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J.P. Der Boghossian: Why hello everybody. My name is J.P. Der Boghossian and for our new listeners to this podcast, we have a new episode of This Queer Book Saved My Life that drops next week but today This Queer Book presents 7 Minutes in Book Heaven where I interview Queer authors about the new books they have coming out for us to love and to cuddle up with. With me today is BG Wolfe. It's so great to have you here today.

B.G. Wolfe: Hi J P. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you.

J.P.: Per the rules of the game, BG and I are going to spend exactly 7 minutes in this virtual studio talking about her new book April Renegade while also getting to know more about the amazing human and writer who is BG Wolfe, so BG, are you ready?

B.G.: I'm ready. Let's do it and dive right in.

J.P.: Okay. I am going to set the timer and here we go, question number ; would you please describe April Renegade as if you're sharing it with your celebrity crush and telling us who the celebrity is of course.

B.G.: I love this question and I was trying to think about what I was going to say. I noticed someone else said Kristen Stewart and my celebrity crush is Robert Pattenson so I guess we've got a twilight theme going on and also you know Robert Pattenson's also a musician. April Renegade is a coming of age punk rock and roll romance. So I think you would appreciate that! This story goes between the present when my main characters Drew and Ash are successful musicians and then it switches back to the past every other chapter or so where they meet at a Blink 83 concert, become best friends very fast and then how they fall in love with each other so in the present day Drew has waited and waited for Ash to come out of the closet. Ash grew up in a very rough household that was full of drugs, alcohol abuse and trauma. His parents wouldn't even let him listen to music so that was very hard for him. Coming out of the closet is something that he struggles with even though he is well aware of his feelings for Drew. The present is really them coming to terms with that as well as Ash's growth while Drew is waiting patiently and being a sweetheart about it all. So Rob, I think you would really love it because of the music aspect and because of the love story. I mean we can dream right?

J.P.: I'm going to go ahead and say that yes, he will too! Question number 2, what's a sentence from a novel, essay, poem or other book that every time you read it, it gives you all the feels?

B.G.: I love this question too and one of my favorite books is Pride and Prejudice by good old Jane Austen and so this is a quote that I always come back to and it says “do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to play you but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.” That one sticks with me. I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time in high school and I think it helped me become a more confident young woman so that one really gets to me.

J.P.: Absolutely. Question number 3: What do you feel is the best sentence you've ever written?

B.G.: That is such a hard question. I actually had to ask my assistant about some of her favorite quotes and I chose one but it's hard because you know you have a lot of things you're proud of but this is one that I really really hold dear to my heart. This is Drew speaking to Ash. He says “You're the love of my life. Sometimes I think I knew that from the first time I heard your laugh before I even saw your face, knew your name or knew all the things that make you you.

J.P.: Oh that's my favorite too. Question number 4

B.G.: Well thank you. It makes your heart swell a little bit.

J.P.: What's the best romantic scene you've ever read?

B.G.: There are so many but I chose one from a book I read recently which is You and Me by Tal Bauer. Have you read that one? It's so good. Essentially the main character is a widow and he lived his whole life being straight but then he gets close with one of his son's friends dad and they have this romance. He was an artist. He did a lot of drawing until he was very unhappy in his marriage and he grew distant from his son but when he starts falling in love with Landon, he says, You're like color expanding in a black and white world.” He starts drawing again and that's something that's really sticking with me isn't that beautiful? He has so many other great metaphors that go hand to hand with falling in love and being an artist and I think it's just really, really beautiful.

J.P.: I haven’t read it but it's reminded me of that movie from the 90s, Pleasantville. That idea of color in a black and white world. I love that.

BG: It hits you.

J.P.: Question number 5: what are your favorite scents or smells to write about?

BG: I grew up in Florida which is obviously the sunshine state. I love the smell of sunshine on someone else, you know when someone's been outside for a long time? They come inside and it's like you can smell the sun and the earth on their skin. That is like my very favorite. Then a close second is the smell in the air right before it rains.

J.P.: This is a question that I went back and forth on. I wanted a question that we have never heard and I never thought about the smell of sunshine.

BG: It's my very favorite. At first when I was looking at the question I had like you know, sandalwood and some of my favorite smells but in one of my books I have a character who always smells like sunshine even though they're in space and so that kind of made me write it down for this and that's my favorite smell in the whole world.

J.P.: I love it. Thank you for that. We have about one minute left. Question number 6: What is the worst writing advice you've ever got?

BG: I love Stephen King but in his book on writing he mentions meeting a certain word count every day and I think his example was 2000 words a day! To me that just feels very unrealistic right?

J.P.: Oof.

B.G.: Being an indie author I'm revising or I'm marketing or I'm outlining and so I think instead of doing that, my greatest advice is just work on your projects each day. It doesn't matter how long it is but as long as you're keeping those projects in the front of your mind and working on them in some sense, I think that's greater than just hitting a word count.

J.P.: That's really good advice. Question number 7: Promote yourself. How do we order your book? How do we follow you on social?

B.G.: The easiest way to order my book is to go to my website because Amazon kind of hates indie authors. If you type it in on the search, you don't usually get it which is a bummer. So if you go to BG Wolfe and wolfe is w o l f e.com I've got the links for you there. Instagram it's author underscore bg wolfe and I'm also on Facebook as B.G. Wolfe, if you want to become my friend.

J.P.: Oh yes and that is all the time that we have, thank you so much BG.

B.G.: Thank you so much.

J.P.: This has been another episode of 7 Minutes in Book Heaven, which is presented to you by This Queer Book Saved My Life! Our podcasts are Executive Produced by Jim Pounds. Our Associate Producers are Archie Arnold, Natalie Cruz, Paul Kaefer, Nicole Olila, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean Smith. You can be an Associate Producer and welcome you to join us! All the details are at patreon.com/thisqueerbook. Transcripts of all of our episodes are available on thisqueerbook.com. You can buy the books featured on our podcasts on our Bookshop page: thisqueerbook.com/bookshop. We are on Facebook, plus we’re @thisqueerbook Instagram and Twitter. My name is J.P. Der Boghossian and stay tuned to this space every Tuesday for new episodes of 7 Minutes in Book Heaven and on March 7th we premiere the third season of This Queer Book Saved My Life! Until then, see you Queers and Allies in the bookstores!

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