Samantha Saldivar on Sapphic Sports Romance, Latina Representation, and Traditional Publishing

If you've been listening to this podcast for any length of time, you know how much I love showcasing queer authors, queer stories, and sapphic romance. Today, we get a special bonus as I sit down with Sam Saldivar (Samantha Saldivar), a queer Latina author who writes high-stakes sapphic sports romance. We dive into the nitty-gritty of traditional publishing, navigating a surprise four-manuscript backlog, pitching authentic Latina representation in sports, and building long-arc, second-chance romances. 

USA Today bestselling author Samantha Saldivar is a corporate broadcast producer who has previously worked at the NBC affiliates KGW in Portland and KMTR in Eugene, where she won a regional Emmy award for Best Evening Newscast. During her time studying at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication, she reported on college sports for campus television and interned at the now-defunct Comcast Sportsnet Northwest. She lives in Portland with her wife. Her debut novel, Play You For It, was a national bestseller. 

In this episode, we're discussing:

• How writing purely for the love of the story led to a surprise four-manuscript backlog and a two-book deal with Dell.
• The structural differences between self-publishing hustle and leaning into traditional publishing infrastructure.
• Grounding Latina representation in the authentic history and culture of sports—from D1 college basketball to softball.
• Why second-chance romance requires deep character growth over time for the reconciliation to actually feel earned.
• Teasers for Play You For It, Running Home To You, and her 2027 soccer romance, Giving Up The Game.

CONNECT WITH SAMANTHA SALDIVAR:

Website

Instagram

Substack

BOOKS/AUTHORS MENTIONED:

Play You For It by Samantha Saldivar (Amazon | Bookshop)

Running Home To You by Samantha Saldivar (Amazon | Bookshop)

Giving Up The Game (Coming March 2027) by Samantha Saldivar (Amazon | Bookshop)

Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake (Amazon | Bookshop)

Anita Kelly (Amazon | Bookshop)

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Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links in these show notes are affiliate links. If you make a purchase or borrow a book through these links, I may earn a small commission at zero extra cost to you.

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Running list of books mentioned (Doc)

This podcast was produced by Galati Media.
Proud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective.

Transcript

Intro: The Power of Sapphic Sports Romance & Queer Representation

Alesia Galati 0:00

If you've been listening to this podcast for any amount of time, you know how I feel about sapphic romance. I absolutely love being able to showcase queer authors and queer stories. But today we get a special extra bonus because we have Sam Saldivar, who is a queer Latina author who writes sapphic sports romance. And I loved getting into the nitty-gritty of the sports, understanding the different storylines that take place in each of her books, and what we can expect for her next book, which comes out in 2027. So if you like your romances sapphic and sporty, this is the episode for you. Listener discretion is advised. This podcast contains mature content intended for adult audiences only.

Meet Sam Saldivar: Broadcast Producer, Sports Journalist, and Author

Alesia Galati 0:48

Hello, Sam. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. If you could start by telling everyone who you are and a bit about your author journey.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to be joining the podcast. I'm Sam. If you see my books, you'll see Samantha Saldoir on them. I've written in the Sapphic sports romance space now for almost a year. My first book, Play You For It, came out in October. And then my second book, Running Home To You, came out in May. We'll get into the books themselves, but first one's more of like a workplace forbidden romance, and the second one, Running Home Too is like long second chances, but really like writing in the sports space. I have a background in journalism and broadcast production. So a lot of that comes into play. But mostly I just love playing sports, watching sports. Have always been a big fan, so I'm just kind of following what I love. And that's how my writing's come to be over the

Choosing Trad Publishing: Surprising Her Agent with a 4-Manuscript Backlog

SPEAKER_01 1:39

last couple years.

Alesia Galati 1:39

Yeah, I'm so curious why you went the traditional route. Not no wrong answers at all. Everybody gets to decide what works best for them. But so often people were like, oh well, I had this story and I wanted to tell it, and it was just sitting in my brain and nothing was happening on the trad side, so I just went with it. What did that process look like for you as you were deciding whether you wanted to go maybe the indie route or the trad route?

