Gabby Benson and I chat about her upcoming book, The Thing About Tilly, her roadtrip with Hayden, Tilly, Maggie Goodman and Evelyn Hugo and there's a lot of giggling!
Check out Gabby's webpage for links to purchase her books: Home - G Benson (g-benson.com)
For info on Queerpack: Welcome to the queer side of books... — Queer Pack (queer-pack.com)
My patreon to listen to full episodes of Would You Rather. Right now episodes include G Benson, Milena McKay, KJ and Rachel Lacey Sapphic Book Review is creating Bonus fun with lesfic authors | Patreon
Gabby Benson and I chat about her upcoming book, The Thing About Tilly, her roadtrip with Hayden, Tilly, Maggie Goodman and Evelyn Hugo and there's a lot of giggling!
Check out Gabby's webpage for links to purchase her books: Home - G Benson (g-benson.com)
For info on Queerpack: Welcome to the queer side of books... — Queer Pack (queer-pack.com)
My patreon to listen to full episodes of Would You Rather. Right now episodes include G Benson, Milena McKay, KJ and Rachel Lacey Sapphic Book Review is creating Bonus fun with lesfic authors | Patreon
Welcome to the Sapphic Book Review Podcast. My guest today is one of my favorite authors, and maybe the only author who could write a zombie book that I'd actually read. She also happens to be one of my favorite people to chat with on the internet. And I'm so excited to talk to her in person today. Gabby Benson. Welcome.
G Benson:Hi, thank you for having me. And also, I feel like the zombie book references just constantly makes me glow that I can get people to read a zombie book.
Laura:Yeah, you should be very proud because I only watched maybe a few episodes of The Walking Dead before I was like, you know, I'm bored. You can only see so much of that.
G Benson:Yeah. I stuck through all the seasons, and it doesn't get better. So you stopped at a good time.
Laura:At some point, you'd be like, how many year can this thing be going on. Couldn't the government get this under control? It's been like 12 years.
G Benson:No, it not under control at all. They just keep coming.
Laura:I don't understand. Okay, first things first, you had Covid recently, how are you feeling? ,
G Benson:We were just talking about this I am, I would say, I'm 99.9% better. I'm really good. And then occasionally I forget, you know, my own email address or my name, or like my telephone number or something. And I just, I don't know if it's Covid. But I will continuously blame it on Covid, probably for the rest of my life.
Laura:It's not like you ever call your own phone number. So that one is completely understandable.
G Benson:Good. I will take that. Thank you.
Laura:You're welcome. I'm here for you.
G Benson:I'm glad you're here for me, I need that. Especially in these Covid times.
Laura:So your next book is an epic celebrity. Tell us about it. And when you will be releasing that.
G Benson:My favorite question. It's hit 130,000 words. And I still don't know when the end is coming. I don't know what I've done. With the release date, it was going to be April and I was so on track with it. And then Covid just wiped me out. And so now I'm I'm having to take it a bit slower. And I'm writing more sporadically, but it is it is happening. I I would still love to say April, but I think being much it's definitely not going to be
Laura:maybe April next year.
G Benson:No, I need a book out again.
Laura:Yes, you do.
G Benson:I do exactly. For what it's about. Or I'm really bad at giving summaries of books. So I'm going to call them celebrity and doctor because I change names really regularly until the book is released. So we have celebrity who is you will be shocked to know this a celebrity.
Laura:Excellent. Spoiler alert.
G Benson:Spoiler alert everybody. And she's kind of one of the top celebrities. She's mid 30s. Very secure in her place in Hollywood in that sense, if you can be secure in Hollywood. It's not a coming out story. She's come out within her community and everything. And that was quite a big sensation the year before. And when they she's driving along at the very start of the book, and she's in a car accident. And when she arrives to the hospital, her doctor is a doctor that she does not recognize at first and then with a bit of time suddenly realizes that she actually knows her and she went to camp with her when she was about nine or 10 and haven't seeing each other since. And it kind of spirals from there a bit of a like a enemies to lovers thing. Bit of celebrity, bit of medical going on. I don't really know what the genre should be. The doctor becomes the medical advisor for the show that she's currently working on. And, yeah, it kind of goes on from there. It goes
Laura:on and goes on.
G Benson:And on and on. And on and on.
Laura:I'm really looking forward to that one.
