Kate Beer Writing As Eliza MacArthur Shares Best Advice from Grad School: "Everything Is a Love Story"

We recently interviewed the fabulous, talented, and hilarious Kate Beer writing as Eliza MacArthur. 

The quote in the title "Everything is a love story" is her sharing the best advice she received in grad school from the amazing Kenny Cook! 

Eliza MacArthur is a writer of romance and humor. She lives in the mid-south with her husband, two feral werewolf children, and two doodles who, if she is honest, are more rotisserie chicken than canine. She is fueled by decaf coffee and a good grumpy/sunshine trope.

She cut her teeth stealing romances from the cabinet under her mom’s bathroom sink (where all good Midwestern moms kept their Julie Garwood paperbacks in the 90’s.)

Eliza’s debut novel, Soft Flannel Hank, releases in April 2023. She is currently writing two serialized romances on Patreon: a paranormal romance entitled Til All the Seas Run Dry (sequel to Soft Flannel Hank, out Spring 2023) and a medieval highland romance entitled Hold Fast.

You can find her website here. 

Transcript

0:24

Welcome to M F A Payday, where we talk with people about how they make their M F A pay. We're your host, Dreama Drudge, and Barry Drudge. Today our guest is Kate Beer, but we're gonna be talking about her as her writer, Nam de Bloom, Eliza MacArthur is a writer of romance and humor. She lives in the mid-south with her husband. Two feral werewolf children and two doodles who, if she is honest, are more rotisserie chicken than canine. She is fueled by decaf coffee and a good grumpy sunshine trope. She cut her teeth, stealing romances from the cabinet under her mom's bathroom sink. We're all good. Midwestern moms kept their Julie Garwood paperbacks in the nineties. Eliza's debut novel soft flannel Hank releases in April, 2023. She is currently writing two serialized romances on Patreon. A paranormal romance entitled Till All the Seas Run Dry. Sequels of flannel and a Medieval Highland romance entitled. Hold fast. Welcome Kate. Elijah, thank you. Yes, thank you. We've been hoping to get you on the show for quite a while and we are so excited that you, I know, I know my daughter's in preschool, which is, um, a petri dish of horrors. So it's, it's been, it's been a long time coming. Glad to be here. Yes, yes.. So you are writing as Eliza MacArthur? I am. So have you, other than reading your mother's romances, her loin, romances her loin, have you always, that's such a good word, right? Have you always been interested in writing romance? So, I'm gonna get very sad cuz that's kind of what I do. I bring the sad girl vibe to every party. I read romance. All through high school, kinda under the radar. And then I went to college and I was, I'm an English and history double major, so everything was, you know, Brit lit, American Lit, very classic, BA wolf four times, And then I got an mfa. And I have many, many, many, many, many good things to say about m FFA programs. As a graduate of One, one criticism I have is that they tend to look down upon what they call genre fiction. Hmm, fantasy sci-fi, romance, um, anything that comes in a mass market paperback is kind of like the drags. And so that I adopted that rather pretentious, uh, point of view for myself and, uh, was reading only the lofty of literary fiction. If it wasn't in award winner, I wasn't interested And, um, was writing really, just really depressing shit. um, everything. Like I, I was writing about a, i I was attached at the time as a, as, as a bit of a historian for an armored cavalry unit, um, a Vietnam Veterans, and they're dear gentlemen. And I wanted to write a book about a, uh, Vietnam War veteran and, languished over this novel in stories very ala Olive Kittridge or Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich, um, which is still one of my favorite books, but, um, wrote that the Entirety did an enrichment semester after graduation to to keep going and, couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. Worked with Kenny Cook for that enrichment semester, and he told me, in very clear terms what was wrong with it. And he was like, the problem is, this book is a love story, but you don't want it to be a love story and you are fighting with your very last breath to make it not a love story. And I was like, it's not a love story. It's a war story. It's gritty, it's a war story. It's a story of like recovery and trauma and you know, like digging deep and, and finding yourself. And he was like, yeah, duh. Love story, um, because as he said, everybody loves something even if they don't love someone. And, and he tried to explain it to me and I was not ready to hear it. You know what I mean? Like, you