that? 

C.K. Fullerton  13:03
Exactly. 

Michael Hardison  13:04
And it's so funny to me. You need to know what you're doing before you write it.

C.K. Fullerton  13:09
Some basic anatomy.

C.K. Fullerton  13:10
Yes. Yeah. And so like, I learned to really love writing those scenes, because once you build up the relationship, and it finally happens for your characters, it's so fun. But even as a super sex positive person, it's still like, kind of weird at first to actually put that down on paper.

Grace Ball  13:34
Well, you do a great job with it. I feel like I didn't really edit too many things in the spicier scenes of your book, because I was like, she nailed it. So on the flip side, what kind of brings you back? What makes you really, really excited about writing romance?

C.K. Fullerton  13:52
I think that the community of readers is the thing that inspires me the most, like everyone is usually just so welcoming and inclusive and excited about sharing different books. And throughout my writing journey, I've just found so many different little pockets of wonderful people that I can reach out to that are also writing. And I feel like a lot of people in the community felt the same way I do, where they didn't see the books that they wanted so they just started writing, which is super inspiring. And also I just love good banter. So I feel like that's one of the great tropes of romance is there's always some good back and forth. And so that's one of my favorite things to write. It just really like helps build that tension. And then those are the scenes that I hear in my head, where I can't keep up with the characters because it is just going and I'm just trying to type it as fast as I can. So that's where I get like the most excited.

Grace Ball  14:46
That's cool. So you mentioned that you talk to people in the community. What is like the most effective way you found to connect with other people because I'm sure that our listeners, you know, would be interested in hearing about any sort of groups or platforms that you that you're able to share?

C.K. Fullerton  15:04
Definitely, I really found going on Instagram, finding other people that are writing in my genre. So other like indie authors. And then a lot of them have Discord groups or are part of different Discord groups, and so if you message them and see what groups they're a part of. I'm part of a couple of different Discord groups. And we'll do writing sprints together on there. So that's been really helpful and really fun. And then you know, you hype each other's books up when they come out. And you're just kind of there to brainstorm with other people, even about like making reels, or marketing ideas, and how to use social media, kind of picking other people's brains that have already been doing it, too, has been really helpful. So I think Discord has been like the best platform for me personally in building those relationships.

Grace Ball  15:50
That's so cool. That's awesome. Alrighty, so what are some strategies you use to effectively build tension in a romance novel? I think, you know, you said, the banter is really important. How do you make that happen on the page?

C.K. Fullerton  16:00
I wish I could give like an a, b, and c to like how that happens. But honestly, like I said, the characters start talking in your head, for me, at least. And that's when like the best banter comes in. I think, of course, you need to set up a situation where there are obstacles for your characters, you can't really have sexual tension, if the characters have nothing stopping them from hooking up and seeing where it goes. So you have to have a very clear reason why these two people who are attracted to each other can't get together, or else it's just pointless. It doesn't make sense. 

Grace Ball  16:41
No conflict. 

C.K. Fullerton  16:41
I think, yeah, having that conflict, knowing what that is, having it be something that is a true obstacle, that isn't something that a reader would go like, really, that's the reason why they're not getting together? Like it's got to have higher stakes. And then I think that having a good idea of how the attraction started, and how it builds--kind of the middle of that tension--that is making it maybe go from a physical attraction to an emotional attraction. And then finally, knowing what the catalyst is going to be for them to overcome that obstacle. I think, you know, depending on how high stakes your obstacle is, your event that's going to make them finally get together needs to match that.

Grace Ball  17:26
Yeah, there's obviously the physical element, but there's the emotional element too that could even be potentially more important to make convincing.

C.K. Fullerton  17:34
Yes, yes. I mean, you know, that kind of idea, like insta-love. And I think a lot of readers in the genre don't necessarily love that trope. And I feel like it is very based on the physical, and if they don't bring in the emotional later, it just, it just really falls flat. So I do think that ultimately, to make it feel like that human experience we were talking about earlier, you really do need to find that connection between these two people. Otherwise, just watch porn? 

