Join me as I chat with award lesbian fiction, writer KJ. We discuss her new book, The Forever and the Now, swords, Steve Irwin, the books she is looking forward to and much more!
You can purchase The Forever and the Now here:
The Forever and The Now - Kindle edition by J, K. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
The rest of KJ's books are available on her Amazon page here:
Amazon.com: K J: books, biography, latest update
Listen to the full episode and DM me on Twitter at Sapphic Book Review (@ReviewSapphic) / Twitter. The first four people to send me KJ's favorite line from The Forever and the Now will receive a copy of the book!
Thanks for listening! Please consider subscribing to this podcast and supporting me on Buy Me a Coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sapphiclaura
Join me as I chat with award lesbian fiction, writer KJ. We discuss her new book, The Forever and the Now, swords, Steve Irwin, the books she is looking forward to and much more!
You can purchase The Forever and the Now here:
The Forever and The Now - Kindle edition by J, K. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
The rest of KJ's books are available on her Amazon page here:
Amazon.com: K J: books, biography, latest update
Listen to the full episode and DM me on Twitter at Sapphic Book Review (@ReviewSapphic) / Twitter. The first four people to send me KJ's favorite line from The Forever and the Now will receive a copy of the book!
Thanks for listening! Please consider subscribing to this podcast and supporting me on Buy Me a Coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sapphiclaura
Welcome to the Sapphic Book Review Podcast. I'm Laura green. And today I'm thrilled to chat with one of my absolute favorite authors, who also happens to be one of the nicest people in our community. Her latest bookThe Forever And The Now was just released. It is an unforgettably beautiful book that will stay with you long after you read the last page. KJ, welcome. I am so excited to talk with you.
KJ:Thank you. I'm really excited to be here.
Laura:You had a birthday recently? The Big Five. happy birthday.
KJ:Thank you
Laura:How did you celebrate. And how do you feel about turning 50?
KJ:I have no problem turning 50 and I celebrated at home looking after my boy who has COVID.
Laura:Well, okay, yeah, so not the best.
KJ:But I did get cake.
Laura:And that's the important thing.
KJ:Yes, it was lovely. And I got presents which were chocolates and things, which is awesome. And I got cards, and it was lovely, actually. So it was quiet. And I don't mind that because I don't do big anything. So I was fine with having a quiet birthday.
Laura:Store bought cake, right?
KJ:Yes. Now normally I'd have a supermarket cake. And that that comes out in The Forever and the Now. There's a little bit of me in Bron.
Laura:I think there's a lot of you in Bron.
KJ:My wife went to the cheesecake shop and ordered a caramel mud cake. It was awesome.
Laura:I'll be turning 50 in April. So I'm just I don't know how I feel about it yet.
KJ:Okay, awesome. Happy early birthday.
Laura:Thank you. I can't complain because my partner's older than I am. So if I make a face about turning 50 I get this glare like really? So I just have to be happy about it. I guess.
KJ:My wife's older than I am. So she did the same thing. She just raiseed an eyebrow when I said oh, I'm fifty.
Laura:That's fine, whatever. I'm so honored when you asked me to be one of the beta readers for your new book, The Forever And the Now. I absolutely love Bron and Kate. Tell me about them and why you decided to write a book without a happily ever after?
KJ:Well, so every book I've written has been different. And I guess I get excited by variety. Despite being an anxious introvert that can't stand change. I wanted to write something different. And why not write something that was a love story, but wasn't a romance. It seemed like something interesting to do. And it felt like something I could tackle, I guess. And I could always change my mind if I was three chapters in and go no, this is awful. I can't cope. So I wanted to write a story about love. It's particularly now love, where you don't get a lot of time with somebody. But it's not just love between two people in an intimate relationship. It's love in a family and love with friends. It's that sort of love. It's all encompassing love. So Bron and Kate, gee they were nice to write. I love them so much. I need to love my characters. I love all of my characters, except the horrible people, but they're even they're fun to write to. I can make them nasty as possible.
Laura:You did a good job.
KJ:I really had two horribles in that book.
Laura:You did.
KJ:So Bron is someone who's genuine and lovely and funny. And ooen to love and a relationship. But I needed to give her a major flaw because we all have one. But she skates through life. It's like life is super smooth for her and the super smoothness of her life is you know, she takes for granted her life. And the people therefore are caught up in that complacency. So it impacts on the idea of love in a family and an intimate relationship. So it's all sort of mushed up together. She was good to write. But Kate, Kate's at a crossroads. So she's just come out of a 10 year relationship with Neil, who's an absolute wanker and I really wanted to make him as appalling as possible. Anyway, so she
Laura:well done.