know how sometimes you get really good advice and you're just not prepared. For it. Um, but you know, he walked me through it. He is like, even if you look at like Othello, Yago loves ambition. He loves the idea of power, even if he doesn't love a person. Everything is a love story. You just have to find out what or who they love. And, again, didn't wanna hear it and I was like, sure, sure. And then I abandoned it for like eight years. Didn't write a thing in that vein. And I started blogging. I wrote a humor blog throughout this and was still reading. Really depressing, award-winning shit. And then my dad died and I read the Dove Keepers. I don't know if you've read that book. I think it's Alice Hoffman. Um, read that book about three weeks after my dad passed away, and then balled for a solid six hours, like a solid six hours. and, um, just decided that I didn't want to do that anymore and that my reading time is my leisure time. My reading is supposed to be my, my time to enjoy myself. And that's not to say that literary fiction cannot be enjoyable. Yeah, it's, it can be and it is, but I, my life was very sad. On its own, desperately sad on its own. And so I needed something where I was guaranteed, um, that everything was gonna be okay in the end. I needed that h e a guarantee, as we say in romance because it can't be classified as romance if there's not either a happily ever or after, or at least a happy for now. There has to be a positive resolution. So I dug back into my mom's stash, which were surprise, surprise, still under her bathroom counter Which is just a really beautiful full circle moment for this story. Um, this very long winded story. And it was Julie Garwood and I don't even remember. I think it was Ransom, which is a problematic fave in that I cannot even really describe how many are ways it is problematic. But again, the nineties were the wild, wild west, um, not nearly as wild as the seventies and eighties for romance. It was just very refreshing to read something that. Ended well with what, you know, Gwen Hayes calls wholehearted. Like Gwen Hayes wrote this wonderful craft book called Romancing the Beat, and I recommend it to everybody, not just romance writers, because it's, it's a really brilliant look at structure and character. Um, and the ending is always like, what the last beat is, what does wholehearted look like? And I love that. And I love, um, that's, I think one of the things I love about romance is just like, it doesn't mean that everybody rides off into the sunset and gets a castle and a baby and, you know, like, you know, the traditional romance now is doing some really incredible things where like sometimes the ending is you're sitting in your shit still, but you're sitting in it with someone else. Yes. And um, Like, you're not alone. And what wholehearted looks like is like working through trauma or working through your life or figuring it out. You don't have to have everything solved, but you have someone with you to like bear witness to that experience and you're not alone. Because I think ultimately one of the things that is so essential to that human experience is we don't want to be alone. But this is why, this is what led me to reading romance. And so then I was like, well, I have a spiffy little MFA that is still in the, cardboard tube in a box in my attic. I, I should write, I should try to write romance and, Some of that lingering condescension from my mfa. Remi remained in that when I started, I was like, well, this will be easy. Anybody can do this. Reader, not everyone can do it. Um, because to to suspend, I mean, you're writers to suspend believable tension between two human beings for a hundred thousand words Yeah. Is incredibly difficult. Yes, So my first book was Hold Fast and I started that, I started writing that my, I got pregnant with my daughter about four months after my dad passed away. I started writing that book in like tiny chunks, like five minute increments when she was about five months old. Um, just because I had kind of lost my entire identity in motherhood and wanted something for myself. And so it was like five minutes here, 10 minutes here, maybe if I was lucky. I got an hour here. Um, and so I just kind of chipped away at it and finished it, went on submission. Nobody wanted it and I was deeply depressed. Um, didn't write anything for like two more years and then, but I, but I started a, a book Instagram account, which if you're not familiar books, Instagram is like this whole little niche of Instagram that's just really lovely and it's filled with, you know, book reviewers and authors and readers, and it's truly my favorite place on the internet. and I was in a live. With a few