Cliterature the Podcast
Books. Babes. Bold opinions. A queer lit podcast.
Cliterature the Podcast
Under the Covers x Bethany Jacobs
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In this episode of Under the Covers, we chat with Dr. Bethany Jacobs, award winning author of the Kindom Trilogy and Haley's *favorite* fan-fiction writer (Indoorbutch on AO3). We get into the differences in writing fan fic vs traditional publishing, the importance of community and seeing yourself reflected in media, and how much LGBTQIA+ books and films have impacted our lives. We also go on a brief tangent about Gillian Anderson, Xena, Carol, and the K/Cates. Sorry not sorry. Enjoy! We're so happy you're here.
This is Under the Covers, a cliterature series where we get cozy with the people behind the page. This space is to highlight authors, narrators, creators, and book lovers alike as we dive into the stories that shape us and the community that keeps them alive. Welcome to Cliterature the Podcast.
SPEAKER_00Hey guys, thanks for joining us. Dean Haley here, and we are joined by Bethany Jacobs, award-winning author of the Kindom trilogy, and also more notably Haley's favorite fanfiction author. I'm so excited. So thank you for joining us today. We really appreciate you making time for us. If you don't mind, just tell us a little bit about yourself.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, thank you guys for having me. I'm truly deeply delighted. Um I uh so I'm a writer of fan fiction who has also um had uh written a lot of uh fan fiction um in a couple of different uh fandoms. I'm most known for my Carol um fan fiction, which is deeply important to me. Uh I live in Buffalo, New York with my wife. I um have had a uh strange route towards publishing, and that I was a college uh instructor for about 10 years, and I've worked in education technology and construction, and just I've just been all over the country, all over everything, and uh and it's in the past three years that I've started publishing, and uh it's just been a delight, and I want to keep doing it forever, and I want to keep writing Smuddy Fic. Yes, please do next please never stop that. Never stop that. I don't want to ever stop doing that. I'll be so sad years old talking about women getting railed.
SPEAKER_00Yes, hell yeah. Same. Those are the life goals, aren't they? Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Well, like we talked about, I absolutely love your fan fiction. I wanted to talk about before we jump into your personal fanfiction, I just want to talk about fanfiction in general and AO3 because I don't know that all of our listeners know what it is. Um I feel like I'm a newbie because she Dee introduced me to fanfiction in like 2020 because COVID and shut down, and she's like, you know what you need in your life? Yeah, whole new world. You know what I mean? So ever since 2020. Yeah, yeah. So I read on AO3, which is a website that has tons of writers. You can write about anything you want. Fan fiction is just like any relationship, any pop culture, anything you want to, you just write about whatever. I mean, there's there's no limits. The limit does not exist about what you can write about on there. Right. So, how did you find fan fiction and when did you start writing fan fiction?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so I mean, um uh fan so fan fiction has had this interesting evolution in terms of platforms, you know, some of the some of the earliest fan fiction was just in um uh before the internet was, you know, like little fanzines that got passed around to like Star Trek, um, you know, ex-star trek conventions, and there were like listserves where you could join the listservs and someone would, you know, send you their fic. And then as it moved on to the internet, it was like live journal and then fanfic.net, and that's where I first um was started reading it. I actually um the first fanfic I ever read was um uh X-Files fanfic. That's um yeah, yeah. Actually a really interesting like um like window into my own sexual awakening because I as as because I didn't come out um until I was in my 20s and didn't know I was gay until my twenties, but I remember reading this uh X-Files fanfic where Mulder and Scully have a threesome with another woman. And I was kind of like, why does this impact me so much? Like, why is this so hot? Um, and you know, now I look back and realize that that fiction, what I was drawn to was Scully, not Mulder. You know, at the time it was like classic het fiction, and I didn't know. And then later on, it was Xena um fanfiction for me, like Xena all day, all the time. I periodically throughout my life have like returned and rewatched the entire series. Like every six years I rediscover it, and man, it never stops holding up, it's just fantastic. Um but I didn't actually start uh writing fanfic until I think 2019, either 2019 or 2020, and it was interesting because uh I started writing it at the same time that I really started getting some momentum on getting my science fiction published, and then it was I got like my agent and I and I was working on the book to prepare it for the market, and so I was very busy doing that, and yet I was just like prolifically turning out Carol fan fiction, which was a a movie that I discovered late. I didn't discover Carol until 2019. It had come the movie had come out in 2015, I had never read The Price of Salt. So, you know, I watched the movie and fell obsessively in love with, you know, Rooney Mara and Kate Blanchett. I mean, I was already in love with Kate Blanchett, but like I really, you know, thought that the movie was so amazing and then read the book and it was really interesting because there are I love both of those texts, but there are things about the book that I would have done differently, and there are things about the show that I would have done differently, and my fan fiction, Carol fan fiction is really about like bridging that gap absolutely imagination and being able to do things. Um, like one of the things one of the things that has always bothered me about the movie, even though it makes perfect sense because it's Todd Haynes and he's a very emotionally understated um filmmaker, the the passion in Carol is quite understated. Yes, that's my biggest problem with it. I'm like, are they happy? Yeah, do they laugh?
unknownExactly.
