Roslyn Sinclair joins me to chat about Truth and Measure, Above All Things, The Lily and the Crown, Lee Winter how she met her wife, and her favorite sapphic books.
Purchase Roslyn's books on her website : Roslyn Sinclair
Join my Patreon to hear Roslyn play Would You Rather: Sapphic Book Review is creating Bonus fun with sapphic authors | Patreon
To purchase the Roslyn favorites books:
Lee Winter's Breaking Character: Breaking Character - Kindle edition by Winter, Lee. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
Skim by Mariko Tamaki: Amazon.com: Skim: 9780888999641: Tamaki, Mariko, Tamaki, Jillian: Books
The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith: Amazon.com: The Price of Salt: 0800759800292: Highsmith, Patricia: Books
Roslyn Sinclair joins me to chat about Truth and Measure, Above All Things, The Lily and the Crown, Lee Winter how she met her wife, and her favorite sapphic books.
Purchase Roslyn's books on her website : Roslyn Sinclair
Join my Patreon to hear Roslyn play Would You Rather: Sapphic Book Review is creating Bonus fun with sapphic authors | Patreon
To purchase the Roslyn favorites books:
Lee Winter's Breaking Character: Breaking Character - Kindle edition by Winter, Lee. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
Skim by Mariko Tamaki: Amazon.com: Skim: 9780888999641: Tamaki, Mariko, Tamaki, Jillian: Books
The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith: Amazon.com: The Price of Salt: 0800759800292: Highsmith, Patricia: Books
Hi, I'm Laura green, and this is the sapphic book review podcast. The show where I chat with the best authors in sapphic fiction. I hope you learned something new each week about your favorite authors and find your next read along the way. Enjoy the show. And thanks so much for listening. Welcome to the sapphic book review podcast. Today's guest has quickly become one of my must read authors. Whether she's writing about pirates or fashion, her characters are captivating and their chemistry sizzling Roslyn Sinclair, Welcome, and thanks for joining me.
Roslyn Sinclair:Well, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Laura:This has been a big year for you already both Truth and Measure, and Above All Things have recently been released. For anyone who hasn't read them yet. Tell them about Jules and Vivian.
Roslyn Sinclair:Oh gosh. So Truth and Measure and Above All Things are really to douology. They're the same story essentially broken up into two parts. So it's the same characters, the same storyline carried over to novels Truth and Measure, Book One, Above All Things is book two. It's an ice queen age gap romance with a twist. Set in New York City, which is one of my all time favorite places, and I always love to write books that are set in New York. Vivian is the ice queen character. She's in her early 40s. And she is the powerful editor in chief of the fashion magazine Dujour, which is kind of the analog for Vogue. She's ruthless, she's sexy, and she is unexpectedly pregnant, which is where the twist, surprise, surprise everybody and Jules short for Julia is her sort of hapless but loyal personal assistant, Jules is in her mid 20s, she loves fashion, she can really connect with city and on that level, she wants to be a writer, and specifically she wants to write about fashion and queerness of fashion. And so the two books are really just the story of how they're in this, you know, impossible situation where their boss employee, they're, you know, many years apart, one of them's pregnant, and how through all of these things, you know, in spite of all of this, they fall in love.
Laura:I really enjoyed how their relationship progressed, and how Vivian only trusted Jules to see her vulnerability and help her with her pregnancy. I stayed up very late finishing those two books.
Roslyn Sinclair:Oh, excellent. That's a great compliment.
Laura:The first four books you have released all started as the Devil Wears Prada fanfictions. What is it about that movie that inspired you to write so many stories? And are you always picturing Meryl and Anne as you write?
