First Cup of Coffee – July 8, 2025

It's release day for NEVER THE ROSES!! I'm mostly burbling about that, the importance of having author friends and how they're showing up for me. And how I'm leaving on book tour tomorrow!

Book Tour for NEVER THE ROSES information here! https://us.macmillan.com/tours/jennifer-k-lambert-never-the-roses/

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Transcript

00:01.23
Jeffe Kennedy
Good morning, everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy, also writing as Jennifer Kay Lambert, author of Epic Fantasy Romance, and I'm here with my first cup of coffee.

00:16.41
Jeffe Kennedy
Getting foam all over my face. It's delicious. Today is Momentous Day. Today is Tuesday, July eighth and it is release day for...

00:28.05
Jeffe Kennedy
never the roses. And they said it would never come. It does. The thing about, um, trash publishing, right? Is that it's, uh, such long timelines. And so, yeah, here we are at release day.

00:43.49
Jeffe Kennedy
whoop and I almost feel like I don't have anything more to say than who really stay. Um, I do have interesting news. Like my hair is standing up. That's not the news.

00:57.14
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, that I did sell Brazilian rights to never the roses. So that makes five, five. I feel like i always feel like the count five, five delicious cookies or bats or what have you.

01:11.44
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, anyway, uh, so yeah, five, five countries with translation. We shall see there might be more coming in now that the book is out in the world.

01:24.50
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, Yeah, so I have been having, I've been having a good time. Uh, of course, many of you know that my friend Kelly Robson is here.

01:36.75
Jeffe Kennedy
And so we have been, staying up late drinking wine, which is probably not but be productive. Uh, and I'm trying to think of what we've been doing. Oh, so Saturday we went to the opera,

01:54.25
Jeffe Kennedy
um Earlier in the day, I got my hair done so that I would be glamorous and beautiful for book tour. I leave tomorrow.

02:03.39
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, or at least I will have, um, fully red hair and no roots showing. Well, we might not be able to miss their glamorous and beautiful. Um, so yeah, I got my hair done on Saturday. Kelly came with me and did a little shopping and we, um,

02:22.56
Jeffe Kennedy
Yeah, did a couple of things. We did the ritual visit to Keshi to pick out celebratory Zuni fetishes for where we are at in our life right now. um Actually, I think Kelly only got gifts.

02:37.85
Jeffe Kennedy
I picked out a couple of things for me.

02:43.89
Jeffe Kennedy
Yeah, it's so it's a fun thing to do. you go and you look at all the little animal fetishes and then wait until you know which, which one's speaking to you. And it's not always what you think.

02:57.79
Jeffe Kennedy
So we did that. And Saturday night we went to the opera. We saw La Boheme, which was utterly fantastic. It was so well done.

03:09.84
Jeffe Kennedy
Just beautifully, beautifully sung. The harmonies were out of this world. And it was gorgeous evening. it was a perfect night. We had a wonderful time.

03:22.17
Jeffe Kennedy
and

03:25.38
Jeffe Kennedy
um yeah i'm I'm a little fuzzy Sunday. Oh, Sunday. I got the bills paid. I got laundry done. I got the bills paid. And then my friend Vela Roth, fabulous author, Vela Roth came up in the afternoon and she had sent me these beautiful flowers. Look how beautiful these flowers are to celebrate the release.

03:47.02
Jeffe Kennedy
I should move the camera down a little bit. Let's see. Well, that's not going to work to do. Well, anyway, They're beautiful flowers. They don't need to be fully in the screenshot here. Here we'll turn it so that like when the roses is showing.

04:02.54
Jeffe Kennedy
Anyway, she sent me these beautiful flowers and I've said that 47 times now. I was very pleased. And we went out to dinner Sunday night. And then yesterday we hadn't really planned it this way, but I had asked Kelly if she wanted to go to 10,000 waves when she was here. And I've my, my very favorite treatment for my very favorite practitioner and it was the um

04:31.29
Jeffe Kennedy
I got a funny notification from Dropbox there but all is well. Uh, but it broke my train of thought. Um, oh, uh, so it had worked out that the treatment I could get with the person I wanted was going to be on Monday morning.