KJ:Yeah, absolutely. So she meets Bron and is instantly attracted to Bron, which really messes with her understanding of herself. And I I tried to make her her understanding her ability to work out who she is, as well paced as possible. I
Laura:She's my favorite. didn't want her to sort of go oh, look at me. I'm now attracted to women and let's move on. I needed her to have conflict within herself and conflict, goodness with the people around her. But Bron's growth is important to show because her before and after affects Kate and It affects people in her family, particularly Siobhan, her younger sister.
KJ:She's just a sweary, sweary sailor of a person isn't she?
Laura:But with a heart of gold. Yeah, you know, you don't see that until a little bit later in the book, you just meet this person who just spews a whole pile of profanity. And you think, oh my god, what a interesting person. But yeah, they'revery close Bron and Sioghan. And there are heaps of examples of where Siobhan calls out Bron out on her behavior. And you know what? It's like a close sibling can do that. They really do. And then, and the older sibling Bron finds that really challenging, but Siobhan doesn't back down. So I write in third person in this book that I've read it from totally from Bron point of view, which I did deliberately after a while. I had it in alternate chapters for a while and it just didn't work. It had to be Bron, looking at Kate forKate's journey. And I don't know why I did. But I just felt that that was necessary. Like, what did Bron think of Kate's coming out? What did Bron think of Kate's perspective, as seen by Bron. Sounds weird. But that was a really important too, for Bron to see that. But I had to make sure that Kate was three dimensional. And not just this sort of cardboard cutout that Bron was looking at. So I worked hard on making sure that Kate was an actual somebody. Which was important. Yeah, there yo go. You did it. You did it beautifully.
KJ:Thank you.
Laura:Your hard at work on another book. Will you give us any hints at where it's heading? Just a little one. I know how you are you want to keep it all quiet.
KJ:Well, yeah, I do. But you know, when I can't help myself. I can't believe I'm writing already. I never do that. I normally sit at my laptop and stare at a blank page or wander through Twitter and annoy people with with promo stuff for the book that I've just chucked out into the world. I really don't write in this in this moment. But I am and it's really bizarre. But anyway, yes, I'll tell you that it. Why Not. it's a fantasy romance thing. Which is a technical term thing. But I I don't know what I'm doing. But that's normal. But I don't know what I'm doing in it yet. And how I have to world build, which is bizarre. I mean, every book I've written is set in Melbourne, and I know Melbourne. So that's cool. But I have to write about book realms like this realms. I mean,there you, it's another thing I have to write about realms. And so I'm, I'm enjoying the challenge of it. It's light on the fantasy. It's heavy on the romance. The fantasy stuff is is fun. I don't have to create languages or anything like that too much. And I don't have trees that talk or anything.
Laura:Damnit, I love it when trees talk. I don't have wings on people and stuff like that. I just, I just can't. It's heavy on romance. But I get to have characters with stabby pointy things like swords and arrows and stuff. Yep. So that's fun. Yeah, they get to wave those around. But I'm only 3000 words in so I've got time to change my mind and run away and do something else. Well, I hope you dont. That sounds interesting. I'll be looking forward to swords and stuff.
KJ:That's good. I hope so. I'll put as many swords in as possible. Excellent. So with Ignis, you gave us Felicity's story. I loved how you gave her story that left no doubt where her strength came from. And how you wrote a book with someone incinerating themselves that seemed totally plausible. The book was a departure from your previous ones and mark your first time writing a thriller. Do you plan to write more suspense and have we seen the last of Felicity and my boo Tal? They're are a lot of people who are quite enamored with Tal. Wow. they wouldn't mind if Tal rode up on their motorbike outside their house.