SPEAKER_03I know, and it's and it's like, you know, there are um there are moments in the book where it communicates like they looked at each other and just started ripping their clothes off. Like it doesn't say that explicitly in the books, but like you know what they're saying, right? You know what Patricia Highsmith is saying, and you never get that ferocity of passion in Carol, um, which is something that I was always like, that ferocity should be there. Like this is this is a very like passionate, um, desperate yearning. Like we hear that in the story. And so I started writing fanfic that you know, some people might say, Well, you just wrote really explicit fanfic, but it was like, no, I wanted to like lean into the sort of desperation of their desire for each other, um, and so that is why, as well as like the tenderness and the intimacy and the idea of them growing into more equal partners, like those were all things that I wanted to see that you don't see in the movie, yeah. Um, and so that's kind of where my fanfic lent or leaned. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, I also love about fanfiction is that when you wrote um alterations, it was just a collection of one-shots, but you have so many people that are obsessed and commenting and wanting more and having ideas, and you actually take those ideas into consideration and like ask the people that are reading, and so it feels like we actually have a say an input in what we're gonna read, which is so fantastic, especially when a writer is as talented as you are. And I like I I loved being able to watch it happen in real time because I was reading as we were writing, which is also bizarre because usually you just have a full book, and in in the world of fan fiction, you just get little snippets, and sometimes it's awful because you want more, and then it never happens. But you always you always brought it, yeah, brought it all the way to the top.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, well, you know, it's I I definitely started writing fanfic. I'd never written fanfic before, um, and I definitely was doing it for me out of my own creative need, but I quickly fell so deeply in love with the fandom. Um my readers were so kind and so generous and so enthusiastic. And at the time I was writing, you know, in my notes, I was also keeping people updated on my publishing journey and everyone was supporting me. And um, you know, I think the thing about fandom is that it really in a way that isn't even necessary, isn't always true for like published novels, it's about community. Like fandom is very much about people and their relationship to each other and finding intimacy and trust and you know, naughtiness and um and love together. And so it really just made sense when I had these deeply generous fans to be like, Well, what do you guys want? Like, what do you want to see? Like, you know, I I would love to explore your ideas, and some of those conversations were the most fun part of the whole story.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think for me, I really found my first queer community through fanfiction. Absolutely. I grew up in a very small town, and every time I would go to a bookstore, I would look for some sort of representation, and there never was one at that time. And the first time I ever saw or was able to read something that I felt represented in, I found uh Buffy, the Vampire Slayer fanfiction. In fact, there's an entire website dedicated to nothing but Willow and Terra fanfiction, and that's what I found for. Yeah, yeah. I've spent many hours during college uh on there when I should have been studying.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and they did us dirty with those two women, but that's the amazing thing about fanfic, right?
SPEAKER_00Is that you can like rewrite the story and I think that's the biggest draw, too, for anyone to create it or read it is you feel like it could have been done differently or it was you were wronged in some way, and that's a great thing. Yeah, that's the great thing about fanfiction, is it can be whatever you want. We were talking earlier about um how AU, alternate universe, is one of my favorite things. I don't care how you know fantastical and magical the world that these characters were originally created in. I want to see just regular people, but I want those characters on groceries and whatever, and you know, getting filthy. Yes, be honest.
SPEAKER_03A hundred percent. I would say that the fan, the Carol fanfic that I've written, like half of it is actually set in the world of Carol, and half of it is AU. Um, and I think that like it's funny because there are some stories that I don't think lend themselves as well to AU. Like, I couldn't do Xena AU fanfic. For me, it's so so in its own universe that it just it doesn't make sense to me.
SPEAKER_00But the characters are so ingrained in that universe, taking them out will take away most of what they are, I feel like exactly.
SPEAKER_03And Carol, there's something about the story that is so universal that it translates brilliantly into any context. Um, and so I that's what I absolutely loved about it. Um and uh and most of my my multi-chapters are actually AUs. Um, and I and they were the most fun to write. I loved it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was fantastic. Speaking of AU's, I am in the middle of reading Nevermind Our Wicked Ways again, and I forgot how absolutely fan fucking tastic it is. I told Dee, I was like, don't read it anywhere that you're in public.
