Podcast appearances and mentions of alexandra rowland

April Fool's! We love boat books; well, specifically, we love Alexandra Rowland's Running Close to the Wind. A perfect combination of our running bit of disliking boat books and this being one of the funniest books we've ever read, we thought it perfect for the day.Your hosts are Steph Kingston (@StephOKingston), Christina Ladd (@christinaladd), and Joshua MacDougall (@FourofFiveWits). You can find us all on Bluesky. Our art is by Mangoyu Art (@MangoyuArt), and our music is by Bad Sparrow (@BadSparrowMusic). You can find us on BlueSky, and Instagram. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's March, so by the rules of podcasting, we must do a draft. On this episode, each host drafted eight characters to come to a new world as its new protectors (or rulers, depending on their disposition). You can decide via the poll below whose eight would be the best protectors or make the best stories. The poll will be open for one month.https://forms.gle/PJGc9m5cVHQYjBMW6Here are each host's eight:Joshua:1. Thurvishar D'Lorus (A Chorus of Dragons by Jenn Lyons2. Kaul Shaelinsan “Shae” (Green Bone Sage by Fonda Lee)3. Richa Langyun (Book of the Usurper by Erin M. Evans)4. Adolin Kholin (The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson)5. Kihrin D'Mon (A Chorus of Dragons by Jenn Lyons)6. Peralon (The Sky on Fire by Jenn Lyons)7. Caul Shivers (The Age of Madness by Joe Abercrombie)8. Bayaz, First of the Magi (The Age of Madness by Joe Abercrombie)Steph:1. Queen Neveranimas (The Sky on Fire by Jenn Lyons)2. Gideon Nav (The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir)3. Arasgon, the Fireblood (A Chorus of Dragons by Jenn Lyons)4. Samwise Gamgee (The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien5. Captain Teveri az-Ḥaffār (Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland)6. Senera (A Chorus of Dragon by Jenn Lyons)7. Kaladin Stormblessed (The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson)8. Nynaeve al'Meara (The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan)Christina:1. Dr. Ayda Mensah (The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells)2. Brother Qown (A Chorus of Dragons by Jenn Lyons)3. Asshole Research Transport (ART) (The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells)4. Anahrod (The Sky on Fire by Jenn Lyons)5. Abigail Pent (The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir)6. Tyensto (A Chorus of Dragons by Jenn Lyons)7. Digger-of-Unnecessarily-Convoluted-Tunnels (Digger by Ursula Vernon)8. Avra Helvaçi (Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hopepunk is a much needed reaction to decades of dystopian and nihilistic fiction. It explores how goodness, joy, optimism, and collective action can be acts of rebellion. Alexandra Rowland's Tumblr: https://ariaste.tumblr.com/post/163500138919/ariaste-the-opposite-of-grimdark-is-hopepunkSam's Monologue to Frodo: https://mountebank.org/sams-speech/A Blogpost on Hopepunk: https://www.centreforoptimism.com/blog/hopepunkDonate to Palestinian Children's Relief Fund::www.pcrf.netDonate to Mutual Aid Funds: https://www.folxhealth.com/library/mutual-aid-fundsGET AN OCCASIONAL PERSONAL EMAIL FROM ME: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTUNE IN ON INSTAGRAM FOR COOL CONTENT: www.instagram.com/mydbpodcastOR BE A REAL GEM + TUNE IN ON PATREON: www.patreon.com/MYDBpodcastOR WATCH ON YOUTUBE: www.youtube.com/juliemerica The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Get bonus content on PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"We want the world to be better—kinder, more just, more merciful. We still yearn toward noblebright, toward an honest and desperate belief that love conquers all. Except, when the other guy has more guns and fewer moral objections than we do, it doesn't.We forget, sometimes, that we have knives too in this empire. That we can unsheathe them, that we can turn our blades to the defense of an atom of justice and a molecule of mercy that might not even exist—except . . . except for where we make them exist, in the hands we hold out to each other, and in the shelter we offer even when we ourselves are exhausted, footsore, and filthy, with the wolves at our doors.There are no heroes and no villains. There are just people. That's hopepunk: Whether the glass is half full or half empty, what matters is that there's water in that glass. And that's something worth defending." - Alexandra RowlandAlexandra Rowland's post about Hopepunk: https://festive.ninja/one-atom-of-justice-one-molecule-of-mercy-and-the-empire-of-unsheathed-knives-alexandra-rowland/Hopepunk on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HopepunkA conspiracy of Truths by Alexandra Rowland: https://www.alexandrarowland.net/a-conspiracy-of-truthsDonate to Palestinian Children's Relief Fund::www.pcrf.netDonate to Mutual Aid Funds: https://www.folxhealth.com/library/mutual-aid-fundsGET AN OCCASIONAL PERSONAL EMAIL FROM ME: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTUNE IN ON INSTAGRAM FOR COOL CONTENT: www.instagram.com/mydbpodcastOR BE A REAL GEM + TUNE IN ON PATREON: www.patreon.com/MYDBpodcastOR WATCH ON YOUTUBE: www.youtube.com/juliemerica The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Get bonus content on PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In today's episode, Cyrus bullies Sarah into reading a book she really enjoys. Sucker! For fans of pining, fealty, political maneuvering in a fantasy setting, and panic attacks, you can't go wrong with A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland. Naturally, Sarah spends the entire episode second-guessing how to pronounce the names after literally looking it up. Support the show

It's the first episode of Season Five and we are talking about our some of our favourite fantasy and sci-fi romances which feature the abduction trope! A full list of the books featured can be found below. There may be some plot point spoilers in our discussion of the books but as always with romance, we know there is going to be a HEA and our episodes aim to share the joy we take in following the characters on their journey towards it and prompt conversations exploring why SFF romance is so fantastic. These are adult romances, so warning for explicit language and please check content warnings for the book before listening if there are topics that you might find upsetting to hear about. If you'd like to watch via our YouTube channel (where there are subtitles available) you can find it a link here: https://linktr.ee/SFFRomCast along with our social media details. We'd love to hear from you! All our music has been taken from the following track: https://uppbeat.io/t/danijel-zambo/fairytales (License code: 43DIFSVAZ90MEEQ8) Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!) Choosing Theo by Victoria Aveline Court of Tricksters by S L Prater Without Regret by R L Mathewson Stolen by an Alien by Amanda Milo Alien Meat Market by Lizzy Bequin Burn for Me by Ilona Andrews Viper by Naomi Lucas A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland

Cohosts Amber and Jamie discuss Alexandra Rowland's A Taste of Gold and Iron, a queer fantasy novel with royal romance, political intrigue, and gender equality. Topics discussed include: how power imbalances affect relationships, the concept of touch tasting, and the sweet agony that is slow burn romance. If you're interested in reading A Taste of Gold and Iron after listening to this episode, consider borrowing it from your local library or purchasing it from an independent bookstore!

Algo falla ahí fuera. Un poder absoluto se ha erigido sobre el equilibrio que regía el mundo. La escasez y la polución han convertido en excepcional el acto de disfrute más simple. Por supuesto, no todo está corrompido ni todo está dado en esta historia porque, de otro modo, no habría ni tensión ni conflicto y nadie continuaría con la lectura de lo que sigue, pero la manera en que se despliegan las ficciones dice mucho sobre cómo pensamos nuestra capacidad de transformar la realidad. Y nada nos interesa más que estos puentes entre la representación y la acción. Esta semana hablamos con una vieja amiga del programa, Mariana Rubio Albizu, sobre ficción y hopepunk Para resolver la distopía que presentamos al inicio, en nuestras elucubraciones fantásticas empezamos confiando en un héroe puro, en que su ingenuidad y ausencia de poder escondían un secreto o una cualidad única que le llevaría a iniciar un viaje para lbrarnos del mal. El viaje sería tortuoso -es decir, con varios volúmenes o secuelas- pero nuestro héroe llegaría a buen puerto guiado por una pulsión hacia el bien que sería... ¿cómo decirlo? heroica. Auque tal esquema nobelbright es tranquilizador y ha llenado tardes de palomitas resulta poco verosímil en un contexto como el nuestro, en el que resulta más fácil aceptar una guerra civil en mitad de una invasión de zombies congelados que seguir a un par de señores descalzos y ajenos a cualquier ejercicio físico saliendo de la campiña para salvar el mundo. Por eso, en los tiempos del realismo capitalista brotó el grimdark, un segundo itinerario de la historia inicial: el mundo va mal. Ok. Recibido. Pero eso no es más que el escenario en el que nuestros personajes van a tratar de satisfacer sus ambiciones. ¿Qué le pasa al mundo? Que yo no voy ganando. Poca motivación literaria más hace falta para desencadenar la acción y no sorprende que estas ficciones crudas, “realistas” y cínicas proliferen en la larga estela de la austeridad de la segunda década del siglo XXI. Es fascinante, sí. ¿Nos tragaremos la segunda temporada de The House of the Dragon? Sin pensarlo. Pero es asqueroso. Y por eso algunas autoras como Alexandra Rowland y una legión de lectoras se han empeñado en marcar un camino distinto para ese escenario inicial. ¿Todo va mal? Claro, ¿y qué vamos a hacer? ¿Esperar al héroe salvífico tocado por la gracia de dios? ¿consumirnos en la guerra sin fin de nuestras ambiciones personales? He aquí el espacio para el hopepunk, una especulación colectiva, tan tierna como afilada, de lidiar con las distopías del mundo, es decir, con el día a día. En el programa de esta semana, señalamos algunas de las referencias más interesantes del género, como Charlie Jane Anders, Cory Doctorow, Becky Chambers o Kim Stanley.Cory Doctorow, Becky Chambers o Kim Stanley Robinson.

Découvrez Frontier, l'album de science-fiction de Guillaume Singelin dispnible au Label 619/Rue de Sèvres. Pour lire Frontier : https://www.editions-ruedesevres.fr/Frontier   Hopepunk  Le Label 619 a encore frappé ! Après les excellents Hoka Hey, Midnight Order et Short Story, une nouvelle pépite vient de débarquer en librairie. Avec Frontier, Guillaume Singelin prouve qu'il joue définitivement dans la cour des grands. Cet excellent roman graphique mêle planet opera, space opera et récits intimistes. Dans ce roman graphique on se rapproche du fameux hopepunk, sous-genre de la science-fiction théorisé par l'autrice américaine Alexandra Rowland en 2017. Il y a de l'espoir dans cet album qui narre l'émancipation de trois personnages à travers les étoiles. On a été littéralement emballé par les couleurs, les dessins et ce scénario qui n'oublie pas de raconter une chouette aventure intérieure. Frontier devrait réjouir les amateurs de science-fiction qui cherche un BD qui sort vraiment de l'ordinateur. 

Lauren got to hang out with Alex all the way back in September to talk about the book of dreams "A Taste of Gold and Iron". What better way to enjoy Queervember with the most incredible M/M romance that includes so many of the best tropes, courtly intruige and an Ottoman Empire inspired fantasy. This book is in Laurens top five of the year and if she could drink a potion to forget the book so she could read it again fresh she would!Find Alex on the socials - Twitter/Insta @_alexrowlandhttps://www.alexandrarowland.net/

Sharifah and Jenn answer listener requests and give their favorites for gifting this holiday season in an extra-long episode! Follow the podcast via RSS here, Apple Podcasts here, Spotify here. The show can also be found on Stitcher here. To get even more SF/F news and recs, sign up for our Swords and Spaceships newsletter! LISTENER QUESTIONS 1. Hi there, I heard you were looking for holiday recommendation requests. I would like to ask for readalikes for books like Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell or A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland. (I've been really enjoying the “Red White & Royal Blue but make it fantasy/scifi” trend lately.) Thank you, Morgan 2. Hi Sharifah and Jenn, I'm looking for SF/F gifting advice for my dad. He used to be a big fantasy reader when he was younger (some of his favorite authors were Ursula K. Le Guin and Terry Pratchett) but doesn't read as much now. The last SF/F he read and loved was the Murderbot series. Do you have any SF/F recommendations that are fast-paced, on the shorter side, and possibly reminiscent of classic fantasy? I love the podcast and particularly love that you recommend excellent new and backlist titles. Thank you, Emma This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. BOOKS DISCUSSED Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho (cw: racism, misogyny) The Tensorate Series by Neon Yang (cw: harm to children including medical experimentation and death) Spear by Nicola Griffith (cw: mention of rape) Light Years from Home by Mike Chen (cw: dementia, loss of a parent)  The Dawnhounds by Sascha Stronach (cw: so many, espec homo/trans phobia and body horror) The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna (cw: child neglect) The Way Spring Arrives And Other Stories, edited by Yu Chen and Regina Kanyu Wang (cw: many, depending on story) The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd For a complete list of books discussed in this episode, visit our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Episode 121 How Alexandra Rowland WritesAlexandra is the author of several fantasy books, including A Conspiracy Of Truths, A Choir Of Lies, and Some by Virtue Fall, as well as a cohost of the Hugo Award-nominated podcast, Be the Serpent.Alexandra holds a degree in world literature, mythology, and folklore from Truman State University. Here is the episode with Alexandra RowlandSupport the show

Steph was lucky enough to virtually sit down with author Alexandra Rowland and discuss their new book A Taste of Gold and Iron. They talk worldbuilding, sex scenes and the importance of writing the book you want to read. Thanks to Alex for giving us your time! Alexandra Rowland can be found @_alexrowland on Twitter …

Today is a true journey into the unknown, for me anyway: romance fiction. In the space of two books, I go from not thinking it was for me to absolutely adoring what Alexandra Rowland dubs “fealty and feelings” novels — so let's go, let's get into it, let's get our hearts messy! And we'll think a bit about the politics of romance, too… CW: some discussion of sexual assault and depression/anxiety ITINERARY: Foz Meadows (A Strange and Stubborn Endurance) talks about finding romance through the classics and fan-fiction, learning through points of view, the fun of language and translation, and writing about sexual assault. Alexandra Rowland (A Taste of Gold and Iron) talks about their discovery of romance as a genre, writing anxiety, and why they always want to include economics in their books. adrienne maree brown (Fables and Spells) muses on the balance of love and power in the speculative fiction she reads — and writes — and how we might find that balance in our world as well. Read the full episode transcript here. Tor Presents: Voyage into Genre is a co-production with Lit Hub Radio Hosted by Drew Broussard Audio engineering + production by Stardust House Creative Music by Dani Lencioni of Evelyn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bethany and Izzy are joined by special guests Ashley (Bookish Realm) and Bre (The Loc'd Booktician) to help you figure out where to start reading graphic novels and Manga! Thank you to our Patron Sarah for suggesting the topic for this episode. Bookish Realm: https://www.youtube.com/c/BookishRealm Loc'd Booktician: https://www.youtube.com/c/Loc%E2%80%99DBooktician Looking for a book mentioned in the episode? Check here! *Note that all links are affiliate links from which we earn a commission to support the podcast Books Mentioned   Monster: https://amzn.to/3Ptwv6F Blood on the Tracks: https://amzn.to/3QyaNiK Tokyo Ghoul: https://amzn.to/3QxpQsJ Food Wars: https://amzn.to/3zFkG7a Batman Court of Owls  https://amzn.to/3QARxkE Something is Killing the Children: https://amzn.to/3QgkBOB Love in Focus: https://amzn.to/3bI5Kxe That Wolf Boy is Mine: https://amzn.to/3BWepqr Wotokoi: Love is Hard for Otaku: https://amzn.to/3QdMCGh Doughnuts Under a Crescent Moon: https://amzn.to/3Qy9HTZ Nana: https://amzn.to/3QAeyEd Sweat and Soap: https://amzn.to/3wijF4r Seaside Stranger: https://amzn.to/3JZAOWd If I Could Reach You: https://amzn.to/3PcICob How Do We Relationship: https://amzn.to/3dnr23N Yona of the Dawn: https://amzn.to/3p7jIvR Drops of God: https://amzn.to/3JLkFn0 Moriarty the Patriot: https://amzn.to/3Pelo12 Uzamaki: https://amzn.to/3Qyb84P Deathnote: https://amzn.to/3QAfEjj Fruits Basket: https://amzn.to/3BXQmrk Laidback Camp: https://amzn.to/3AbYFyi Days on Fes: https://amzn.to/3dkvaS2 The Devil is a Part Timer: https://amzn.to/3vWXRLj A Sign of Affection: https://amzn.to/3dlpMy9 Your Lie in April: https://amzn.to/3vVipUy Sasaki and Miyano: https://amzn.to/3vTIraJ Zom 100: https://amzn.to/3JRATej Witch Hat Atelier: https://amzn.to/3zJVNaF Blue Flag: https://amzn.to/3AanpXM Something's Wrong With Us: https://amzn.to/3p5IkVP Monstress: https://amzn.to/3bJcvit Saga: https://amzn.to/3P8jpLO Paper Girls: https://amzn.to/3QvBaX3 Y The Last Man: https://amzn.to/3Q8Hpjb The Runaways: https://amzn.to/3AcCmst Persepolis: https://amzn.to/3zKTXWY Locke and Key: https://amzn.to/3AbvqM1 The Nice House on the Lake: https://amzn.to/3PgvRJx Rachel Rising: https://amzn.to/3SIghsU The Tea Dragon Society: https://amzn.to/3BVQdEN Heartstopper: https://amzn.to/3JOgGpF Silver Coin: https://amzn.to/3bIZc1x Ice Cream Man: https://amzn.to/3bHHbAL Giant Days: https://amzn.to/3bR0tDz Archie: https://amzn.to/3Aa79pS BRZKRKR: https://amzn.to/3BXbdLp Lazarus: https://amzn.to/3QycJYn Radiant Black: https://amzn.to/3QtZlV2 Fable: https://amzn.to/3QhyfAO Wicked and the Divine: https://amzn.to/3QhPvGb Lore Olympus: https://amzn.to/3SIgQTy Far Sector: https://amzn.to/3SG2QK9 Chef's Kiss: https://amzn.to/3bItlhh Sweetness and Lightning: https://amzn.to/3AdsI99 Adventure Zone: https://amzn.to/3dnzFev Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu: https://amzn.to/3AcMlxW Books from On My Radar Babel by RF Kuang: https://amzn.to/3vWnzQd You're Invited by Amanda Jayatissa: https://amzn.to/3C0i9HB Nubia and the Amazons: https://amzn.to/3QyewNg To Catch a Raven by Beverly Jenkins: https://amzn.to/3JOijUy Aphrodite and The Duke by JJ McAvoy: https://amzn.to/3P8llny All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers: https://amzn.to/3bNJ5zF A Taste of Magic by J. Elle: https://amzn.to/3pal09u Amari and the Great Game by BB Alston: https://amzn.to/3zOItBV Heartbreaker by Sarah MacLean: https://amzn.to/3SGyYx9 Much Ado about Dukes by Eva Devon: https://amzn.to/3SEHyN0 Bonds of Chaos by Zack Argyle: https://amzn.to/3JKBaja Mademoiselle Revolution by Zoe Sivak: https://amzn.to/3QAizbL Girl, Forgotten by Karin Slaughter: https://amzn.to/3Qy4eMT Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney: https://amzn.to/3A9gvlI Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid: https://amzn.to/3C0jez9 Nothing More to Tell by Karen M. McManus: https://amzn.to/3PgZudD A Girl's Guide to Love and Magic by Debbie Rigaud: https://amzn.to/3donvCp Coming up Cuban by Sonia Manzano: https://amzn.to/3P8Y44Q Wonder Girl: Homecoming: https://amzn.to/3SDZZBj Their Vicious Darling by Nikki St. Crowe: https://amzn.to/3Pe8vEj The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez: https://amzn.to/3SFC1pp A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland: https://amzn.to/3zPqiMg   Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok @Chapter3Podcast or watch episodes on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy6yRiktWbWRAFpByrVk-kg Interested in early access to episodes, private Discord channels and other perks? Consider joining the Chapter 3 Patreon!  Co-Hosts  Bethany: https://www.youtube.com/c/beautifullybookishbethany Liene: https://www.youtube.com/c/LienesLibrary Izzy: https://www.youtube.com/c/HappyforNow

