Charish Reid on The Realities of Academia & Writing Across Genres

I am always curious about how authors take their real-world expertise and use it to craft stories that make us feel seen. This week, I chat with Charish Reid, an author who navigated the world of academia as an adjunct instructor before making her mark in both contemporary and paranormal romance. We discuss her book Mickey Chambers Shakes It Up, the importance of showing rather than telling chronic illness, and why we are both strictly "no" on Ouija boards. Charish also shares how she uses her background in literature to subvert old-school tropes and center Diverse joy.

Charish Reid is a fan of sexy books and disaster films. When she’s not grading papers or prepping lessons for college freshmen, she enjoys writing romances that celebrate quirky Black women who deserve HEAs. Charish currently lives in Sweden, with her husband, working on her next book. 

In this episode, we're discussing:

• The Adjunct Reality: Charish discusses how her experience in academia provided the "write what you know" foundation for Mickey Chambers Shakes It Up, highlighting the labor and struggle of non-tenure track instructors.
• Invisible Illness on the Page: A deep look at the representation of hypothyroidism. Charish explains the importance of showing the day-to-day management of chronic illness and how it impacts a character's life and relationships.
• Flipping the Script on Maturity: Why Charish prioritizes "returning students" and characters over the age of 30. We discuss how fully developed brains and life experience change the stakes in romance.
• The Thrill of the Haunting: Charish breaks down her transition into paranormal horror and why the psychology of artificial fear makes for such a visceral reading experience.
• Rhetoric in Romance: How teaching students to skewer old-school literary standards helped Charish find her own voice as a diverse creator.

If you want to see a masterful blend of workplace tension and authentic vulnerability, start with Mickey Chambers Shakes It Up. 

CONNECT WITH Charish Reid:

Website

Instagram

BOOKS/AUTHORS MENTIONED:

Mickey Chambers Shakes It Up (Amazon | Bookshop)

The Beck Sister Hauntings (Amazon)

Speak of the Devil (Amazon) 

Jewel Me Once (Amazon | Bookshop)

Running list of books mentioned (Doc)

Transcript

Intro: Why Representation Across Genres Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Representation is important across genres. Today we're talking with Cherish Reed, who is the author of contemporary romance as well as paranormal romance. And she even has a monster romance in there as well. Today we're talking all about her experience as an adjunct instructor, what that was like, how she integrated those stories into her writing. We talk about the importance of having chronic illness that is represented, especially chronic illness that is invisible. And we even go deep into paranormal and we talk about why neither of us are probably ever going to play with a Ouija board. Listener discretion is advised. This podcast contains mature content intended for adult audiences only. Hello, Cherish. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. When I was coming up with my list of people that I wanted to have on for this season, I was like, I need to talk about Mickey Chambers. Please and thank you. But before we get into Mickey Chambers, can you tell everyone a bit about your author journey? What has that experience been

The Author Journey: From Rhetoric to Romance

SPEAKER_00 1:09

like?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

I started writing in earnest in maybe 2016, 2017 while I was still teaching at a university. And then I started putting it out there in earnest, maybe in 2018. So my first book I queried to agents, I queried to publishers. I found my publisher first and then my agent, which is not the right order you should go in for representation and like making money. But it went off without a hitch, I guess. And 2019 was like my first publication. I wrote the right escape for Korean Press, and I haven't stopped publishing since. So it's been a non-stop few years.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Yeah, I can imagine. I'm so curious why you wanted to go the trad route, right? Because like at that point, I'm thinking there might have been some indie books, right, that were being published at the time. Why was going that route like important for you? And maybe it's a sense of this is the way that everybody does it, right? Or what you'd seen.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