G Benson:Great. I will let you know.
Laura:Do you have any plans to write sequels to any of your books? I don't know. Maybe the zombie apocalypse isn't over just yet.
G Benson:The zombie apocalypse is 100% not over. As anyone who has read the ending will know and again, I apologize for that ending. I don't really apologize for that ending I'm quite happy about that ending.
Laura:It was pretty good.
G Benson:Sorry, I don't have an exact plan for it. Because I have another book after this one that I'm really really excited to write. And maybe after that there will be a sequel for the zombie apocalypse. I have quite a few ideas bouncing around for where I want to go with it.
Laura:You're just watching The Walking Dead trying to get some more ideas, right?
G Benson:Yes, but the thing is, I don't know what ideas they have to be honest. Nothing is happening. So kind of like the book I'm writing now. It just needs to end.
Laura:The Thing About Tilly is one of my favorite books. I just want to hug Tilly and Evie, tell me how much you love those characters and how that story came to be.
G Benson:Oh, I'm so glad you love that book. How that story came to be it well I love those characters a lot. They both have a really special place in my heart. Probably one of the sappiest things I've ever said. I just I really adore especially I love Evie but I just really adore the mess that is Tilly.I think yeah. Did you do you agree? Aww, I'm so glad.
Laura:I do I agree, I love Tilly. I mean I love Evie too and I love Sean. Sean's the greatest thing best friend ever. But there's just something about Tilly.
Unknown:There's there's something about Tilly And that's always what it was called. I was like, wait, that's too much about Something About Mary. And there's just something about being allowed to be a mess with people who care about you that I really wanted to write for Tilly because I think that I don't know, I think in especially in fiction, it can happen and stuff, the idea of people having to be perfect, not perfect, exactly. But be performing to a certain state and Tilly just doesn't. Tilly has to run away, she has to leave and she has people who even if they get frustrated with her, or a bit fed up will always welcome her back and understand her for that because some people are a mess. And some people have a trauma or something that's happened in their past that have affected them to the point that as an adult, they're not really functioning as they should be. Having people who accept you for that I think is really important.
Laura:It is I just I love her so much.
G Benson:I just she's a big mess, and she's doing better at the end of the book.
Laura:Thankfully,
G Benson:Poor thing, she needed.
Laura:She had a rough time.
Unknown:She did. Where the story idea came about I actually do not know. I'm really terrible because, as is well known, I don't plot at all. And so when I started writing, I knew I wanted to write something with the idea of kind of queer women and how you can still being a queer woman, a sapphic woman can get pregnant and have a baby accidentally, and how that affects your life at in the 30s that Evie is. And I found that a really interesting concept because I haven't really read or seen anything much about that. I suppose it did happen on Grey's Anatomy with Callie. But like the idea of you know, she ended up pregnant and she's she's 30. And there's this old idea that by 30 you know what your where your life is going and you know what you want to be doing and if you get pregnant it will be on purpose and everything will be planned and that's not life, even at 30 . I'm 34 now and I have no idea what I'm doing in life.
Laura:I'm almost 50 And look at me, I have no clue.
G Benson:This is the thing and I think that was a really fun concept to play with, especially with queer characters and how that was going to affect her and the way that she figured it out and Tilly's stuff kind of came later. Actually the whole basis was kind of this character Evie getting pregnant accidentally and how she dealt with that. And this friend that she kind of loved since university but nothing had happened and it went a lot more emo than I meant it to.
Laura:In your books who is your favorite supporting character?
G Benson:This is really hard. I'm gonna saw a couple is that cheating?
Laura:No, you can say whatever you want boo.
Unknown:Excellent. Can you just always call me Boo, by the way. Can that be a permanent thing?Ol, I loved writing In Pieces, which is a young adult book. One of the main characters has a younger brother called Mattie and writing him was one
G Benson:Right? He calls her on her sit but he's still he's of my favorites. I love kids and writing Maddie was just one of my favorite things to do. I love Sean from The Thing About Tilly because, yeah, he's just he doesn't put up with shit. The way that Evie does. He doesn't put up with Tilly's shit, but he does put up with Tilly's shit because he loves her and I think that is a really beautiful friendship. still there for her.