04:46.93
Jeffe Kennedy
And so we were like, yeah, let's just do that. Go. And I invited Vela, um, who this was her first spa experience, first massage and spa. And, um, she loved it. She had a great time.

05:00.26
Jeffe Kennedy
So the three of us, um, yesterday morning, we had breakfast with the fabulous Megan Mulry at Clafoutis, which is always a treat and delicious and wonderful.

05:11.58
Jeffe Kennedy
And then we, uh, went up to 10,000 waves and we soaked and got the treatments and, uh, came out noodley. And then we went afterwards to Cafecito for lunch and we drank wine and had an amazing lunch.

05:26.42
Jeffe Kennedy
It started to rain and it was beautiful. And we had amazing desserts. And then we came back home and just kind of crashed, except that we crashed for a little while. And then Kelly and I sat outside because then it cleared up and it was gorgeous evening.

05:39.95
Jeffe Kennedy
And we sat out on the portal and drank wine and talked. So ah for the day before release day, it was, it turned out to be a magical way to do it. It was perfect.

05:52.40
Jeffe Kennedy
It was, um, Yeah, just good friends and relaxing. And otherwise, i probably would have like been at my desk working. And so it was a good decompress. Really great.

06:06.33
Jeffe Kennedy
um Which Kelly is very good about self-care better than I am. So, so that worked out perfectly. And then, uh, tonight is the launch event at beastly books at five 30.

06:22.17
Jeffe Kennedy
And, uh, we're having a party afterwards. Megan's having a party, but, uh, Kelly and Bella are doing most of the work cause Megan has a big board meeting today.

06:33.48
Jeffe Kennedy
And so we were talking about the party planning with Megan yesterday morning, what we were going to do and get and so forth. And, um, And then Kelly turns to me because, you know, I said, well, we can go shopping in the morning because we probably won't want to after we're noodley and coordinating that with Megan, getting the food and drink.

06:52.75
Jeffe Kennedy
and And Kelly says, well, you need to stay home and deal with your release day stuff because you're going to have a lot. i was like, all right, all the social media things I'm going to be doing.

07:04.12
Jeffe Kennedy
um which I'm not yet done, but I'm after this podcast, this counts, right? This is social media. Whenever somebody says they don't do social media, but then they mentioned like they have a blog or something. It's like, you know, if you're, you're putting stuff online and engaging with people, it counts as social media and do the kind that you like. Right.

07:24.94
Jeffe Kennedy
I like doing this podcast. I like hearing from you all and having our chats over coffee.

07:35.18
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, Yeah, so I'm just going doing a whole bunch of that stuff today and I leave in the morning on book tour. So it occurred to me that I need need to pack.

07:47.98
Jeffe Kennedy
Oh, but don't have to leave till like 10 in the morning. So it won't be too bad, but I ah do need to pack at some point. um Kelly was asking me what I'm going to wear tonight and I realized that I did not have that planned either but it sort of depends on what I'm taking on the trip.

08:06.76
Jeffe Kennedy
right oh So I'll plan outfits today. There's a couple things I need to do but really grateful for my friends that are doing things to take care of me and help me prep for tonight or doing all of the prep for tonight and You know when we talk about networking, you know, you, ah you all know that I often say um that another phrase for networking, another way of saying networking is making friends.

08:43.16
Jeffe Kennedy
oh Vela was asking and Kelly over lunch how we had met. And we realized that it was probably 11 years ago in the SFWA chat room.

08:57.07
Jeffe Kennedy
We just we chatted on there and then we met in person in 2016 at Worldcon in Kansas City. And rest is history.

09:09.08
Jeffe Kennedy
But people ask me young writers out there ask me how you you know find critique partners. How do you find community. How do you find people?

09:24.04
Jeffe Kennedy
And you know, it's so great that we have these things like chat rooms. And we were talking about that yesterday because I remember very clearly, and I was waxing on about this when I lived in Laramie, Wyoming, pre-internet and i need to add water to these flowers. I see I'm sort of picking at them and realizing they are getting a little low in places.