SPEAKER_01 2:04

I was honestly writing with the idea that if nothing got published, I would be okay with it. Cause I'm just, I guess I'm in it for the love of the game. I don't know. Um, but I had written one manuscript, and I think I sent it out to like 10 agents, and I didn't get a bite. And for me, I was like, that's enough for me. I'll never do this again. And I just went back in my little hole and I wrote three more manuscripts. And every time I would finish one, I would just give it to my wife. And this was over the period of two years, and every time she's like, You gotta start like submitting. Please do something with this. These are like pretty good. I don't know, I think they are. So I finally agreed to give it a second shot after like my fourth manuscript. And I did end up landing an agent and landing at Dell. Kind of happened fast for me. I think I got lucky. So I don't know. I I think self-published was in the back of my head, but I will say I'm a little type B, a little lazy. And I think people self-publishing work so hard to market themselves and do the publicity and connect with readers and be on social media. And I just really admire that. I don't know if I would like have it in me to do all those things for myself. Like both sides have advantages and disadvantages. And in trad publishing, you get a little bit more of that like infrastructure. Even if you have a big list ahead of you, or you're not a, let's say, like a lead title. It's still really worked out for me, I think. Something I like am happy to lean on. But I think the self-publishing route is really awesome for writers who aren't breaking into trad. And I just really admire everybody who just puts so much effort into getting their books out in the world and the followings they build and the content they're putting out there too, like the stories themselves. But yeah, I ended up on the trad side. That's kind of how that came to be. I think I just got lucky. It takes a little luck, honestly, to land in that space too, I think.

Alesia Galati 3:44

Yeah, so much work that goes into one writing the book. Yeah, that in itself is a lot of work. That in itself is a ton of work. And the fact that you were like, I'm just gonna keep writing for the love of it. Fourth manuscript, do you think that having that many helped you to present? Here is more than just one book. It's not just one. And when you were working with your agent, were they able to pitch multiple books at once, or was it one at a time in that process? I'm so curious about that trans publishing something.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

I think when I told them I had four, they're like, oh my God, like and what period of time? Like, I don't know, I'm just just what I like to do in any free moment. But we ended up just going on sub with one book, which was play for it. But when it came time to like, oh, do you have any more projects, things like that? We were able to be like, yeah, there's another one that's done and ready to go if you're interested. And it turned into a two-book deal. And then in that time, we sold the option, which was like another one of those manuscripts, which is also sports romance. They're all kind of in the same world, so I'm doing the same thing. But that's kind of how that worked. It wasn't like we went on and were like trying to sell four manuscripts at once, really just focused on the one that felt the strongest. And that's how I got my age at two, was just pitching the one project. And then once we kind of got into it, it was like, surprise! I have all these other book children if you were interested in adopting them as well. So that worked out.

The Resurgence of Sapphic Romance and Advocating for Authentic BIPOC Stories

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Surprise! Surprise! Hopefully, that's a surprise, right?

Alesia Galati 5:15

Oh my goodness, that is funny. Yeah, it's so interesting because I feel like sapphic romance is having a trad resurgence, kind of. I wish we had more sapphic romances 100%, and I wish more were trad published, but I feel like it might have been easier, and I say easier very loosely to sell because we had people like Meryl Wilson coming out with all of these sapphic sports romances, very focused on sapphic sports. And I feel like left, right, and center, we're getting a lot more of the like sports era, but make it sapphic, which I love and I wish that they got more love. We do have an episode, I'll make sure I link it in the show notes, on lesbophobia and some of the pushback when it comes to sapphic romance and just it's frustrating, especially as a bisexual woman. Like, come on, give love to both, please, and thank you. But I think that it's so important that we're getting these stories out there. And did you find it hard as a Latina? Did you find it hard to, I guess, advocate for your stories, especially because you have Latina representation in the stories? Was that something that you maybe came up against, or maybe someone said, Hey, why don't we make them more white or anything like that? Fortunately, no.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

And I think we're seeing more sapphic romances come out, but I also think we're seeing more opportunities for the epoch writers and characters. I think there's a hunger for that. And maybe it's been really slow, whether we were slow to realize, like, oh, people want to read Sapphic stories. Now we're like, oh, people want to be represented within these stories as well. So I always like to believe in progress, even if it's slow. And you mentioned authors like Merle Wilsner or Ashley Heron Blake, who've been in the game for a while. I always think of there's a lot of people who came before me, but I feel really fortunate. I just kind of keep grinding out what's true to me. And as a Latino woman, I fortunately haven't experienced much pushback or like, yeah, let's make these characters like Caucasian or something like that. I think it brings a lot to what I'm trying to do as well.