Unknown:And I think that that is really important. Sometimes we're being a bit of a crappy person. You need someone to call you out. Luc from Who'd Have Thought I adore them. They're just excellent. Fantastic. Who's your favorite supporting character? Can I ask you questions? Is this legal?
Laura:It is. In your books. Honestly. It's the kids from all the little ,what is the damn oh, we're gonna edit that. Yeah, I had a break there.
G Benson:No don't edit it. Please leave it in because instead of All the Little Moments, I called it All the Little Things and it's my own book.
Laura:Yeah, there's that TV show. Like it's something about moments or little, little something. Anyway, I get that mixed up with your book.
G Benson:you can cut it out if you want but also feel free not to because I think that's hilarious.
Laura:See and I have it right here. Yeah, totally. We'll be cutting that out. Yeah, so let's pretend like you're just asking me that again.
G Benson:Okay, is that legal?
Laura:It is legal. Boo. And my favorite characters from your books are the kiddos in All the Little Moments.
G Benson:that's really nice to hear. I don't I don't have kids. But I have a lot of kids in my lives my life, can we cut that out too.
Laura:We're keeping that in too.
G Benson:I don't have kids, but I have a lot of kids in my life and I have a stepson. But actually I wrote this before I had a stepson. Pre stepson life but I have nieces and nephews, I've done a lot of nannying and babysitting. But I think that writing kids is one of the more challenging aspects of writing,like writing a kid that is not too cutesy or not. I don't know. It's interesting. So when hearing people who, especially people who have kids, that they enjoyed Ella and Toby, that always means a lot.
Laura:Yes, I love them.
G Benson:I want to squish Toby.
Laura:I do too, I want to pick him up and just squish those little cheeks.
G Benson:I always imagined him with his really big puffy baby cheeks.
Laura:Those are the best and little baby toes.
G Benson:Yes And the little dimples. We're just spirling into baby gushing.
Laura:And we digress.
G Benson:Again.
Laura:You're going on a road trip with two of your characters and two characters written by other lesfic authors. Which four are you choosing and why?
G Benson:Oh God, um, of my characters. I would take. I would take Hayden because I think she is fun. And I think she would be very fun. She would bring a lot of snacks I think on the road.
Laura:Snacks are important.
G Benson:Yeah, they are and that she would bring a lot of snacks. And I think I would bring Tilly because I just after talking about her a lot with you just now I actually had a different answer but I'm gonna stick with Tilly.
Laura:And would she would know where to go because she's been everywhere after running off so much.
G Benson:I know this beach down south. Let's go there. Okay, Tilly, thanks. . From other books, I would say. Have you read the Goodmans by Claire Ashton?
Laura:That's my favorite all time book.
G Benson:I love the Goodmans. I love every character in the Goodmans. It's just such a good book. I would take Maggie.
Laura:Oh, that's my favorite character.
G Benson:She's just, there were no words to describe Maggie Goodman.
Laura:Not enough.
G Benson:Yeah. And also the idea of all of these people hanging out is quite hilarious in my brain. And I would take Evelyn Hugo from The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo,
Laura:Oh, wow. This is gonna be a hell of a road trip. I'm going.
G Benson:Yeah, yeah, come, we'll get we'll get like one of those seven seater minivan things.
Laura:Yeah, we'll have like a little caravan type situation.
G Benson:We'll cover it and all the flags from however we're feeling like you know, bisexual flag, lesbian flag, Missouri flag, the Australian flag with the Spanish flag underneath.
Laura:Very nice. Okay, I'm gonna fan girl a minute, not that I haven't been doing that the whole time. And tell you how much All The Little Moments meant to me. I read it shortly after my brother's death. Not the best time for sure. But I found it quite therapeutic as it was filled with such love and hope so thank you for that book. It was beauty. So thank you for that.
G Benson:Oh, well, no worries. Just after the giggle fest we just had that was quite I know.
Laura:It's very deep.
G Benson:Yeah, we did a nice turn there. Again, I don't know.I I think that grief is just something so personal to everybody. But writing about it was really therapeutic for me I think. I haven't lost a brother. But I've experienced grief in my life. My father passed away when I was very, very young. And exploring how someone can feel when they've lost someone. I don't know it helps you through your own stuff, I think and reading about it too. And that book started as a fanfiction, actually. And getting to explore that part of a character that I already really knew and love that were just was not explored on the show at all. And then creating it into its own original book later was a real ride emotionally.