SPEAKER_00She sent it to me. She's like, Disclaimer on this one. Just like because I'm the one that's reading the smut on the treadmill in the middle of Planet Fitness at 5 a.m. in the morning. Um, and so she was like, maybe don't do that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like some breaks on that one. Like, this is a bedtime live. You really get into it, read. Yeah, but that's like I love seeing different characteristics in Carol and Therese in Alternate Universe because like Terez in the film and Terez in the book. I mean, Terez in the book is weird. We've I mean we've talked about this before. She's so strange.
SPEAKER_03She wants to die in a tunnel with Carol. Like, that's how weird.
SPEAKER_01Like, just like desperately strange, which I mean, we can all we can all agree that we have been desperately strange over at least one woman in our life. I mean, I feel like maybe it's just me. We can agree, right? No, we can't.
SPEAKER_02We can agree.
SPEAKER_01Okay, okay, okay. We've all felt that. We've all all been that like desperately in love puppy of a of a of a girl over a woman. But I feel like when it translated to film, Rooney Marl played her very like stoic. And so it we lost some of the weird, but we never gained any more like emotion, I guess. Like it was kind of a 2D kind of portrayal up for me of Therese, which we've had arguments about this, not arguments, but disagreements about this. I'm talking to you, Queer Girl Film Club, Georgia. You know who you are. Rooney Mara, she says she can read her eyes. I just am not, I I can't read her eyes. And so, you know.
SPEAKER_03Right. Um, and so if you can like do that, then there's something very um nuanced and uh and um I I like how Rooney is so um like she's she's like a secret top in Carol. Yes, and this is the thing that I that I love about the dynamics of Carol and Terez in both texts is that like Carol is the top, right? She is this gorgeous, broad-shouldered, you know, woman. More experienced. Yeah, she's the one who, if there's a strap on, Carol's gonna be wearing it. But is that really true? Because Terez is the one who wants to link arms with her while they're walking through town. And Terez is the one who doesn't experience any kind of terror when she realizes that she's in love with Carol. She's just sort of like, I'm in love with Carol. End of story. Therese is more fearlessly out than Carol is, even if they can't be out publicly. Carol is is much more afraid of exposure than Terez is. And you see that in these moments in Terez's performance that that are really quite delightful, but but it's true. Like it's and I think this is partly Todd Haynes' direction and uh and the screenplay, like it's a very understated performance from her, which can seem at odds with how fucking crazy she is in the book.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, because like you said, you don't get her internal monologue, you don't get that in the film.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01If you haven't watched if you haven't read the book, because you watched the movie before you read the book.
SPEAKER_00I watched the movie, then I read the book, and then I watched the movie again. Right. She hated the book. Girl she I was not a fan, I was not a fan of either of them, honestly. Really? The book was I have since grown a little bit more in my fondness for it. And I'm brainwashing her slowly. Slowly but surely. I will say uh the fan fiction has helped a little bit with my affinity for them. But um, yeah, I I think the what frustrated me about the book was um the it's a little bit more prominent in the book than the movie, but uh I still didn't read it outright as much as I wanted, and that was their affection for each other. It all felt very just like almost cold in a way. There were moments of breakthrough, but once I watched the movie, then went back and read the book and then watched the movie again, you start picking up on those nuances, like you said, um, that are kind of breaking through. Because obviously, in a movie adaptation, they can't put everything in. I wanted to see this scene where she goes to her coworker's house and has to like try on the dress. The inner monologue for that part was bananas. Yeah, but it was so yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Also, you have to look about the look, look at the book and when it was written. I mean, Patricia Highsmith was writing this in the 50s. Oh, it's and so I feel like she couldn't go full-on smut in the fifties.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I mean like riding and throwing a line. This is also Patricia Highsmith herself and her style, like she's a psychological thriller writer. You know, this isn't the first time, like the the Ripley books are very much about a closeted gay man, and it's not even subtle, like he's clearly gay. And but there it's not there's not expliciteness. And and part of her being like a psychological thriller writer is that her books are intensely psychological to the extent that you spend more time in people's heads than their bodies. Right. And so you're not really going to get the same kind of uh passionate physical sex scenes that you might expect from standard, you know, queer yearning texts. Right. Um but uh but yeah, it's um and I think she originally published it under the name Claire Morgan. Like she published it under a different name because she had she was established as a Yeah, she didn't want to be relabeled, yeah, exactly. And it it would have potentially destroyed her career if she had published it under her own name. But um yeah, but yeah, I mean I think it's I think it's totally normal to like love the fanfic more than the source material.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think my common dynamic. My love for the book is because I wrote my capstone project on it in college and argued the intrusion of man. And so I feel very passionate about we reading it through a queer lens, and I was like, read it like an academic book, like format it as like you know, like study it. You don't have to just love it, and she's like, Okay, I'll try.