Reflecting the Real Sports World: Latina Heritage in Baseball & Softball

SPEAKER_01 7:24

It's not necessarily the main focus of my characters. For instance, in the softball book, one of my main characters is a Latino woman, and her dad was Puerto Rican and was a baseball player too. And it wasn't just that I wanted to make them Latino because I did, but it was also like there's this great rich heritage and culture of Latino and African-American baseball players who came from the Caribbean islands and the Dominican Republic, and it was so cool to represent that in a way. And it was really important for me to infuse that in the story and be like, no, it wasn't the only reason I wanted to do it, but to also be like, this is real to true life if you look at the MLB or sports in general. So I tried to keep that in mind as I write my characters. Obviously, my heritage is part of it, but it's also just reflecting the truth of the sports world. You look at like any court or field, it's not all white. There's a lot of color out there, and I love representing that.

Alesia Galati 8:15

Yeah, I think it's so important. My family's Puerto Rican, I'm Afro-Latina. And one of the things about this podcast that I wanted to make sure was represented was like when I'm conversing with the publicists or the people who are supporting the traditionally published authors, be like, oh, we have all of these books coming out in the next month. And I'm like, cool, which ones are BIPOC? Like, which of your authors are BIPOC? Because those are the ones that I want to talk to. And I remember specifically how we connected was that your publicist or one of them had was like, hey, I noticed that you have a we were talking about one specific author that was on their roster, and they were like, We have a Latina that we think would be really great. We'd love to get her on your podcast. And I was like, say less. Yeah.

unknown 9:04

What do you mean?

Alesia Galati 9:05

Yeah, that's what I'm asking for. Please send them my way. And I think that it's so important that we are getting the representation, like you said, not just for the sapphic romance, because yes, that is getting a resurgent, but for those that have the BIPOC representation as well, in authentic representation, which I think is things that are not harmful stereotypes or any of that stuff. Because we do see a lot of that, even in traditionally published romances, which can be very frustrating.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

That can be hard. And I like to think people have good intentions, but it's just really if you're not coming from the right place, you don't have people around you or sensitivity readers, I think that's where it gets sticky. And I think not just representation, but the right representation or authentic stories, authentic voices is so important. And again, that's why it does it is important to have like BIPOC authors in the conversation and advocated for. And I think podcasters like you or reading influencers, I feel like my job doesn't end, but it's like all I can do is really write the work and hope that like someone latches onto it. And I think people advocating on the readership side is really what does help is going out of the way to say, I want a story with my representation or who are your BIPOC authors, as opposed to just kind of being like, well, there's nothing out there, like I'll just grab whatever. So I think just really intentional reading and who we're supporting or who we're lifting up and the voices we want to hear is really important too.

Alesia Galati 10:34

Yeah, especially in today's climate.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

Yes. Say less, yeah.

Alesia Galati 10:40

We don't even need to go there. But y'all know. And if you don't, I would like to be under the rock that you're under, also. Oh my god. But okay, so let's talk a little bit more about your first book. Give us the rundown of like what to expect, what tropes, the characters, a little more behind the scenes on

Deep Dive: Play You For It (Forbidden Workplace Romance in D1 Basketball)

Alesia Galati 11:00

that.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Yeah, so my first book, Play For It. So that is a basketball-themed book. So it's about a kind of was inspired in by real life events. A lot of my sports books are like I'm I consume a lot of sports, love all the storylines that take place. And again, I had some background in sports journalism, especially in college. That's like what I wanted to do. So now I'm rambling. But to get into the book, it's basically about a sports journalist who's working at a regional TV station and she's really fighting her way into a male-dominated field. One of the teams she covers is David Douglas Bulldogs, and they have a woman assistant coach on their men's team. But when the head coach is a man steps down, he's really adamant that, like, hey, Jordan needs to take over. But it makes her the first woman to coach a D1 men's basketball team. And that actually really has never happened in real life. There's assistant coaches. Yeah, I know, fingers crossed. Let's get someone in there. Let's get Don Staley or like someone. Becky Hammond, she got to be like an interim head coach for one game. So she made history in the NBA and before she came back over to the WNBA. But yeah, so their dynamic is very like journalists can't fall for sources, so it becomes very like forbidden workplace romance, forced proximity. They're constantly seeing each other at games and interviews. And Beck, the sports reporter, is just constantly trying to get the first sit-down interview with Jordan. So that kind of becomes a game that they play with each other and kind of fuels the book. But there's a lot of basketball action in it, as well as you know, the romance. Yes.