Grace Ball  18:07
Yeah, that's so true. There's a story there. Just kidding! So I forgot to ask you, I meant to ask you earlier. Do you have  favorite romance tropes? I think we all do.

C.K. Fullerton  18:24
Yes. Yes, I do. I mean, I'm a sucker for enemies to lovers. I just love it. I can't get enough. If anything has it, I'll read it. And I also love a good "who did this to you?" scene. Those are always fun. And I feel like those are very specific to fantasy romance. That's like a very popular trope. Also, friends to lovers, I read a couple friends lovers books, I did not think I would like it as much as I did. But those have a great emotional connection because there's already a backstory, they obviously are good friends, so they trust each other, and so it kind of builds from there. And then I do love a good fake relationship, but it has to be a believable reason why they're faking. If it's not a good reason why they're faking, I just can't buy in. So that one I feel like it's hard to do, but when it's done well I enjoy it. And then of course the one bed trope, you can't go wrong.

Grace Ball  18:24
Oh my god, I was gonna say, I always have to mention the one bed trope. That's my favorite.

C.K. Fullerton  18:49
Yeah. So good. 

Grace Ball  19:27
Classic. I love that. Okay, so we've touched on this a little bit, we've talked about some of the ways that the genre is kind of currently evolving and how its evolved in terms of inclusion. So what kind of changes in that vein are you seeing and like, what do you see for the future of the genre?

C.K. Fullerton  19:48
Well, I think that because more readers are taking it into their own hands and writing their own things, I think we're seeing much more realistic sex scenes, in particular. Women aren't orgasming by penetration alone or like fifteen times in a row or like the anatomy doesn't make sense, like we're really seeing realistic female pleasure focused sex scenes, which I think is really important. And I think it's really empowering. When you're able to have a language to talk about what you need, you kind of close that orgasm gap in your own relationship. And readers are also really talking about that as well. So it's taking away a lot of the shame around sexuality. And that's something that I think is really changing the way that people are writing. I also think that the group of people who grew up reading YA, we're older now, we want different things. And we want to see older characters too. So I feel like there was so much focus on like teenagers for such a long time. And now I'm seeing a lot more books about people in their 30s--I read a book about a woman in her 50s--you know, like we're starting to see age inclusion as well, not just different body types, not just different races, but also different ages. And I think it's really important because sexuality doesn't stop. And so I think representing different phases of life as well is really cool to see. 

Grace Ball  21:06
Yeah, me too.

Michael Hardison  21:08
Y'all are lucky with YA, and growing up on that--that wasn't really a category when I was young. And my actual first like romance book I read when I--because there wasn't YA accessible--so I grabbed a book from like, my mom's shelf.

Grace Ball  21:21
Okay, mom!

Michael Hardison  21:21
I started reading it, and it was seventh grade, and it was V.C. Andrews. I don't know if you're very aware of them or not, but they write some pretty like, wild stuff. And after she passed, they continue to use her name to write more, but it's just all of this really like grocery store level, trashy novels, about like rich, rich families, and there's a whole lot of sex, and all these things, and I'm in seventh grade earning my like, Pizza Hut points reading V.C. Andrews books. I read an entire, like seven book series my seventh grade summer, and I was like, wow, adults are weird.

C.K. Fullerton  21:59
Oh, there is certainly a place for that, too. 

Grace Ball  22:02
That's so true. Oh, man, this has been so fun! Okay, so, C.K., could you give our listeners like one final piece of advice about writing romance, just to wrap it all on up?