Smack and Gabi are celebrating ITBR's Anni-birthday by inviting you (our precious listeners) to email (itbrshelf@gmail.com) or follow & tweet @infinitetbr with your favorite book of this year OR the name of a book that we recommended that you enjoyed. One lucky participant will be chosen to receive a $20 gift card to the independent bookstore of their choice. We went on to answer selections (requested by our #1 fan) from the Mid-Year Book Freak Out tag, complete with copious tangents and unrepentant cheating when it came to answering prompts. Winners include: Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher The League of Gentlewomen Witches by India Holton Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki Summoned by C.P. Rider Gifting Fire by Alina Boyden Misrule by Heather Walter A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows The Whispering Dark by Kelly Andrew Naomi Teitelbaum Ends the World by Samara Shanker A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland

In a grimdark world, filled with truth, lies, and politics many of us have been longing for a literary escape that can give us some hope. For this generation, Hopepunk is our solution. At WorldCon 77 Dublin, Jo Walton, Lettie Prell, and the creator of the term, herself, Alexandra Rowland, on a panel moderated by the marvelous Sam Hawke discussed the true meaning of Hopepunk. =============================== Thanks for listening! I'll be back next Monday with more rambling ideas about writing. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with your friends and subscribe! You can find most of these posts over on my Blog (https://morganhazelwood.com) / Vlog/Youtube (https://youtube.com/MorganHazelwood) If you want to connect? Check out my Linktree (https://linktr.ee/morganHazelwood)

And here you thought that the Twitter announcement on April Fool's Day about our upcoming shark episode WAS the joke! No! The joke is on us because we had to watch Sharknado for this prank! Also Jaws and Deep Blue Sea.   What We're Into Lately If They Haven't Learned Your Name by silentwalrus Succession The Big Bad Wolf series by Charlie Adhara The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon “A Cornstalk Fiddle” by notbecauseofvictories “To Call the Darkness Home” by scioscribe The Heir to the House of Prince by Ada_Lovelaced & elph13 “Aurelius (to be called) Magnus” by Victoria Goddard “Portrait of a Wide Seas Islander” by Victoria Goddard Black Sails Other Stuff We Mentioned Captain America: The Winter Soldier The Thick of It Diana Wynne Jones (author) Dan Brown (author) The Devil Went Down to Georgia (And Then Went Down on Johnny) series by notbecauseofvictories Justified The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard The Chant series by Alexandra Rowland Alien Overinvested podcast Overinvested's Jaws episode Titanic Jurassic World Jurassic Park Star Wars Watergate scandal Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley The Day After Tomorrow 2012 Sharks In Venice The Meg The “Cows With Guns” YouTube video Freya's Twitter: @freyamarkse A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske A Restless Truth by Freya Marske (sequel to A Marvellous Light, coming out Nov 1st, 2022) Pre-order for A Restless Truth Macey's Twitter: @englishmace “heat death” poem by Jennifer Mace “Silk & Steel” short story anthology (featuring Jennifer Mace & Freya Marske) Alex's Twitter: @_alexrowland A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland (coming out Aug 30th, 2022) Alex's website store: alexandrarowland.net/store. The infamous “sharks are smooth as hell” shitpost   Content Warnings Gore (in every tentpole & throughout episode discussion) Body horror (in episode discussion) Sexual harassment (in Sharknado) Misogyny (discussed)   Transcription The transcript of this episode is available here. Thanks to our fabulous scribes for their work!

During 2021, I hosted a series of online conversations looking at various works of art and pop culture, with an eye toward what these works have to teach us about hope. What does hope look like during a global pandemic? What tools do we need as we find our way? How do we find the strength to persevere? I called these conversations Hope Notes.Today, we revisit a conversation with my brother Matthew McKibben about the Lord of the Rings trilogy and make connections between the themes of that story and the war in Ukraine.Resources mentioned in today's episode:Gandalf speaks to FrodoSam's SpeechThe beacons are lit Tim Snyder: Ukrainians are consoling us Alexandra Rowland on hopepunkHopepunk as quintessentially Catholic Contact MaryAnn McKibben Dana at maryannmckibbendana.net. Editor and Producer: Caroline Dana

On this first episode of The Second Transition, Phil talks with the inspirational Elin Kelsey, author of "Hope Matters: Why Changing the Way We Think Is Critical to Solving the Environmental Crisis." Phil and Elin discuss moving from an empty hope to evidence-based hope. We talk about "hopepunk", a new vision for making change, with a cameo by sci-fi author Alexandra Rowland, who coined the term. Elin and I also talk about vision and making change "crave-worthy." Finally, we talk about the many amazing ways that youth are reimaginging social action. You can follow Elin Kelsey on Twitter: @elinkelsey

The sun begins to set as the dinner-bell rings. Travis decides to see how valuable the information he won from the Morrigan is. Jonnit and Gable bully Travis for being insistent on having a constant existential crisis. They decide to peep into the future to put him at ease, a choice that I'm sure won't have major implications down the line. Don't worry about it.CONTENT NOTEMain Show:  kind of a reference to chronic pain, character reacting poorly to an emotional crisis,  metaphorical religious trauma,  a bit of griefDear Uhuru:  This is about Slick, Spit's current/former boyfriend. It's sexual.THE ULTIMATE RPG GAMEMASTER'S WORLD BUILDING GUIDEGet a copy!Watch James and author Alexandra Rowland go through exercises from the book on the OSN Twitch Channel July 29th 6:00 PM CTTwitch.tv/OneShotRPGSkyjacks Setting Zine Volume 1Skyjacks AlbumBuy The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book!Join Our Mailing ListBuy A Different Bird Shirt

Our heroes continue their dramatic final confrontation with some of the world's most dastardly villains. However, each villain they defeat seems to be reduced to harmless inanimate objects just like their previous confrontation. This begs the question: Are any of these fights real? Is it even possible to defeat the person behind this and return the city to normal?RESOUCES ON ABLEISMArticle Explaining Harmful Slurs Video On Ablismm in TTRPGsExplanation on Common Abliest TermsDiscussion of harmful terms with alternative suggestionsAdditional Reading on ableist language with input from disabled writersSENTINEL COMICS RPGBuy it now!THE ULTIMATE RPG GAMEMASTER'S WORLD BUILDING GUIDEGet a copy!Watch James and author Alexandra Rowland go through exercises from the book on the OSN Twitch Channel July 29th 6:00 PM CT Twitch.tv/OneShotRPG

Our heroes continue their dramatic final confrontation with some of the world's most dastardly villains. However, each villain they defeat seems to be reduced to harmless inanimate objects just like their previous confrontation. This begs the question: Are any of these fights real? Is it even possible to defeat the person behind this and return the city to normal?RESOUCES ON ABLEISMArticle Explaining Harmful Slurs Video On Ablismm in TTRPGsExplanation on Common Abliest TermsDiscussion of harmful terms with alternative suggestionsAdditional Reading on ableist language with input from disabled writersSENTINEL COMICS RPGBuy it now!THE ULTIMATE RPG GAMEMASTER'S WORLD BUILDING GUIDEGet a copy!Watch James and author Alexandra Rowland go through exercises from the book on the OSN Twitch Channel July 29th 6:00 PM CT Twitch.tv/OneShotRPG

We join the Crew of the Uhuru in transit after leaving N'Goni. Their coffers are full (at least fuller than they were) and the crew is enjoying their time between ports while they determine what their next plan should be. Travis enjoys some light vanity reading, which turns out to be a nightmare. Jonnit takes some time to enjoy a smoothie and then joins Gable for a quick lesson on running the helm.CONTENT NOTEMain Show: Implied cannibalism, murder, extremely unsanitary culinary protocol, cartoon violenceDear Uhurus return next week!THE ULTIMATE RPG GAMEMASTER'S WORLD BUILDING GUIDEGet a copy!Watch James and author Alexandra Rowland go through exercises from the book on the OSN Twitch Channel July 29th 6:00 PM CTTwitch.tv/OneShotRPGSkyjacks Setting Zine Volume 1Skyjacks AlbumBuy The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book!Join Our Mailing ListBuy A Different Bird Shirt

Our heroes receive a warning from a giant disembodied eye to "stay out of its affairs." Strangely, they choose to ignore that warning. The rush to confront the masked figure trying to rewrite reality for San Lasuras— as it appears to be transforming back into San Alonzo.SENTINEL COMICS RPGBuy it now!THE ULTIMATE RPG GAMEMASTER'S WORLD BUILDING GUIDEGet a copy!Watch James and author Alexandra Rowland go through exercises from the book on the OSN Twitch Channel July 29th 6:00 PM CT Twitch.tv/OneShotRPG

Our heroes receive a warning from a giant disembodied eye to "stay out of its affairs." Strangely, they choose to ignore that warning. The rush to confront the masked figure trying to rewrite reality for San Lasuras— as it appears to be transforming back into San Alonzo.SENTINEL COMICS RPGBuy it now!THE ULTIMATE RPG GAMEMASTER'S WORLD BUILDING GUIDEGet a copy!Watch James and author Alexandra Rowland go through exercises from the book on the OSN Twitch Channel July 29th 6:00 PM CT Twitch.tv/OneShotRPG

The Broker and Remmington Youngblood continue their negotiation. The Broker continues a risky gambit, sharing valuable intelligence in an effort to drive a wedge between the Youngbloods and their long-time allies: The Red Feather Syndicate.CONTENT NOTEMain Show: reference to  violent murdersBEN  MEREDITHRusty Quill GamingThe Magnus ArchivesStellar FirmaTHE ULTIMATE RPG GAMEMASTER'S WORLD BUILDING GUIDEGet a copy!Watch James and author Alexandra Rowland go through exercises from the book on the OSN Twitch Channel July 29th 6:00 PM CTTwitch.tv/OneShotRPGSkyjacks Setting Zine Volume 1Skyjacks AlbumBuy The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book!Join Our Mailing ListBuy A Different Bird Shirt

Our heroes continue their battle against these dark-mirror villians! Not only do they fight to protect civilians diner, they pay the bill for themselves and their enemies, leaving a very generous tip just to prove a point. After the battle realize that this attack was part of a coordinated effort to support the plan of a far more sinister villain. SENTINEL COMICS RPGBuy it now!THE ULTIMATE RPG GAMEMASTER'S WORLD BUILDING GUIDEGet a copy!Watch James and author Alexandra Rowland go through exercises from the book on the OSN Twitch Channel July 29th 6:00 PM CT Twitch.tv/OneShotRPG

Our heroes continue their battle against these dark-mirror villians! Not only do they fight to protect civilians diner, they pay the bill for themselves and their enemies, leaving a very generous tip just to prove a point. After the battle realize that this attack was part of a coordinated effort to support the plan of a far more sinister villain. SENTINEL COMICS RPGBuy it now!THE ULTIMATE RPG GAMEMASTER'S WORLD BUILDING GUIDEGet a copy!Watch James and author Alexandra Rowland go through exercises from the book on the OSN Twitch Channel July 29th 6:00 PM CT Twitch.tv/OneShotRPG

While the Uhuru charts their course away from N'Goni, clouds gather over Burza Nyth. The Broker holds an audience with the head of one of the most powerful privateer companies in all of Spéir: Remmington Youngblood. These two are on the brink of open conflict following the events of The Uhuru's adventures in Burza Nyth. After weeks of correspondence, the two meet in an effort to prevent an escalation of hostilities that could be disastrous for their respective organizations.CONTENT NOTEMain Show: reference to  violent death and bereavement lettersBEN  MEREDITHRusty Quill GamingThe Magnus ArchivesStellar FirmaTHE ULTIMATE RPG GAMEMASTER'S WORLD BUILDING GUIDEGet a copy!Watch James and author Alexandra Rowland go through exercises from the book on the OSN Twitch Channel July 29th 6:00 PM CTTwitch.tv/OneShotRPGSkyjacks Setting Zine Volume 1Skyjacks AlbumBuy The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book!Join Our Mailing ListBuy A Different Bird Shirt

Our heroes Solid Gold, Draculese, BC, and Savant clash with a group of villains Fable, Liquid Steel, AD, and Dimwit who seem to have powers handpicked to counter them. To make matters worse, this battle is starting inside The Midtown Diner with plenty of civilians and property to suffer collateral damage. They also have no idea why these nere-do-wells are looking to pick a fight.SENTINEL COMICS RPGBuy it now!THE ULTIMATE RPG GAMEMASTER'S WORLD BUILDING GUIDEGet a copy!Watch James and author Alexandra Rowland go through exercises from the book on the OSN Twitch Channel July 29th 6:00 PM CT Twitch.tv/OneShotRPG

Our heroes Solid Gold, Draculese, BC, and Savant clash with a group of villains Fable, Liquid Steel, AD, and Dimwit who seem to have powers handpicked to counter them. To make matters worse, this battle is starting inside The Midtown Diner with plenty of civilians and property to suffer collateral damage. They also have no idea why these nere-do-wells are looking to pick a fight.SENTINEL COMICS RPGBuy it now!THE ULTIMATE RPG GAMEMASTER'S WORLD BUILDING GUIDEGet a copy!Watch James and author Alexandra Rowland go through exercises from the book on the OSN Twitch Channel July 29th 6:00 PM CT Twitch.tv/OneShotRPG

On this week's episode, we're discussing celebrity culture, the cost of fame, and three brilliant tentpoles: A Knight’s Tale, Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade, and “#bakudeku” by rageprufrock.   What We’re Into Lately The Midnight Bargain by C. L. Polk On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong CryoBurn by Lois McMaster Bujold Eager by Ben Goldfarb live from new york by varnes The Murder of Crows by cerbykerby Hades My Hero Academia   Other Stuff We Mentioned Realm of Ash by Tasha Suri The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold Lots of Untamed fic Saturday Night Live A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske AML preorders pinned tweet The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer Jupiter Ascending Bend It Like Beckham Game of Thrones Drastically Redefining Protocol by rageprufrock Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn Boku No Hero Academia No Less Unthinkable by rageprufrock  Red, White & Royal Blue Casey McQuiston Black Sails  You’re Wrong About podcast Hannibal Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland (upcoming, 2022) Notting Hill Fame Jaskier from The Witcher   For Next Time Stay? by E. Jade Lomax (Interactive Fiction game)   Transcription The transcript for this episode is available here. Thank you to our wonderful team of scribes for their hard work!