More or less, it was a dream that I've had since I was like in my 20s. I'm 41 now. But like when I was a younger person, I said, if I don't get published, published, published, I'm gonna do something drastic, which is something older teenagers say to themselves, which is ridiculous. So I wanted to see my books in bookstores. I wanted to sit and talk to people like you. I wanted to wax poetically about like what it means to be an author. Yeah, I wanted all of that stuff. It looks different now that I'm here. There are some realities that I'm like, oh, okay, this is different. But more or less, I'm pretty pumped to say that I'm a writer. And I guess traditionally published seemed like the first big thing that I could do. And then once I got into traditional publishing, I was like, oh, this takes too long. I need to do indie stuff for me on my own time.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Yeah. Oh my goodness. I can imagine. And I think that's why people might start Trad and then add in some indie stuff or start indie, especially now with how I'm gonna use this word loosely, easy it is to get published, right? You still have to write the book. You still have to market it. There's still a lot that goes into it. But you also were a professor in English and those very foundational courses for college students. How has that influenced your writing? Because so often I think now we see a lot of people wanting to become authors. And while there's nothing wrong with that, that's awesome. More books for me to read. Yes, please. There's a craft loss, I think, that can happen when you don't have a lot of those core foundational things. And um, a good substack to check out for anyone interested in craft is Nikki Clark's. And we had Nikki Clark on the podcast. We'll make sure we link it in the show notes. But Nikki Clark does a lot of that kind of stuff of honing in her craft and making sure that her story building makes sense and that it's not just, oh, I'm just gonna put these things together and push it out into the world, which sometimes that can work. But for longevity in the industry, I think that you do have to take some time with your stories. So, how has that experience of being a professor and specifically teaching those foundational English classes influenced your writing?

SPEAKER_01 5:08

I think you bring up a lot of good points. Craft is really important towards the longevity of writing. You can't just have a good concept and slap it together and put it out there. Readers will give it right back to you and say, no, thank you. As far as teaching goes, I want to say teaching was a huge impediment to my writing. It got in the way of me wanting to do what I wanted to do. And I'll be honest, I don't work there anymore, so it doesn't matter. But like instead of grading a lot of papers earnestly, I was writing because I felt like my passion was more important. Sometimes it is. Just keeping it all the way real. As far as the students go, university writing is important just to get those fundamentals going. I used to teach rhetoric and composition. So the important thing that I taught students and that I have to be cognizant of every day is know your audience, know the forum in which you're communicating to people, learn the genre, learn the mechanics of the conversation that you're trying to be a part of. And a lot of that comes down to reading what's already out there, what's already in the discourse, following the ethos of people who already know what they're doing, who

Write What You Know: The Reality of Being an Adjunct

SPEAKER_01 6:42

have expertise. And I guess just that's the rhetorical part that I would teach students. And then I taught literature, and that's basically who came before you? Who were the people that you really don't want to read because they're old and they're white and they're from the early American history? I'm sorry, but I have to teach it, and I'm going to make you read it, and it's gonna be on the final, and you have to write about it, etc. But like, what can we learn about them that is interesting enough for us to subvert what they're doing? I feel like early American literature is really interesting. I love Moby Dick. And not everybody's gonna agree with me on this. Not everybody likes Herman Melville, but there are parts of those writers that you can really pick apart and say, this is American culture, whether we like it or not. This is whatever type of perversion America was born with, you can find it in these works, and you can pick them out and skewer them or mock them or replicate them if you like that kind of stuff. Teaching for me, though, as a writer, I kept them separate. I was like, you kids over here, and then me and my thing over here, and never the twain shall meet.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Okay, so now I want to know who your favorite like poet is. Who are those like, and it doesn't have to be American poets, but who are those poets that are like, ooh, I like what they have? That's like an older one.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

This is a hard question because I haven't read poetry in long, even though I've had to teach it. I'll tell you what who was the easiest to teach was probably a Billy Collins. His poetry was straightforward and very like boring. But what I like to read, like a Nikki Giovanni, she was somebody that I really looked up to when I was reading poetry. And when I was writing poetry as a college student, I don't know. I just always thought that she had a really cool voice. Weird beat poets and their black counterparts, what they were doing. I can't give you names, but whatever was going on in the 60s that was interesting to me.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