Roslyn Sinclair:Oh, great question. So I first saw the movie, the second half of it when it showed up on cable TV at my sister's apartment. And so I saw the second half of it. And after that, I was like, damn, I have to watch the whole thing went right home, you know, found it wherever I can. I think I actually bought the DVD like a nerd like you did back then. And watched the whole thing from beginning to end, I thought the chemistry between the two female leads was just getting rolling. I hadn't seen a relationship quite like that depicted before, in which it was a movie about two women that was also not about men. And the way that their energy just sort of bounced off each other as a way that they were really important in each other's lives in a way that didn't have anything to do with heterosexual romance. Like one of my best friends said that the men in the movie are just more handbags. Right? Just more. Yeah. And so you know, you don't see a lot of it. Even now, the movie is unfortunately unusual in that respect. And so I really liked that I really clicked with it. And I thought that Miranda and Andy as characters just had terrific chemistry. And they each brought out such interesting things and the other and there was so much potential. So I saw in this movie, there were so many different avenues for storytelling, which is my favorite thing in the entire world to do just ask my wife I never stopped. So you know, I thought well, what if the film ended a different way? There's a million different ways to take that. What would they be like Miranda and Andy in different realities or universes? So I wrote a book called The Lilly and the crown in which Miranda is a pirate queen. What about you know, outtakes scenes of what you know, Andy did at runway that we never saw on screen that never made it into the movie. I loved all of these opportunities to play and I love the fact that it's what I think of is closed canon, which is like you get one movie and that's it. It's not a series of books. It's not a TV series where you can write a story and then two episodes later, everything you wrote, you know, goes out the window. It's like here's the movie. That's what you get. You can play with it as much as you want. You can do whatever you want. So I loved that about the medium and the terms of Meryl and Anne I did picture them while I was writing the original fanfic, but they went completely out of my head when I was transforming them into original books. I just didn't picture them anymore at all.
Laura:Those two had amazing chemistry and they're such brilliant actors.
Roslyn Sinclair:Oh, yes. So good.
Laura:I would totally be okay if they ever make a movie where they just do it.
Roslyn Sinclair:Oh, yeah, yeah,
Laura:let's just have them make one of your books into a movie.
Roslyn Sinclair:Yeah. And Anne Hathaway has only gotten Well, they both only gotten more beautiful as they've aged, but when Anne Hathaway reappeared you know for Ocean's eight like my jaw was on the floor. You know, Meryl only gets more beauty pull with every passing day. They're both incredible.
Laura:I saw Meryls daughter in an Off Broadway play a few years ago.
Roslyn Sinclair:Was that the one who was in the Gilded Age?
Laura:Yeah I think so get two she and they both kind of look the same, but she was a Broadway play with Tatiana Maslany from Orphan Black.
Roslyn Sinclair:Oh, wow. Was she good?
Laura:She was and I kept looking for Meryl. I was like, I wonder if she's here wonder if she's here.
Roslyn Sinclair:Every night that would be great.
Laura:it would have been lovely to meet her. But she of course wasnt there. The Devil Wears Prada fanfics are your most popular but what other TV shows or movies have you written fanfiction for?
Roslyn Sinclair:so many. I started writing fanfiction. Actually, I started really writing fanfiction in middle school in high school pre internet when I thought I was the only person in the world who had the idea to take books and TV shows that I liked and write stories about the characters and obviously, you know, I never shared it with anyone I just wrote for myself. Other than in college, I discovered that this was a thing that lots of other people
Laura:you didn't know you didn't create it. It wasn't your thing.
Roslyn Sinclair:No, I did. It was so thrilling. I still remember my first story I posted for Star Wars. And I just remember posting a story you know, back in the day to like an email list the mailing list and just thinking something I wrote is out there in the world for people to share and it was just incredible. So since then, since you know 1998 Oh my god. I've written for Star Wars I've written for James Bond Skyfall specifically, new Teen Titans,Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Grace and Frankie and a lot of one offs were like, you know, I'd write one story and a fan like, you know, I've got a story for Deadwood, The Manchurian Candidate, The Good place just really all over the place.
Laura:Wow, I have to check out Grayson, Frankie, we're watching that right now.
Roslyn Sinclair:Oh, I loved writing for Grace and Frankie.
Laura:It really was a great show. I recently listened again to The Lily in the Crown. I'd love to think of myself as Mir. But obviously I have to be Ari messing with my plants and avoiding people at all cost. Do you share any characteristics with Mir and how perfect was Angela Dawes narration?