C.K. Fullerton  22:16
I think I'd want to go back to just letting yourself be uncomfortable a little bit. You know, there are going to be times when I think writing the emotions and writing about love can sometimes feel awkward and cheesy. But if you are really rooting it in your characters' truth, if you've really set up scenarios that put them in a place where they can be vulnerable, I think you can't really go wrong. And so also being very clear about "the why" they're getting together. What is it about these two people that they're relating to each other about? And why are they attracted to each other beyond the physical is really important. And from there, I think you'll have a great foundation, and then you can start to play, then you can start to work on the banter, then you can start to add in some tropes, then you can create your world around them, and give them some different conflicts. But ultimately, you need to have that foundation there to build on.

Grace Ball  23:17
Beautiful. Wow, thank you so much for talking with us today, C.K., and being the first guest on our new season of "How Do I Book?" 

C.K. Fullerton  23:27
Thank you. I'm honored!

Grace Ball  23:29
Really, yeah, it was truly such as such a pleasure talking with you. And thank you for sharing your valuable perspective.

C.K. Fullerton  23:36
Thanks so much for having me. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.

Grace Ball  23:39
Happy Valentine's Day!

Michael Hardison  23:40
Happy Valentine's Day!

Grace Ball  23:41
And that's how you book! 

transcribed and edited by Grace Ball

TikTok

Join Christina in conversation with Becky Robinson, founder of Weaving Influence, host of the Book Marketing Action Podcast, and author of Reach: Creating the Biggest Possible Audience for Your Message, Book, or Cause.

Christina Kann  00:06
Welcome to How Do I Book? by Wildling Press. We like to chat about book writing, book publishing, book marketing, and, of course, book reading. We're trying to help new and experienced authors develop their craft, widen their perspectives, and learn to get a little wild every once in a while. I'm Christina Kann, and I'm extremely excited to be joined today by Becky Robinson from over at Weaving Influence! Becky, say hello to the listeners.
 
Becky Robinson  00:33
Hi, everybody, I'm so happy to be here with you.
 
Christina Kann  00:36
I'm really happy to have you here. Tell everyone a little bit about what you do over at Weaving Influence and your podcast.
 
Becky Robinson  00:45
I would love to. Weaving Influence is a full-service comprehensive digital marketing agency, and we specialize in serving authors and thought leaders. I founded Weaving Influence in 2012, and we have primarily served nonfiction business book authors. However, in recent years, we've had the opportunity to support some fiction authors. What we've found is that many of the approaches we use in nonfiction translate well to fiction. In the meantime, we've been learning about the differences in how to market fiction as well. My podcast is the Book Marketing Action Podcast. We are just wrapping up our third season, and we primarily focus on actions authors can take immediately to expand the reach of their books in the world. I'm also an author myself. My first book, Reach: Create the Biggest Possible Audience for Your Message, Book, or Cause launched in April of 2022. I was so glad to be able to bring together the thinking and framework I use in helping authors figure out how to reach more readers with their books. I was really happy to be able to put that all into writing, into something people could access easily.
 
Christina Kann  01:55
I'm also incredibly happy you were able to put that into writing, because it's such a valuable resource. You were kind enough to send me a copy of your book, Reach. It really has so much excellent information for people who are engaging in the digital marketing arena, so definitely check it out. I'll put a link in our episode notes. If you are trying to build an online audience and engage in an authentic way, this is a great, great, great place to start getting in the right mindset.
 
Becky Robinson  02:27
And if you don't mind me mentioning, Christina, we also have started the Reach More Readers Workshop, which is a live and interactive workshop that authors can join. It's 10 hours of training across two days. While the content is similar to what's in the book, there's the chance to interact with other authors. One of the things I'm most proud of is the way the groups who participate in our workshop are really an inclusive community where anyone is welcome. People can really meet and connect with others who might want to support their work. In those workshops, we have had fiction, nonfiction, memoir, self-help, business -- all different genres of people, but they all share this common goal of making a difference in the world. When we get together for the workshops virtually, it's the most beautiful chance to connect. And I love doing it.
 