Laura:I wouldn't mind at all. I wouldn't mind either and I write Tal. but I look I think we've seen the last Felicity and Tal. Look, I don't think I can squeeze any more out of that particular fruit, Coming Home world. I really don't. All the characters are paired up. They're all sailing off into the sunset. So I reckon that I'm pretty much done there. But the thriller thing, that just kind of fell out of my head as most of my books do. I have no idea they just sort of appear. So the fantasy thing that I'm attempting to write that came from nowhere. And I hadn't even finished the Forever and the Now, even though I was really immersed in that. I got to the last bit and then I was thinking, Oh, what can I write next and fantasy and romance? Okay, fine. That'll do that. Yeah. The thriller thing I wanted to do something that was not a romance at all. It's just so far removed from it, and Tal and Felicity's coming together, wasn't really a romance. It;s just this in sort of intense, like, and then this intense intensity to their getting together in the intimate moments. But then the most of the story is all about Felicity's journey through her life, through her growth as herself, through her growth as Felicity. Spoiler if you haven't read Ignis, she's not Felicity when she's a teenager, that's for sure. She has to find her name. And the way she does it is quite brutal, actually. I mean, the fact that she's got three choices, and I won't go into details, in case you haven't read it. But the fact that she's got three choices, and she just has to make her mind up right then. Because, again, there's a spoiler, there's a limited amount of time that she's got to make that choice, because the clock is ticking on that. So it really is quite brutal. Where those three names come from. And so she has to work through that and then work through the fact that her pasts turns up, and in a way that I know there's the people who have said they guessed the guy who was gonna come. It's not a detective novel, they're supposed to know who the guy is, but they're supposed to watch Felicity not knowing who the guy is. And then knowing who the guy is, and then doing some very, um, Felicity idiotic things because she's in denial. Because she's a very smart person, but goes into some very silly, denial sort of behavior, when she could have used towel as a support but didn't chose to go out on her own, which, you know, you can see in the end what happened. She was so used to being on her own, she didn't know any other way.
KJ:Thank you. So that's good. If you can write my blurbs.
Laura:okay, just send them over. As much as I love Felicity, Tal, Bron and Kate, I don't think I could love any character more than Sam from Coming Home. She's the ultimate girl next door and has the biggest heart. Who is she patterned after?
KJ:Oh, Sam, She's my favorite character still. Despite the fact that I've I've thrown another bunch of characters out into the world. She really is my favorite. Although, I do love Felicity, she intimidates the hell out of me. So I'm not too sure if she's a favorite. She's just awesome.
Laura:Yeah, she's a little scary.
KJ:So Sam is the best of all of us. I wanted to write somebody who was. If I had $1 for every person who told me that they see themselves in Sam, I'd be buying a yacht in Monaco. Every person who's got in contact or somehow had a chat to me about Coming Home say, I can see myself in Sam, I can see this. And that's good. Because Sam is the best of us, and therefore they've seen something great. So anyway, but I can pop a few dollars into my yacht jar a little bit because I write Sam from personal experience. That kheema of sounds most people have worked out. That's me. Yeah, it is sad that the dry, irreverent sort of silly humor exaggerations, for observations of life. You know, if you follow me on enough social media, you kind of get the sense that oh, okay. That's Sam. It's the same with Sam's interactions with Grace. I'm a teacher by profession. And so that's pretty much how I teach in the classroom, like the exaggeration stories and things like that. So I just called on that to sort of see how it would work for Sam and it works well. But the other parts of Sam, the, you know the other parts that are not related to that they're the best of us. I mean, she has self doubt the I'm only ordinary thing, but she's not ,she's extraordinary. And Abby sees that because Sam, she cares for people. She sees people and so you know, if people see that in Sam because They see themselves in Sam, well, that means that they do it.
Laura:That's right. I love her. As an American, my favorite Australian ever besides you, is Steve Irwin. And I'm still angry at the damn stingrays, all of them collectively, as a species for what happened to him. Who was your favorite Australian in history?
KJ:Look Steve Irwin, I'll cycle back to Steve Irwin. And he's someone I admire. The extreme Australian accent and the overly enthusiastic persona, I was a bit much.
Laura:No way. That was totally him.
KJ:I know. But it was not representative in Australia at all.
Laura:It had to be over the top to get on American television. That's what we need.
KJ:But it was all too much Crocodile Dundee for most of us. I just, I couldn't listen to him for too long on TV.
Laura:you wouldn't hang out and watch a Crocodile Hunter marathon with me?
KJ:No, I just. He's lovely. It was admireable his philosophy about protection of species and all that was admirable. And that's what's carried forward in Australia zoo, but I just can't listen to him for extended periods of time. Because it's, I mean, as you can hear, I, I don't sound anything like Steve Irwin or Paul Hogan in Crocodile Dundee. And most Australians don't. Except if you live in northern Queensland or something. But no, we don't sound like that. So it was so unusual. We were as fascinated by his accent and his persona as you guys were. He just came out of nowhere. And, thisperson who was leaping on crocodiles and, and coming out with sort of rhetorical questions, like how good is that?