SPEAKER_00I did, I mean, and it was great. I mean, I appreciate it for what it stands for in queer literature, yeah. It's very it's a you know, it's a huge milestone in queer literature. Um, also, I do think it does read. Now that you mentioned it, I'd never really kind of considered it reading like a psychological thriller in a way, in that you do spend more time in people's heads.
SPEAKER_03I mean Therese is essentially stalking Carol, even when together and traveling, she's stalking Carol. Like if you if you think about her other work, it's like she she's exploring the same dynamics of obsession um that you see in a text like Strangers on a Train. Like it's it's definitely Patricia Highsmith. But like I know a lot of people in the Carol fandom who don't like the book, you know? And yeah, it's okay. Um and uh and I know people who don't like the movie, and um, and and I know people who don't like either, they only like the fan fiction. Yeah, and so you know that's I think that's just like a normal part of this is the way that fanfic becomes original fiction, it becomes its own thing. Like a great example of this is that I really like um Devil Wears Prada, Miranda and Andy fanfic. Yeah, but when I look at the text, I don't see it at all. Like when I look at the actual film, the idea of Meryl Streep's character and and Anne Hathaway's character being having this like secret yearning for each other, I don't see it. I don't think it's there. It doesn't, it doesn't resonate for me. I don't go back to that film and like obsessively look for signs of a romance between them because I don't believe it. But in the fanfic, which becomes its own thing, I believe it because they are different people in the fanfic than they are in the film, and uh and I think that happens to a lot of people all the time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I read a lot of Rosolian Isles fanfiction as well, and that's kind of the opposite where I feel like there was a lot of chemistry.
SPEAKER_03They were such fucking queer baiters.
SPEAKER_00You can't tell me that that yeah, um absolutely that was queer baiting at its at its highest level. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I read the fanfiction to give me where it fell short. Like the the rest of the story, but yeah, with the Devil Wears Prada, I've never picked up on anything in the movie that even led me there. But the fanfiction, like you said, is wonderful for that as well.
SPEAKER_03There's so much really good fanfic. And because the sequel is coming out, now there's going to be even more fanfic. Oh, yeah. I can't wait. This is great. Let's do it, ladies.
SPEAKER_01Cannot wait. Yeah. Bring it on. Okay, so another one of your alternate universes fanfics that I loved was academic curiosity. Yeah. And I know that you were a professor, and there were a lot of under not undertones, it was blatant. There were a lot of themes within that fic that talked about how Carol was scared to be outed to the her community or her co-workers because she had worked so hard to have the same kind of clout and respect as the men that were in the department. Have you ever experienced any kind of unbalance while you were a professor that kind of inspired that? Or was that just like fun professor master?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, I was really lucky when I was in grad school and and worked, like I had a huge queer community in grad school. And um, you know, it's funny like issues of like sexism that are so rampant in the academy. I am actually incredibly privileged in that I don't experience a ton of sexism on a granular scale because I have a very masculine energy and men engage with me as if I was a man. Um, and so I and and I don't I don't quite get it, and of course I've experienced sexism, like tons of sexism, but like within the academy, I never had the feeling of like, you know, oh, if people know I'm queer and I mean I didn't come out until I was halfway through grad school is is the other thing, and so it was kind of like a lot of people didn't know what I was, and then they knew that I was dating someone in our friend group, and it was like, oh, well, this makes sense. Um but I think that uh with with that particular fic, um I was also it's funny because I'm I'm in the early stages of eventually tur expanding that into an a piece of original um romance, and um uh part of what I was also dealing with there is this the anxiety around um power dynamics um and uh and this idea of like Terez is earlier in her career, um Carol is established, like will people think that she is taking advantage of Terez in the way that happens so often in academia? I I have so many stories of professors who hooked up with their grad students and it was really fucked up. And so that is Carol's, even beyond the queer side of it, like that's Carol's main anxiety is that she would be perceived as a predator. And that for me actually arose out of me watching Carol with my sister, who is straight. Okay, and during the first lunch scene, when they're having this air, this, this awkward lunch, and Carol is so fucking weird. The cream spinach and poached eggs scene. Yeah, I'm starving, bone appetite. And my sister was like, I don't know if I like this. I think Carol's kind of predatory, and like there's something about this that that reads like and I was like, Well, part of why you feel that way is because you're straight. And what you don't see is that what's happening here is Carol is trying to suss out whether Therese is like her. This is an age-old thing that women love women who are are queer women and and lesbians that we do is we engage in a kind of code switching where we try to see, do you speak this language? Because if you speak this language, I'm a jump you.