Laura:What show did that come from?
G Benson:Grey's Anatomy. I don't know if you are a Grey's Yeah. I mean, nowadays, especially it's just a Anatomy fan
Laura:Uh, not really. soap opera. But the first like seven seasons are really good. We're on what season 25.
G Benson:It seems like 95. I don't know you can find that. Okay. But yeah, it's just um, there were two characters in that that were actually together. And as per usual, they did not get treated very well towards the end. So there's a lot of really good fanfiction about them.
Laura:Tell me about your work with Queer Pack.
G Benson:I love Queer Pack. So with Queer Pack we're trying to give a platform for queer authors to write queer books basically. I think obviously sapphic fiction, gay fiction, everything needs more platform, all of us need more of a platform. But I think getting a platform for books that are trans, that are ace that are ero, non binary characters, I think that's still quite hard to find. And that's something that we're working really hard to provide.
Laura:It's very good work.
G Benson:Thank you. I work with a really fun team. And so I'm very, very lucky as well. We actually just had a Skype meeting last week. And it was a good time. Everyone should follow Queer Pack on Tik Tok, because Sam works incredibly hard at making very hilarious and great Tik Tok's
Laura:I will do that. I don't think I could make Tik Tok videos because I'm too old and I don't really get it ,but I like to watch them.
G Benson:I still don't have Tik Tok. they keep trying to make me get an account.
Laura:Come on, girl.
G Benson:No, no, I'm too old. It's happened. I turned 30 and I refused to accept change.
Laura:30 going on 95
G Benson:Literally I am on Twitter and I'm on Instagram but that is enough.
Laura:But Facebook's for old folks.
G Benson:I think that's true. I am on The Facebook a little bit the facey and I are okay but I still I still barely on it. Twitter's where I live .I live in my little Twitter world.
Laura:You're not on MySpace though. Right? Because that would be really bad if you're on MySpace
G Benson:I think account is still up which is horrifying. I'm pretty sure like when you go onto the page. Mr. Brightside from The Killers plays.
Laura:That's a great song.
G Benson:I know it is but it says a lot about 17 year old Gabby.
Laura:17 year old Gabby.
G Benson:Yeah. We don't need to meet her. It's okay.
Laura:Which lesfic books have you enjoyed reading so far this year? If you've read any I know you've been dealing with Covid and trying to write this epic book.
G Benson:This year I actually have read almost no books because of Covid. I'm having a lot of trouble focusing, so yeah, when I said I was 99.9% better. I probably exaggerated. I'm having a lot of trouble focusing on books. But the last two lesfic books I read. Were The Telltale by Clare Ashton.
Laura:Oh my gosh, I just listened to the audio this week. Oh, it's not just good. You know when you an audio book elevates a book and you're just like wow, that made this already amazing book even better. And this woman's voice is so good. Lucy Rainer I believe is her name. Fantastic.
G Benson:Fun. I can't listen to audiobooks. I like get immediately distracted. Which again, I don't think will surprise anybody.
Laura:You're like squirrel.
G Benson:Literally. I'm that dog from UP. I'm like, good squirrel and then I have to rewind the 10 seconds that I've missed.
Laura:It's not good and you're trying to rewind it like it's a cassette tape, which doesn't work
G Benson:With my pencil and the little holes in it to like rewind it. The TellTale is phenomenal. I actually beta read that.
Laura:I knew that because I watched a interview with Clare Ashton.
G Benson:Oh, really? Oh, she mentioned me. That's nice.
Laura:She did mention you.
Unknown:Thanks Clare. And I read The Island Between Us by Wendy Hudson. Which I really really enjoyed it. Have you read it?
Laura:I haven't read that one yet.
G Benson:Highly recommend. It's an adventure romance, which was just a really cool twist on what you would normally read. So a whole bunch of people end up who are going on a survival camp to learn how to survive in the wild, and up completely stranded on an island. There's a really great cast of characters. So you've got the two leads and really great romance. But there's just a really interesting mix of people. Like there's a stepmom and a son that have gone and like this really young girl that's been sent to the survival camp almost as like a punishment. And it's just it's hilarious to watch them all try and you know, not kill each other on this island. so annoying for each other because they're all such different people.
Laura:I will have to check that out.
G Benson:It's great. I highly recommended.