09:51.12
Jeffe Kennedy
Or the stems are above water. That's what I'm trying to say. I'm also not very articulate. I am out of words. Kelly and I did work writing wise pretty hard on Thursday and Friday.

10:04.37
Jeffe Kennedy
and I'm not done with this revision. I guess I haven't checked in on that at all. I haven't worked on it in a couple of days. I think I have to back up and go back to like chapter 15. At least it's just to this chapter 15 area and get the emotional arc smoothed.

10:22.11
Jeffe Kennedy
So I will be working on it on book tour. I've talked about that before. um But i'm I'm fine with that. I'm fine with working on book tour.

10:32.93
Jeffe Kennedy
And... and You know I like riding on airplanes and I said that to a friend of mine who said I just knew there was something about you that scared me to the core. I was like what working on airplanes is you know but I know a lot of people don't like airplanes.

10:50.85
Jeffe Kennedy
But yeah it's a nice little cocoony opportunity to work I'll have hotel time to work. So we'll see how it goes. Um, but anyway, pre-internet, you know, and not feeling like I had friends. Um, I, I had some friends and I even had a writing group and that sort of thing.

11:12.67
Jeffe Kennedy
But when you are in a fairly isolated, smaller town, you don't necessarily meet the people that you're really simpatico with.

11:24.17
Jeffe Kennedy
And so, you know, a lot of my very closest friends now are people that I have met, uh, online. And then we turn it into real life relationships, but the, you know, for all that we decry how bad social media can be right now in the spread of disinformation and other things that are really toxic about social media, you know, that's a thing that we can't forget is that how we've also made amazing connections with people across the world.

11:59.55
Jeffe Kennedy
So, ah Let's see what else. It's release day. It's release day. oh And maybe I'll just, maybe I'll just leave it at that. um You know, that makes it a short podcast.

12:14.83
Jeffe Kennedy
I have no idea if I will. um Where will I even be on Friday? I might be able to do it on Friday. I think I will be with Grace Draven. um I'm not going to click away to look.

12:28.18
Jeffe Kennedy
So let's see tomorrow, Wednesday of Salt Lake city, Thursday night is Austin book people. And so I don't fly out until late on Friday.

12:39.16
Jeffe Kennedy
So I'm going to hang out on Friday and, um, Grace is going spend the night with me and we're going to, how Have friend time and talk and do things. So that'll be great. So I guess I won't be getting any work done on Friday, but I will have time over the weekend. I will be at Columbus Book Festival and um yeah, not too busy. So I should have some hotel room time to work on stuff, work on this revision.

13:11.21
Jeffe Kennedy
um Wow. I just don't feel like i have anything else to say here.

13:17.59
Jeffe Kennedy
I paused to check my, I did go check my to-do list to see if I had notes on anything else that I wanted to say today. Um, I have pretty singular focus at this point, I guess. I'm feeling a little spacey, little bit of overwhelm, but I did just check my, um, emails. I looked at my phone cause I have it on silence while I do this and, uh, editor Ali sent me a really sweet, um, happy pub day email.

13:47.45
Jeffe Kennedy
with ah this whole chain of really great emojis that all book all related to never the roses and I adore it. It's so sweet. Alright, so instead of sitting here and burbling on about nothing, I'm going to go verbal on social media.

14:05.08
Jeffe Kennedy
So thank you all for being out there for supporting me and supporting this book. Some of you have been listening even longer than when I started talking about this as the book I wasn't supposed to be writing.

14:19.86
Jeffe Kennedy
I had they even sent me messages saying clearly it is the book you are supposed to be writing. And yeah, turns out, turns out it was so beautiful. Never the roses out today. Audio two, um out in the UK on Thursday.

14:34.59
Jeffe Kennedy
So, um, I hope you all have a great week, great weekend. I'll see if I'm going to try to post at least some things to Instagram, uh, being out about like little brief videos and stuff.

14:48.76
Jeffe Kennedy
So, uh, Yeah, I'm going to try to do that. I need to get better about that. All right. I'm going. you all take care, okay? Bye-bye.