SPEAKER_01And yeah, like there's like things you have to tick off, like look at her fingernails and exactly like fingernails.
SPEAKER_03Like I'm seeing what you respond, have you heard of the film Carol? Like, yeah, there you go. Yeah. And so part of, and that just sort of inspired me to think about like, you know, what if Carol was actually concerned about being perceived as predatory towards Terez? But, you know, in academic curiosity, I wasn't looking to go too deep or profound. And so I I intentionally wrote Therese as like very self-possessed, very much in control. Nobody, nobody is gonna take advantage of Terez in that story. Like she from the beginning, but Carol still experiences this anxiety. Um so yeah, I mean, there's whenever you do age gap, there's this this element of the power structure, and how are you gonna, you know, how are you gonna deal with that? I actually a lot of people are really turned on by the idea of like someone being taken advantage of by someone who's more powerful than them. I'm not, I don't think that's hot. I think it is hot to imagine the tension of two people negotiating that. Right. And and I think it's hot to have the person who is presumed to have less power actually assert power over someone who's used to being in charge. Like to me, that's sexy. Um so so those were some of the things that were going into my thinking with that story.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for sure. So you did mention that you're thinking about publishing some of your fanfiction as like standalone fiction. Yeah tell us a little bit about that because I'm ready for it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, so I mean, I uh so I wrote the stor one of my first um multi-chapter fics is a story called A Misunderstanding, which is set in the 1950s and sort of imagines that Carol and Terez didn't meet when they did, that they meet after Terez has come out and after Carol is divorced. And the fanfic and and they meet and then they fall in love and they have this sort of like um secret relationship and they can't be out and everything like that. And and that's and I when I wrote that story, I wrote a lot about like the actual experience of lesbians and uh people in the 1950s and the the threat of bar raids and um legal threats and things like that. And so many people have commented or reached out to me about how much that story means to them, like how much actually digging into lesbian history, like especially for young queer women, how it how it inspires them and encourages them to be like, oh, look what our ancestors did. Yeah. And so I was kind of like, you know, I bet if this was like a novel, like, yeah, people would know that it was like Carol fanfic, but like I bet people would I I bet this would mean something to other readers. Yeah. And absolutely. And then I have about three other multi-chapter fics that are AUs, uh contemporary AUs. And um, and I just, you know, thinking about them was kind of like, you know, I think these would make really good romance novels. I have ideas for how I would revise them. And um, I think that if I was I was going to publish them, I would probably self-publish them instead of trying to go the traditional route, because there are great things about the traditional route, and then there are terrible things about the traditional route. And um, so I don't know how successful it would be. Like I don't know how many people would actually like find out about or read those stories, but it is it is sort of a goal. I'm working, I'm revising a misunderstanding right now into a standalone novel and have plans for the other ones. And you know, I'm also working full-time and on contract for my next sci-fi novel, so like so there I don't know how I would possibly have time to do all of these things, but but it's an ambition. Sleep is underrated, honestly.
SPEAKER_01I love the idea of using AO3 as a platform to workshop writing ideas in in the in general. Like, I feel like when I started reading AO3, um we also write. And so I have written just like a couple of chapters just to like put my toe in the water, I guess, to see how I would feel about it. And I feel like it's a really fantastic place to get feedback quickly from people that you don't know, if you don't have like, you know, ARC readers, beta readers, whatever, anybody that you know around you, if you don't have that, then I feel like AO3 is a really fantastic platform or other places that you read. I don't know other places if you do shout them out. But AO3 is where I go.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, I mean AO3 is the main place, and yeah, the the thing that's so great about AO3 is that while there are fandoms on AO3 that are incredibly toxic, for the most part the the communities that you will meet on AO3 are the most enthusiastic, excited, encouraging people. Like a story that is horribly written. Readers will come on and be like, keep going, like I'm doing so great, yeah. And like that's the thing that writers and aspiring writers need to understand is like the first thing you write is going to be horrible. It's going to be terribly written. That's okay. Keep writing, write again, like fail, fail better, like you know, and and that's what I love about AO3 is that like it doesn't matter if you're a skilled writer. Um, you can hone your craft in that space. Uh and that kind of workshop space is is incredibly special, and we don't have its equal in anywhere else, I don't think. Um in terms of being accessible to just everyone, you know, typical like writing workshops or or you know, MFAs and things like that, they're incredibly gate-kept. You know, the average person can't do that. I didn't do that. Um, but AO3 is is a place where anybody can go and do this and write and exercise their creativity, and that's just incredibly beautiful.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that that's a great way for people to get the confidence to keep going and to start writing other things other than fanfiction.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, I I have a friend who she started out writing Carol fanfic, and she went on to write a biography about her parents being immigrants in the US. And she self-published it a couple months ago. That's amazing. Yeah. Um so yeah, so it can be a great staging ground for for writers who want to keep going.