Roslyn Sinclair:Oh my gosh, to answer the second part first, like she was perfection, like her Mir was so sexy, and cold and intense, just like the perfect ice queen. And like, I was listening to you know, like my own love scenes, my sex scenes being read aloud and like my ears were just burning off. It was like, Oh, my God, she was great. And to go back to the other question, I am also definitely more of an Ari. I'm introverted, like, you know, not every writer but like a lot of writers I'm more comfortable on my own. I'm also a huge nerd with very particular interests Ari fixates on plant for her whole life that I tend to jump around kind of either from obsession, to obsession, to obsession, and just get deep, really deep into it, learn it, you know, research and have a lot of fun with it. And I share that in common with her. And like Ari, I've historically had kind of a hard time asserting myself. And my life has been this big learning process in many respects. And that's a lot like the journey we see already take you to hers, of course, is more dramatic than most people's ever will turn out to be. But yeah, I would say I connected with her more than a year for sure.
Laura:Yeah, I was listening to it while I was actually planting flowers. So there you go. Oh, wow. It's actually in the earth.
Roslyn Sinclair:Oh Wow, You and Ari on a wavelength.
Laura:We were. Your first book, The X ingredient burned a hole in my Kindle. I love how Diana holds the power in the office. But Laurie has control in the bedroom and on the office floor. So how difficult are those scenes to write for you? And would you ever revisit those characters.
Roslyn Sinclair:So for me, there's not a lot of in between with sex scenes, which is that they're incredibly fun, or they're incredibly difficult. And it's all about the headspace that I'm in. So like, if you're just not in the mood to write one, there's really nothing worse than trying to arrange characters into sexual positions and like, see if you can get some feeling out of them, right. But if you're in the zone, and you're deep inside their heads, it's really exhilarating. Because it's a great chance like sex scenes are such a good chance to push the characters to like their farthest extremes, and explore what they want the most, and what they fear the most and what they need the most. So when writing sex works, it really is like absolutely one of my all time favorite things to write. So I like to focus on you know, when it's good instead of when it's a little more likely to, and I might like to write a follow up short story about Diana or Laurie at some point. But for right now I'm focusing more on future projects.
Laura:What are you currently working on speaking of those future projects,
Roslyn Sinclair:So I am currently taking notes, brainstorming a lot of got a lot of really cool ideas and lists and character sheets and locations and places and all of that for my next book, which is going to be an ice queen romance, boss employee shocking nobody. I did not intend to go there again, but to kind of follow them use where it takes you and that's just sort of how these two characters suggested themselves to me and the ice queen is a successful business woman who's just opened her own perfume firm, her own fragrance firm, and her love interest is a cannon. who works in that laboratory, making the perfumes that the ice queen sort of envisioned. And it's not as much of an age gap, this one, it's less than 10 years that I've always loved perfume and fragrance that's one of those like interests and obsessions that I've mentioned before. So it's a way for me to use one of my deep interests and sort of frame a story and explore characters I'm really interested in. And in the future, though, I think a lot about moving away from contemporary romance after this project, and really getting the chance to explore still romance but more of the fantasy genre really kind of give my imagination free reign. And so I know I'm known for contemporary romance. So I'm a little a little apprehensive about making that my step after this one, but I'm hoping that readers are sort of going to be willing to take the leap.
Laura:Hey, you wrote about pirates.I think you can do it.
Roslyn Sinclair:Oh, thank you. Thanks. I did start off with pirates in space. That's very true.
Laura:That's right. You've been fortunate to have Lee winter edit some of your books. And she has said The Lily and the crown is her favorite book. What hasher encouragement meant to you?
Roslyn Sinclair:Lee's the best, she's absolutely the best. She's whipped my writing into shape like you wouldn't believe. Her critique is just invaluable. Like, I want my books to be as good as they can possibly be. And so when that means, you know, getting criticism on the draft, and someone who really knows what she's doing, whose work I admire and respect, it's such a bonus, I feel so fortunate and so lucky. And just beyond being a really kick ass editor, like she's really good. She's become a good friend. She's been super supportive. She's really funny. She is sharp as a tack, and she's always ready to like, share insights, or offer support. Or if I'm like, you know, Lee, what do you think about X, Y, or Z like she's there with thoughtful, you know, long responses that just really helped me out a lot. And I just can't thank her enough for everything she's done.