I think it's so cool. Just like what what interests people from a like reading perspective and poetry, I think someone's favorite poet can tell you a lot about them and like how they maybe approach life. I can even think of maybe I'll take this out later, we'll see. The I can think of the first time that I read The Council of Monte Cristo. Absolute favorite book, love it so much. And then years later, I was having a conversation with my sister, and she was like, Did you know that Alexander Dumas was black? And I was like, the fuck? What do you mean? What do you mean he was black? Are you kidding me right now? How come this was not like common knowledge? How come nobody talking about this? Like dude broke the three musketeers, you're broke the Count of Monte Cristo, and he was a black dude.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

His father was the black general in Napoleon's army. Yeah. If you see a photo of him, he's got the top of the hair.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

The hair gave it away for sure.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

But yeah, Dumas is like fantastic. I love a good tale about being petty and revenge.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Oh Junior looks that years of planning and plotting and just the intricacies of all of it. Ah, Chefskis.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Hold the grudge. Literary grudge holding.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

I love it. Okay, let's get into your books, though. So you have quite a few books. I have not read all of them, but you write across different subgenres of romance, which I think is so fun. So first, Mickey Chambers. I and why can't I think of the full title of that book? I just always just call it Mickey Chambers. Me too, when I'm trying to be in a hurry.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Mickey Chambers Shakes It Up is a crazy long title, to be fair.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Okay. I don't care. We're gonna say the whole title. Mickey Chambers Shakes It Up. What I love is the representation in this book. You have a Latinx male main character, you have a black female main character, you have the grumpy sunshine where she is sunshine and rainbows. But from a place of we smile to get through the day, I just need to have a good day. And I'm just doing the best I can, and we're just gonna get through it. And he's like, I hate everybody. Yeah, I love that so much. And so tell me a little bit about coming up with that story idea, the publishing kind of aspect of that, and go ahead, take it.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Here she is, by the way. Yes, so pretty. Mickey Chambers Shakes It Up was born out of my own experience working at a bar before I went to grad school, before I started teaching, adjuncting. I'm not actually a professor, I'm an adjunct. I worked at a bar called Scruffy Murphy's Irish pub. So awesome in Columbus, Georgia. And I had no bar experience. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I walked in, the bar owner is her name is Breda, and she's from Cork, Ireland. And I told her I had no experience, and she was like, good, because we don't need you to bring your bad habits. And I was like, oh, sure, fine. So excited to get a job because I was just like looking for something. Hated this job, and it was just night after night of nonsense and BS and everything in the book about rowdy students, about people from Fort Benning, nearby Army Rangers. It's just like the fights, the ridiculousness that I just put in a book. I saved all of this stuff for a book. And I didn't realize I was going to write this book 10 to 12 years later, but here we are. And Mickey basically comes from me trying to put down professor characters. The first three books that I had written were like professors. And for me, that's a fantasy land. I've never been one. I've been within academia, I've done all of the teaching, I've done all the grading, I've done the coursework, but I haven't been paid the same as the people I work with, full-time professors, tenure track. And finally, I was just like, I need to stop writing about these people. Like, I've got to actually write what I know and write about a non-tenured track instructor in a school struggling to get a hold of the number of classes that she needs in order to survive the summer. And on top of that, she has a chronic illness, hypothyroidism. It's a manageable illness, checkups, continual prescriptions that she'll probably have to take for the rest of her life. And feeding herself, that kind of stuff. And her parents are worried about her. Her parents are of a certain age. They're like always hovering. And they love her. They're always concerned about like how are you feeling? And she's like, I feel fine, God. So she takes this job because she's like, I got nothing else. I only have one online class to teach for the whole summer. What's that gonna get me? You get paid hourly doing that, more or less. And so she gets this job. She's like, Whoa, this guy behind the counter is good looking. This guy behind the counter is actually going to be her boss. She walks into it, not thinking that could be the case, and she's just like