Alesia Galati 12:23

Of course, we need the romance.

Feminist Allies & Pulling Women Up in Male-Dominated Industries

Alesia Galati 12:25

Yeah, we need the romance. What I love about that is that there is a person who's in a position of power to pull up the women. And I think that is so incredibly important in life. I was literally just having a conversation with my 11-year-old about this because I was like, look, you're gonna grow up, you're gonna be a man, and there are gonna be people around you who do not have the same advantages as you. You will have tons more rights than I will ever, most likely, in my life. And so it is up to you to take a stand to support the people around you, the people who are, especially women around you, and bring them up. And I told them the story about how I had gotten a new manager. I've worked in manufacturing for quite a bit of time. Very male-dominated industry, one of five women to 150 guys. What I had gotten hired in at, I was doing work that was not normal for the position I had gotten hired in at. They had given me more work because when you're good at something, then they give you more things to do.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Congrats.

Alesia Galati 13:30

Yeah. Thank you so much. My boss, he had transitioned to becoming my boss because the other boss had left. And he sat me down and he was like, Alicia, you are severely underpaid. Here is your new raise. And the reason that I was able to push for this is because this is the amount of work you're doing that is similar to this other person who's at this pay scale. And I explained this to my kid. I'm like, like, he could have just saved the money for his department, or he could have given some one of his buddies a promotion and gotten them a pay increase. But he took the time to make sure that I got paid what I was worth. Hands down, one of the best managers I ever had. So many life lessons that I learned from this guy. But I think that part of the story is so incredibly important. And I think that in real life, it's so important. And having seen that reflected in my own life, was like, that is so great to be able to have someone say, Nope, I want to advocate for this person. They know what they're doing, they have the capabilities, they've been trained under me. Let this person be in there. And so when you were coming up with that kind of idea, I know you wanted a woman in a quote-unquote male-dominated field, but what were your thoughts around that?

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Yeah, I think it's such a good point because in my life too, there's been like men or colleagues who have been in a position to lift me up and not just lift me up, but be like, no, like Sam is qualified to do this, whether it was for campus TV in the sports department or the radio station or even at news stations I had worked at. And I think sometimes there's like this assumption in like the sapphic romance realm, like, oh, we gotta like hate men, or there can't be any like men in the story. And I think, especially in Play for It, there's good guys and bad guys. Like there's men who are absolute assholes in that book, who definitely try to get in Jordan's way and Beck's way, and in both their separate career fields, whether it's on the team or at the station where Beck works, but I also wanted to represent like there are men out there who do do a good thing who are like either a buddy that you could talk to or someone who's seeing the injustice taking place and can actually step in. And I think it's important to highlight that too. Even for men to read, or like young men like your son, look at this guy, it's fiction, but still, these things happen every day. And are you gonna be the guy who's trying to put women down, or are you gonna be the one who's lifting them up? And I don't think that's centering men. I think it's just giving them like some tools and examples as well to kind of I don't know, to not sit on the sidelines when things like that are happening. So that was important to me for sure. To include men, even though it is a sapphic romance, and that the romance is still very much at the center of that, like very queer. And it was a men's basketball team, also. So that was a little different. I know some people maybe don't like that, but I felt like it was like a kind of a feminist moment to have a woman leading this team and letting people imagine and see that as well for all the good and the bad that came with it.

Alesia Galati 16:35

Yeah, so true. Going into your next one, which recently came out, yay. As you like, I'm like, what was your thought process writing it? But you had already written four books at that point. So you're like, I don't maybe where was my headspace?

SPEAKER_01 16:52

I actually have they all kind of blur together because as I would finish one, I'm like, I have a great idea for another, and then like I don't know how they all popped in my head. That is like how does it pop into your head?