Laura:If you're gonna get encouragement from someone on ice queens, that's really the person to go to Oh, yeah.
Roslyn Sinclair:Oh yeah, 100%.
Laura:You recently got married. How did you and your wife meet? And what would you title the book based on your love story?
Roslyn Sinclair:Ooh. So my wife goes by Carrie Byrd on Twitter. And she is also an aspiring sapphic romance writer herself. And we met in fandom and I was mentioning Grace and Frankie earlier. That's the fandom that we met it.
Laura:Oh, wow.
Roslyn Sinclair:So yeah, over the years, like before we met, we read each other's work off and on, but we were never in the same fandom at the same time. So she would find stuff I'd written a few years ago and like it, but you know, we weren't in the same Live Journal communities or on Tumblr together, interacting. And then we just sort of found ourselves in Grace and Frankie, at the same time, as I was following her blog, and I saw that she had this the very same gay feelings about the show that I have. And I messaged her about it. And it just started a conversation that has not stopped about more than Grace and Frankie obvious. But we just got into it. And you know, she's brilliant. She's funny. She's a fantastic writer, like such an amazing writer. And I just feel really lucky that our paths crossed at that point in time. Right, yeah, I never ever expected the relationship to become what it did. But in hindsight, and this was getting to your question about like, what the title would be, it just seems really clear that we were meant for each other like from the beginning, like it couldn't not have happened. Right, like, so I guess I call it meant to be. And it's absolutely sappy
Laura:I love sappy. If you could travel anywhere in the world, what three places would you most like to visit?
Roslyn Sinclair:So I'm going to cheat. I've got places I've never been, and then places I'd like to revisit. So the places I'd like to go back to I'd love to go back to Spain and Italy in China. I feel like I didn't see enough of them the first time around. But I love them. And the places I've never been, I would love to see France, Japan and the Maldives.
Laura:Oh, wow. And you get to do any traveling. Do you have any plans this year to travel?
Roslyn Sinclair:We're going on our honeymoon in July and we're staying in the United States, but I'm really looking forward to it.
Laura:Are you coming to Missouri?
Roslyn Sinclair:Unfortunately not. It will not be Missouri.We'll be Maine it's it's an M state. So there you go.
Laura:There you go. A little better than Missouri. what talents do you have that would surprise us?
Roslyn Sinclair:Okay, so I actually enjoy public speaking. And I've been told I can be pretty entertaining, which not most people's favorite thing, but I do like it. And I also love to draw drawing. Yeah, I used to do it all the time when I was a kid and whenever I pick it up now as an adult, I still like it.
Laura:Do you like drawing people or like landscapes, mostly people
Roslyn Sinclair:I like to copy from photographs because drawing people live I don't have a lot of opportunity to do it. And it's also hard because you know, people move around or they don't feel comfortable or whatever. I grew up reading comic books. So I learned to draw comic book style. And shockingly, I focused on older women superheroes.
Laura:You and your wife are touring the US in an RV with three sapphic authors. Who are you taking with you and why?
Roslyn Sinclair:Okay, so I thought a lot about this. So first, I am taking Jae because she is organized. She's on the ball. You know, she's doing her sapphic book bingo, she does giveaway she does cross promo with others. She has all of her ducks in a row all the time. So like Jae would have the map, she would have planned the route, she's ready when the GPS dies in the middle of nowhere. She's got the phrasebooks if you're traveling in another country, there's backup plans. There's hotels already reserved, I would just have total faith on her. I would choose Lee as well, because I just get the feeling like if we got into a tough situation, we would be the one to get us out of it. I don't know why I have that feeling. But I just I think it's true. I really do. And finally Rachel Lacey, because I follow her Twitter. Yeah. And it always just puts a smile on my face because she's so positive. She's so upbeat. And you really need someone like that along for the ride. Right? Like someone who's gonna be there and get you through it
Laura:While Lee is kicking butt as Requiem Rachel could sweet talk people.
Roslyn Sinclair:Oh, yeah, that's great.