Invisible Illness: Showing Hypothyroidism on the Page

SPEAKER_01 15:20

running my mouth. He also ends up being her student because he is a widower, 40, I believe, going back to school because that was something that his late wife was like, you need to do that for you. You had to put your education on pause and take care of your mom. Do that for you. And he's like, Oh my god, I can't do anything for me because this bar is falling apart. And he can't even imagine going back to school at this age with these responsibilities. But Mickey Chambers is here to shake it off. And they fall in love.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Of course they do. Okay, so is it hyperthyroidism or hypo? Hypo. Hypo, okay. Because I think my mom had hyperthyroidism. And so this was like, I want to say, the first book that I read where there were discussions around thyroid chronic illnesses and chronic issues that can happen. And it was really enlightening for me to read someone's experience. And this is why I love romance so much, is that we can see the experiences of the other people that are around us that are maybe struggling with these chronic illnesses, especially the quote unquote invisible ones, where you would look at them and you don't think, oh, they have something going on with them. And so I think that that was so cool.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

I might not be the first person to do it. I've never read it before, but Talia Hibbert may have written a book, uh, one of her Brown sisters. And when I found that out, I was like, oh, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Now I'm like, I've read those. I listened to the audiobook at two speeds. Like the other day I was looking at my story graph to see like the ones of Tali Hibbert that I had read because I was doing a post about autism awareness, and I was like, I feel like I read that one. I definitely read that one, but it's not showing marked as red. That's because I did the full three-book audiobook.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

Oh, just read that.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

That is what I just ran right through it, which was fantastic. Those are great on audio.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

I was also surprised that so many people were like, oh wow, this is something that needs to be talked about. My husband has it, and I basically learned from him. He's perfectly fine. There's some things that you gotta watch out for with that type of chronic illness, and overheating is definitely one of them. So in the summers, we watch out. That's definitely one of the scenes in the book where she's just running around doing the most and not really aware of her surroundings or her body.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

That's so important. My kiddo, he faints if he gets too hot, and we're still trying to figure out why. And so, like, we keep ice packs, like the break and pop. Like, I buy a box of 50 of them at a time, but they're with us all the time, especially as we live in North Carolina, and North Carolina heat is no joke. It's 90 degrees today, and it is April. Like, it's no thank you. And probably humid, right? Oh, yeah. It's very humid, very gross and sticky. But yeah, like having to do that, but then also having to teach him, we think it might be a hydration thing. You need to make sure that you're drinking a certain number of waters, and you have to finish your first water by this time. You need to be working on your second one by this, like having to instill that in him now at 11, being like, Yeah, if you feel faint, you need to stop and sit down right away. I don't like obviously if you're not in the middle of the street, but if you're in the middle of MMA practice and your body's overheating and you need to sit down, then sit down and I will run on that mat with an ice pack real quick and throw it on the back of your neck and on your upper back. But like, you have to be aware of your body to be able to communicate that for the people around you to help take care of you. So, yeah, it's especially, I think those invisible quote unquote invisible, because they're not invisible to the people who are experiencing the illness, but those invisible to other people illnesses, I think, are so important in romance. And I also loved that this book had the kind of both ways forbidden, right? Like it's not forbidden in the sense of you guys are not allowed to date each other because you're engaged to somebody else. Not like that. But like she is his professor instructor, and he is her boss. Yeah, you're not supposed to date either of those people.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

That was how I sold it. And when it went out on sub, I think one editor was like, absolutely not, no, thank you. And I was like, okay, fair enough. But I did it for that reason so it wouldn't be so taboo. And then the editor that I got who stuck with me and sold it for me on my behalf, was like, this is so good. And I was like, thank you, I know.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

I think what helps is that like they both have fully developed brains. Yeah. Under the age of 25. Right. This is important. And I'll be 35 this year. I feel like the older I get, the more I'm like, I don't know that I can read about a 20-year-old or a 22-year-old getting with someone who's 40. Like, I just don't see it anymore. And I'm like, I have to suspend my beliefs for a lot of things, and I'm willing to do it because I love alien romance, but this is not something I'm willing to suspend my belief for any longer. And so I love mature characters. Why was that important for this story? And did that make it harder to sell?

