Dear Rach & Soph

• Writing, characters, pitching - we answer questions!

  When we started doing this podcast it was mainly us talking to each other. Then we started bringing guests onto the podcast and that has taken on its own life. And we certainly love talking to other writers! However, every now and again we go back to talking to each other, thanks to listener/viewer (aka ‘liewer’) Lucinda Ellen, who sent us several great questions. The questions ranged from to write opening chapters to crafting a pitch to developing characters, and some other things too. As this was recorded a little while ago, in the introduction we talk about Rachael writing her serial Meanwhile in Mount Merry-Glen, which she’s now put on pause as she has two - two! - books to write at once. We also talk about the ergonomics of typing and how trying obey SEO rules into Sophie's country music writing made things less fun and she's abandoned it.So, liewers, it’s a mixed bag and that is the way we like it! For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.comFor more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.comSubscribe on Spotify Subscribe on AppleSubscribe on YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Is there a ‘second novel syndrome’? With guests Saman Shad and Emma Pei Yin

  Two guests join me and Rachael Johns in this episode, and they are both fabulous (you can read their bios below). Emma Pei Yin has just released her first novel, When Sleeping Women Wake, and is working on her second. Saman Shad released her second novel, The Sex Lives of Married Women, earlier this year. Something Emma said to me when we first met - about what it was like working on her second novel - sparked the idea for this episode, then Rachael saw something Saman had written on the same subject, so we decided to bring these writers together to talk about it. A note: we recorded this episode on July the 6th, which is a day that has special significance for me - and you’re going to have to watch or listen to our intro to find out why.ABOUT OUR GUESTSEmma Pei Yin is an Australian-Hong Kong Chinese writer and editor. Her work has been featured in several publications. In 2023, she was nominated as Bookseller of the Year. That same year, her manuscript, Chasing Echoes in the Rain, was shortlisted for the Allen & Unwin Voices from the Intersection Mentorship Programme. She lives and works on Ngunnawal Country with her partner and their extremely barky dachshund, Lady. When Sleeping Women Wake is her first novel.Saman Shad is a writer, journalist, and playwright whose storytelling spans stage, screen, and page. In the UK, she was a scriptwriter for BBC Radio, and after relocating to Australia she created programs for the ABC and became a sought-after voice in journalism. Her plays have been commissioned by theatres in both London and Sydney. Her debut novel, The Matchmaker, was published by Penguin Australia in 2023. The Sex Lives of Married Women is her latest novel.For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.comFor more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.comSubscribe on Spotify Subscribe on AppleSubscribe on YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• From marketing romance to writing romance - with guest Patrick Lenton

  Patrick Lenton is the author of the book of short stories A Man Made Entirely of Bats (2015), the book of comedic essays Uncle Hercules and Other Lies (2019), and the full length short story collection Sexy Tales of Paleontology (2021). His debut novel, a rom-com called In Spite of You is out now from Pantera Press. And his actual bio is a lot longer than this because he’s a very accomplished individual!Sophie first met Patrick when he was working in marketing at Momentum, which was the digital-only arm of Pan Macmillan books, publishing a lot of romance novels about a decade too early for BookTok. He has always been smart and funny, and his novel is that AND SO MUCH MORE. It is warm and sweet and, yes, spiteful in parts but in a very charming way. We wanted to talk to Patrick about how he used to promote romance novels to the world and now he’s writing them, and we did talk about that, plus a lot more. We recorded this episode a while ago, so there’s mention of launch events that have now past, but we have left them in because everything future becomes the past, so someone watching/listening to this episode next year would have had them in the past anyway.In the intro we discuss the fact that we both read multiple books at the same time - do you? And we also talk about the Rachael Johns Online Book Club, which I encourage you to join if you’re not already a member.For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.comFor more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.comSubscribe on Spotify Subscribe on AppleSubscribe on YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• All about Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon

  Each time one of us releases a book (separately) we devote an episode of Dear Rach & Soph to discussing the book - Sophie will interview Rachael about hers, and vice versa.This latest episode, which we’re releasing as a bonus episode, is about Sophie's new novel, Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon. There’s a short description below and you can hear Rach read the longer blurb in the episode.We recorded this ep after we’d already recorded another episode so we were possibly a little tired and emotional - certainly Soph goes off on tangents - but, hey, that’s the way things go! You’re not getting our polished selves, you’re getting our real selves, and if you’re a regular ‘liewer’ (listen/viewer) you’ll be used to that. Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon is out now through Hachette Australia.ABOUT LESSONS IN LOVE AT THE SEASIDE SALONFour women. Four loves. Four life-changing stories. At a little salon by the sea - on the windblown coast of 1980s Australia - four different women with intertwined lives will find themselves through love, heartbreak and learning to love again.For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.comFor more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.comSubscribe on Spotify Subscribe on AppleSubscribe on YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• The ins, outs, ups and downs of romance writing - with guest Amy Barry

  As the Romance Writers of Australia conference is taking place this weekend, we thought it was a good time to publish the episode we recorded with Amy Barry. Rachael is an expert romance writer; Amy is a romance writer and also an academic expert in romance fiction (her bio appears below).Note from Sophie: I was passenger for most of this episode - to the point that my internet cut out, I dropped out of the Zoom and the conversation continued seamlessly! - but that wasn’t because I was being left out of the chat: it was because I was so fascinated listening to Rachael and Amy discuss romance writing that I felt lucky to be there. Being able to watch experts at work is a privilege, and whether you’re a romance writer or a romance reader - or both - you will, I’m sure, be as interested as I was in what they have to say.NB: We recorded quite a few episodes in a short space of time a little while ago, so our intros are out of order and now out of date, but we are disinclined to not be genuine when we’re recording them, so all we can do is hope you don’t mind! ***ABOUT AMY BARRYAmy Barry is the author of the romance series The McBrides of Montana. She is also Amy Matthews, an award-winning author and Associate Professor in Creative Writing at Flinders University. Amy’s novels have been published internationally and in translation and are available in print, audio and ebook. She has also written under the name Tess LeSue. As an academic, Amy publishes on genre fictions, specifically popular romance, historical fiction, and fictions of climate change. And she has a podcast, Amy &. Her latest novel is Seven Brides for Beau McBride.ABOUT SEVEN BRIDES FOR BEAU MCBRIDEFrom the beloved author of Kit McBride Gets a Wife and Marrying Off Morgan McBride comes a ‘sweet, hilarious and totally delicious’ love story (Hannah Grace). Beau McBride wants a wife, and his meddling little sister Junebug is itching to find him a mail-order bride. But why stop at just one? Beau McBride reckons he’s ready for marriage. But his ego is bigger than his brain, and his little sister Junebug can’t trust him to find the right woman. So they make a bet, both placing ads in the Matrimonial News to find the perfect bride. Junebug is set on winning, but there’s a hitch: Beau has made his pick, and she’s beyond beautiful. Junebug knows looks ain’t everything, so to even the odds she invites six more women to meet her brother. Ellie Neale doesn’t expect much from life. Which is good, since life hasn’t given her much, except a head full of daydreams and her beautiful best friend Diana. But after answering an ad to be a mail-order bride, Diana is leaving for Montana. Ellie is happy for her, really she is ... after all, she was the one who wrote Diana’s letters for her.Ellie can’t bear the thought of losing Diana, so she answers an ad from a man in the same town her friend is headed for. But when they arrive, Ellie and Diana discover they’ve answered an ad for the same husband. Along with five other women. With seven brides vying for Beau’s attention, he needs to make a decision – fast. The only problem is, his heart is pulled to the one woman who wants nothing to do with him.For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.comFor more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.comSubscribe on Spotify Subscribe on AppleSubscribe on YouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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