Alesia Galati 17:05

Are you someone who I guess the planner or panther is the phrase that people use? Do you please out or fly by the seat of your pants?

SPEAKER_01 17:13

I don't know, I'm a little of both. Sometimes I'll have a scene in mind that like I really want it, like for play for it, for example, there's a scene where Jordan and Beck play horse together for like the interview. And Jordan's like, I'll let you do the interview if you can beat me at horse. And she doesn't know that Beck played a little bit of college basketball and like totally hustles her. And I always thought, I'm like, that would be such a fun scene in a romance, and I didn't even know their names or like the circumstances. So I kind of started from there and then worked my way back and then worked my way forward. So I'd like a planner and a pantser. I'll have some big points and then I'll just let myself write my way into them. And as I'm doing that, I'll be taking notes and like outlining what's gonna lead to the next thing. So it's almost like storyboarding, but not really. I wish I knew how my own brain worked because I think I'd be far more efficient than all my like swirling ideas.

Deep Dive: Running Home To You (Softball Rivals & 8-Year Long Arcs)

Alesia Galati 18:01

I think that it works though, right? At this point, you've written four. So tell us a bit about your new book, What Can We Expect? Running Home to You. And it is a baseball romance. Yeah, yeah. By baseball. Why not just stick with basketball? Yeah. What is your thought process there?

SPEAKER_01 18:17

So um, yeah, baseball like softball romance, too. And I felt like softball especially was underrepresented in the sports like romance realm in general, especially like there's a lot of hockey now. Um I still feel like there's a lot of basketball. I just thought in general, softball wasn't really well represented, and it's my favorite sport. I played softball growing up. I love watching it. I still play in like an adult rec league everything. Haven't let it go. I'm a lot slower now, though. So I really wanted to write a softball romance. And I'm also one of those people I love sports movies, so this applies to Plague For it too. But I love like the 90s, early 2000s, like Field of Dreams, Rookie of the Year, A League of Their Own, could go down the list. Katie Ducks played to death. I'm pretty sure it broke VHS to it. But all of those sort of vibes have always inspired like my sports romances. And for this one, I definitely wanted that spiritual, mythical feel of like the softball field and it being this really special place where these two young women like fall for each other. They're really competitive at first, and then just wear each other down as they work together. And it really goes from rivals to kind of friends and teammates to lovers over these couple years that they're in college, and then it goes beyond then as well. It's like an eight-year span. And that was something else I was really excited to do. It was the first time I sat down and wrote this like epic romance. It really felt like an epic, especially to be with these women for so long and seeing them grow. I feel like even their voices change or the dialogue changes as they get older, and they both have sort of their own issues they're dealing with, things like religious trauma, grief, addiction, those sort of things are sprinkled throughout their story. So there's some heavier themes, just a lot of like love. It's definitely a slow burn. And some second chance is worked in as well. Cause again, over that long period of time, some some things had to get messy in eight years.

Convincing Yourself First: How to Write Earned Second-Chance Growth

Alesia Galati 20:13

I'm always so fascinated by second chance because in real life, it is my least favorite trope. My brain cannot handle why anyone would in real life break up and then get back together. I totally respect that, actually.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

I'm the same way. I'm like, what once scorned, I'm like, no, I will never talk to you again. I'm not one of those lesbians who's friends with my exes. So I'm just like, nope. So I totally get that.

Alesia Galati 20:43

We had an episode recently with Babe in the library. It is her favorite trope in romance. And so she was like, I'm gonna sell, I don't need to sell the audience, I need to sell Alicia. Second chance romance. And I was like, I guess if it's done well, it's fine. And my brain is like, I can suspend my belief for a lot of things. Read a lot of monster romance, but the second chance tends to be harder. But I feel like authors do it so well. So interesting to me that they're able to actually make me root for these people to get back together.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Yeah, you get drawn back in every time.