Christina Kann  03:18
That is so amazing. We're here to talk today about one really specific facet of your book. Your book addresses your four commitments, the four components you break digital marketing into. I love that. Do you mind telling the listeners briefly -- because, obviously, they need to buy your book -- what those components are?
 
Becky Robinson  03:42
As I was crafting the book, what I started to notice as I interviewed different authors and thought leaders about what reach meant to them or how they achieved reach for their work, hat kind of surfaced were these. At first, I called them "four factors." They were things that every author or thought leader I talked to seem to have in common. The amazing thing is, when we got to the point of editing the book, my editor said, "Well, 'factors' is super boring." So he threw out a whole bunch of different words that I could use instead. "Commitments" is really special and powerful to me, because if you want to do something big in the world, it's not something you can take lightly. It does require a commitment; it requires focus. I love that we ended up calling them the four commitments in the book, and I'm happy to share them briefly.
 
The first commitment is value. If you want to build an online presence, the only way you can attract an audience is if you have something they perceive to be a value. If you're a fiction author, maybe you're telling a particular kind of story; the value you're providing is entertainment, art, craft. If you're nonfiction, you're providing value around a topic, and your audience has a felt need in that area. Every author who wants to build reach really has to start with getting clear about the value they have to offer and who the audience is who's going to find that valuable. Value is determined by the person receiving the value. So that's the first commitment:" value.
 
The second commitment is consistency. It's not enough to just create a thing of value. What you want to do is consistently show up with value. In the book I talk about how this doesn't mean you have to blog daily; it doesn't mean you have to release a podcast weekly; it doesn't even mean you need to tweet X times per day. The idea is that you need to consistently show up with value. I always coach authors to figure out what sustainable. Some of us can really turn out content every day. Others have a busy day job, and that might not be possible. But what you want is to be able to create an expectation that you will keep showing up so your audience knows they can count on you and trust you. So consistency is the second one.
 
The third commitment is generosity. This one is sometimes unexpected. When I talk about generosity with your online presence, it really has to do with being willing to share value freely with others. Sometimes that value is just your authentic self. You can be generous by showing up as your authentic self, sharing vulnerably about your experiences or perceptions, sharing what you know about the craft of writing. Fiction authors especially seem to be able to gather an online community by talking about how they do what they do as a fiction writer. Readers are interested in that. They want to hear how you do what you do. They want the behind the scenes; they want to know what's in the head of that fiction author as they're crafting their characters are telling their story. So whatever that value is that you have to offer, having kind of open hands, if you want to think about generosity that way. It doesn't necessarily mean you're giving away products and services for free. But it does mean you're giving energy, encouragement, and inspiration, as you show up consistently in online spaces.
 
The final one is longevity. Honestly, I think this is the one that has the biggest potential upside, because people get excited to start things. People are not necessarily always as excited to finish things.
 
Christina Kann  07:47
So true. My husband loves to start a video game and never ever, ever finish it.
 
Becky Robinson  07:53
That' s funny. I want to reference Dorie Clark, who's a thought leader in this space. She wrote a book called The Long Game, and in it, she talks about the fact that growing an online presence that's worthwhile does take an extreme amount of time. She notes that you have to consistently show up with value in online spaces sometimes for an entire year before you see any results. If you think about that, from the perspective of someone who writes a book, and then just gets online for the first time, a lot of times, if it's going to take a whole year to get results, you're gonna give up before you even see the results. Dorie Clark also says that to be recognized as an expert online, you have to consistently share value online for five years. So that long-term view, that long-game view, is critically important. Just to quote Dory one more time -- I'm a super fan, obviously -- the reason why some people become successful and others do not is because some people keep going and other people just give up. If you think about Wildling Press -- you're new on the scene -- when you're still here, Christina, in 10 years, you're likely to be successful, because other people who started publishing companies when you did will have quit by then.
 