Find Alex at Twitter and Instagram: @_alexrowland; Patreon: www.patreon.com/_alexrowland; website: www.alexandrarowland.netA Conspiracy Of Truths, A Choir Of Lies, and Finding FaeriesBe the Serpent podcast: https://betheserpent.podbean.com/Tropes: Only One Bed, Huddling for Warmth, Enemies to LoversNavah WolfeTiller Press, nonfiction imprint of Simon & SchusterSaga press, scifi/fantasy imprintSubterranean PressThe Untamed, Chinese dramaBritt Seiss, literary agent: https://brittsiesscreative.com/A Taste of Gold and Iron, 2022Rouxi Chen, editor at Tor.comJennifer Mace, cohost on Be the Serpent, http://www.englishmace.com/Freya Marske, cohost on Be the Serpent, https://freyamarske.com/Veronica “Roni” Alvarado, editor for Finding Faeries at Tiller PressScarlett Gale, His Secret Illuminations, http://www.scarlettgaleauthor.com/Shelley Parker-Chan, She Who Became the Sun, https://shelleyparkerchan.com/Silk & Steel, anthology of sapphic fantasy/scifi stories, https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/silk-steel-1

In this episode I chat with author Alexandra Rowland about writing, the power of stories, and faeries. We talk about Alex's early training as a writer, the benefits of National Novel Writing Month, and Alex's Fantasy novels A CONSPIRACY OF TRUTHS and A CHOIR OF LIES. We also talk about their new book, a kind of field guide to monsters in the modern world: FINDING FAERIES. Alex's website: https://www.alexandrarowland.net/ Alex on Twitter: @_alexrowland Alex's books via bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/shop/alexandrarowland And hey - want to support the show? Drop me a few beans via my ko-fi page: https://ko-fi.com/timclare

“The opposite of grimdark is hopepunk.” - Alexandra Rowland in 2017. Caitlin and Charlotte explore just why we need HOPEPUNK now more than ever in Star Wars storytelling. On this episode: What is hopepunk? Is Star Wars inherently hopepunk? What stories have the potential to be more hopepunk than others and why is this a type of story we revere? All this and more on Skytalkers.   The original Tumblr post: https://ariaste.tumblr.com/post/163500138919/ariaste-the-opposite-of-grimdark-is-hopepunk  Vox article mentioned: https://www.vox.com/2018/12/27/18137571/what-is-hopepunk-noblebright-grimdark   Our Sticker Sheet is available now: https://skytalkers.com/shop/ http://www.twitter.com/skytalkerspod http://facebook.com/skytalkerspod https://www.instagram.com/skytalkerspodcast http://www.twitter.com/crerrity http://www.twitter.com/caitlinplesher http://skytalkers.com https://www.patreon.com/skytalkers