SPEAKER_00I am quite intrigued because you do have um, you know, this sci-fi trilogy out there, which is amazing. Um, and now you're thinking about doing romance. Um, is there are you just writing the stories that inspire you or um because that feels like a little bit of a leap from sci-fi to romance in a traditional like publishing way?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, uh so they they definitely exist on very different platforms for me. If I publish romance, I'll publish under a different name. Um, you know, it's important to me to keep those audiences separate because I would not like a reader, I would not want a reader going to my work expecting one thing to suddenly be, you know, like I could have readers who they don't like romance or they're asexual or they find smut um distressing. I would but they love my sci-fi, right? I would not want them to be like, oh, she wrote this other book, I'm gonna go read that, and be like, this is not what I wanted. So it's it's important, even though there's a would be a lot of crossover in my in my fans, it's important to me to keep those spaces separate. However, I will say that there is a lot of similarity between what I'm doing in sci-fi and what I'm doing in romance, which is that I am deeply interested in relationships and emotional um exchange and connection. Um, my sci-fi trilogy is very much about um uh the relationships between characters and the um struggles and tenderness and love and conflict between characters, even though it's set against a much more epic scope of that's also a more political scope. Um but uh but my fanfic, as as uh explicit and smutty as it is, is also like it it's very romantic. And tender and wonderful, and and I kind I really strongly believe, you know, people who are sort of like oh smut, smut, smut, smut, smut. It's like smut can be deeply romantic. Like explicit sexual exchange is not just automatically dirty, it can be like it can be deeply emotionally powerful, um, and uh and and um like uh subversive and life breathing. And so in in both uh genres, I'm very I kind of like Patricia Highsmith, I'm a very psychological writer. I'm very invested in what characters are thinking and feeling and how they process their relationships. Um and so even though the two are very different from each other, I'm still the same writer, you know, regardless of the genre that I'm in.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And I think that that shows too in in your sci-fi work is the characters are complex. They're they're just there's so much to read sci-fi work? I've read some of it, so I'm working my way through uh through the first one right now, and I am yeah, the characters are just like I'm glad. Yeah, yeah. Um, you just want to, I don't know how to describe it. Like there's just so much to to them um that yeah, I can see that being able to carry over regardless of what genre that you write.
SPEAKER_03I tend to write like really like tormented characters like that, which I personally love. Love it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So whether it's sci-fi or romance, there's a lot of like yearning and angst, and that's the best part.
SPEAKER_01I want, but I don't want fluff, like I still have to be complex characters.
SPEAKER_03I can if you want to have a fluffy moment in like the epilogue, that's great. But like give me the you know, give me the tortured stumble towards equilibrium and happiness. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01What's their trauma? Yeah, who hurt them?
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, I think also I um I mainly read fantasy. I read a lot of different things, and I read romance, I read fantasy, um, and I read science fiction. And so that's why when we scheduled this interview, I was like, wait a minute, I've gotta I gotta find this other stuff too. And I'm always intrigued uh by authors who can write such complex worlds and create them because I as a writer, I don't think that that's a gift that I have. Um, I tend to write more just contemporary um fiction. And so I'm always inspired and kind of in awe of of writers who can create these worlds over multiple books. And um so how does that how does your writing process work? Do you create settings? Are you coming up with plot lines? Do you create characters and then write stories around them? And does that work both ways for you know the sci-fi and the non-ci-fi work?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so I mean, one thing I'll say about the romance is part of why writing it has been and writing the fanfic has been actually much easier, is because the world building is pre-built for me. Like the context, the character, like it's all already there. I don't have to do that labor, so I can just have fun, right? Um world building from scratch for a series like the Kingdom trilogy is um very rewarding and very complicated and um and and requires a lot of mental mental resilience. Um so you know, I've been writing since I was seven years old. Um the first book I wrote was actually fanfiction, as it was, it was based on the Chronicles of Narnia. Like I wrote a Narnia book. I'll have that. The first poem that I wrote was uh a formal copy of Stopping by Woods in a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. Like I my earliest writing was responding to other people's writing and like going into those worlds. But the the many books that I've written over the years have I've done my own world building for them. And it it's a it's everything that you were just saying. It's like complex character charts, timelines, um, encyclopedic entries about the the cultures and the countries and the planets and the how you know commerce works and how energy works, um uh very, very detailed plot outlines that I'm just constantly writing from and rewriting and revising. So um there's a lot of pre-writing that goes into what I what I write, and then I'm a writer who um is constantly revived revising throughout the process. So that work of world building is constantly like evolving. Like I was working on my next novel last night, and I I suddenly had this revelation about something that I was gonna do, and this something is was related to world building. Um something I wanted to insert into the world I was working in, and it was like this is perfect, this is awesome, and now I have this new facet of my world that I didn't have. Love that, right? Um, and so that's like it's in many ways, it's the most fun part for me. Um, because I especially when it's a trilogy like mine, which is this kind of like a science fantasy, there's just no rules. I can do whatever the fuck I want. Like it's not our world, it's not set on earth, it's not set in our timeline. Like I can do whatever I want, and that is incredibly freeing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I think that's one of the reasons that I was always drawn to fantasy and sci-fi is that kind of escapism of you're reading something that's completely different from anything that you can see around you. But then I also love to read like romance and things like that because then I like to see myself in those. So I think that's the great thing about writing is that there's something out there for everything.