Laura:If you could write a book featuring one couple from another author's books, and one couple from one of your books. which two couples would you choose?
Roslyn Sinclair:So that was really tough, but sort of speaking of Rachel Lacey, I really enjoyed Read Between the Lines. And I want to see Jules and Vivian hanging out with Rosie who owns the romance bookstore, and Jane/Bree, who is the businesswoman slash secret romance author. And I think that would be so much fun because Vivian and Jules don't know really how to be anyone but themselves, right. So I'd love to see them having a conversation, especially with Jane about having basically a secret identity, right, like what's that like,And I think that they would both really relate to Rosie just in terms of combining her business with her passion, which is what they both do with fashion and style.
Laura:Very nice. Good choice. What are your three all time favorite sapphic fiction books?
Roslyn Sinclair:This was the cruelest question.
Laura:It's what I do.
Roslyn Sinclair:So I do feel like I've been running Lee's name into the ground here, but I absolutely have to give it to Breaking Character, which I devoured. it's like the perfect combination of ice queen and ingenue literal inguenue, right, because they're actors, and it was just compelling, so readable, like I blasted my way through it. The next one, I'm going to give a shout out to Skim which is a graphic novel by Marino Tamaki. She's also known for Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with me. And Skim is about a young Asian woman in a Catholic High School. She's like, deep in her sapphic feelings, you know, still trying to figure out who she is not quite out to herself. And she's also in an inappropriate relationship with one of her teachers, the art and the writing and the design, like it's just a plus. It's so beautifully done. Like there are places where it's really hard to read, and other places where you just see yourself reflected instantly on the page. So hard recommendation for that. And the third one I know is so cliched, so I'm begging everyone's forgiveness ahead of time, but it is The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith. Yeah, well, I know a lot of people are going out, but hear me out. So I read it really shortly after I came out for the second time, which is a long story in my late 30s. I was sitting in a hair salon while my sister got her hair done just reading this book. And trying not to cry when I read to read just putting into words what I had felt so long about like relationships, especially relationships with men, and how they never felt right, why being with a perfectly nice guy isn't everything that it's cracked up to be. And just like suddenly feeling a lot less alone, why she felt so much more intensely about Carol that have this nice guy that she was with and just thinking, wow, you know, it's true. Other people do feel this way. And so I'm always really going to be grateful to the book for that.
Laura:Those are good choices. I love it. Roslyn thanks so much for joining me. It was a pleasure chatting with you, and I appreciate it.
Roslyn Sinclair:Oh, I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for having me.
Laura:Thanks so much for listening. And thanks again to Roslyn Sinclair for joining me today. You can find links to purchase her books at roslynsinclair.com. And you can follow her on Twitter @ writingroslyn. If you like this podcast, you can show your support by buying me a coffee at buy me a coffee.com/sapphiclaura or you can join my patreon at patreon.com/sapphicbookreviewpod where you can hear your favorite authors playing hilarious games of would you rather? Here's a sample of this week's with Roslyn Sinclair. Thanks for listening. And until next time, happy reading. would you rather spend a day with Mir Ari on the Crown Lily or at a fashion show with Vivian and Jules?
Roslyn Sinclair:I think I would like to spend it honestly with Mir and Ari just because I would get to be in space. Cool like space things and like you know, holograms and whatever it is that people do in space and also just kind of getting to watch them interact. But I would also want to stand very far away and make sure mirrored never noticed me and did not look at me and did not make eye contact. I think that would be very frightening.
Laura:Would you rather have to give up cursing or ice cream?
Roslyn Sinclair:Oh, no, no, I guess cursing Like I would bring back old school curse words just for fun like bowl feathers. Good night. My grandmother used to say good night in the morning. So I can I can work with that as long as I had ice cream.
Laura:Yeah, no, I still have to have the cursing. I could give up the ice cream but I can't give up the words.
Roslyn Sinclair:It'd be hard it would be excruciating, so hard. Also, I don't know how I'd write some. Well, anyway,
Laura:I would read your book if you put bull feathers in there.
Roslyn Sinclair:Thank you. That's an expression of faith.