Laura:You're like, calm down, buddy.
KJ:Yeah, we were a little bit like that. But s he was a character. And he represented Australia with the animals more so than than himself. Yeah, with the animals and the love for the land and things like that.
Laura:I loved him. So what are some of the best traditional Australian treats that I must try when I make my journey to hang out with you and go by and see the the Irwins?
KJ:Um, I can answer that. Yeah. I didn't answer the whole which is my favorite Australian. I should have. I should go back. So Senator Penny Wong. She's a senator in Adelaide or from Adelaide. She's goes to Canberra and works. Alright, so she's wonderful. She's intelligent. She's articulate, she's intimidating as anything. She chairs a thing called the estimate committee meetings, which basically they call to account a whole bunch of minutes, ministers and things. And she can eviscerate a public servants are a minister with a raised eyebrow. And she's Felicty, She's Felicity.
Laura:Look at you. You didn't even realize it.
KJ:No, look at me. fangirling over Penny Wong, who is channeling Felicity that's so cool.
Laura:Having epiphanies right here on the podcast.
KJ:If I if I met her, I'd stutter and stumble at my words and then make some sort of attempted or witty remark and then she'd make me dissolve with her eyebrow. I would completely fangirl over her and just look like an idiot. But yeah, she's amazing. Yep. So yeah, that's my person that I would love to meet. If I could. I don't know that I would ever would. Like, I mean, she's a lesbian, so I could actually send her one of my books
Laura:You could totally Yeah, she might read it.
KJ:Yeah, no.
Laura:She may have already read it. Right now she may be reading one of your books.
KJ:In some other universe. I think she's probably much too busy and much too important. And to some sort of random Lesfic author from Melbourne. I don't know. There's probably more important things like budget committee meetings and stuff like that.
Laura:That's boring.
KJ:Anyway, so okay, what was your question after that one?
Laura:Best Australian treats.
KJ:Oh, okay. Okay, how about this one? I mean, there's a buffet of weird you could choose from but a Lamington is a cube of sponge cake. But soaked in melted chocolate and covered in desiccated coconut.
Laura:Okay, you got me. I'm there.
KJ:Okay, so that's one. What else? Okay, it's not a treat it's food. Well, masquerades as food. So it's a meat pie. Okay, so this is a hand sized pastry pie. It's filled with minced beef and gravy with a with a lid on top. A pastry lid, I'm holding my hand out right now. And you slather on top tomato sauce, and then you eat it while it's still in your hand. And there's an art to it.
Laura:Wow.
KJ:Yeah. Mostly at the football. But yeah, there's a real art to it. You've got this whole sort of meat pie covering most of your palm. There is a way to eat it without getting tomato sauce everywhere. But yeah. So yes, that's one particularly Australian thing. What about Tim Tams obviously.
Laura:Tim Tams I know Tim Tams from the book. Yeah, the Tim Tam Slam.
KJ:Instructions are right there in Coming Home. So they're just a biscuit with chocolate all around them. As you know. Another type of biscuit is an Anzac biscuit. So A and Zed a C, and their oats and golden syrup and butter and something else. And again, it they mentioned in Coming Home, and oh my god Coming Home is romance with culinary tourism.
Laura:You didn't even know you should have marketed it that way.
KJ:I should send it off to all the Martha Stewart sort of ish people.
Laura:Ugh, Martha Stewart
KJ:I mentioned her because she's a cooking person. But I don't know. Is she a cooking person?
Laura:Yeah, she is a cooking person. She's just kind of ridiculous. I don't even know why we even claim her.
KJ:Oh, is she. I didn't realize that she was.
Laura:She went to prison. She's a criminal. It was fancy American, you know, rich person prison. But still.
KJ:I won't send her Coming home then.
Laura:Yeah, don't do that. She's not worthy. What is the cause that is near and dear to your heart?
KJ:Can I have two?
Laura:You can totally have two. do whatever you want.
KJ:Like the first one is anything animal related. All of our pets are rescues. We've got three cats. Zyrtec, Claritin and Sneeze. My wife named them and she's allergic to cats. So yeah, so Zyrtec, Claritin and Sneeze. Yeah, our dog Tess is a rejected Labradoodle. I mean, who rejects a Labradoodle.
Laura:Oh, they're so cute.