SPEAKER_01 21:22

I don't think the age gap was a problem at all. It was important for me because both of them have late starts to life. Mickey is 33, I think, and she, because of getting that illness diagnosed so late in her life, she's missed so much high school. She graduates late, starts college too late, graduates college too late on the job mark. She's just like behind. And now she's got this job that she's stuck in teaching as a noble profession. And she's like, I don't know what else I'm doing. Diego is also late. Like he's a returning student. He's an adult continuing student, which is intimidating for people of a certain age. I remember when I was teaching, they were usually

Mature Stakes: Why We Need Characters Over 30

SPEAKER_01 22:15

the best students because they just brought so much to the classroom in a an environment where everybody is just too afraid to talk. So I don't know if you remember school, but there were just whole classroom settings where just nobody talked. And the teachers just standed up there, Bueller, Bueller, anyone.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

I wish I could say I did. I was homeschooled in a cult and then graduated through that for high school. It was me and the other girls. And then I went to Bible college, which was unaccredited for about three years. And then I went to community college. And then I got my first like big girl job while I was in the middle of community college. Got pregnant, still going to community college, like very loosely night classes. At that point, I was 22. So I was still trying to get this associate. Finally got the associates. And I have a picture of me with my like cap and everything with like my kiddo. And then was like, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna do this bachelor's. And I did my bachelor's all virtually while working a full-time job while also being a parent and then becoming a new parent. Like it was so my college experience was I think very different than a lot of people's, but I can relate to being like the older student in the class or having a non-traditional path that was like, yeah, I'm like 25 and everyone else in this class is like 20.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

That is basically how I went to school. There were a couple after my associate's degree, my parents were like, you're paying for school, so you deal with it. And I took maybe two years off of studies so that I could just work at Walmart for like full time as much as many hours as they I was paying for school with cash. And so that meant just having to work the entire time. Now I don't have any debt, but I don't recommend anybody doing all of that. If your parents could help you out, that'd be great.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Or your job. So, like, thankfully, my because I worked in manufacturing, so they had where they would cover a certain number of classes. And so that was the number of classes that I took every semester. Was like, if you're gonna do tuition reimbursement, then yes, please, let's do this. And that honestly, like, I have maybe 10 grand that I that's like, all right, I had to pay that at the end of it. But for an associate's and a bachelor's and a bachelor's at a private college, not bad.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

No, that's pretty good. Yeah. And then I took a long break before I went back to grad school. So I was 30 while all of these other people are like 22, 23. And I wanted that to be represented in Diego. Like anybody who's thinking about going back and getting any type of education, don't let anything stop you. Or at least of all, age. Jeez. Right. That's silly. But get back in there if you want to learn something. I wanted to show the labor politics within the university system, and I wanted to show like the different types of students who try to make it in school.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

I think that's so important too, especially for, like you said, you were almost idolizing the professor experience in those initial books, but then to be like, no, like actually this was how my experience was, and this was the reality of working in academia. And I had a friend, Nicole, who co-hosted We Read Smut when we first had the account, and she worked in academia, and I remember her talking about waxing poetic about all her experiences and having to deal with all of the politics of it and just everything that goes into it. And I'm like, yeah, not for me.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Now I like teaching, and I was really good at it, and I liked the performance of it all. I liked getting up in front of the classroom and regaling students with like things that I know. It's the other stuff that I didn't care for, like the amount of administrative bullshit that you do and the the grading. And then, of course, you know, if you make these classes, you have to be beholden to sometimes your chair or your dean or standards curriculum, things like that. So that didn't let me be free and wild and weird. Not that that worked well for me in student, what do you call them? Student feedback forms. Right. I didn't always get the best feedback.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