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! This week we have something a little different lined up.  As Rekka is recovering, we wanted to give her a break wherever possible and so for this episode, we are happy to bring you an episode of Rekka's previous podcast: The Hybrid Author.  In this episode, Rekka interviews Alexandra Rowland, author of "A Conspiracy of Truths" and one of the hosts of the Hugo-nominated podcast 'Be the Serpent'.  Alex and Rekka spend this episode talking romance and all of the ways to incorporate it into your story.  It can be an awkward part of the writing process but it doesn't have to be!  Alex has a lot of advice and insight into the process of making your characters kiss and they won't even make you blush while telling you how!  You can (and should) check out Alex on their social media, which is linked below. We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and the most uncomfortable "romantic" exchange you were forced to enure in a book or movie.  Don't hold back, bring the cringe! We hope you enjoy We Make Books! Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast   Find Alex at: https://www.alexandrarowland.net Twitter: @_alexrowland Instagram: @ _alexrowland https://www.patreon.com/_alexrowland     Episode 34: Making Characters Kiss with Alexandra Rowland transcribed by Sara Rose (@saraeleanorrose)   [0:00]   K: Hey everyone! Welcome to another episode of the We Make Books podcast, a show about writing, publishing, and everything in between. I’m Kaelyn Considine and I’m the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.    R: And I’m Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as R.J. Theodore.    K: And, uh, this episode is a throwback. It’s a throwback so far that it predates our podcast!   R: Yes! [laughs] Many of you may know that I previously hosted, or co-hosted and then solo-hosted, a podcast called Hybrid Author. I lost my co-host and it wasn’t really fun doing it by myself, so when Kaelyn made herself available to become a co-host on an entirely new podcast, I was all too eager to jump ship. But there were some good tidbits on that podcast, including a couple of interviews that, now that we’ve needed to come up with some additional back-up episodes, for whatever’s going on in my health and treatment and everything like that—   K: Rekka’s recovering and just to make sure that everyone’s healthy and—   R: That we have options, you know.   K: —not straining themselves, we thought this would be a great episode to put out there. So Alex Rowland is a published author of two books, right now, called A Conspiracy of Truths and A Choir of Lies, and they came on this podcast to discuss writing romance with Rekka.   R: Yes! Well, not this podcast, as we’ve already mentioned.   K: Oh, yeah. Sorry.   R: But, yes, Conspiracy of Truths was out when Alex recorded this. This was actually recorded on February 5th, 2019. So that’s where this falls in the whole realm of time. And A Choir of Lies, as I was speaking to Alex, had just had its cover reveal that morning on Barnes and Noble’s website. So that’s where we were in time, was February 5th, 2019. But it was a good conversation with Alex. One of the things I realized is that we call this a podcast about writing and publishing and everything in between, but we don’t actually talk too much about different genre topics or writing techniques and so I have a few episodes that are specifically about that, from the podcast, which you can no longer find listed on iTunes, etcetera. So I’m all-too happy to resurrect these interviews, which I think are really valuable.   K: We have a few of these episodes that we selected that we thought would be good and interesting to our current audience as well. We’ll sprinkle them in as we need to while Rekka is recovering, but it’s a great conversation about writing romance. About how to create romantic tension, about what drives these relationships and what makes them compelling and interesting to readers. Alex is a master at creating romantic tension.   R: Definitely.   K: So they have some really great tips, tricks, thoughts in here. Anybody who’s interested in, you know, pumpin’ up the romance a little bit in their writing will certainly leave this with some new ideas.   R: For sure. So, go ahead and listen and KAelyn, say goodbye! ‘Cause you’re not in this one.    K: I’m not! So I’ll see everyone in two weeks. Enjoy guys!   [intro music plays]   R: So joining us today, as I mentioned in the intro, is the wonderful Alexandra Rowland! So, Alex, how ya doin’? Write anything with a cool cover lately?   A: I am great. And, yes, in fact just today—like five minutes ago—we just launched the cover for A Choir of Lies which is the sequel to my debut book, which came out last year, A Conspiracy of Truths. If you read Conspiracy, then you will know the main character of this one. It is adorable cinnamon roll, Ylfing! And this book is full of evil capitalism and fantasy tulip mania and all sorts of cool stuff.   R, laughing: Fantastic! Well, I have brought you on today because I can’t do romance by myself.   A: Sure. Sure, sure.   R: And before we lead everyone astray, we’re not doing romance together, we are going to talk about romance and Alex is going to help me. Because Alex does fantastic pairings and makes chemistry happen. [giggles]   A: I write kissing books.   R: Yes! I really wanted to have you on to talk about that moment of budding romance and how you develop a character’s relationship. What some of your favorite relationship tropes are because I know you have a couple!   A: A lot. I do!   R: And anything else you can think of because I put about as much romance into my books as I do economics.   A: Sure.   R: So I thought it would be a good idea to get another author’s take on this. If anyone’s romantic, it’s Alex.   A: Sure, well, that’s true. Yeah, I do love feelings. I often say feelings are how you know you’re alive.    R: The more painful, the more alive you are. Right?     A: Right! Yeah, exactly. LIke having really intense feelings just means you’re really, really alive in that moment. Alright, so, let’s see. Where to start? Do you have anywhere, where you’d like me to start, specifically, or…?   R: Well, you said the feelings thing and it just occurred to me that I just endured the Hobbit trilogy movies.    A: I’m so sorry.   R: Yes. It was painful! It was so painful. And those aren’t the feelings I’m talking about, that taught me I was alive.    A: Yeah.   R: But at the end of Battle of the Five Armies, the WASP elf says like, “If this is love, take it from me! I don’t want it!” and, like, why does it hurt so bad? And all this stuff.   A: Yeah.   R: And he says, “It hurts so bad because it was real,” or something like that. And so that’s just—that just came to mind. That wasn’t necessarily going to start our conversation, but I feel like we can get dramatic with talking about feelings.   A: Yeah, yeah. Oh my god, definitely so. I could just spend the rest of this hour doing pterodactyl screaming. All right, so let’s see. Feelings. So how do you design a romance in a book? How do we design characters so that they fall in love? A really satisfying thing—this is not how romance works in real life, obviously, but this is how romance kind of works in fiction, because there’s things that we want from romances in books. One of those things is we want the characters to fit together. We want them to answer a need within each other.    That’s not necessarily—Like, it sounds sexy, but it’s not that, it’s more—   R: [giggles] We’re not talking interlocking puzzle pieces yet.   A: Well, I mean. Kind of! Just not genitals, right? It’s about feelings and emotions and their strength counterbalances your weakness, or they’re confident in something that you’re not confident in. Or they like olives on their pizza and you really don’t, so they always get to pick off the olives. And, you know, you have that sort of symbiotic relationship together.   R: Mhm.   A: Or they really don’t like oreos. Which is fine because it means that you can keep oreos in the house without having to hide them. There’s all sorts of little bits and pieces to having a successful romance in this book. So—   R: And so far you’re not really saying anything that we shouldn’t aim for in real life.     A: No! I mean, all of those things are great. It’s just that when you write them in books, it can go to a bigger extreme and that can get kind of codependent and in real life it would probably be unhealthy. But in fiction it’s delicious!   R: Yes.   A: So, one of the things—I’m gonna use an example from a book that I just finished writing recently. It’s a shamelessly self-indulgent, tropetastic book of my heart. It is probably the most romance-oriented book that I’ve written so far. It’s definitely one of the most character-driven books, and I do write very, very character-driven books in general. But this one is about 50% about the relationship between these two characters and 50% about plot! Despite my misgivings. My agent does insist on the occasional—   R: The little smattering of plot.   A: I know! Gosh! Whenever I sit down to outline a book, I always figure out the emotional arc first. Then I’m like, “Okay! Now I have to staple the plot on afterwards.” Because that’s what I’m most interested in, is the emotional arc. So with these two characters, there is an Enemies to Lovers emotional arc to it. And Enemies to Lovers is a really useful trope because it’s got plot built into it.    R: Yes.   A: Right? Like, how do they—Why is it that they start out enemies? What is the source of this? And then what leads them to change their feelings towards each other? A lot of times there’s an unspoken Enemies to Friends to Lovers, in the middle there, so how do they first come to have these changing feelings? How do they grow respect for each other, organically? And how do they come to see each other in such a different light?   So, with these two characters, one of them has chronic anxiety and the other one is very stoic and doesn’t think a lot about his feelings and sees the world in a very black-and-white kind of way.     R: Mhm.   A: And so the challenge here is for the stoic, black-and-white character to stop seeing the anxiety character as a coward. Because this anxiety character is in a position where the stoic character thinks that he should definitely be more together, and have more of his shit together, and he does not. And the stoic character sees this as a major personal failing and isn’t cool with it.   [10:11]   R: Yeah, I have a cheat sheet in that I have read this book.   A: Yes, yes.   R: Or a previous draft of it, at least. And, so, the stoic has a cookie-cutter of an ideal personality that, in the initial circumstances that bring them together, the anxiety character absolutely, completely fails to fit into.    A: Yeah, like he’s failing to meet every standard that the stoic character has, yes. But they are forced to be near each other for plot reasons—which I will not divulge right now—and over time the stoic character is forced to see more nuance in the world around him and learn to see things in a spectrum of shades of gray, rather than just black-and-white. And to be more accepting of other people’s flaws and also that kind of involves being more accepting of his own flaws, too.   R: Right.   A: I think that’s a big part of romance is that it’s as much about your relationship with yourself, as it is about the relationship that you have with another person. You have to do personal growth and personal work on yourself, before you can achieve this transcendental, epic, soulmate romance with this other person. You have to be worthy of it.   R: Right. So, in a pure romance plot, that is the plot.   A: Yes.   R: Sort of, getting through yourself to reach the other person.   A: Yes.   R: And in a plot-plot, where you also have romance, you also get to have fun things like economic shenanigans and political shenanigans.   A: Yeah, and external stuff that’s going on. Yeah.   R: Yeah, okay. So when you—Can you name, I mean, you know the tropes better than anyone because you deal with the fanfic. Which, fanfic really knows what they’re doing in terms of story structure and hitting tropes and then fulfilling the promises made by those tropes. So what are—we’ve talked about antagonists to lovers—what are the other kinds of romance-style stories that are out there that seem to be most satisfying? Because one that I think of is the Forbidden Love—   A: Mhm.   R: So you have Romeo and Juliet, you also have Rogue and Gambit. They cannot come together or else, or else. So Forbidden Love, Enemies to Lovers, what else is out there?   A: So the common thread through all of these is that there’s some kind of obstacle in between these two characters and them being together. Obstacles are great because if you have an obstacle, then you have stakes. If you have stakes, then something is interesting and compelling and you feel tension and stress when you think about whether these two characters are going to be able to overcome this obstacle. So that’s the big thing in any really classical, meaty, compelling romance trope, is that presence of an obstacle. Either in personal perception and beliefs, as in Enemies to Lovers, or in some other externally sourced obstacle, like Forbidden Love, as you mentioned.    R: Mhm.   A: In Romeo and Juliet, for example, the obstacle is their families and the relationship and the antagonism that is between their families. And that’s something that they overcome. What was the other one you mentioned?   R: The Rogue and Gambit.   A: I’m not familiar with this, what is this?   R: From The X-Men. Okay, so Rogue and Gambit—Oh my goodness. I’m showing my age here. So it’s most exemplified in the ‘90s X-men cartoon, where there’s a powered being, Rogue, whose power is, when she makes physical contact with somebody, she—   A: Oh! She kills them!   R: —sucks their lifeforce. So if they are human, she’s probably just going to kill them. If they’re a mutant, she’ll actually take their mutant abilities for a while and they will either be comatose right after, or she just weakens them. Meanwhile, she’s now developing—Sometimes they bring in personality and the X-men cartoon was mostly just that if somebody was telepathic, she would be telepathic for a little while.   A: So we’re talking about, like, they can’t touch. Like in Pushing Daisies.   R: They can’t touch! So she wears gloves, but obviously she doesn’t have a ski mask on, so she can’t kiss a romantic interest and all this kind of stuff. And that’s sort of torturous, no matter what we do, we can’t be together, so, of course, that’s all we want, situation. So that’s why I bring that one up.   A: Yeah! This was also huge in Pushing Daisies which is one of my favorite shows ever. Have you seen it?     R: Nope, no. So, okay, we’ve each got—   A: Oh my god! You should watch it!   R: —one the other hasn’t seen.   A: Oohh, you should watch it. Pushing Daisies is this amazing show about a pie baker who has a magical power where, if he touches a dead person, they’ll come back to life for, I think, like two minutes.    R: Okay.   A: And then he has to touch them again to kill them permanently. And after that he can’t bring them back again. But if he doesn’t, then someone else in the vicinity will die. And then the dead person will just be alive for however long. But still, if he touches them again, then they die. It’s a little convoluted.   R: Okay, so he’s got two minutes—I’m sorry, I just gotta work this out because I didn’t realize there was a magical aspect to this show. So he’s got two minutes, and that’s the window where he can fix the fact that he brought them back to life and, outside of that window, he’s sacrificed someone else at random and still cannot make contact with this person.   A: Correct, correct. So, in the show, he brings a woman back to life who is his childhood crush.   R: Oh, okay.   A: And can’t bring himself to touch her again to kill her. So someone else dies. And then she is here and around and a character, but he can’t touch her. Because if he touches her again, then she dies permanently. So there’s this—but they’re like madly, madly in love and the show is so, so sweet and wholesome. The show actually does a really good job of—the obstacle is: How can we overcome this we-can’t-touch thing? And they get really creative in how these two characters can actually touch by basically giving them, like, full-body condoms?   R: Oh gosh!   A: So they are cuddling together with a plastic sheet in between them or they’re holding hands wearing rubber gloves or things like that. Or they’re kissing through a piece of saran wrap. It’s real cute. Real cute. So, yeah, that’s an obstacle to overcome that gives stakes. And also they play with how close, like close-calls. Like they’re both walking through a hall and they don’t see each other and they almost bump into each other.    R: Oh, okay.   A: So the stakes are huge. If they accidentally touch, at any moment.   R: All right, so we have the Forbidden Love which has many, many fun aspects. Especially, obviously, in science fiction and fantasy. There’s a lot of ways to play around with it. And we have the first one, which was Enemies to Lovers. Then, in terms of romance novels, I’m thinking you have different personality structures that come together, but in the romance novels that I’ve read, someone is always ever so very perfect. So then there’s the pursuit, then realizing you don’t necessarily like that person, and then realizing the person that you were looking for was, like, your best friend all along or anything like that. Is there a better trope term for that, or is that more of the similar, there’s just an obstacle—I mean, obviously there’s an obstacle in all of these, but—    A: I don’t know if I have an exact trope name for that, but the realizing, “Oh, yes, the person I loved was standing right next to me the whole time. It was my best friend that I have known forever.”   R: Right, so this is like the Ron Weasley romance with Hermione where he thinks he’s, you know, he needs a date but, “Ugh, all I’ve got is Hermione” or “You don’t have a date!” kinda thing.   A: And in that case the obstacle is kind of personal perception, again, and also learning to see this person in a new light. With a best friend that can be really difficult because usually they’ve been around you for so long and you know so much about them that it can be difficult to change what you already know. Or to change your mind about someone. R: Right.   A: And that can be—I guess I would call that Friends to Lovers.    R: Okay. So it’s almost, the enemy in that case is the fact that you have a preconceived notion of who they are and how they fit into your life.   A: Yeah, an established relationship and so forth. And then what other obstacles? Let’s see, I just read a really amazing one, a really amazing romance novel, recently called Unmasked by the Marquess by Cat Sebastian, which was fantastic. It has a non-binary protagonist in it. And, again, a very stoic, aristocratic person who, again, sees the world kind of in black-and-white and has very, very strict personal codes and personal morals and has to, again, learn to be more flexible and see the world in a more nuanced kind of way. Yeah, with romance novels, I think, particularly that theme of doing the personal work on yourself to grow to fit this other person—rather than being two people who are just perfect for each other independently, and without doing anything—so much of it is about making compromises and changing who you are—We have this whole thing in our culture about how you shouldn’t change for another person. Except that’s kind of how relationships work?   R, smiling: Yes.   A: That’s how human beings work. It’s good to be some degree of flexible. It’s not good to change everything about yourself for another person, but you have to do some degree of—   R: There’s work involved.   [20:21]   A: Yeah, yeah! There is work involved.    R: Even in plots and fiction where the reader gets to participate in this romance without putting any effort into it themself. The characters themselves are going to have to do work. And that’s a good point is that when you decide which things you’re willing to change or sacrifice—when you are developing a character, there should be some sort of moral backbone to that character, where it doesn’t change the core of the character to meet this person in the relationship.    But maybe it helps them through a personal weakness, like they talk about the lies we tell ourselves and use those to build your character’s nuanced anxieties and neuroses. And so you meet a character in the middle where you have to give up either the lie you tell yourself, or you have to give up something that you thought was important but, it turns out, is keeping you from happiness versus giving up the fact that you think no one should beat puppies.   A: Right, right. Exactly. It’s not so much about changing a core belief, it’s more about changing how that belief manifests sometimes.   R: Right. Limiting beliefs are the other things, the other term that I’ve heard used for it. This is the thing that keeps me from being happy and this is the thing that the plot is going to answer. Whether it’s, “I think I need to go find this treasure, but what I actually need to do is go find friends,” or, in this case, “I think I want someone who’s going to treat me like the princess I am, and then it turns out I’m actually not such a princess and maybe I need someone who’s gonna hold me accountable for the things I say, or the flaws,” stuff like that.   A: Right. You said something which made me think of a cool thing, which I would like to see more of in romance novels and that’s friends. Because a lot of times when I am reading a romance in a book—this doesn’t happen quite as much with romance novels, actually, because romance novels know what the fuck they’re doing—but with science fiction/fantasy a lot of the times, if there is a romance in the book, a lot of the times that is the only relationship in the book.   R: Yes.   A: And what I would love to see more of is romances that are bracketed, or surrounded by, the ancillary friendships of these two characters who are so involved with each other. I would like to see characters with more of an emotional support network and more of a community and whose communities are interacting with the romance in a way that the characters are also interacting with each other.   R: So, an example of the relationship being the only thing in a romance in science fiction, we are talking like The Fifth Element where not only has he detached himself from his former society of servicemen that he used to work with, now he’s a contracted taxi driver where he doesn’t have to do anything to interact with anyone on a regular basis anymore. Except maybe his mechanic.   A: Yeah. And his cat.   R: And then he meets this woman who was literally just born, so she has no friends either.   A: Right, right. She has those two priests who follow her around, but those aren’t really community. Like, they don’t really see her as a real person.   R: No, those like—And she doesn’t necessarily see them as anything more than just the to-do list that she’s supposed to do. Go find these priests and then find out you like chicken and make-up and then move on with the plot and go get the stones.   A: Yes.   R: Like, she has very—nevermind a limited social circle, she has very limited personality in this movie as well. She just has, I don’t know if you would call this the stoic, because she behaves very emotionally in certain situations, but she wants to move from Point A to Point B and then does not know what her life is going to be after that. She’s gonna turn back into a rock or something and then she’ll be done.   A: Mhm.   R: And he’s kind of drifting through his life at that point with almost zero social circle at that point, except for the man who brings him his noodles right to his window. And fortune cookies.   A: Yeah.   R: So that’s not how you wanna necessarily do it to build deep relationships and deep realism in your story.   A: Yeah, because I mean everyone in—Okay, not everybody. But the vast majority of people have friends as well as romantic partners. And when you are embarking on a new romantic relationship, a lot of the times you are telling your friends about it. “Oh my god, Rekka, I just met this really cute boy! Let me tell you everything about him!” And then you’re like, “Alex, he’s a dinosaur.”    And I’d be like, “No, he’s not!” You’re like, “He’s a literal pterodactyl.”   R, laughing: I would be all-for that. I would encourage that.   A: I know you would. But, yeah, again going back to Cat Sebastian, who I mentioned before. Cat Sebastian does a fantastic job of writing communities in her books. The communities are almost as important as the romance itself and a lot of the times the characters are kind of having a emotional arc with their communities as well as the emotional arc with the romantic partner in the book.   R: Yes, and you definitely have to consider that your friends are only hearing your side of this romantic endeavour so they’re interjecting judgment and opinions from only seeing half the story. Then the other person’s social circle is doing a similar thing depending on they interact.   A: Yeah!   R: And whether that person’s trying to keep it lowkey at first and not tell the friends because every time they tell the friends, the next question is, “When do we get to meet ‘em?” or whatever.    A: Yeah. It can make it a really, a much, much richer experience, I think.   R: And definitely adds some complications. And if you have other friends—every now and then in the group of writers that are going, “Okay I have to solve this plot,” someone will say, “Why does this person go over here and do this? I need them to go do this thing. Why would they do it?” And if you have a social circle, you can say, “Because their friend drags them to it,” or whatever. You have more characters that are intimately involved with your protagonist’s life and because there’s an emotional connection between the two of them on a friends level, there are things that people will do for other people that they would never go and do by themself because they’re backing up a friend.   A: Exactly, exactly, exactly. Yes. One hundred percent. Yes.   R: So you’ve got characters who may or may not have an attraction that they may or may not recognize as attraction and you have a healthy social circle built around them, of people who share interests or share community or share careers—   A: Family connection, yeah.   R: —or they met in a bar because the bar has really good lemon twists or something. So what do you do—You, Alex, with this pair, when you throw them together. How? You can think about it as, like, they gotta bounce off each other a couple times before they can stick. So how do you plan a romantic arc, other than just—we know they start in an opposite point from where they end?   A: So a lot of it I do by feel, but there is also a structure to it. So you have two characters and they have to have a reason to be around each other. If you’re doing a thing where they are bouncing off each other, then you have to have a reason why they’re forced to—Like, what’s the gravity that’s keeping them together? Like two bodies in space. What is the gravitational pull that is keeping them together? Sometimes that’s an external thing, something that is forcing them to stay together by circumstance, by someone else ordering them to go on this spy quest or something, I don’t know.   R: Or arranged marriage, that’s another trope.   A: Or arranged marriage, yeah, absolutely. And sometimes it’s an internal gravitational pull. The fact that they want to be near each other. If the pull is internal, then the obstacle is external. If the pull is external, then the obstacle is internal.   R: That makes a lot of sense.    A: Yeah. So if they really, really want to be together, then who is keeping them apart? And if they really, really don’t want to be near each other, then who is forcing them to be together.   R: Mhm. Or what.   A: Or what, yeah. So, I’m just gonna choose the they don’t really want to be around each other, because that’s my favorite one.   R: Right.   A: So if they don’t want to be around each other, then they’re gonna have clashes of personality. And this works best when it’s small things that lead up to something bigger. Or you have an underlying serious thing and this manifests in a lot of small ways. So you don’t want them to clash completely hard against each other because then there is the chance that they’ll blow up the gravitational pull and ruin everything and go off in two completely different directions. So you can’t push them to their breaking point at this point in the book. Because the gravitational pull’s not strong enough yet to survive it.    So with the small clashes, both of them are already starting to change and shift a little bit. Even if it’s just in questioning something that they’ve never questioned before. And saying—or thinking about something that they have thought of as like an unthinking, given truth about the world. Suddenly they’re noticing it, they’re having an awareness of it that they’ve never had before.   R: So a stability that they had before is now shaken by this person entering their lives.   A: Yeah, they’re set off balance somehow. Then you are going to have, towards the midpoint of the book, or, well, between one third of the way through the book and the midpoint of the book, they’re going to have some kind of bigger event which really tests one or both of them. And they have to make the first compromise. So, before, it’s more like questioning and personal awareness and then you have one big compromise where, I don’t know, they hate each other. One of them saves the other person’s life. Or they have a big argument and one of them makes a good enough argument that they win and the other person goes,” Oh, I never thought of it that way before. Now I have to change something that I think.”   [30:53]   R: And keep in mind, this is the thought they’re having internally and maybe not even recognizing it yet. It’s certainly not what they’re saying out loud.    A: Most of the time, yes. With an argument between the two of them, usually they’re not gonna say, “Fine, you win,” but they may have some kind of other, subtle indication that they have not lost the argument, but recognition that they haven’t won the argument. Like, “I don’t want to talk about this right now. I need to go think about this,” something like that.   R: Right, well, that’s exactly what I mean. Rather than saying, “You made a very valid point and I’m shook,” they try to shut down the argument without admitting defeat or redirect it some way.   A: Right.    R: This might be somewhere where somebody starts bringing up how you always leave your shoes right inside the door for people to trip over, instead of talking about loss or grief or something else that’s deeper.   A: I would say that the shoes being left all over the floor is more towards the—more one of the ones I was talking about before, yeah. One of the smaller personality clashes. This is a more significant one, this is where we start thinking about deep, personal values. Also it helps if, either just before or just after this point of change, they have had a moment where they agree on something. Where they are perfectly in alignment and they are pointed towards the same goal or they agree on some deeply held value.   R: Okay, so it gives them the opportunity to say, “Not only is this person making a good point that’s changing the way I’m looking at things, now I’m suddenly able to recognize that there’s other ways that there’s good in them.”    A: Yeah, yeah. Like, “I respect—or I have some small respect or I wonder about them. I’m curious about them because of this thing that I think is correct and they also think that’s correct. So they can’t be a totally bad person. So why are they like this about this other thing?”   R: Mhm.   A: And, really, all you want to do is get your characters questioning things.   R: Right.    A: So you have this moment of connection between the two of them, and that’s kind of the point where the gravitational pull starts being internal as well. Because they’re starting to be drawn toward each other. And, again, also like objects in space, the farther apart they are, the weaker the connection. And then the closer and closer they get, the stronger the gravitational pull between the two of them.   R: So, in a way, the closer you get them is more forcing them to act toward a common goal. So that puts them—   A: It can be forcing them to act towards a common goal, it can be forcing them to have deep conversations about deeply held personal values. It can be more instances of proving to each other that they’re good people. It can also just be moments of—Here’s the thing. So I’m demisexual and I have a hard time remembering that sexual attraction is a thing?   R: Right.   A: So one of the things that can bring them closer together is also just finding each other just unbearably hot. ‘Cause apparently that’s a—   R: Like one of them changes their clothes and all of a sudden they look really, really good. So that could be a whole struck moment, or over time.   A: Or one of them gets caught in a rainstorm and is like soaking wet.   R: [laughs] Yeah.   A: Or all sorts of things. Or one of them is gnawing on the end of a pencil or eating a popsicle. All sorts of things. Or reading a book in a sexy way, I guess? I don’t know.   R: Reading books sexy, okay. Noted.   A: Yeah. Or reciting poetry, anything. Anything! LIke, having one character experience a deep, deep sexual attraction is another way of bringing them closer together.   R: And to put a point on it, the sexual attraction doesn’t have to be physical attraction. So it might be something where a philosophy that this person reveals is like the most amazing thing to the other person. Where, suddenly, the way that they’ve described—you know, it’s kinda like reading in a sexy manner or reading a poem out loud—suddenly this person is appreciating a new aspect of the other person that is not only something they were unaware of before, but appealing to them on a fundamental level to that character.   A: Yeah. That’s sort of related to having the connection between values. Like deeply held personal values. So, after—now you have them drifting closer toward each other, and that should be maintained throughout the rest of the book as they drift and drift and drift closer and closer together. Then, the next thing is that you can start testing them a little harder and putting them through bigger challenges and more serious challenges and—    R: The sorts of things that would’ve made them push apart completely at the beginning of the book because they didn’t have any investment in each other whatsoever, at that point.   A: Right. I would save that big, big one, the one that would’ve broken them apart at the beginning of the book, that’s your third one.   R: Well, I mean, the thing that would’ve broken them earlier is smaller than the thing that would break them later, so—   A: Depending on how you do it! Depending on how you do it, yeah.    R: Yeah.   A: But you sort of ramp up to bigger and bigger challenges. And you make them do things for each other that they definitely would not have done at the beginning of the book.   R: Right.   A: And then toward the three-quarter point, you have some huge test. That is about, either—that does require some huge personal change that would have been, again, unthinkable at the beginning of the book. Then, from there, you’re pretty much good. Usually at some point in the book, before that, you have them kiss.    [both laugh]   R: Accidentally or otherwise.   A: Accidentally or otherwise, or maybe they’re in an alley and they have to kiss to avert suspicion so that they don’t get caught spying on things. That’s one of my favorites, too.    R: Right.   A: And also it’s best, depending on the characters, they might talk about it or they might not. They might make assumptions about what they think the relationship is like or they might talk it out. If they talk it out, then usually there’s going to be some kind of, again, an obstacle, either an emotional one or an external one. They’re going to say something like, “I am deeply attracted to you, but here are the reasons we can’t be together: our families hate each other; or I’m not interested in having a relationship with anyone right now; or you’re super hot, but I don’t like that you are the person who you are.” Whatever, whatever. There’s a million reasons and they’re going to be unique to your characters anyway.    And then, so you have the big, big crisis moment towards the three-quarter point of the book, and from there, if you’re writing science fiction and fantasy then you’re gonna spend the rest of the time resolving your plot. And if you’re writing romance, then you’re going to be in the denouement by that point and you’re going to be wrapping up the actual relationship.   R: So, when you get to this crisis point and, as you’ve said, it’s unique to your characters and their situation, but what is it that is the crisis? Like is it some—If their complaints against each other were internal at first, is the crisis where they accept the internal, but now that there’s some sort of external that’s forcing them, that they’re facing a crisis with? Or is it not quite shifting poles at that point?   A: So a big crisis. This is sort of like the long, dark night of the soul. This is—I think there’s a technical term for it in the romance studies community and for the life of me, I can’t remember what it is—    R: But it’s kind of the all-is-lost moment, like if we don’t fix this?   A: Yeah! The all-is-lost moment, right. And in romance novels, specifically, I see this a lot of times as: we think the relationship is over. We think that the big,terrible thing has happened and has broken us apart. The thing that we were afraid of at the beginning, or the thing that would have shattered us at the beginning, happened and did shatter us. And because, again, we’re talking about momentum.   I didn’t realize that there was gonna be this much physics in this episode, Rekka. Yet here we are. Because relationships are all about psychics.   R: Mhm.   A: So there’s the explosion between them, and that pushes the two bodies in space apart, but then the gravitational pull is strong enough that, even though they’re being forced apart, they slow down and then they’re drawn back together. So I’m going to use an example from two romance authors who I like quite a lot. One of them is K.J. Charles and the other one is Alexis Hall. Alexis Hall—fantastic writer, first of all. I binged like five of his books in one weekend. And, binging five of his books in one weekend, I noticed that he has a pattern of he really likes his crisis points to be a huge, not quite miscommunication, because they’re not miscommunicating about anything. It’s one person being just a dick and saying something thoughtless and stupid and, usually, they haven’t noticed that their own internal values have shifted and changed and so they’re saying something that betrays how they thought at the beginning of the book—   R: Mhm.   A: —and they haven’t quite realized that that’s not their actual real opinion anymore.   R: Okay, that’s interesting.   [40:13]   A: Yeah, it is! Alexis Hall loves doing this. Alexis Hall does this in almost every book. So they say this thing which is petty and thoughtless and not actually aligned with their real values and the relationship is broken apart. The other person storms out of the room says, “How can you say this? How can you think this?” and they leave and oh no, it’s over. And then the first person has to confront the fact that, “Oh shit. I said that, but I didn’t mean it,” and—    R: And it’s only at that moment that they realize that they’ve been changing this whole time.   A: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then—So that’s a really good way to do it. Miscommunication, like more classic miscommunication, is also a good way to do it. Where you misunderstand something that someone has said or you hear a voicemail or see a text from someone and it’s really affectionate. Who is this person? And it turns out, oh it’s just their brother.   R: Yeah, or grandma.   A: Not actually their lover. Or grandma or whoever, yeah. And so it’s this moment of thinking that all is lost and confronting the fact that you care so much about this person that it can hurt you so badly. And then doing the hard thing and putting aside your pride and your ego to reach out and succumb to the gravitational pull and admit that there’s something between you and want to fix whatever is wrong or explain yourself or have that really deep, important, honest conversation.    R: With the risk—because you think you’ve ended everything—with the risk that you’re going to be rejected again.   A: Yes, exactly. Exactly. The way that K.J. Charles does this—K.J. Charles has a more spectrum of varieties of ways to do this—one of the most recent K.J. Charles books that I read was Band Sinister which was fantastic! And in that, the problem is an external—Well, it’s a little bit of an external obstacle comes and crushes them, but also a little bit of an internal one as well. Because the external one is this family thing and also like an economic and class difference kind of issue. And the internal one is one person dealing with this external problem and the other person having this moment of frustration and, “Why can’t you just deal with it in this other way? Why are you choosing to deal with it that way?”   R: Okay.   A: Like, “Why are you being the way that you are?”    R: “Why are you letting other people dictate to you what we do?” That sort of thing.   A: Yeah, exactly. And the first person saying, “You can’t ask me to change in this way. I’m always going to be acting like this. You have to accept this about me.” And the other person storming off in a huff.    R: And the first person, as we mentioned, realizing, “Wait, no. I’m not always going to be like this? Because now I regret that.”   A: Well, actually, in Band Sinister—spoilers, spoilers, spoilers—But in Band Sinister, it’s kind of, it’s that this person, Person A, is behaving kindly to someone who absolutely would deserve them being a little bit more of a dick.   R: Okay.   A: And Person B going, “Why don’t you just be a dick to them?” And Person A saying, “That’s not me! I’m always going to be a kind and good person. That’s important to me. I’m not gonna just be a dick.”   R: Okay, so in this case we don’t want them to not be a kind and good person.   A: Yeah, exactly. I’m not going to just be a dick to this person because you think that I should be a dick to them. And it’s just as important, I think, to show someone sticking to their guns in a romance novel, you know?   R: Right. That’s that moral core we were talking about before.   A: Yeah, one hundred percent. And so they break apart and they have this moment of, “This is terrible, we really wanted to be together,” and then, coming back—Person B comes back and says, “You know what, you were right and I really value that thing about you. And here are some other solutions that I have that can fix the root of this problem. Rather than addressing the symptoms.”   R: Okay, all right. So I’m thinking about your tropetastic book.   A: Okay. I’m always thinking about my tropetastic book.   R: Yes! I read this about a month—today is the anniversary of the day I finished it, one month ago.   A: Yaaay!   R: So, as we record, it’s still pretty fresh. So the pair in your book, their major crisis seems to be that they get what they want, but they don’t think it’s what the other one wants.    A: Yeah, the major crisis in that is that—it’s an external crisis. It’s that they have gotten their hands on this one thing—Okay, actually it’s an internal one as well. So the internal obstacle, crisis, that they have to overcome is that they can’t admit that this person is the one thing that they want in the whole world. They’re having trouble getting to the point of admitting to themselves that they’re in love. And then the external thing is reputation and family and we can’t be together because of, again, class differences, kinds of things.   R: Yeah.   A: And we certainly can’t have the relationship that we have right now. We’re gonna have to give up this relationship, reform in a different relationship, and go from there. Even though this current relationship is the one that we really, really want. And one of them has this dark moment of the soul, where he is realizing that he is going to die. He’s not going to survive this. And he doesn’t—And he says, explicitly, he doesn’t mean this as a literal death. He means this as the Tarot card Death, which represents change. Like, catastrophic change. Where if he, being the person who lives through this thing that he’s about to live through, means that he will be fundamentally changed as a person. He will not be the same person, who lives through that, as the person who is standing here now. And he realizes, also, that the person standing here now is not the same person who was standing there a month and a half ago, because that person is dead, too.   R: Right.   A: And he has this big moment of, like, self-grief that he’s going to have to cope with this and live through this. And who is he going to be on the other side of this? So that’s kind of his dark moment of the soul, is accepting his own “death” in terms of metaphorical, figurative death. And then the other character doesn’t have quite as much of a long, dark night of the soul because—   R: His social stakes are lower, maybe?   A: His social stakes are a little bit lower and also he has anxiety and so he’s been having a long, dark night of the soul the whole time?   R, laughing: That’s true, yes.   A: And, well, he does have a small one where they’re on the verge of changing the relationship that they have and he stays up all night with an anxiety attack, thinking about how selfish he is that he’s putting this off and how he’s going to have to accept it. And he doesn’t think about it in the same way that the first one does because he’s so used to catastrophizing about things anyway. Because anxiety.   R: Right. Yeah, I was just gonna say: as anxiety does.   A: Yes, as anxiety does. Yeah, so the moment—Oh, wait no! His long, dark night of the soul is more like five minutes… less than that. Thirty seconds. Because it comes upon him, where he realizes that the relationship change is going to be forced upon him, and rejects it immediately. And it’s right at the end of the book when his sister is showing him the picture.   R: Mhm.   A: And so he is looking at this painting of something mysterious and looks over at his love interest and realizes, “I can’t go through with this. I have to keep him, no matter what.” So his long, dark night of the soul lasts like five seconds. Then he rejects it immediately and acts to fix it. Which is a huge moment of personal character growth, too, because he has had trouble acting and and fixing things and making decisions for himself and wanting things that are just his.    R: Right. And that comes out of his role within his family and his class. Is what his role has been has not been to put himself first.   A: Right, exactly. He is a person who makes so many sacrifices and who is very much used to living in a context of not thinking about himself and his wants as a priority. And so in this situation he absolutely does have to think selfishly, for once. Which is healthy for him, is the thing.   R: And finally does and that’s how you get your big moment of, of—    A: Yes! Triumph!    R: —these two have finally come together.   A: Correct, yes.   R: All right. And there’s still a little bit of putting up the classic resistance that they’d been using, up to that point, the external, like, outward-facing resistance of, “Well we really shouldn’t do this. We really shouldn’t do this,” but you can see that that resistance has already crumbled, they just haven’t accepted it yet.   A: Right, right.    R: So, what I’ve been wondering, as we’ve been talking, is how do you do this with one POV versus writing it with two POVs?    A: So I like doing it with two points of view because you can switch back and forth between them, and you can show each person’s individual emotional arc and the things that they’re dealing with and the things about themselves that need to change. Because, again, going back to doing personal growth and changing yourself to fit with another person. With a single point of view, it can be a lot harder and you have to do a lot more clueing and also—So I’m thinking, specifically, of Captive Prince. Have you read Captive Prince?   R: I have not.    A: You should read Captive Prince! It’s great.   R: Okay.   [50:00]   A: So, in Captive Prince, it is definitely—the romance relationship is one of the through lines of the series, and it’s one of the major focuses of the book. It does it with just one point of view characters and he is, he’s terribly smart, but he’s an unreliable narrator because he has biased opinions about how his romantic partner is, as a person. Also his romantic partner, as a person, is very much a Slytherin and does a lot of disguising himself and keeping himself blocked off and pulling away and not giving any of himself to the people around him.   So the issue there is that you have to—the reader has to understand what’s going on with both of them. That’s the challenge. Is that the reader has to recognize what struggles the non-point of view character is going through and what the point of view character is going through. You have to do this by not… So, you have to make the reader understand without—   R: So it’s almost a bit of foreshadowing, right? Because you have to foreshadow it and then confirm it with a big reveal that is inevitable, but up to that point you think this person’s being a jerk or you think this person’s a criminal, or whatever.   A: Yeah, sorta. You have to make the reader understand without making your point of view character understand.   R: Right, yeah, that’s kind of what I mean.   A: Yeah, yeah. Because they have to go through their whole emotional arc and if they understand things too early, then that’s gonna affect them. But the reader has to understand. So in Captive Prince, I think it takes like partway through the second book before the point of view character starts—Well, the point of view character starts being sort of vaguely sympathetic towards the end of the first book. Or at least starting to understand in a more intellectual kind of way why this person is the way that they are. I don’t know why I’m not using their names. So Daemon is the point of view character, Laurent is the other, non-point of view character. I’ve just been reading a lot of Captive Prince fanfic this week, so it’s kind of on my mind.   R: Right.   A: But it’s the perfect example of doing a romance with just one point of view character. Because Damen misses so much and so much just goes over his head. And Laurent is very much a subtle person who drops a lot of clues about what is happening and his personal, tragic past and so forth. Damen just misses all of them because Damen is a very straightforward kind of person and doesn’t expect Laurent to be dropping hints, in this way. So the reader picks up the hints, but Damen absolutely does not.   R: And, for the reader, the fact that your POV character’s not picking up the hints, matches what they know about that POV character.   A: Yes, yes.    R: Yeah. Because I’m just trying to think of how you balance—In the double POV, where you get to see both sides of this relationship in “real-time” as they’re each struggling their way through it, you get to play off: this person thinks this and this person thinks this, and the reader’s the only one that knows they’re having this misunderstanding.   A: Yeah!   R: Versus the single POV where you’re following what, in theory, would sort of be your sympathetic arc, but you can see that they’re wrong but you don’t know the entire truth on the other side.    A: Yeah, yeah. That self-discovery—or the discovery of the other, the non-point of view character, is part of the emotional arc, yeah.   R: And so, would you say that picking which way you wanna do it has as much to do with how you wanna challenge yourself to write it, as it does what’s appropriate for the—if there’s another plot going on in the story?   A: Oh, absolutely!    R: ‘Cause, as you mentioned, this one’s an arc about something else, over the series.   A: Yeah, absolutely. They’re definitely two very different challenges. I really like digging into characters and getting in deep about who they are. And so I like doing the two point of view. I think that I would find it really challenging to do a one point of view. Unless I was doing it in first person, but that’s a whole other thing! That’s a whole other story. Yeah. Because you have to have a really, really tight control over—You both have to understand what is going on with this other point of view character and you have to have a super-tight control over your point of view character to pull that off.   R: Mhm.   A: And you have to understand exactly where they’re going to have epiphanies about this other person and what things they’re going to miss or misconstrue or ignore, because that happens, too. Yeah, so they’re definitely both very, very different challenges.    R: I’m reminded of writing mystery. You have to place your red herrings, you have to place your clues. You have to have the real and then the moment and then the climax at the end where they finally catch the killer or, you know, catch the significant other.   A: Yes! Yes, one hundred percent. Writing a one point of view romance is very, very, very much like writing a mystery. Yes.   R: All right, now I understand it! I can think about the plot as a mystery! That actually fits. All right, cool. So we’re at about an hour and I don’t wanna keep you because you’re having a big day, as we mentioned at the beginning.   A: I am having a big day!   R: You have a cover reveal and I’m sure your editor is going, “Why aren’t you answering my text messages?” So is there anything else that you would wanna say to cap off this concept of writing, bringing two people together emotionally, binding them forever and ever until the stars collide?   A: Yeah! An interesting thought that I have is that you can use the romance emotional arc structure for relationships that are not romantic at all. Like, I could very easily write an Enemies to Friends book—and have!—which involves this kind of relationship testing, and choosing to build this relationship together. This is absolutely something that works, regardless of whether they actually end up kissing.   R: So kissing: not required.   A: But highly recommended! You know! [laughs]   R: Challenge yourself and try it out.   A: Yeah, yeah. For sure.   R: Congratulations, again, and thank you again for spending a very, otherwise exciting day coming onto our podcast and explaining how to make people kiss.     A: Yay. Thank you so much, Rekka!   R: Thank you!   A: Bye!   R: Bye.   [swishy transition noise]   R: Thanks, everyone, for joining us for another episode of We Make Books. If you have any questions that you want answered in future episodes, or just have questions in general, remember you can find us on Twitter @wmbcast, same for Instagram, or wmbcast.com. If you find value in the content that we provide, we would really appreciate your support at Patreon.com/wmbcast. If you can’t provide financial support, we totally understand.   And what you could really do to help us is spread the word about this podcast. You can do that by sharing a particular episode with a friend who can find it useful, or if you leave a rating and review at iTunes, it will feed that algorithm and help other people find our podcast, too. Of course, you can always retweet our episodes on Twitter. Thank you so much for listening and we will talk to you soon!   [outro music plays]