KJ:She's a cushion with legs. She was rejected because she had the potential to shed there and Labradoodles are not supposed to shed fur. So but she hasn't shed any fur yet. So clearly, she hasn't lived up to her potential. So an underachiever there. but yeah, so all of our pets are rescues. So anything any cause that's animal related, I'm up for that. And the other one is the Royal Flying Doctor Service, which is an aero Medical Service here in Australia. It's the largest service in the world that flies planes with doctors on board. And it sends doctors out to the people in the remote parts of Australia. Which is really cool. So they have little small airplanes that land on dirt roads, you can put six people inside these airplanes, and they run on the dirt road outside the homestead at the stations and Okay, so we call them stations. I guess you call them a ranch in America. So these stations are enormous, but it takes days and days to drive to your nearest neighbor. So they use helicopters and planes to spot the cattle and use people on motorbikes to round up the stock. I think I can give you an example of Anna Creek Station here is 8,250,000 acres. And yeah, so King Ranch, which is in Texas, I think that's where that's 825,000 acres. That's it. So another example is that this station, Anna Creek is a little bit bigger than Israel.
Laura:Oh, wow. Okay
KJ:I mean, I'm not sure that cattle stations are the content you're looking for when you invited me here but anyway.
Laura:I did. It's all my notes right here. Yep, there it is.
KJ:So yeah, the foreign Doctor services something that's important to me it's a very Australian and very unique service that we have here. Otherwise these people would never get the medical attention. They have humidity cribs on board for babies that are born early and is the word and when a baby is born too early.
Laura:Premature.
KJ:Thank you see, I'm an author and I know with all the words so yeah, so that one she they've got stuff like that. Otherwise these women and these babies would, they'd never get to medical service on time. So these guys are amazing.
Laura:Very nice. Those are both incredibly worthy causes. There are so many great books coming out this year, what are a few that you are most looking forward to?
KJ:Oh, God, so many. I've got them in my head. I mean, it's a wonder l to get any writing done because it's just, it's just as well I have those moments of, I desperately need to write this idea down. Otherwise I'll die. Because that's my type of writing, I write on post it notes, shopping lists, and I'm not a plotter at all. So I sort of throw notes everywhere. So when I have moments of excitement about my writing, I tend to write down. But meanwhile, I read books and the couple I can think of, Angela Brooks has got one coming out next month called Chasing Dreams, which is awesome. I love anything she writes. I mean, there's Melina McKay's book, which is going to be Whisper of Solace, can't wait for that. Melina is amazing. I'm just I love the fact that I'm able to talk to her a lot. Actually. In person. Well not in person. Obviously. She's a million miles away. And we live on the moon here in Australia. I love the fact that I can have a chat to her because she's just so interesting and wonderful. She puts so much of this incredible brain of hers into her books. Anyway. So fangirling all over Milena.
Laura:I will be talking to her soon. So I'll be fangirling over her too.
KJ:Yeah, she's awesome. I think Erin, Zak's got a new one out. Hummingbird Sanctuary. I don't know if it's out already.
Laura:I'm looking forward to that. I'm not sure if it's out yet. But it should be soon.
KJ:I'll read anything Erin writes. Brenda Murphy has got susic From Stone, which is from that University Square series that she wrote. it's a good series. And Truth and Measure, Rosyln Sinclair. Lee Wintert editing that, is editing that whatever. And she's in a permanent swoon. But I'm looking forward to it. But hang on. No, it's two books.
Laura:Yeah It's two. Yeah. April and May I think, right.
KJ:Yeah. I mean, it comes out for you guys in spring, which is our autumn that throws me like time zones. I mean, I'll announce things as giveaways and whatnot. And most readers comment with Hang on, that's tomorrow. Because I forget, but Melbourne is located in the future. I mean, it's all Greenwich Mean Time plus eleventy billion minus 10 to the power three. So I don't know we all live, I live here in this magical land called Australia.
Laura:And what's great is you can just look on the internet say What time is it in wherever, And it'll tell you exactly what it is. You don't actually have to figure anything out anymore.
KJ:No, no, I love that about the internet. We don't have to sort of brain too much.
Laura:KJ thank you so much for joining me today. It's been a pleasure chatting with you. And I'd love to do it again. Anytime.
KJ:Thank you. I'd love to be back anytime that would be awesome.
Laura:All KJ'sbooks are available on Amazon. If you're looking for books with beautiful imagery and wonderful characters, please go to Amazon right now and her latest. The Forever And The Now is truly one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. You can also follow her on Twitter at property of kJ. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast and if you like it please consider supporting me on buy me a coffee. Thanks for listening and I hope you'll join me on the next episode of The sapphic book Review podcast.