SPEAKER_01Can you see yourself in a space opera?
SPEAKER_00I mean, I can see myself in a space opera.
SPEAKER_03It depends on the space opera. I wouldn't really look at my space opera because like it's it's a horrible world. But what you're saying, something I find really interesting is I'm I'm obviously a huge sci-fi fantasy horror reader. It's these are my favorite genres. I love going into foreign worlds. But when it comes to romance, I prefer contemporary real-world romance. Yeah, I um I'm not uh I'm not drawn um as much to like fantasy romance or sci-fi romance, although I I have a friend who wrote a sci-fi sapphic rom com that's like one of the best books I've read ever. Uh Rebecca Framau. It's called Lady Eve's Last Con. Um it's amazing. Um but yeah, when it when it comes to like the romance that I read, um I I want I want contemporary real world. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I mean like fantasy and sci-fi, there's the the stakes are always so much higher. I mean, like the the world is exploding, or like the fairy king is gonna stab you in the throat. I don't know, like all kinds of crazy stuff. And then contemporary romance, you're just like, oh no, we missed each other. Fate wasn't on our side this time.
SPEAKER_03Yes or not. And it's like yeah, oh she brushed my hand. Yeah, exactly. You need those out that formula, yeah. Um, and so uh whereas you know, with with these like more epic adventure stories, like as far as you know, half these people. Gonna die.
SPEAKER_00You never know. Yeah, and I just read one not long ago that had been on my TBR for a long time, and it was you know, this you know, sapphic fantasy novel. So I just assumed at the end they would get together, and the end of the book came and that didn't happen. And I was like, I don't know if I feel cheated or not. Like, I loved it. This is a book, but also what happened?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, oh I know. If I if if if they don't get together at the end of the romance, then I am like flip the table. Where's the payoff? Come on, exactly.
SPEAKER_00I want the payoff.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Which I think was one of the great things about Carol is it was very influential in that it had a happy ending. It was the first the price of salt, obviously, the book. Yeah, but it was fun with a happy ending. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I think that that's uh one thing that I really do appreciate about that book of it being such a groundbreaking novel.
SPEAKER_03Is it doesn't just have a happy ending, it has an ending which is about possibility. Yes, something that lesbians historically were not able to even imagine was the possibility of happiness. So when that book and that movie ends, not with them like kissing and being like, I love you, let's move in together, but with like them seeing each other across a restaurant. Like what that moment is about is that the world is opening up with possibility for them. And that's deeply profound within the context of LGBT experience, particularly in the past uh couple centuries. Um, and uh, and so that's what I think make and I think that um that the movie actually captures that really well, and there are some people who are like, that's it, and it's like, yeah, that's fucking it, because Carol is smiling and realizing she doesn't have to go kill herself because her lover doesn't want to be with her. Yeah, yeah. The ending was my favorite scene in the entire movie. And the and the smising that they did. Oh my god, nobody could have done it better. Nobody's smising.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god, and also the score. Like, I've listened to the score. I don't know if that's like super nerdy of me, but I've been I've listened to the score so many times, and I feel all of the emotions that I've felt watching the film when I listen to the music because I know exactly like what's happening. I've watched it so many times.
SPEAKER_03I'm telling you myself, but and the score is so great, and it's so deeply romantic, like it's a very romantic score.