Alesia Galati 21:28

Every time. And so as you're navigating that in real life, feeling like, oh god, no, never. But also, how do you write it in a way where you believe it too? That these characters can grow, that they can do and be better to get back together.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Yeah, I think you said it. I have to convince myself first of I don't believe it. How is anyone reading gonna believe it? And for me to believe it, especially in this story, I think this is my only second chances romance. Cause it It's not in the first one. It's not in the I have a third sports book that'll be out March 2027, but we can talk about that later. Yes. This one's the only second chances. And I think the reason for me that it works, that like I believed in it. So I'm like, these characters really need to like change before like I'm gonna allow them to get back together. I wanted them to resolve all their issues and they went off on their own separate path. And I wouldn't say they become different people, but they earn each other back, if that makes sense. They resolve the things that were keeping them apart before, and not just, oh, actually, screw all those things we said in our fight. Let's get back together and everything will be good this time. So I think that's how I convinced myself and believed in it is seeing the character growth. Gotta grab the characters. That's probably the biggest part about I think a successful second chance romance that I believe in also. Not just my own, but any.

Alesia Galati 22:51

Yeah. Do you think that having such an epic journey for these two helped that along in a way where they were able to maybe resolve more of those things instead of like, oh, well, one year later. You froze like that in a year.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Yeah, absolutely. You're a much different different person, I think, from your early 20s, college to maybe mid-late 20s. A lot of change happens then, good and bad, but you're gonna be a different person for sure. And if you walk away from a relationship, I think you come back into it with some different perspective and life experiences. So that definitely helped the second chances as well.

Alesia Galati 23:28

Yeah, it's so interesting. My husband and I are celebrating 10 years next to my gosh, congrats. Yes. Wild. And we've been together for 13, but thinking about the kids we were then when we like first got together, and I got pregnant fairly quickly. And we've been parents for the most of our relationship. Even looking at, okay, who I was postpartum after the first kid was very different than who I was postpartum after the second

Evolving Together: Real-Life Long-Term Relationships vs. Romance Tropes

Alesia Galati 24:00

kid. And then moving, we moved from New Jersey to North Carolina and moving and taking that journey of separating ourselves from the life that we had established at that point to establish a new life together was very different. And the things I care about now, completely different than six years ago, too. I feel like COVID just amplified a lot of things for a lot of people. Totally, yeah. But like even thinking, okay, when we were first started dating, our frontal lopes weren't even fully developed at that point, like at all. And so now they are, which is like we were partying and hanging out, and just like that was life. And now it's like, so you want to go to dinner at three? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

In bed by seven. Oh my god, what a dream.

Alesia Galati 24:50

We're just gonna lay on the couch and watch a movie together. It sounds great.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Yeah, but hey, it shows also the 10 years and through all those different stages. I feel like that's not validating. That doesn't sound like a very sexy word, but just I don't know, confirms that you're with the right person if you can evolve together. That's so cool. I wish we got to see more of that in romance. I know epic romances aren't really like that, I want to say popular, but it's hard to convince someone to buy a book that's super long or something. But I always think that's cool to see people evolve. I wish we got more of that in romance. I don't know what kind of trope it would be called, but I don't know, seeing couples beyond the the meat cute moment and the trope and just there's not a lot of boring life. It's two characters. Don't you want to see them go to dinner at 3 p.m.?

Alesia Galati 25:33

Maybe that's why. Maybe, especially because we live so far from family. We get one major dinner out together, and usually it's around our anniversary, and we will spend hours at this dinner, like closing the place down. Usually they're like, We need y'all to go. And we're like, Oh, my bad. I'm like, but it works for us, we don't need that all the time. But the one time we do get it, it's awesome. And I remember I said to my kiddo the other day, I was like, Don't talk to my best friend like that, because he was back talking to his dad. And he looked at me like dad's your best friend, and I was like, Why would I marry someone who is not my best friend? It doesn't make any sense.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Shattered his mind. He's like, Wait, hold on. My parents are people besides just my parents, they have individual relationships with each other.