other readers and an author. And we were talking about, the Twilight Series. This is, this is gonna be the weirdest chat you've ever had with someone Nope. And, um, Stephanie Myers Twilight series, early 2000 Sensation, um, vampires at Sparkle And uh, which if you didn't know 50 Shades of Gray is Twilight Fanfic. I don't know if he is. Yes, that was my mind. Yes, Yeah. I have lots of opinions on that, that series. None of them are positive, but we don't have to talk about that It's not cuz they're romance. That's just, that's a different podcast. We can do that. Yes, yes, yes. It's, but we were talking about how like, you know, that you're an adult when you're no longer willing to participate in the conversation between like Team Jacob, team Edward, but you're like, can we get the dads like Charlie, Charlie can get it, can get it still. And that got me thinking about, it just kind of ins it, it got me thinking about a character. Who is middle-aged has a daughter who wants nothing to do with him, uh, is divorced, his life is in shambles. And this was all happening at about the same time that, Breonna Taylor was murdered in Louisville and I live in Louisville. And so there was a lot of very tough conversations happening about policing and community and the role of policing and community and, and racial justice ex, et cetera. I wanted to write a character who had left. His job. And he's a small town cop in the Pacific Northwest. That, that is where I have in place, but he couldn't do it anymore. There's an incident at the beginning, and so the only thing he is ever wanted to do his whole life is be a police officer. And this, the book ends with him in therapy because he can't sleep anymore because of what has happened. And he's, he's a big burly plus sized man. And, you know, he's, he is cranky as hell and the saddest horniest boy which is its own trope. And that book kind of, I, I got the idea, I started writing it and I got to chapter five and I have a very dear friend who was like, why don't you start a Patreon. and put it out one chapter every two weeks or you know, like whatever, and, you know, see where it goes. And I did, and the book kind of wrote itself, um, once I got started. And there we are. And so now I'm writing the sequel and Hold Fast, which was the first book I wrote. Um, getting a full rewrite now that I have the distance to see why it didn't get picked up on submission. And I'm very glad, you know, those, you know, those things where you're like really disappointed, but like two years later you're like, oh my God, thank God. Yeah. Yes. I am forever grateful to every single agent who rejected me, um, for that book because, uh, it was not Ready I remember your writing very well. I remember it. Oh really? It had such power. Oh God. Makes me anxious. No, no, no. It was so powerful and it was so passionate. This is workshop part two, that Oh, yes. Workshop. Yes. Yes. And my feeling. She's writing important stuff and I'm not and now I describe people fucking in recliners. So, which is important. No, it's very important. No, I, I'm not denigrating romance I to my dying breath, I'll defend it. Um, that's very sweet of you to say Well, and I, I, I understand because it's like, you know, while you're in the middle of all of that, you know, you've got your mentors suggesting books and they're all like, I was, I can just remember like the odd sea that at the end of it, you know, they've, they've never found the brother and they're all just kind of in the woods staring around going mm-hmm. what now? I was banana pants at 22 and got into law school, a couple of law schools, and then had what my dad referred to as a quarter life crisis, um, where I rejected all of those acceptances, uh, broke up with my boyfriend, um, who I'm now married to. It's fine. Happy a hour after we're, we're all good. But yeah. And then on a lark was like, well, you know, when you were a kid you always said you wanted to be a writer. Um, and I had a, an ad in my Facebook for Spaulding and uh, literally the very first thing that I wrote in a creative non-college setting was my application piece for that. And then I got in it's, it was fortuitous. I learned a lot. I loved my time in the m f program because it did solidify for me that like, truly the only thing I've ever wanted to do is be a writer. When I was a kid, I'd write books. I'd illustrate them too. Um, but I, I, that's all I've ever wanted to do is like tell stories. And so it was kind of an interesting, like, you know, ripping my life to shreds. To find my way back, There were were moments where my family was like, okay, let's, you're not gonna law school. What are you gonna do? You're a barista getting an mfa, I was diagnosed