Who better than a grumpy old man to take you on a tour of a fantastical land of epic scale ... without actually going there? Welcome to our much-looked-forward-to conversation with Alexandra Rowland, author of A CONSPIRACY OF TRUTHS and A CHOIR OF LIES (as well as several upcoming books!! WE ARE SO EXCITED!!!). Their fantastic debut rocked Tony's socks off and its sequel has only continued to declothe Tony's ankles with their excellent worldbuilding and phenomenally queer approach to this genre/mode/cat which we love. Bonus? Rowland is also a gifted podcaster, being both a host of "Be the Serpent" along with fellow authors Freya Marske and Jennifer Mace, as well as cohosting "Worldbuilding for Masochists" with fantasy authors Rowenna Miller and Marshall Ryan Maresc. If you'd like to find out more about Rowland, their fantastic (PUN!) books, and their work in podcasting, head to www.alexandrarowland.net and take a peek at the "About" page, where you'll find links to all the podcasts and all of the socials. Like our content? Our website is www.imaginaries.net, and you can drop us a line (maybe about that reading rut-busting trick?) at imaginarypod@gmail.com or find us on Twitter at @imaginary_pod. You can listen to our episodes on - iTunes (https://apple.co/3aFR64l) - Spotify (https://spoti.fi/2tERDTD) - Stitcher (https://bit.ly/38ukyZc) and - SoundCloud (https://bit.ly/2TVno5i) as well as find our oldest episodes on YouTube once they have shuffled off these other earthly coils. If you would like to help support our work, you can give us a rating or review on whatever platform you use to listen to your podcasts, and if you would like to offset the costs associated with our podcast, you can support us financially at www.ko-fi.com/imaginaries.

On this week's episode, we're diving into a very self-referential discussion of the metatext! Tentpoles this week are the film The Handmaiden, the fanfic “Steve Rogers at 100,” and A Choir of Lies by our very own Alexandra Rowland.   What We’re Into Lately Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri Realm of Ash by Tasha Suri The Impossible Contract by K. A. Doore Georgette Heyer The Untamed The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System by Mo Xiang Tong Xu Heaven Official’s Blessing by Mo Xiang Tong Xu The Simplest Way Forward by harriet_vane   Other Stuff We Mentioned Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild 1917 Eddie Izzard bit Pirates Overinvested Written by the Victors by Speranza Fingersmith by Sarah Waters A Conspiracy of Truths by Alexandra Rowland An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears Person of Interest (or, the Husbands and Wives show) For Next Time The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis   Transcription The transcript for this episode is available here! Appreciate your local scribes and their hard work by reading their margin comments--they've been metatexty this whole time, wow!

In this episode, Cat and Alan discuss the concept of Hopepunk with Alexandra Rowland, coiner of the term. Other topics include the hopeful nature of Lord of the Rings, why there has to be a protagonist in fiction, and why sometimes you have to sell out. Alan also reviews the second season of The Witch Who Came in From the Cold published by Serialbox

In this episode, Cat and Alan discuss the concept of Hopepunk with Alexandra Rowland, coiner of the term. Other topics include the hopeful nature of Lord of the Rings, why there has to be a protagonist in fiction, and why sometimes you have to sell out. Alan also reviews the second season of The Witch Who Came in From the Cold published by Serialbox

There's an art to storytelling, an art to commenting on the storytelling, and an art to commenting on the commentary of the storytelling.  (Comment-ception, we have to go deeper.)  This week we're talking A CHOIR OF LIES by Alexandra Rowland, a sequel to the amazing A CONSPIRACY OF TRUTHS!  Also featured: me almost knocking the mic over out of excitement, angry kitty noises, what it means to be a haunted house, and much more!----more----BOOKS COMING OUT THIS WEEK (DEC. 10TH):- THE LIGHT OF ALL THAT FALLS by James Islington- CROWNBREAKER by Sebastion de CastellBOOKS WE'RE ALSO TALKING ABOUT:- UMBRELLA ACADEMY VOL. 3: HOTEL OBLIVION by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba- THE BARTIMAEUS TRILOGY by Jonathon Stroud- BABY YOU'RE A HAUNTED HOUSE by Gerard Way

This month, we're joined by podcaster and author Alexandra Rowland. Alex reads an excerpt from their trunked novel, Windfall, and we talk NaNoWriMo, community, and the issues with college creative writing programs.