I always hated those because I don't know what to say. I guess they're good. Like, I don't know what the criteria is for this.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Don't say anything. We got it hard enough.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

Five stars all around. It was great. Yeah, there was one professor that I had. It was for macroeconomics. It was this really old white guy. He was the worst. And he failed, I want to say 75% of the class on the first test so that they would drop. So he didn't have to teach as many students. And I was like, like, because I knew someone who stayed in the because I dropped the class. Hell no. Um you're not messing with my GPA, bro. Absolutely not. And I knew someone who had stayed in the class, and he's like, Yeah, he told us that he does that on purpose. So that way, like the people who stick it out are the ones who like are actually going to learn something. And I was like, that's what happens when you're tenure.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

Like that might be uh that's perverse. I don't know what pedagogy you call that. That's just sick. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

But anyway, I also want to hear about your horror paranormal stories as well. What made you want to write in that genre after writing more contemporary romance?

SPEAKER_01 28:23

I just wanted to try it. I love reading horror. I'm one of those elder millennial kids who read all the Stephen King before they should have. I love watching horror films. I love dissecting them, getting at the psychology of like why they're fun to watch and what we actually fear and who pulls it off best. So I thought, yeah, I want to do that. I want to try it. And so I wrote two, I guess a duology, two sisters who inherit their grandmother's BB up north, upstate New York. And each sister is coming off of something traumatic, combining forces and saying that we got this, we can do this, we can make grandma proud, and boom, it's haunted. So the first book is basically sorting out the B itself and why it's haunted and how we can get rid of it. And the romance is with the elder sister, and then the second book is the little sister who is feeling out her witchy abilities, which they find out in book. It's not a spoiler, but in book one, they find out that they're descendants of witches, and that's what grandma was up to. And so the younger sister is like, I want to get into it, I want to be witchy,

The Psychology of Horror and Artificial Fear

SPEAKER_01 29:50

and her older sister's like, Okay, you do that by yourself. And those are her explorations of it because she meets and falls in for a guy whose whose own grandmother's house is being haunted and he doesn't know what to do. So it's just haunted houses and creepy stuff scraping along the floor and against the door and cold spots and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

I think that paranormal in that realm is probably, I think, some of the scariest to me. I can handle monsters, I can handle a lot of that stuff, but I think the paranormal in I guess the layers of okay, there's like our plane and then the other planes that are on top of us and overlap or overlay. There's something there that I am like, this is I think it's real, right? Like I mean, maybe, yeah. And stuff, meh, whatever. Like vampires, it'd be cool if they existed. Like, where have you been? But take me away from here. Right. Um, but like I worked with a, I don't know if I would call her a spiritualist or what, but after my mom passed away, just really discovering who I am. I got my mom's oracle cards and I got like all of her crystals and like all of her, like, I wouldn't even call it like witchy stuff, but kind of. And just like kind of tapping into that and being interested in that and like using a pendulum and like all of those different things of like feeling that out. Never got out the week board. I don't know if I could do all that because I'm like, I feel like something will try to talk to me, and I'm not trying to have two-way conversations here. We can have one way conversation.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

I can recommend it.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

No, I don't recommend it at all. But I'm very into like I mean for people on who could see the camera, like I literally have my pendulum right behind me. It's first of all, it's gorgeous, right? And then I have I don't know that I could do tarot. Yeah. It's a little too real for me. Oracle cards. These are all my Oracle cards. I've got Moonology, uh, The Enchanted Map. That was my mom's, and that one I always go to when I'm wanting to feel more connected with her. I've got Work Your Light, Angels and Ancestors. Oh, this one is not an Oracle card. It's just uh crazy sexy love notes to yourself that you can leave around for other people. It's very like love yourself and do bell. And then the Legendary Ladies Goddess deck. Um, this one is by Anne Shen. And look at that. Wow, that's absolutely gorgeous, and just the diversity. She's an Asian artist, and so she drew all these characters and designed this deck. Very fun. So, like, I'm into all that stuff. Yeah. But I also think it can be some of the, when done well, some of the scariest, because like the intentions of the otherworldlies are not always good. So if someone is interested in reading your book, so what are the titles?