Christina Kann  09:11
I love all of that. Thank you so much for sharing. For more detailed explanations and investigations into these four commitments, definitely check out Reach. I'm not gonna stop plugging it because it's an awesome book. Today we're here to talk about one specific commitment that really struck me, and I guess it struck you as well, because you said it was the most unexpected commitment: generosity. I think this is one that authors and other people who are marketing themselves online tend to skip over because it's not exactly intuitive. If you're trying to earn money writing, it's not exactly intuitive to give out a lot of stuff for free. Can you expand a little bit about the role of generosity in digital marketing?
 
Becky Robinson  09:55
Well, it's a great way to say it. I love that. So before getting ready to get generous, before creating their generosity plan for how to freely give value online, does an author need to shift their mentality at all? Is there anything that an author can do to get ready for that? If they have gotten online being like, "I'm here to sell," but now they're realizing they need to make a little bit of a change, how can they prepare for that?
 
Becky Robinson  09:55
I think that one of the reasons why generosity is so important is because it really helps us rise above the noise. There is so much noise. Especially if you show up and you have something to sell... We get sold to constantly. I get pitches in my email multiple times per day by people who want to sell me something. But I think it's so much more rare to have someone show up with an offer of something for free. So whether it's a free event where you're sharing something that you know, or a free resource that you're making available, by offering something of value to someone who needs it, you can make that more immediate relational connection. And that relational connection over time is what sets up the possibility of that person becoming someone who might share your work with others, of that person becoming someone who might continue to be in relationship with you. Generosity is the key that unlocks that relational connection door. And I've never said it this way before!
 
Becky Robinson  11:24
That's a good question, and it can be challenging. I'm going to roll back way too many years, more than a decade, to when I first began this journey. One of the first things I did is I wrote these ebooks. They were on different topics related to digital marketing. I'll admit, Christina, when I created them, I thought it was going to sell them. I thought I was going to actually sell them for hundreds of dollars, because they were so valuable. We set up a landing page to sell these playbooks, and very quickly, what I realized is I didn't have anyone to sell them to. One of the phrases I like to repeat to myself is before you want to extract value, you have to add value. And so the shift that that required for me is this mindset shift of "I'm gonna focus on serving instead of selling." When you focus on serving, which is an act of generosity, again, it's the key that unlocks that relational door. It also helps to cement who you are as a brand, so people can begin to know you for the value  you want to bring.
 
Becky Robinson  12:32
I want to pause for just a minute though, Christina, because I know there might be some people listening for whom selling is not optional. If you are in a situation in which to survive, you need to sell, this advice might seem like I'm tone deaf. I want to just recognize that the ability to be generous, or the ability to serve before you sell, does in some ways require that you have a certain level of financial freedom, or that you have some other means of making money that isn't through your online presence. I'm definitely speaking from a place of privilege. I do have a business that's financially viable that frees me up to be generous. For those of you out there who may be just getting started as an author or really trying to navigate how you're going to make a living from this, it's hard to make a living from writing. I've heard people from marginalized identities talking about, "Well, it's all well and good to talk about giving things away, but I just don't have that margin." I just didn't want to go too far before I acknowledged that this content could be received in a lot of different ways.
 
Christina Kann  13:46
Of course. I think it's important what you said. You can give generously without that being your main thing. You and I both run businesses, but we also host podcasts that are free information for whoever needs that information. It's about balancing the things you need to do to make money to survive with the ways you can engage with your audience. It's okay if sometimes you have more spoons to give that generosity than other times.
 
Becky Robinson  14:15
Certainly so. It's generosity of spirit as well. Now, again, that takes time. It takes time to pause to encourage someone else or amplify someone else. But we all have something we can give.
 
Christina Kann  14:30
Absolutely. What kind of spaces online are good for being generous and sharing value? How are the different online spaces good to share different kinds of value?
 