This month's guest is another friend and debut novelist, A. J. Hackwith (@ajhackwith), whose debut, The Library of the Unwritten, comes out October 1st. Amanda and I talk anthologies, voice, and dinosaurs! Things we mention in this episode: The Library of the Unwritten, by A. J. Hackwith "Tank!" by John Wiswell Robot Dinosaurs! edited by Merc Rustad "Lips of Red, Lips of Black," by A. J. Hackwith, in Skies of Wonder, Skies of Danger  Uncanny Magazine, Issue 23 (the dinosaur issue) The Underwater Ballroom Society, edited by Tiffany Trent and Stephanie Burgis Destroy anthologies Uncanny Magazine, Issue 24, Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction The Imaginary Corpse, by Tyler Hayes Jasper Fforde "Hell's Librarian," by A. J. Hackwith The Library of the Unwritten, reviewed in The Library Journal (starred) A Conspiracy of Whispers and A Treason of Truths, by Ada Harper Excerpt of The Library of the Unwritten, Tor.com   Join us next month, on October 18th, when Alexandra Rowland will be on the show!

This week, Liberty and Kelly discuss Gideon the Ninth, Unpregnant, Stargazing, and more great books. This episode was sponsored by Book Riot's Mystery/Thriller giveaway;  HMH Books and Media, publishers of The Years That Matter Most: How College Makes or Breaks Us by Paul Tough; and Ritual. Pick up an All the Books! 200th episode commemorative item here. Subscribe to All the Books! using RSS, iTunes, or Spotify and never miss a beat book. Sign up for the weekly New Books! newsletter for even more new book news. Books discussed on the show: We Speak In Storms by Natalie Lund Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir  Stargazing by Jen Wang  Pet by Akwaeke Emezi  Some Places More Than Others by Renée Watson A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker  Unpregnant by Jenni Hendriks and Ted Caplan What we're reading: Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino In the Dream House: A Memoir by Carmen Maria Machado  More books out this week: The Last Train to London: A Novel by Meg Waite Clayton  Free Lunch by Rex Ogle The Fifth Column: A Novel by Andrew Gross  The Ghost Collector by Allison Mills  The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir by Samantha Power  Where the Light Enters by Sara Donati Women in Art: 50 Fearless Creatives Who Inspired the World (Women in Science) by Rachel Ignotofsky  The Sisters of Summit Avenue by Lynn Cullen  The Truth About Magic: Poems by Atticus  29 Seconds: A Novel by T. M. Logan  A Treason of Thorns by Laura E Weymouth  The Corner That Held Them (New York Review Books Classics) by Sylvia Townsend Warner The Divers’ Game by Jesse Ball She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey Live a Little: A Novel by Howard Jacobson Don't You Forget About Me: A Novel by Mhairi McFarlane  Bloomland by John Englehardt What Is A Girl Worth?: My Story of Breaking the Silence and Exposing the Truth about Larry Nassar & USA Gymnastics by Rachael Denhollander Out of Darkness, Shining Light by Pettina Gappah Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Pérez  Lost in the Spanish Quarter by Heddi Goodrich  Malamander by Thomas Taylor and Tom Booth The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 by Garrett M. Graff The Starlet and the Spy: A Novel by Ji-min Lee The Ticking Heart by Andrew Kaufman The Siege of Troy: A Novel by Theodor Kallifatides, Marlaine Delargy (Translator) Animalia by Jean-Baptiste Del Amo, Frank Wynne (translator) Akin by Emma Donoghue  The Magnolia Sword: A Ballad of Mulan by Sherry Thomas  The Vanished Bride (A Brontë Sisters Mystery) by Bella Ellis Rebel Girls By Elizabeth Keenan The Second Chance Supper Club by Nicole Meier  For the Love of Men: A New Vision for Mindful Masculinity by Liz Plank  Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?: Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death by Caitlin Doughty and Dianné Ruz (Illustrator)  How to Be Remy Cameron by Julian Winters Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell  A Choir of Lies by Alexandra Rowland and Drew Willis Hope Is Our Only Wing by Rutendo Tavengerwei  Tinfoil Butterfly: A Novel by Rachel Eve Moulton  Are You Listening? By Tillie Walden  Listening to the Wind (Seedbank) by Tim Robinson When She Reigns (Fallen Isles Book 3) by Jodi Meadows Three-Fifths by John Vercher  Homesick by Jennifer Croft  Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann  Frankly in Love by David Yoon The Testaments by Margaret Atwood His Hideous Heart: Thirteen of Edgar Allan Poe's Most Unsettling Tales Reimagined by Dahlia Adler  So Much More: A Poignant Memoir about Finding Love, Fighting Adversity, and Defining Life on My Own Terms by Zulema Arroyo Farley The Institute: A Novel by Stephen King The Nanny: A Novel by Gilly Macmillan The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow  Gun Island: A Novel by Amitav Ghosh  Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers: Poems (National Poetry Series) by Jake Skeets Mother Knows Best: A Novel of Suspense by Kira Peikoff  Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream by Nicholas Lemann  Guest House for Young Widows: Among the Women of ISIS by Azadeh Moaveni The Light in the Lake by Sarah R. Baughman  A Match Made in Mehendi by Nandini Bajpai  Diamond Doris: The True Story of the World's Most Notorious Jewel Thief by Doris Payne  Ruby & Roland: A Novel by Faith Sullivan Fanny and the Mystery in the Grieving Forest (Literature in Translation Series) by Rune Christiansen and Kari Dickson  

Voyage to the Stars: apple.co/voyage Season 2 SEPT 17th ! https://felicitations.fandom.com/ #felicitations on Twitter to send me questions please! feliciadaybook.com Book tour dates to be posted 9/10! discord.gg/feliciaday GAMES: Sunless Skies WOW Classic! Assassin Creed Origins: Elysium DLC   TV: The Boys. British Baking Show.   BOOKS: Three Women by Lisa Taddeo Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino The Harp of Kings by Juliet Marillier Wicked Saints by Emily A Duncan  Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!” —Charles Stross A Conspiracy of Truths by Alexandra Rowland  io9 fall book preview: https://io9.gizmodo.com/theres-something-for-every-sci-fi-and-fantasy-fan-on-io-1837007435