SPEAKER_01Um and sneezed.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, yeah, I think that the possibility of the happy ending that was a big thing for me in like my queer awakening when I was younger. And one of the reasons I sought out so much queer media wherever I could get it was there wasn't a lot of happy endings portrayed. I mean, we saw what happened to Willow and Tara, and so I mean, I was just looking for that possibility of I could have a happy life at some point that looked like what I wanted it to look like. And I think that's one of the biggest importance of queer literature and queer media overall, is making sure that that message continues.
SPEAKER_03Well, and that specifically has been what Safic fanfic has done that's been so important. You look at in Xena, in Buffy, in the Hundred, in Person of Interest, these iconic lesbian relationships, one of them dies. And those are just the ones that I can think of off the top of my head. I know there are others. And so, and for so many, particularly when you think about something like the hundred, like people were so deeply devastated by Lex's death. Like it was traumatizing for so many little queers. And that is what uh fanfic has done is like created a place to heal from that trauma of always seeing your love story end in tragedy. Um, and that's what I find so powerful about fanfic. And is and and it's it's similar in fanfic that like we were talking about with Devil Wears Prada, where in in the actual text they don't get together, and in fact, there may be like no sign that they would ever get together. But in the fanfic, you can take that story that re those characters that resonated for you and imagine a another queer possibility for yourself, and that's and that's been you know so important to so many people. It's you know, it's like I'm so proud to be a fanfic writer. Like I'm so proud to be a part of the AO3 community. I donate to AO3 two times a year. Like I don't think I'm not remotely embarrassed um to be a part of this because I think it is like one of the most beautiful and important things that queer people have going for us.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah in the world. Yeah. I mean, it like I said before, it was one of the most influential things for me in my queer journey of like coming out and discovering fan fiction at a time where I didn't see myself anywhere else. And so I think that that's great. I also agree, Lexa's death. There were a lot of unnecessary deaths to queer characters. Lexa's was one of the most unnecessary, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_03That was This is what happens when straight male showrunners don't understand what they've got, and that's what we saw over and over again was straight male.
SPEAKER_00The fandom they could have had throughout the rest of that show would have been a force worth reckoning. Like it would have been just like crazy because the backlash they got over it was like the show never fully recovered from that. I don't know how much I watched after that, honestly. I've never finished the series before.
SPEAKER_03I watched the third season and it was wait, did she die in the third season or the second? No, she dies in the second season. Yeah. Spoiler alert. That's okay. We spoiled everything on the disclaimer for us anyway. I watched the third season and it was actually pretty good, and then it like quickly just kind of went. But it defaults, yeah. That's what happens with so many shows where they don't you want to get back to the question of world building. When showrunners don't know how long their story is, and so they don't actually plan the long arc of their story. So many shows have been destroyed by that. I think the hundred is an example, I think Battlestar Galactica is an example. Um, where, and this is this is the downside of you know serial television, but every once in a while they get it, they get it right. They get it right, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I will say that um I've said it on here before, I'm pretty sure, and I will stand on this soapbox for the rest of my life that Dana Scully is one of the most like gay awakening characters in existence. Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_03I had Gillian Anderson.
SPEAKER_00Gillian Anderson, a awakening person. 100%. I my goal in life is to die in a sandwich between Gillian Anderson and Kate Winslett. If I get to pick how I go, that's that's how I want to go.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Kate Winslett is my gay awakening in Titanic. That was mine. I was like, wow, boobs.
SPEAKER_03It hasn't been enough for the gays, though. Like she should have done much more queer content in her room. That's so true.
SPEAKER_01I mean, there's still time. There's still time. Kate Winslit, if you're listening to this, do more queer films.
SPEAKER_00Also, if Kate Winslett is listening to this.
SPEAKER_01You're listening, Kate.
SPEAKER_00Of course she is.
SPEAKER_03Give the lesbians what they want.
SPEAKER_00Give them what they want. Um, Kate Winslett.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, both of them together.
SPEAKER_01Why don't they just do it together?
SPEAKER_03The Kate is the straight who keeps on giving. She has she just giving the lesbians what they want.
SPEAKER_01The strength that keeps on giving. The strength that keeps on giving. Yeah. Oh man. Yeah. Well, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for chatting with us. Uh, if anybody wants to check out Bethany Jacobs A03 fan fiction, her handle is Indoor Butch. It's all fantastic. It's my favorite, and it's my first taste of fan fiction, and I'll never turn back. Also, the Kingdom trilogy, if you're into sci-fi, sounds fantastic.
SPEAKER_03And Sapphic Sci-Fi, I will throw that out. Sapphic Sci-Fi. So definitely check it out. Yes, definitely check it out because uh the gays are in there too. Love it. Yeah. Love it so much. This was so fun. Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much.