Laura:Well, Gabb, Boo.
G Benson:Yes. I told you earlier only Boo from now on.
Laura:That's right. Thanks so much for joining me today. It's been a pleasure and so much fun.
G Benson:Thank you for having me. I'm excited to hear, I'm terrible at listening to podcasts, but I'm excited to hear what you edit out. Especially the giggling.
Laura:it's I think it's gonna be a lot shorter than it is right now. Sister. You take care,
G Benson:You too.
Laura:Thanks for listening. And thanks again to Gabby for joining me. You can learn more about Gabby and find links to purchase her books at gbenson.com. Follow her on Twitter @ authorgbenson and on Facebook at authorgbenson. . You can learn more about queer pack at queer-pack.com Be sure to subscribe to this podcast and here's a preview of my Would You Rather game with Gabby available on my Patreon page at patreon.com/sapphic book review pod. Would you rather battle zombies with Taryn from debtless walking or spin an hour stuck in an elevator with Alec from slinging it.
G Benson:Zombies with Taran totally no I'm not being stuck anywhere with Alec. He's awful awful who's in my brain for a while while I wrote him and it was bad enough. Thank you
Laura:I read that book and I was like you know I'm not I'm not a fan of cheating you know you shouldn't cheat however I agree that guy's a douche
G Benson:he's a massive to some some people are just horrendous I think you know everyone can change them and there's good and everyone's but some people are just giant dishes.
Laura:That's right and they can't change they are who they are know some of you we had one in the White House here for a while
G Benson:Don't worry. So would you also take zombies?
Laura:Absolutely okay, just by the time they open that elevator Alec might be bleeding. It looks like a zombie attack the elevator?
G Benson:That's true.
Laura:Would you rather own your own boat or your own plane?
G Benson:Boat it is more environmentally friendly.
Laura:Very good.
G Benson:I'm also I got my diving license ticket we in Australia we say diving ticket diving. I can now go diving, scuba diving and I got out wow. Yeah, the year the pandemic hit. So I haven't gone since and I would go and actually you know do
Laura:something with then. Well, that's good. At least it's there when you're
G Benson:Exactly. Would you like to own your own boat or on your own plane?
Laura:Well, I now I feel bad because I'm gonna say plane.
G Benson:You can say it, no judgemtn.
Laura:Now I feel bad about the environment. However. I can't roll my boat to Spain to visit my my boo Gabby.
G Benson:No, you got that is very true. I also I feel like as someone whose entire family is in Australia on the other side of the world, I should have said plane.
Laura:But you were thinking about the greater good of the world. So good on you.
G Benson:Oh, I said that first. But I was really thinking scuba diving. Okay. This is why we don't get Nobel Peace Prizes.
Laura:Would you rather have unlimited pizza for life? Or unlimited Tacos?
G Benson:Tacos
Laura:I think I'd go with pizza.
G Benson:This is good. We need one difference
Laura:Yeah, we can't be exactly the same person. People are gonna start getting suspicious. That would be boring. I think we've just like, split, they'll just think you're not even here. And I'm just doing both voices pretending to be people
G Benson:you should do this can author and just in itself and change voices.
Laura:Maybe I will. And then I can submit that to Audible and get a job as a narrator.
G Benson:Please do that.
Laura:I'll do that. And I'll just send it to you to see what you think of it first.
G Benson:I's sayput it out. I will immediately tell you to publish it.
Laura:Would you rather have more time or more money?
G Benson:More money? I'm doing what? I'm shallow. Just I'm tired. I would do. I'd be like, Oh, I'll say more time and I'll use that time to make more money. I won't. I'll I'll sit watching things I shouldn't be watching when I'm meant to be working. So I'm going to say more money. I'm shallow.
Laura:Same and yeah, totally shallow. The more time I could do with more time just read more damn lesbian books. That's all.
G Benson:That would be fun. But if you had more money, you could buy more lesbian books.
Laura:That's true. Yeah, yeah. If I had more time I just be like, you know, send you messages on Facebook. Hey, what are you doing?
G Benson:Yeah, what's going on in Missouri, seen anymore tall drinks of water lately.
Laura:So as you can hear, we have a lot of fun playing Would You Rather you can check that out on my Patreon page at patreon.com/sapphic book review pod. Thanks again for listening, and I'll see you next week.