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between! This week we’re talking about ARCs or Advance Review Copies! What are they?  Why do we print them?  Who gets them?  Why do they smell better than your average book??  Rekka and Kaelyn discuss all of those things, tell a few funny stories, and spend more than a little time getting side tracked talking about ARCs they’ve received.  We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves. We Make Books is a podcast for writer and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, concerns, and any particularly good pie recipes you may have – apple is especially appreciated! We hope you enjoy We Make Books!   Twitter: @WMBCast  |  @KindofKaelyn  |  @BittyBittyZap Instagram: @WMBCast  Patreon.com/WMBCast   Rekka:00:00   Welcome back to another episode of the we make books podcast. I'm record Jay and I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore Kaelyn:           00:07   And I'm Kaelyn Considine and I am the acquisition editor for Parvus Press. This is one of my favorite things that happened in the process of publishing a book. And we are of course talking about advanced review copies or ARCs. Rekka:00:19   Because you get to see it and it's a thing and it's real and they haven't been lying to you this whole time and they're really going to publish it. Kaelyn:           00:24   I don't know what it is. I love getting the ARCs it's - Rekka:00:27   Do they smell different? Kaelyn:           00:28   They yes, they smell, this is a trade secret: they smell different than a regular book. Rekka:00:33   They do smell different, Kaelyn:           00:34   Yeah. Rekka:00:35   I'm going to dive in here. Kaelyn:           00:36   No Rekka's right in to the spine. Rekka:00:39   [laughter] Kaelyn:           00:39   Um, so yeah, we're just talking today a little bit about what ARCs are - Rekka:00:43   What it is because as you even mentioned, and I think one of our very intro episodes - Kaelyn:           00:46   It was the intro episode Rekka:00:48   You didn't even know what ARC meant so - Kaelyn:           00:49   That was the example I gave about don't be afraid to ask stupid questions because I knew what an advanced review copy was and I had just never heard it abbreviated to ARC and then I was like, oh, it's that thing I love. Rekka:01:00   Yeah. It's my favorite thing. I know what it is, I just didn't know you called it that. Kaelyn:           01:03   Yeah. You know, we talked a little bit today about what an ARC is, what its function is - Rekka:01:06   Who gets them. Kaelyn:           01:07   Who gets them. Rekka:01:08   And where they go. Kaelyn:           01:09   Where they go. Rekka:01:09   And what their purposes. Kaelyn:           01:11   Exactly. Yeah. So, um, you know, a little interesting bit about the history of them, sort of where they come from and why they are what they are. Rekka:01:20   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           01:20   Um, so I think it was a great episode. Rekka:01:22   Yeah Kaelyn:           01:22   I enjoyed doing it. Rekka:01:23   Yes. Well, I always like paying attention to ARCs and, and we get to squeal a little bit about ARCs that are out there in the world. Right this moment as we recorded. Kaelyn:           01:30   Yeah we definitely devolved into - Rekka:01:33   A little bit of squealing. Kaelyn:           01:33   A little bit of squealing. So apologies for that. Rekka:01:36   No apologies. Kaelyn:           01:37   Okay. Nevermind. We're not sorry. Rekka:01:38   Love us as we are - Kaelyn:           01:40   Or not at all. Thanks everyone for listening again and uh, we hope you enjoy the episode. Rekka:01:47   Yeah. Music:02:02   [inaudible] Kaelyn:           02:03   So today what we're talking about our advanced reader copies or ARCs Rekka:02:09   Or advanced review copies, what is the proper nomenclature? Kaelyn:           02:12   Well, that depends who you're sending it to. Okay. Um, I always call them advanced reader copies because that means readers and reviewers. Rekka:02:19   Okay. Kaelyn:           02:19   So, um, but yes, we're talking about advanced copies of your book, which are copies that your publisher will send out to people going like, Hey, we have this book coming out and it's awesome. You should read it. Give us a review or a blurb. And they're awesome. They're, actually ARC's a lot of times are collectors items. Rekka:02:38   Oh dear. Kaelyn:           02:38   Did you know that? Rekka:02:40   I don't want to see them on Ebay though. Kaelyn:           02:42   Not well, I mean, but that's actually, that's a thing. There are a lot of people that collect um, ARCs and uh, because frequently they're uh, you know, labeled as, you know, uncorrected advanced proof. Rekka:02:53   Advanced, mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           02:54   Um, Rekka:02:54   Not for resale. Kaelyn:           02:56   Not for resale. That does not always stop them from popping up. Rekka:02:59   Right. Kaelyn:           02:59   But like, you know, especially if the book really takes off and you have one of the early copies of it, that's a pretty cool thing to have, I think. Rekka:03:07   Yeah. Kaelyn:           03:07   I want to kind of go through some definitions real quick. Mostly between a galley and an ARC. I think galley has really fallen out of use as of late, but you might still hear people throw this term around. Rekka:03:21   Actually I heard it at the Nebulas quite a lot of different contexts. Kaelyn:           03:25   Yes and that was also a group of writing professionals and people who have been doing this for a while and I'm not going like, oh, they're old. Rekka:03:32   [laughs] Eh. Kaelyn:           03:32   But like people that are from, we're writing in an time that galleys were definitely still a thing so. A Galley actually comes from, uh, the middle well, the renaissance era when, uh, typesetting became a thing and you had to put all of the - Rekka:03:50   Letters, Kaelyn:           03:51   Everything in there, print it, and then the pages went into a galley, which was the metal tray that all they all got stacked up in before being bound. Rekka:04:00   Yes. Kaelyn:           04:00   So a galley for a long time was actually just the printed manuscript for corrections. So then you had an uncorrected proof that's, you know, when someone goes through and marks everything up and when oh, my God, we used to have to do this by hand, everyone. Rekka:04:17   Yes. Kaelyn:           04:17   Um, then you have a final proof, which is okay, we're good. The book is in the shape, it's in the, uh, grammar and the punctuation is, uh, mostly correct and in our day and age now that becomes an advanced reader copy. And the main difference between a galleon advanced reader copy now is a galley, is basically a bound manuscript. Um, it probably does not have cover art. It's probably just in a book with big letters on it saying what it is and who it was by. An ARC. On the other hand is going to have cover art. Um, it's going to have cover copy on it. It will say uncorrected advanced proof. Um, or some version of that. It's probably, it might just have a big red band across the top. It might have like a big sticker in the middle of it, Rekka:05:06   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           05:06   But it is going to be very clear that this is an ARC. This is not the actual book. Rekka:05:11   Right. Kaelyn:           05:11   So - Rekka:05:12   What is the reason that you would send out a thing that is not the actual book? Kaelyn:           05:16   [lauhgs] That is an excellent question, Rekka. This is actually gets to the heart of a bigger thing, which is why does it take so long to publish a book? Rekka:05:25   What the hell anyway? Kaelyn:           05:26   Well, because your ARCs are going out about six months before the book is released because what your publisher is going to be trying to do is get buzz around it. Get people to say like, Oh yeah, I'll write a review on it. Get a blurb that they can stick on the back cover for when the final release is well released. Rekka:05:43   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           05:43   Um, you want people to read this book and the people reading it know, this isn't the final. Rekka:05:50   Okay. Kaelyn:           05:50   They're not getting this and going, oh my God, this ugh - didn't put the commas in the right place. Rekka:05:55   Commas aren't voice. What the hell? Kaelyn:           05:57   Yeah, no, that should be taken care of by the. [laughs] The publishers are sending it to them in hopes of them getting it and going, wow, this is really great, I'm going to write a review on it. There is this book and it's awesome and I loved it and here's all the great stuff I loved about it and you should go buy it. Rekka:06:12   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           06:12   We're all trying to generate sales here. We're all trying to make money. Rekka:06:16   So this is a marketing tool, you would say? Kaelyn:           06:18   Yes, I would definitely call it a marketing tool. It is to generate interest in the book. Your ARC is a very precious, very special thing that I think a lot of people underestimate the importance of, you know, we came back from the Nebulas a bit ago and Rekka actually got the unique chance to hand out some of her own ARCs. Rekka:06:40   Yes. And so I got very nervous because, um, Kaelyn said to me as she opened the box, don't just give these to anybody. Kaelyn:           06:51   Yes. Rekka:06:52   So apparently there's an audience for ARC that is more worthy than another. Kaelyn:           06:57   It's not that there is an audience that is more worthy. It's that there is an audience that is going to do more for you and - Rekka:07:05   Right. Kaelyn:           07:05   I know, you know, I'm going to come in and be the coldhearted publisher here, but, and something I keep saying, at the end of the day, we're all here to sell the book. So if you, you know, in this case only have a limited number of these that were shipped to the conference. Rekka:07:19   Right. Kaelyn:           07:21   You have shipped - Rekka:07:22   Hand delivered. Kaelyn:           07:22   Hand delivered, hand delivered to the conference. You have to, you can't just hand them out to your friends at that point. Your ARCs are to get people to pay attention to your book. So you want to get them into the hands of people that are going to take the time, spend the time with these, and hopefully say something nice about them. They're going to put some thought into it. They're not just going to, you know, put it in a pile and go like, oh, I guess I'll read that eventually. Rekka:07:48   Right. And let's just be straightforward. This is a short run of your book. So they are also expensive. Kaelyn:           07:53   They are expensive. Yeah. They're, this is not, you know, obviously if you're at one of the bigger publishing houses, this is, you know, whatever, you just make however many, how many will be printed, depends on the book. I don't have an answer to that. It can be a hundred to 500. It could be, you know, any number of them. But also ARCs are sent out digitally now - Rekka:08:14   Yes. Kaelyn:           08:14   -as well. Rekka:08:15   Some people prefer them digitally Kaelyn:           08:16   Some people prefer them digitally. Rekka:08:17   Which is a shame because if they have the final cover art on them, that sort of loses a little bit of the glamour. Kaelyn:           08:23   Yeah. Rekka:08:23   Because there are people who take a photo of the books that arrive in the mail that day. Kaelyn:           08:28   I always get so excited whenever I see one of our books and like someone's stack and I'm like, Rekka:08:32   It's always a stack. So make sure your spine is pretty too. Kaelyn:           08:34   Yeah. Um, and that's actually the thing. People get a lot of these. Rekka:08:38   Yeah. Kaelyn:           08:38   Yeah and it's a lot of work to read and review those kinds of things. So like most people especially, you know, if you're just like, you have a blog that gets attention or you just, you know, run a website where you do this kind of stuff, sending someone an ARC is not a guarantee that they're going to review it. Rekka:08:52   Right. Kaelyn:           08:52   There's actually a very good chance that they won't - Rekka:08:54   Just because of the quantity of ARCs they receive. Kaelyn:           08:57   I mean, you do it anyway because it's an industry norm. Like, I mean, I think they're fun. I really like them. One of my favorite things is sending out all the Parvus Arcs. I love um, you know, like you get the giant box of them and like it's really cool because I'm usually the first person to see the physical copy of this book. Rekka:09:14   Yeah, mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           09:14   And it's like, it's so pretty, it's everything I imagined it would be. Um, so that's, that's a treat with me because at Parvus, I'm the one who send out the ARCs just cause I like doing it. Rekka:09:28   Yup, yup. and you have a big table that you have access to. Kaelyn:           09:30   I have a big table that I spread out on and you know, put everything in. And um, one of the things I do, because this is the thing is everyone gets bombarded with these is I always try to do something a little special to the books. I tried to wrap them in a way that's thematic to the book. So, um, cause I really, I don't know what it is. I don't know why I just really like dealing with and sending out the ARCs cause they're special. Rekka:09:54   Yeah. They're like, these are the, the new baby announcements. These are the - Kaelyn:           09:59   Yeah it is, it is just the new little baby that has come into the, come into the world. It's like, wow, this really exists now. Rekka:10:05   It's really happening. Kaelyn:           10:06   Yeah. Rekka:10:07   Yeah. So that's as an as an author. Kaelyn:           10:09   Yeah. Rekka:10:10   That's the exciting part for me. It's like, oh my gosh, look, it really exists. As you're really going through with this, like, yeah, we're doing this, we're doing this. And my Gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, and here's my cover and here's what it looks like printed. And there's just something so lovely about seeing the cover, not as a .jpeg. Kaelyn:           10:26   And holding it, and just being like, oh my God, like it's a book Rekka:10:29   It's a real thing. Kaelyn:           10:30   Like for real now, Rekka:10:31   Like I said, all the words in order and everything - Kaelyn:           10:32   And I wrote those words! Rekka:10:34   Yes and oh my gosh, now I have to decide who gets to read those words and oh my gosh, who's was just going to help me because I'm scared. Kaelyn:           10:41   So you know what actually we brought up a good thing is that, did you notice who gets the ARCs here? Rekka:10:47   Sure. Kaelyn:           10:47   It's not sure the author, right? It's the publisher. Rekka:10:50   I happened to be in the building where they arrived. Kaelyn:           10:53   Rekka just happened to be there because we were at this conference. Rekka:10:55   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           10:57   Um, but we get the ARCs. Rekka:11:00   Right. Kaelyn:           11:00   Not the author because we're the ones who decide who they go to. Rekka:11:06   Yeah. Kaelyn:           11:07   Now, I mean authors definitely, you know, like if you have someone that's like, Hey, talk to this person, and they said they'd be happy to send a review, absolutely we're going to send them a - Rekka:11:14   Right. Kaelyn:           11:15   - a copy of that. Um, but authors, you guys don't get to decide who the ARCs get sent to because the publishers are the ones with the relationships - Rekka:11:25   The familiarity with the process. Kaelyn:           11:26   Exactly. Yeah. And also, you know, the like I sent handwritten notes with a lot of our ARCs where it's like, hey, you know, you really liked this other thing we sent to you. Maybe you've enjoyed this. Rekka:11:36   Right. Kaelyn:           11:38   Again, authors, you guys don't have as much control over this process as you think you do. Rekka:11:43   Okay, but now having said that, what if somebody is self publishing and decides they want to send physical or even digital arts, how would they decide who should receive them? Kaelyn:           11:53   Well, there's a few ways to do that. And um, it is one of those kind of like trade things of how I get my list of physical addresses to Rekka:12:02   Right. Kaelyn:           12:02   send this to. And that is one of the biggest parts of this, you know, but there are people that do review blogs and different stuff that will just say like, Hey, if you want to send me a review copy, this is where you send it to. Rekka:12:14   Yup. Kaelyn:           12:14   Um, so finding that on your own is just a matter of digging. There's really no good way to do it. I'm sure there's like websites and resources and stuff, but you know, take everything with a grain of salt, Rekka:12:25   Right. Be careful about submitting your advanced copy to a site that you're not that familiar with as a self publisher. You might find yourself on a pirated site as a result of going through these. Instafreebie was a thing for a while that people were using for advanced review copies. And I think that backfired. It might've even, I think they've changed the way instareview works these days. Kaelyn:           12:47   I think so. I will say Netgalley is an excellent resource. Rekka:12:51   Netgalley is pricey, but it's supposedly going to get you the higher quality reviews that you're going to be hoping for. Um, Reedsy now has a book discovery, um, process for the same sort of thing, but you only get one review through that. Um, but it's supposedly a higher quality review and if it's a good review then they feature it. So in theory you're getting exposed to more. Um, but you know, look at the audiences of the people that you're sending it to. Look at the, the quality of their reviews, look at the types of things they tend to say. If you are looking to collect, um, quotes that you can put on your cover, you need them not to be reviews that don't get around to the point until the end of the paragraph and don't really put it in a short pithy phrase that you can lift. Kaelyn:           13:36   Yeah. Anything you pull for like a blurb is going to be a sentence. Rekka:13:40   A tweet length. Kaelyn:           13:41   Yeah, a tweet like as a good is a good marker for them. Aside from sending out the actual physical books. Um, we use Netgalley and a couple other sites. Um, and what that allows us to do is give access to the book to people that maybe aren't on our list - Rekka:13:57   But they're seeking. Kaelyn:           13:57   But they're seeking. Rekka:13:59   Yeah. Kaelyn:           14:00   And they're interested in reading this kind of stuff. So that's, that's a great tool too. But we do still send out the physical books. It's just something that's never going to go away. So that's, you know, that's who is getting, get the ARCs now. What are they going to do with them? Well, there's a very good chance they're going to sit in a stack of books that they will get to eventually. Rekka:14:18   Eventually. Maybe after release date. Kaelyn:           14:20   People that are doing these get, I mean dozens every month and even if you did nothing else but sit there and read them, I don't think you'd finish - Rekka:14:30   Right. Kaelyn:           14:31   - all of these. A lot of times having a personal relationship will help with that. Um, you know, publishers will kind of, you know, talk to someone beforehand or maybe someone through the author that they know to say like, oh, hey, would you be willing to, to give this a read and give us a review? We'd like to use you for a blurb. So I don't want to paint the picture of spamming people - Rekka:14:52   Right. Kaelyn:           14:52   With this in the hopes that one of them pick it up. But you do do some of that because you know, sometimes a book just catches someone's eye, but review copies are also sent up digitally and that one definitely can be more of a like, hey, everyone read this. Rekka:15:06   Yeah. Kaelyn:           15:06   So what are they going to do with that? Let's say they picked it up, they're going to read it. And depending on if they, you know, had talked to the publisher beforehand about like, Hey, would you do this, you know, this specific kind of review or you know, interview about it. Some people will just pick it up and write a review on it and say like, you know, I really liked this. This part was lacking. Those are going to be the honest reviews you get. Rekka:15:30   Yeah. Kaelyn:           15:30   And those are the ones that are a little scary. Rekka:15:31   Yes. Kaelyn:           15:32   Usually if it's going through the publisher and the person will have already kind of had an understanding of what the book is going to be and agree to do it so that they don't have to then be put in the awkward position of writing. I wasn't super into this. Rekka:15:45   Yeah. Sometimes you're going to get people that you don't have that specific agreement with ahead of time that you know, find it through Netgalley and they might - Kaelyn:           15:55   And that's a risk. Rekka:15:56   And that's a risk. Um, Netgalley does allow you to require to approve requests for the ARCs and you could take a look at their profile and say like, you only read erotica. I do not want you to read my space opera. Kaelyn:           16:08   Yeah. Rekka:16:08   You know, um, cause that's a risk that happened to me once with, um, a site that I was using to host my ebooks. I did not realize had added the ebooks to a public list and somebody who was very much into Christian books and Erotica. Kaelyn:           16:24   Oh, interesting. Rekka:16:25   Read the book and left me a review on Amazon that said, it's slow to start, but it gets there and I'm like, it doesn't get where you thought it was going, but all right. Kaelyn:           16:35   [laughs] Rekka:16:35   And it was a three star review and then I'm stuck with it. You know, that's just a funny anecdote aside, but it is, um, if you can, you know, vet the, the service that you're using to gather advanced reviewers, um, and then have one specifically that either makes you or your listing private so that you have, you are sending out the link and that's the only way to get it. Or you send it to specific email addresses and it has to be tied to those email addresses or um, something like Netgalley where you at least have to take a look at the person's profile and say, yeah, I don't really, you have no history of actually publishing reviews once you've read it, so I'm not interested in you. Kaelyn:           17:11   There are ways to control this and um, you know, there's ways you can make it so that people aren't just going to read a free book and there's was around it. And um, you know, there's, you have some degree of control over this. Um, now also though, exercising that degree of control can reduce the amount of reviews and exposure your book gets. Rekka:17:53   So it's a trade off. Kaelyn:           17:54   Yeah. Um, so that's kind of what's going to happen when the ARCs go out into the world. Rekka:18:03   So when you are collecting blurbs from industry professionals or industry readers or you are collecting reviews from other ARC readers, what's the goal? Like when you, when you launched the book, what are you hoping to have? Kaelyn:           18:17   By the end of it, what I'm hoping to have is a solid set of reviews, a solid set of blurbs. And people saying they liked the book. Rekka:18:26   Okay. Kaelyn:           18:26   There isn't a, you must have this many. It depends on the scale of the launch, you know, if it's like, you know, Chuck Wendigs "Wanderers" is coming out soon and like that's already got - Rekka:18:40   There's stuff everywhere for that. Kaelyn:           18:41   There's stuff everywhere for it, it's got dozens of reviews. And if you're working with like a more independent publisher like Parvus yes, we will absolutely target certain things and we will still come in good and strong, but it's not going to be, you know, the scale and scope that something from like Simon and Schuster - Rekka:18:57   Right. Kaelyn:           18:58   Is going to generate. Um, but even, you know, certain things from it depends on how much money they want to put into the marketing. Rekka:19:05   Right. Kaelyn:           19:05   And that's an uncomfortable thing to hear. And ARCs are part of the marketing, but they're not the whole of the market. Rekka:19:11   Right. Kaelyn:           19:12   They're actually a small fraction of it, in terms of marketing. Rekka:19:16   They're a level of social proof that, you know, this isn't an untested book. Someone has read it, enjoyed it. Don't be afraid to check it out. Kaelyn:           19:25   Yeah. So now you might be wondering, well, what's in my ARC? When do I know this book is quote unquote ready for ARCs? A lot of this has to do with publishing calendars. One working on a book takes a while. So right off the bat, that's probably bare minimum six to nine months, probably longer than that, depending on the editor's calendar. So then when the book's done, there's a lot of stuff to do with it afterwards. And all of that considered you need at least six months, maybe even eight or nine to start putting the book out there to generate interest in buzz and send out advanced copies. Right. Six months I think is pretty standard. So that's half a year right there. Right. And then you're figuring out everything in the lead up to that. So if you're going, well, if it's six months beforehand, what happens in those six months after. You finish the book? Rekka:20:24   Right [laughs] Kaelyn:           20:25   Yeah. Um, and I shouldn't say finish it as in finishing writing it, but this is when it's maybe some touches, some line that it's definitely copy, you know, a real true copy edit. You may get feedback from your reviewers that are like this thing, heres not working. Rekka:20:45   Yeah. I would blurb this except for this major thing. Kaelyn:           20:50   And then, hey, guess what? Rekka:20:52   You're going to take that thing out. Kaelyn:           20:53   You're going to go back and work on the book a little more. Rekka:20:54   Yeah. Kaelyn:           20:55   Um, because we're in a digital age, it's so much easier to fix these things and send them out again. You know? So like if a publisher is feeling a little iffy on a book, maybe they'll send it out a little earlier, get some early feedback. Rekka has firsthand experience in a pretty, not significant, but not small changes that were made after ARCs went out Rekka:21:18   They were not line edits, they, they were, uh, we got feedback on the ARCs which, um, caused us to go in and correct a couple of small points that were overcorrections based on earlier feedback. Kaelyn:           21:33   By the way, they were great, you know, great corrections. Your book absolutely is, well, I mean, it was already amazing, but Rekka:21:39   It's improved for having made these corrections - Kaelyn:           21:40   And getting that back is not, uh, this sucks. And sometimes it's like, hey, look, we got this feedback. Rekka:21:46   Yeah. And this feedback is something we want to act on because of the source of the feedback or the nature of the feedback or you know, this was not something we'd thought carefully about at the time when we were, you know, doing structural edits. But now that it's, you know, got a spotlight on it, we're realizing, yeah, taken, taken as it is in this moment. We don't want to publish it this way. Kaelyn:           22:09   Yeah, you know, I think a lot of people listening to this might think, Oh God, like so they can just go back and make me change all of these things after the book is done. Let me be very clear about something that is not a decision any publisher would make lightly. Rekka:22:20   No. Kaelyn:           22:21   Um, Rekka:22:21   But if in that moment you already know that that book should have been put out differently, you still have a chance to change it and in two years you're going to wish that you changed this. Kaelyn:           22:34   And don't think of it as a frustration. Think of it as an opportunity to get a little bit of a do over a little bit of you get to time travel a bit here. You get to go back and fix something. Rekka:22:46   Now, if that feedback came in on a review site, that review may be there forever. But um, that's, you know, eventually it will get buried more or something, you know. But um, it's, it's not like you can pretend it never happened, but it is a chance to show that like, yeah, I'm going to take that feedback and I'm going to do what I can to correct it versus, uh, nope, it's good, it's good, it's fine, you're wrong. And you know, shouting down the reviewer. Kaelyn:           23:16   You know, the other thing here is don't, don't think that your publisher is taking every review and going, oh my God, this thing they didn't like, we need to fix it. Rekka:23:25   I have, I have gone to Colin again, you know, this is my, I have a personal relationship with, with Parvus Press. I've gone to Colin and said, I saw that review that just posted. He's like, don't worry about it. Kaelyn:           23:34   Yeah. Rekka:23:34   That's wrong. Don't worry about it. It's an off the mark. Kaelyn:           23:36   It is and, I will say it can be very frustrating, especially like you know, especially for the writer but like as the editor and I know what people at home were probably screaming into their listening devices at this point is well Kaelyn. You always say if a lot of people are saying it, then it's something you need to take into account. Rekka:23:52   Mmmhmm. Kaelyn:           23:54   Here's the thing you need to understand about reviewers. I won't say they have an agenda because they don't, a lot of times they just enjoy doing these things, but there are definitely people that something maybe they wouldn't read review this book except something bothered them about it so they need to go online and set it right. Rekka:24:12   I mean this is the age of the Internet where we go online to complain about things. Kaelyn:           24:16   We also go online to galvanize things. Rekka:24:18   Yeah. Kaelyn:           24:18   We would go online to, you know like, and I really wish we'd have more of that in the world. Talk about things you love. Rekka:24:24   Oh my gosh right now that what you will hear people screaming about, it's still won't be out when we air this episode is Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir and Kaelyn is making a face because Kaelyn has not gotten to read this yet Kaelyn:           24:37   I have not gotten an advanced copy of that and I'm not happy. Rekka:24:40   As soon as mine comes back, I will, I will loan it to you. Um, you will have to let Ryan read it over your shoulder because I've also promised it to him. This book is amazing and it's just a - Kaelyn:           24:50   Ryan Kelley, by the way, is Rekka's editor- Rekka:24:53   I suppose we should introduce him. Kaelyn:           24:55   And she's not sure who you're more tied to here. Rekka:24:58   Well I see you more often. Kaelyn:           25:00   That's true. Rekka:25:00   I haven't met Ryan in person yet and Ryan and I talk when I've done something wrong. Um, Kaelyn:           25:07   [laughter] Rekka:25:07   But um, yeah, so like that's what I mean. Like the gal - , you will go on Twitter - Kaelyn:           25:11   Yes. Rekka:25:11   and you will just see people are screaming their heads off in love with this book for good reason. Kaelyn:           25:16   And I am, I love seeing that kind of stuff. I love when to use the example of Gidion the Ninth and generating buzz. For instance, the way I first heard about this book was our Rekka:25:27   Mutual friend. Kaelyn:           25:28   Mutual friend Alexandra Rowland. Rekka:25:29   Alex was showing our other mutual friend - Kaelyn:           25:33   Yes. Yes, that was it. Rekka:25:33   Jennifer Mace, Macy at the table. I already had read mine or it was halfway through mine or something at that point. And um, I was able to pick it up, show it to Kaelyn and say, you need to read this book at some point, open it up to a random page and find an amazing like line that was just like evidence of why this book was great. And the buzz at that table, there were four people sitting at that table at that point - Kaelyn:           25:58   All talking about this. Rekka:26:00   All talking about this one book two people who haven't read it yet, who now had to read it. And that's the power of, that's the magic review copy Kaelyn:           26:08   That's the magic of ARCs. You know, I don't think anyone actually does this. I'd be curious if people really go through and look for the differences. If you got the ARC and then you get the final copy, I'm sure for certain books that are super fans that will do that Rekka:26:22   Well, for Salvage, they're are going to be some obvious differences. Kaelyn:           26:25   Yes. Rekka:26:28   Um, Salvage - Kaelyn:           26:28   Let's talk about that. What the difference between, you know, how different can you expect an ARC to be from your final copy? Rekka:26:36   We mentioned earlier that an ARC may not be produced in the same print run style that the final would be, which might make it more expensive, but we'll also create differences in the paper and the, the trim and things like that. Kaelyn:           26:52   We'll put a picture of this up on Twitter and Instagram. But, um, we, we were going out to the Nebulas and we were like, you know what, we've got to get Salvage out because Rekka:27:02   I'll be there. Kaelyn:           27:04   Rekka, will be there. But also we're really excited about this and we're like, it would be a wasted opportunity to not just have a bag with, you know, a few of these that we can hand out. Right. Rekka:27:12   And when I say that I'll be there. I didn't mean because they need to give me an ARC to make me feel happy and pretty. Kaelyn:           27:18   No, it's - Rekka:27:18   It's because I will be there making personal connections with people and here's a great chance to hand them the ARC. Kaelyn:           27:25   Yeah. Rekka:27:26   If immediately following or whatever. Kaelyn:           27:28   Yeah. Rekka:27:28   That conversation. Kaelyn:           27:29   Yeah. And if the ARCs handed to you by the author, it's, and it's an extra little special, you know, so we were like, okay, we're going to do this. And we used a different printer than we normally do just because of where we could fit into the printer's schedule. But we did use a local printer so that they were just right there and they use very, very nice paper. Rekka:27:49   It's very nice. Kaelyn:           27:49   It's really nice paper. It made the book about half an inch thicker. Rekka:27:55   Over 576 pages as it turns out, 0.0006 inches of difference in paper thickness adds up to .4 inches. Kaelyn:           28:05   Yeah. Rekka:28:05   In spine width, so we'll put a picture up of the, the Nebula version of the ARCs next to Flotsam and next to the final version of the ARCs that were printed later. Kaelyn:           28:15   Yeah. So, and that is something you also see with ARCs is a lot of times the book looks at, the only way I can describe it is as awkward [laughter] and just you pick it up and you're kind of like, I know this isn't quite right. Yeah. Um, but yeah, this, this was - Rekka:28:32   There's some growing pains and - Kaelyn:           28:33   Yeah this is, uh quite a quite a size. So it's, um, it's cool to have hold to have those. Rekka:28:37   It's a massive chunky book. Kaelyn:           28:40   Yeah. So, but anyway, um, there's going to be differences in Salvage from what the ARC is to a final print run. Rekka:28:51   And some of that is just going to be simple, like the cover is going to look slightly different because the ARC binding has - Kaelyn:           28:59   Was so thick. Rekka:29:00   Well pull that. Well, yeah. Okay. So the spine is going to be very different. Therefore the weight of the book is going to be different. But also there's a red band across the outside of the cover that says on it, um, uncorrected advanced review, um, and the dates that it will be published there. Um, therefore all the, the titling stuff has moved down and adjusted. Um, the back cover copy is not the final back cover copy. This is more like, you know, why you should open this ARC versus the ARC that came the same day to your PO Box. Um, and the artwork on the inside I have supplied because I draw the chapter art for my own books. Um, this is not expected of all authors by the way. Kaelyn:           29:40   That's not even usually tolerated and everything. Rekka:29:43   Right. So I, I do have a professional background in design. Kaelyn:           29:46   So anyway .... Rekka:29:48   So anyway, so Salvage, uh, currently the ARCs have the same chapter art from Flotsam because the chapters themselves have different POV characters. And just on the timeline, I don't think there was a chance to really sit down with the, um, with the layout person who was not me in this case and say like, okay, it's chapters one, seven, 11, 12 and 13. This art, this art, this art. Kaelyn:           30:14   Yeah. Rekka:30:14   So that was just a layer of complexity that wasn't going to happen on the timeline that we had. Um, so there will be different artwork on the inside. I didn't look whether Colin did his typical copyright page malarkey. Kaelyn:           30:30   Do you want to go grab the book and find out? Rekka:30:32   Yeah, I'll find out. Kaelyn:           30:33   I'll tell the story, our publisher, Colin Coyle, who I promise we will have on the show at some point, um, has a fun little thing he likes to do that there is an Easter egg in every Parvus book. Um, they're not always on the, uh, Rekka:30:49   I've seen this in something else. So this is not uh specific to Salvage. He must've lifted it from something else. Kaelyn:           30:54   Oh okay, yeah. Um, we have a little running joke at Parvus that there's an Easter egg in every book. Rekka:31:01   On the copyright page. Kaelyn:           31:02   Not always on the copyright page. Rekka:31:04   Oh dear. Kaelyn:           31:05   A lot of times, not always, Rekka:31:07   Alright, alright. Kaelyn:           31:07   But usually you can find at least one on the copyright page. So, you know, the whole point is that at the end when the final version of Salvage comes out, it's going to be different. It's not going to be majorly different. Rekka:31:19   But if you were selling this on Ebay, please don't, um, you would be able to point to like, yes, this is the version you're looking for because, um, evidenced by these various differences. Kaelyn:           31:31   Yup. So, um, that's, you know, how do you know when your book's ready for an ARC? We were kind of talking about this a little bit with the calendar. Really it kind of falls into your book is scheduled to be released this date. That means we have to start sending out ARCs by this time. Rekka:31:48   And there are also, um, publications that you might send it to in the hopes of like a starred review. Kaelyn:           31:53   Yeah. Rekka:31:53   And they have a very, they're very tight grace period of when they need to receive it by. So I say very long grace period. That's the opposite of what I mean, they have a very short window of opportunity. If you don't have it in by this date, it's not going to even be looked at. Kaelyn:           32:10   They're not going to look at it. So, um, when is your ARC done? Hopefully at least six months beforehand. Even if it's not done. But that's the thing. Your ARC is not your finished book. Rekka:32:22   Right. Kaelyn:           32:22   So when is your book done? That's completely separate issue from when your ARCs are ready to go out. Rekka:32:27   That can be 6:00 PM on the day that it needs to be uploaded to Amazon. Kaelyn:           32:30   If you're self publishing. Rekka:32:31   Self publishing, yeah. Kaelyn:           32:33   But if you're, you know, being, if you're going through a traditional publishing house and if you're distributed they don't need as much run time. Rekka:32:39   But like - Kaelyn:           32:40   They need some cause they have to order a print the books. Rekka:32:42   Yes. Kaelyn:           32:43   Um, and you know, we are living in a day and age where that happens much faster now. Rekka:32:48   But it still physically takes time. Like there's, there's a certain amount of time that it takes for the ink to dry on the page before they can bind it. There's a certain amount of time that it takes for the trimmer to cut through the, the massive, you know, oversized book and cut it down to its final trim size. Like these things just, you know - Kaelyn:           33:06   They just take time. Rekka:33:07   It takes Kaelyn a certain number of seconds to open an email and that limits how many submissions she can go through it. Kaelyn:           33:14   I can go through, yup. Rekka:33:14   Like it is just a physical limitation of the, you know, construct of time. Kaelyn:           33:20   Yup. The construct of time. It is a construct. Rekka:33:23   It's totally a construct because where does it go? Kaelyn:           33:25   Erm, eh yes. Rekka:33:27   So speaking of where does time go? We are out of time for this episode, but I - Kaelyn:           33:31   Already? Rekka:33:32   Yeah. Kaelyn:           33:32   I even got to get back to my roots and give a little history lesson in the beginning. Rekka:33:35   Yeah. Are you happy? Do you feel fulfilled? Kaelyn:           33:37   Um, I don't have any undergraduates, uh, looking at me, very bored. So - Rekka:33:42   So you feel like you did it wrong? Both:   33:45   [laughter] Kaelyn:           33:45   I feel a little better than I normally did. As always. I hope this was, uh, entertaining and educational. Rekka:33:52   Yeah. And if you have any questions that we didn't answer about ARCs, uh, you can shoot us a question at WMBcast on Instagram or Twitter. You can follow us and, or support us at patreon.com/wmbcast or email us at feedback@wmbcast.com. But, um, yeah, so ARCs are extremely cool. I hope everyone gets to look at an ARC someday - Kaelyn:           34:13   Yeah, and check out Netgalley. It's free to sign up for and you get to read and find a lot of really cool stuff on there. Rekka:34:18   Yes. Kaelyn:           34:19   Um, so you know, if you're looking, if you're interested in being involved in that kind of thing, Netgalley is a great place to start. And then you know, you can go on Goodreads, you can go on Amazon and say like, I got an advanced copy of this - Rekka:34:30   And maybe in a future episode we'll talk about like how to structure a review that is going to be useful for a lot. Kaelyn:           34:36   I've got thoughts. Rekka:34:37   Yeah, we've got thoughts I've got, there are definitely thoughts. So maybe that's a future episode or we're thrown on Patrion or something like that if it doesn't end up a full length episode. But I feel like we could rant about that 45 minutes. Kaelyn:           34:46   I'm not sure anyone's going to want to listen to it. Rekka:34:48   Yeah, you know, you know, emoting and commiseration are things that - Kaelyn:           34:52   We'll do a dial in, call us and tell us your, you know, so, um, yes. Rekka:34:57   So the other thing is if you are self publishing and you don't know how you're going to get an ARCs, you can get ARCs through kindle direct publishing. You can also upload your file to lulu.com or other, um, small - Kaelyn:           35:10   Print on demand. Rekka:35:11   Print on demand services and you can see it in person first. And honestly, I really feel like you should before you release it into the world because there's things that you just might not consider when you've only looked at it in a digital space. So that's another good reason to look at an ARC even though that's not really the traditional function of them. They're not the proofs, um, the cover proofs or anything like that. We're talking about, um, use in promoting your book, but order one before you order 20 is all I'm saying, if you haven't seen it in print before. Kaelyn:           35:40   Yeah. So, you know, thanks so much for listening. Everyone and - Rekka:35:42   Send us your questions. If you could rate and review us on iTunes, that would be great. And if you have a friend who is interested in writing or publishing, send them this episode, share it. You can help guide the conversation and sort of be part of it. So, uh, we'll look forward to hearing your comments and your ratings and reviews, and we'll start reading reviews in a future episode. We do have a couple, we just haven't fit that into the episode yet. Kaelyn:           36:03   Yes. Alright. Thanks so much for listening everyone, and we'll see you next time. Rekka:36:07   Take care everyone.  