SPEAKER_01 33:16

The Beck Sister Hauntings is just two books. It's I'll come back for you and I'll conjure for you. So yeah, just those two. And then I wrote like a demon fucker romance, but that one's just like funny and lighthearted.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

That was like demon fucker lighthearted. Say unless I am here for it.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

That one's just for good times. But yeah, to your point, I think there's something really awful enough off-putting about hauntings and ghosts, and especially if it's in your domicile. This is a place where you're supposed to feel safe, where you're supposed to have a good sense of what's here and what shouldn't be here. And also anything that reminds you of your own mortality and what is awaiting you on the other side is really upsetting for people. And depending on what kind of religious background you come from, like you have been instructed not to meddle with things that are too big for you or whatever you knock on is gonna knock back. I didn't grow up particularly religious, but I do have a healthy, I don't know, fear of I'm not gonna do Ouija. That's crazy. And I also do believe in ghosts. I can't explain these things. I don't know if it's like air pressure or temperature or whatever, but I don't know. I'm seeing some YouTube videos where things look kind of sus. I don't want to attempt anything, I don't want to communicate with anybody that I don't need to communicate with, but I also have my own Oracle cards. Yes, I love that, and some Terra. But you know, I like horror quite a bit because I just like artificially frightening myself and then coming out on the other end safe. Like it's a jolt of something that like you'll get over it, and it's just a movie, but like boy, didn't that feel like a rush.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

Yeah. Oh man. Those are the ones I think the psychological thrillers, like that kind of those are the kinds of movies that I I can't. I'm like, no, this is too real. Like I can handle the and I don't know if it's like because yeah, people go off and murder people, sure that happens.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

That doesn't scare me as much as like being haunted or being like there are certain things you can do that will make you feel safe about like you getting kidnapped and murder. Like you feel as though you have more control over that. I'll call a person before I go to the state, I'll let people know where I'm

Why We Are Never Playing with a Ouija Board

SPEAKER_01 36:10

going. I'll things that I mostly women feel like they have to do to prevent this. But I don't know what you can do about a ghost. You just got a ghost. And I don't know, get a priest? Get two priests? Young and an old priest.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Are they good priests? I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

In the case of my I'll come back for you, it was a travel channel type ghost television show who helped the sisters out, but they didn't know what they were doing. They're just a fake show. And so it really comes down to the sisters digging deep and finding a way out of this themselves.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Yeah. Oh, I'm so excited to read them for sure. I think it's gonna be so good. Side story. Maybe we'll take keep this in, maybe we won't. We'll see. I remember I had I have this really creepy neighbor. He lives right across the street from me. And he's not creepy in the sense of I see him and he's like eyeballing anybody. I honestly think he has a mental illness and just does not come out of his house. He has like signs up that are like, do not enter, leave your packages at the gate. But I remember when he bought the house across from us, and it was just it was him and another woman, but then the now I've never I haven't seen the woman at all, like since the first month or two that he was there. But he's let the front yard completely overgrow. And he created his own pallet fence that's like maybe three feet high for the front. You're not keeping anything out with that, broke. I don't know what you're doing. Had issues with the side neighbor, so like we would talk to the different neighbors around, but we would get letters in our mailbox that were like went through the postage and everything, but with no return address that would be like turn to God. You have sinned, like all of those kinds of things. And so I burned the letters. So like I do not need like that. Energy is not coming in my house, absolutely not. Like, I nope, you're getting Ziploc bagged and out of my house right now.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:26

And then I actually did like a whole ritual and poured salt all around my house. Tell me why those letters stopped. That guy still lives there, but them letters stopped. It's a mic killed.

SPEAKER_01 38:38

Are the other neighbors still getting them?