Becky Robinson  14:44
You need to know your audience and where they're showing up to figure out what type of content would be most valuable to generously share with them. I think any online space is a place where you can be generous. I don't know necessarily that there's one particular channel that's easier than another. But because your audience is primarily people who are authors, one of the things I want to highlight is that a way to grow your network through generosity before you have a book come out is to find ways to be helpful to other authors. For example, if you're writing fiction in a particular genre, you could choose to participate in a book launch, or to help an author with their release, who's in a similar genre. That helps to build a relational connection. Not only that, but it also opens up an opportunity for you to learn from someone who's ahead of you on the journey.
 
Becky Robinson  15:37
I have an author who launched a book earlier this week, and I was digging into some of our older correspondence. And what I discovered is that before he was my client, he was promoting other authors by being on the launch team. For those of you who might not know, a launch team is also sometimes called the street team, and a lot of authors will gather a group of people who will read a book in advance of their publication date so they can share Amazon reviews and do social sharing. What I'm recommending is if you're an author who's listening, or an aspiring author who's listening, one of the ways you could practice generosity is through other authors who are in your same genre or niche so you can build those relationships -- not only because you want something in return when your book comes out, but also for just the joy of supporting someone else and to learn from what they're doing.
 
Christina Kann  16:28
I think this next question ties back a little bit into what you were saying earlier about knowing your audience. What kind of materials are good for sharing generously? We mentioned that time and energy are also things you can share generously. But if someone is interested in getting a little bit more concrete, what kinds of things are good for sharing?
 
Becky Robinson  16:51
I'm happy to give a few ideas here. You mentioned the whole idea of a podcast. Podcasts are typically free. Obviously, there are models like Patreon, where creators will create content beyond the free content. That's a subscription model. That is that is an approach that works for some people.
 
Becky Robinson  17:10
I referenced that playbooks that I wrote that I thought it was going to sell for hundreds of dollars. The shift that I had to make was, "Instead of making those playbooks for money, what if I gave them away for free?" which I actually ended up doing. The value of that was it drew an audience. Anyone who downloaded those playbooks for free could see my areas of expertise, etc. Any kind of content that you might create, you have that choice between, am I going to make this free, or will there be a cost associated with it?
 
Becky Robinson  17:44
If you think about all the possibilities with content... You could do free videos. You could do free audio. You could do free written articles and ebooks. You could do free assessments. You could do free interactive events, if you wanted to. I have an author I'm working with right now who created this series called "Where Fact Meets Fiction." She is interviewing other historical fiction authors about their craft and about how they researched to write their fiction. It's very cool. It's free conversations; people can join them live. There are two benefits to that, and I'll tell you what they are. One of the benefits is all the readers who get that kind of inside view of how the authors are thinking about their writing are also getting kind of that chance to get to meet their favorite authors. So that's one value to the readers. There's also the value of the relational network that my client who's an author is forming with each of those authors. So if you're an author who's really been solo in your craft, and you decide you're going to do a series of interactive webinars, every single guest you have is another person that you're building that connection with. Not only will you have the opportunity to support their journey as an author, but they also may pour into yours.
 
Christina Kann  19:00
Mutual support is such an important tenant of this like generosity mindset. In that same vein, how can authors engage with others and support others who are trying to share their value?
 
Becky Robinson  19:17
There's always the idea of amplifying other people's work.  I'll give you an example. I have a friend who's also in the digital marketing space; she runs a company that produces audiobooks, and I consistently refer business to her. In fact, her company helped me with the production of my audiobook. Well, she was out there generously today sharing a little audio clip from my book and talking about me and the idea of generosity, which was beautiful to see. Anytime you can take someone else's content and amplify it, that fuels that mutual supportiveness. That's probably one of the best ways to be generous, especially when a fellow author is publishing their book on their launch day, in their launch week. That's the very perfect time to be able to amplify someone else. The other thing is buying the books of those people you admire. As often as I can, when I have a client who has a book launching or another author friend who's having a book launch -- even if I don't even expect to read it, I'm gonna buy it. If they were in my hometown and I had the chance to take them out for lunch, you better believe I'm gonna try to fight them for the check and treat them to lunch. If I would fight them for the check and treat them for lunch, I'm gonna go buy their book.
 