It's time for another Extravaganza! This week, we're getting tipsy, answering listener questions, and revealing our brand new Patreon! Please consider supporting us there so that we can pay the scribes for their amazing work! What We’ve Been Reading The Ruin of Kings by Jenn LyonsA Choir of Lies by Alexandra RowlandRussian Doll (2019)The Umbrella Academy (2019- )Erkenci Kus (the Turkish soap opera)   Other Stuff We Mentioned Doctor WhoPacific Rim (never explicitly stated, but this is where the term “drift compatible” comes from)Steven UniverseTintinAsterix  BunyipsA Conspiracy of TruthsBarns Courtney’s “Glitter and Gold”Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto  Coldplay’s Ghost StoriesThe NationalTabletop AudioThe Hazards of Love by the Decemberists.A Beautiful MindThe Blue PlanetWicked Girls by Seanan McGuire"Wicked Girls" by Seanan McGuireMy Chemical Romance’s Danger Days“The Queen and the Soldier” by Suzanne VegaAnnihilation by Jeff VanderMeerCat Valente’s Space OperaMoulin Rouge!StilyagiAtomic BlondeAmélieRay Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way ComesHannibalRivers of London by Ben AaronovitchSilver in the Wood by Emily TeshDiscworld  by Terry PratchettCircle of Magic by Tamora PierceThe Captive Prince by C.S. PacatKushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline CareySorcerer to the Crown by Zen ChoA Sword on Two Fingers by Freya Marske (unpublished)Untitled Manuscript by Alexandra Rowland (unpublished)Catalyst by Jennifer Mace (unpublished)Hagstone by Jennifer Mace (unpublished)Antonia Fraser’s Robin HoodThe Adventures of Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn GreenRaymond E. Feist’s Riftwar Cycle, specifically Silverthorn  and A Darkness of Sethanon (and also Magician)Gareth Gates For Next Time "The City Born Great" by NK Jemisin Transcription The transcript for this episode can be found here. Thank you so much, scribes!!

“It’s about how the first step to slaying a dragon is for one person to say, probably drunk in a bar somewhere, “I bet it can be done, though”.  These are the words of fantasy author Alexandra Rowland, whose novel ‘A Conspiracy of Truths’ was published late last year. The quote captures the essence of an idea, a genre, which she coined, called ‘hopepunk’. Fantasy and sci-fi is a world rich in different genres, but as soon as I read how she described what the term meant to her, I realised she had important things to contribute to our ongoing discussion about imagination, in particular to the question of how our storytelling can help to bring to life in the here and now the kind of future we want to create.  Are you ‘hopepunk’? You’re about to find out. I started our fascinating conversation by asking her to tell me what hopepunk means, and how the term came about...

Happy late Thanksgiving, lovely listeners! Check out this fantastic interview with Alexandra Rowland, author of the gloriously well-written novel A CONSPIRACY OF TRUTHS! Also featured: a nice conversation about fanfiction, a love-letter to the stories inside us, apologies to a TBR pile, me nerding out harder than any of you thought physically possible, AND MUCH MORE!(And as a Litcast of Doom first, welcome to our NO SWEAR JAR EPISODE! So be warned!)Click to view: show page on Awesound

On this episode of Be the Serpent, we're discussing some of our favorite sneaky, conniving little shits and their schemes, both successful and embarrassing. The tentpoles for this episode are A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold, Lithograph by romantic_drift, and Jingo by Terry Pratchett. What We’re Reading: Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria MachadoMark Oshiro’s Anger is a GiftSeeing Like a State by James C. ScottQueen’s Gambit by bedlamsbardUnfit to Print by K. J. CharlesEmpire of Sand by Tasha SuriBrothers of the Wild North Sea by Harper FoxReflections by Diana Wynne JonesIt Takes Two to Tumble by Cat SebastianStill more Dragon Age: Inquisition fanfics   Other Stuff We Mentioned: Fernand Braudel’s The Structures of Everyday LifeMediterranean by Fernand BraudelThe Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah ArendtA Conspiracy of Truths by Alexandra Rowland "Love in Every Stitch" by Alexandra Rowland (published in Fireside Magazine Issue 57, digital release forthcoming!)"Cradle of Vines" by Jennifer Mace Cast of WondersThe Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli The BorgiasThe Enchantress of Florence by Salman RushdieThe Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster BujoldA Deeper Season by lightgetsin, sahiyaNirvana in FireDiscworld by Terry PratchettCity Watch Discworld by Terry PratchettGoing Postal and Making Money by Terry PratchettOcean’s seriesCaptive Prince by C.S. Pacat (and the short story “Pet”)Misethere by AstolatOnce Upon a TimeElementaryMagnificent CenturyThe Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett   Transcription: The transcript for this episode is available here. Hail the scribes, hail those quick-fingered three: Sara, Neharika, Magali!

Filling in for Quincy this week is Alexandra Rowland (author of the upcoming A CONSPIRACY OF TRUTHS) as she and Ryan talk about GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH and "Blink" from Doctor Who. Or, like, TRY to discuss GREMLINS 2 through conventional means, but you can probably only adequately talk about this movie through the use of finger puppets, a morning radio show soundboard, and several pornographic bumper stickers.

In this episode, we are joined by author Alexandra Rowland! Alexandra Rowland grew up on a sailboat in the Bahamas and then in a house in Florida. Sick to death of the tropics, she attended Truman State University in northern Missouri, where she studied world literature, mythology, and folklore. She now lives in Massachusetts where she works as a game monitor at an escape room company, occasional bespoke seamstress, and writer under the stern supervision of her feline quality control manager. She can be found on Twitter as @_alexrowland. Look for her debut novel, A CONSPIRACY OF TRUTHS, from Saga Press in the fall of 2018. https://www.alexandrarowland.net James’ 2nd book, Bond of Blood is now available! Check it out on Amazon. Also, check out  his website,  www.jpatrickallen.net. Our logo was designed by our very own Jay. Please take a look at his portfolio at http://oddiovisuals.wix.com/portfolio for additional examples of his work. You can also check out his Etsy store at IntelliGentUnlimited. The Giant Robot of Rocket Punch Radio can only be fueled by the ratings and subscriptions of faithful listeners like yourself. Hit us up on iTunes and Tunein and keep the fight going! Join in on the conversation on the official Rocket Punch community on Facebook, Grown-Ass Geeks.