Alesia Galati 26:26

Like we ended up, we have separate bedrooms, which is wonderful, and people should talk about that more because he starfishes and I snore and I work late. He gets up early for work. It just doesn't make sense for us to have the same bedroom, still intimate all the time, does not change any of that stuff. Like it's fine. But I sat my kids down and I was like, hey, I just want you guys to know everything's fine with mom and dad. We just have separate bedrooms now. And my 11-year-old was like, nobody thought anything was wrong. He touched my butt all the time, mom. And I'm like, okay, I'm over here worried about nothing. That's awesome. But I think that one, I think that we can see that sometimes in romance when we get interconnected series. And see the previous couples. I'm always excited to see the previous couples and like what they're doing, what's going on, how are they growing. I'm thinking even about this dystopian series by Elizabeth Stevens that I recently reread. And the first book is about the first couple. And Elizabeth recently started releasing book four, chapter by chapter, in her Patreon. If you're into that, go check it out. It's wonderful. But to hear things about the original couple in book four and their storyline still hears what's happening with them, even though we're talking about a completely different couple now. I just eat it up. I love it so much. And so I feel like an epic romance would be fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

No, that's true. And I love that too. I know Ashley Hearing Blake did that with Delilah Green and kind of see them in the next couple books. And I think Anita Kelly's done that as well. And it makes me want to go read the other book. So I'm like, oh, this couple seems cute. You can kind of go back and get their story. So I do like that a lot. Like the interconnected, sort of like little Easter eggs, also.

Teaser: Giving Up The Game (2027 Soccer Romance & The Weight of Athletic Retirement)

Alesia Galati 28:18

So much fun. All right. So you have another book that's coming out in 2027. What is it? What can we expect? Which sport is it?

SPEAKER_01 28:27

It's a soccer book. Obviously, I just can't not write sports. It's a soccer book. It's called Giving Up the Game. And it's more about one main character is a professional soccer player, kind of inspired by greats like Abby Wombach or Megan Rapino. But she's on the back half of her career. She's already won all her gold medals, and she's fighting injuries and head trauma, things like that, but really unwilling to give up the game, so to speak, and till she connects with the other love interest. And but yeah, I was really inspired by athletes like Tom Brady, Brett Favre, like all these people who were so big at the top of their game, but then just struggled so badly to actually retire or would retire and then come back. I think even Michael Jordan did that. Or and I read Abby Wombach's autobiography, and I know it was really hard hard for her to walk away. And how do you let go of your identity at that point, too, when you've just defined yourself by this sport and that's how the world knows you, and all of a sudden it's like you're getting closer to 40. Sorry. You are old news now and too slow. Cause also you're not that old, but by athletic standards, you hit mid-30s and you're just toast, which I guess I can relate to because I don't know. I'm getting it's a lot harder to play now than it was when I was like in my 20s and a teenager. So I guess I can see some of that, but that's what a lot of giving up the game is about.

Alesia Galati 29:52

Yeah, I can't imagine doing something for 10, 15, 20 years, and then being like, and I'm going to stop this, and I still have three quarters of my life left. Yeah. What do I do with the rest of my life? Do I do the thing that's quote unquote expected of me? Create some fundraiser, go to some like some charity dinners. That that doesn't sound exciting or entertaining or interesting. Do I go and write a book about my life? There's so many different things you can do, but do you actually want to? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

How does that compare to what you were doing before? I can't imagine it would, especially if you're winning World Cups or like Olympics, things like that. I feel I think that would just feel like such a step down. Obviously, never have gotten to experience that, but yeah, I that was definitely huge inspiration for giving up the game. And I'm excited for that one to be out in the world eventually too. That one's fun, also, because I think you kind of might have hit on it earlier, but the first book and play for it, it's two women both in the sports industry. They're not playing, but it's the coach and reporter. Running home to you, it's two teammates on the same team. And in giving up the game, it's a soccer player, and the love interest has like nothing to do with sports, doesn't care about sports, is more of a like part of this like political family, but isn't really like wanting to necessarily step into her role there either. But it was fun to write a couple where like they weren't both so like in the sport. One of them was just like, I don't care. So that was a fun dynamic and something different. I like to bring something a little different to each bulk. It keeps me engaged too. So that's one difference for sure.

Alesia Galati 31:29

Yeah, that definitely makes sense. Yeah, I'm just I cannot imagine having to stop. I even think WrestleMania happened. My kids are really into WWE, and WrestleMania recently happened, and I want to say it was oh god, I'm gonna get the wrong the name wrong. You could just make something up, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

I'd be like, yeah, right?