SPEAKER_00 38:40

I don't know. They haven't said anything about any of them happening since. But like my 11-year-old was like, it was mom's spell. That's what did it. He's like adamant, but it was my magic that made it happen. I'm like, thanks, buddy.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

Teach the children early.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

Yes, we put the salt around the house.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

Yeah. Salt is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

So I'm excited to read your books.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

I think it's gonna be so much fun. I'm just like hung up on this neighbor. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

So I every couple of months, I'm like, is he still there? So I'll talk to my husband, I'm like, have you seen him? And he's like, Yeah, I saw him bring his trash out. But he'll be in like full face mask, like blood splatter mask, like protecting himself. I don't know if he's like hypochondriac or what, which I don't know why a hypochondriac would have a front yard that looks like that. But anyway, I don't know. I don't know this dude's life, but yesterday we're gonna do it. What's going on? Yesterday, the cops were posted outside his house.

unknown 39:41

I don't know what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 39:43

My husband was like, You see, this is why we gotta reset the real link cameras outside so I can see what's going on with the neighbor.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

I'm your husband, basically, because I need to know what's happening. I'm posted up binoculars. What's happening now?

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Yeah. So I think I and I told my husband, I think what happened is that last weekend there was an accident because it's a slight turn and his overgrowth is blocking the view of the street. And so it caused an accident right in front of our house. We came home and had to hold up onto our lawn to park our car in our driveway. But there was like two trow trucks trying to get these cars out from the front of our house. And so I think that they are trying to get in touch with him to say, you need to take some of this overgrowth down because it's blocking the view of traffic and causing accidents. So I think it's maybe I don't will he? Will he won't he? Will they get in touch with him? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

Now I'm excited. I'm just nosy.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

Here for the stories.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

Any type of gossip you have, I'm here for it. I don't have to know the people. It doesn't have to affect me one way or another. But what's the deal? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

I hope he's okay, honestly. That's my whole thing. Is I hope he's okay if he is having mental health issues. I hope he gets the help he needs. He's just a recluse. I think so. One of the neighbors found his YouTube channel, maybe. Like there's a lot of lore to this story.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

That changes things now that there is a YouTube channel.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

I'd have to even ask, I didn't never watch it. I'd have to ask my husband. I think it was just him sitting there reading Bible scriptures and stuff like that. Which is why we were like, is he the one who sent the letters? Because that's probably suspicious. But anyway, so you guys are gonna have to keep listening to the podcast to hear more. Stay tuned next time for more stories of the world.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

This podcast has taken a turn.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

Right. It is now a true crime podcast. Here we go. Paranormal. But if people want to buy your books or hang out with you, are there any events you're going to in the next year or two? Where can they check you out online? What social media do you like to engage with people on, etc.?

SPEAKER_01 42:10

Yeah, I'm not going anywhere or doing anything this year. In Sweden, I have to reapply for my residency permit, and it's like expiring next week, so I can't go anywhere. Those are real world issues. I'm not going anywhere or doing anything. I'm gonna be here. I'm gonna be writing my ass off. That's all I'm doing lately, is just writing like a fiend. And if people want to check out my nonsensical stuff that I post on threads, I'm on threads.

Connect with Charish: Threads, Sweden, and 2026 Plans

SPEAKER_01 42:41

Cherish Read Author, which is the same for Instagram and Blue Sky. But yeah, I'm mostly on threads. Stop by and say hello. And you can get more, I guess, book-related information on CherishRead.com.

SPEAKER_00 43:00

That's awesome. I will make sure I have links for all of your stuff in the show notes and the YouTube description for anyone doing other things as they're listening or watching us. Make sure that we have your threads as well as your website. And then I'll have links for Amazon, your all your books, as well as the bookshop.org links for people who want to support either of those. And they are affiliates, so please use them if you do want to buy the books to help support the show. Cherish, this has been so much fun talking to you, getting to know about your process, your stories. I cannot wait to go read those other ones. Thank you so much for being on.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

Thank you so much for having me, Alicia. You are truly a delight to talk to.