Christina Kann  20:37
Absolutely. Last question for you, Becky. What's one thing authors can do today to start being more generous in online spaces?
 
Becky Robinson  20:47
I love that question.  I'm going to go back to some of the tips I had before. One thing I'd like to encourage everyone who's listening today is just think for a minute about the authors you admire, and whoever the first one is who pops into your head, if you've read their book, go leave them an Amazon review. If you haven't read their book, find some other way to reach out and amplify something they're doing: share a post of theirs on Instagram to your own story and shout them out. If you're a more of a LinkedIn person, find a post they've made on LinkedIn and share it to your audience. Be generous with your praise by giving a very specific reason why you admire what they're doing in the world.
 
Christina Kann  21:28
If you're already on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, doing your authorly social media upkeep, it is really so easy to share something to your Instagram story or to retweet something. It's small for you, but for the person you're doing it to uplift, it can feel so big.
 
Becky Robinson  21:50
Certainly. We all want to be seen and valued for the contribution we're making.
 
Christina Kann  21:55
Yeah. Well, Becky, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for being generous with your time and energy to come on How Do I Book?
 
Becky Robinson  22:03
Thank you for having me. For those who are listening today, be sure to come over to the Book Marketing Action Podcast, because I will be interviewing Christina very soon. I'm not sure how these episodes will be launched, but if you're listening to this episode, definitely go look for Christina's interview on the Book Marketing Action Podcast.
 
Christina Kann  22:22
I recommend listening to the whole backlog of episodes because y'all's podcast was actually the podcast that got me into marketing podcasts. When I first started listening to podcasts, I did a lot of comedy and fiction, because that's just more my vibe. But once I started listening to your podcast, I was like, "Oh, there's a lot of value out here in podcast land." That's another part of it: all of us producers and marketers are sharing information with each other in these ways as well. I just think that's so awesome and special.
 
Becky Robinson  22:57
Very cool. I'm so glad. Hopefully people will listen to episode 100, where I share my top 10 lessons of 10 years of marketing books and 100 podcast episodes.
 
Christina Kann  23:06
Oh my god, I'm so excited for that.
 
Becky Robinson  23:08
I had fun recording it. It was really a lot of fun. It was just me in a room recording, but one of the things it cemented for me is how far I've come. If I'm honest, when I started the podcast, the early episodes I was recording solo -- we didn't have any guests at the beginning, Christina -- and I hated it. I thought I would want to quit. And now, 100 episodes in, it's so much fun. I can start recording and I don't blink.
 
Christina Kann  23:37
Yes, I love that for you. I love that so much. Besides your podcast, where can people find you on the internet?
 
Becky Robinson  23:44
There are two main places to find me. If you're interested in finding out about my company, Weaving Influence, you can go to weavinginfluence.com. If you're interested in me personally and my book and my journey as an entrepreneur, you can go to beckyrobinson.com. And then on all the social media platforms except Tik Tok, @beckyrbnsn.
 
Christina Kann  24:13
That's linked below, as well as a link to purchase Reach, which I do recommend for everyone who's getting started on their book marketing plan. This is a great place to start sourcing ideas.
 
Becky Robinson  24:27
One generous offer for your listeners, Christina. If there's anyone listening and you'd like to read my book, and you can't afford to buy it for some reason, maybe you're facing some hard times -- go ahead and email me. I'm [email protected]. I'd love to get a copy of my book in the mail to you.
 
Christina Kann  24:43
Wow, that's so generous! That's so on-theme of you. Love that so much. I so appreciate all that you do in the community. You really are an example of generosity. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your expertise about generosity and digital marketing.
 
Becky Robinson  25:01
Thanks, Christina can't wait to talk again.
 
Christina Kann  25:05
And that's how you book. 

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