Alesia Galati 31:48

That guy. Totally, yeah. Brock Lesnar, I believe, is the person, and he had semi-retired, came back, and I'm pretty sure he went against Oba Femi. There's like a 20, 30 year age gap between these two. And like they're both, my kids would be like, Mom, you're supposed to know this stuff. I can't think of what the word, like Andre the Giant, they're like the mega monsters or whatever. They have like their categories. There's the heels and the baby faces, and then there's the mega monster dude. I don't know. Anyway, they're big dudes, these are the big ones. And when he got beat by Obafemi, I'm pretty sure it was Oba Femi. It might not have been somebody else, but this is like mid-20s, and Brock Lesnar's 45, 50s, maybe older than that. He like literally was sitting on the mat. The competitor had already left, and everybody is like cheering him. You got this, it's okay. It's WrestleMania, so everybody's there. And you could see he was just like, I'm done. Oh, that's and I was like, like my heart. I mean, it obviously could have been literally the script, but I was feeling it. I was feeling all of it. And I'm like, oh my goodness. And my husband's like, Why are you freaking out? I'm like, he's gonna take his shoes off. Oh my goodness. Like literally sitting there, he's taking his shoes off, like like dramatic as hell. And I'm just like, oh my gosh. And my kids are just like, Oh, this is wild. We're seeing history, big man. He's literally retiring right now. And he just leaves his shoes there, and then he walks off with whatever, Undertaker's manager. He's so creepy. And so he walks off with him, hugs him, and like everybody is like, no, in the whole arena.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

And I'm just like, so like that's where my brain went like the ultimate sports retirement, like in real time. Yeah, it's sad, especially when these I don't know, you think of these people as like heroes or like indestructible or something like that. I think that also I think it gets to everybody. It's sad when you see an athlete or someone you looked up to just like kind of not collapse, but just kind of walk away and you're like, gosh, that was the end of an era. I didn't realize how much it meant to me. Oh, they're done. And you can see how much their sport or their team meant to them for sure.

Alesia Galati 34:27

Yeah. So interesting. So I'm excited for your book. I know you do lots of sports, but if you could write a novella about a sapphic romance with a different sport, what would be like a sport that you're like, I don't maybe know enough about this one, but I would love to write a romance in

The Rowing Romance Dream: Brainstorming Off-the-Beaten-Path Sports

Alesia Galati 34:46

it.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Oh my gosh. It's weird because I know this one off the top of my head. I know nothing really about rowing, but I just find it so interesting and intense. And it's, I don't know how to describe it, like a stiff sport almost. You have to be very mechanical. And everyone who does it is very like tall and I feel like serious, but you're all in a boat together and you have your little, they call it the cocksman, right? The one who's at the front of the boat, and they're the ones like always yelling. They're usually smaller than everyone else. I'm like, that's what I would have to do. Uh-huh. I'd be the one yelling at the front. Yeah, I won't yell at everyone. No, but I'm like, I feel like there's a lot of potential there for a good rowing romance. But again, I don't really know anything about rowing, but I like to think it's kind of one of those like off-the-beaten track sort of sports that people wouldn't necessarily think would be conducive to a romance, but could be. So make it work. I'm already thinking of the trailer. Maybe one day, yeah. Start writing some scenes down.

Alesia Galati 35:42

Right.

Outro: Where to Connect with Sam Saldivar & Buy Her Books

Alesia Galati 35:44

Oh, that's so cool. Okay, so if people want to buy your books, connect with you, see your lovely wife, any of that stuff, where can they find you, get to know you, connect with you, and all that?

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Yeah, I'm mostly on Instagram, or at least I try to be active on Instagram. So it's saldivar.samantha. So you can find me over there. I do have a Substack going now too, or I'm trying to post on that. So if you're at all interested in reading like longer blog sort of form things, feel free to subscribe. I don't think I'll ever make it not free or cost anything. And then yeah, I have a website too, Samanthasaldivar.com. So that has a lot of the info on just where to buy my books. Typically, it's just wherever you like to buy your books, whether that's local or somewhere else. So yeah.

Alesia Galati 36:25

Awesome. And we will have links for all that in the show notes and the YouTube description for anyone doing other things as they're listening to us or watching us. So make sure that you go ahead and grab those links and go connect with Sam. Sam, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for being. Oh my gosh, thank you. I've had a blast.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

This has been great.