with A D H D at the age of like 34, so I'm a late. Um, it was like I was, I had all these coping mechanisms and I was one of those like gifted and talented students. And then the pandemic happened and I was locked down with a newborn baby, uh, who was born, uh, one week before the first surge and big shut down. And, uh, all those coping mechanisms went out the, out the window. And I like to joke that I am just like six raccoons in a human suit. And the raccoons ran wild and, uh, Ritalin has been magic. Yeah, I'm a painter. I'm a graphic designer. I write, I just kind of like, if it is creative in any way, I'm very drawn to it. I like pretty things. I'm like a, like I'm a craft hoarder. Uh, I like to have a lot of skills acquired. I did all the col, I learned calligraphy to do my sister's wedding invitations. Have I done calligraphy since? Absolutely not. But it was a really fun journey while I was on it. Um, But yeah, that's, that's the d h ADHD where you Yeah, yeah. Graveyard of abandoned crafts. Do you have a best tip for writers? Um, don't make it harder than it has to be. And I mean that very specifically. So I feel like writers. I'm trying to like, enter into this in a logical way instead of just like spewing my brain. But I think I'm gonna just spew my brain. So I had a friend, Ashley Rose, who was a writer, is a writer. And she always used to tell me that if it feels like you're pushing a Buick through a, like a wood chipper, it's probably not right. And I remember that, and I have since credited her with that quote and, and given that advice to, to many other people that, um, I have a feeling that we, we as writers sometimes get very stubborn. I mean, I know I do. And that it's like, this is gonna work. I'm gonna make this work. And that's one of the reasons some of us write so slowly is because we're just trying to force it to happen. And when she told me that, it really changed my, um, My seat from which I write, and that if it feels hard, I mean, I mean, I know Hemingway did that really tortured quote about like, what I don't enjoy reading or writing. I enjoy having written. I think that was Hemingway. I don't remember. You enjoyed or Likeer said something about like, writing is easy, all you must do is like bleed all over your typewriter or whatever. So that I think is like my biggest tip for people who aren't already writing. It's like, don't make it harder than it is. I grew up on Sister Act too. If, if that, if you know what a brilliant movie that is. Mm-hmm. But she's, but Whippy Goldberg is talking to, um, Lauren Hill's character, and she's quoting a book, but she says like, if you wake up in the morning and all you can think about is writing, then you're meant to be a writer. And if you wake up in the morning and all you can think about is singing, then you're meant to be a singer. And I kind of, I always quote that moment and then I'm like, if all you wanna do is tell the story, just start writing it. You don't need an fa, you don't need an A mentor. You don't need an editor. Yes. You just need yourself and the discipline to do it. Yes. Just do it. Even if it's crap. First drafts are supposed to be trash. Yes. And then you take the trash and you make them beautiful, you know, and it, you know, like, just do it. Don't be scared. Just do it. Um, or be scared and do it anyway. Um, perfect. I think that those are my two, my two big tips for writers. Like, you gotta just do the thing. You can't, like languish over all the reasons you can't do it. Cause then you never will. Yeah, that's true. Very true. So, on the converse side of that, what would it be that you're feeding your soul with reading wise? Reading. Oh, it's gonna get real weird, y'all. I don't think that everything needs to be enriching. Ooh, sometimes. You want to just, just as when like not everything needs to be a kale salad. Yes. Sometimes you just want a cookie. Yes. Is the cookie gonna make you live longer? No. Is the cookie gonna teach you lots of like hard learned physical lesson? No, but sometimes you just wanna digest something that you don't have to chew. You know what I mean? I've been in like 10 Instagram lives talking about Ice Planet barbarians. It is such a darling within the romance community because it is such a, a flip on traditional romances in that these male aliens, I won't say men, cuz they're aliens, I mean like men, whatever. They have been believing that they will never find love because there's no one there. Like everyone, they, everyone has either resonated to someone or they're dead or it's just a bunch of other dudes like, and it is a bit heteronormative. Like I will say this series is very heteronormative, but they, they resonate to these women who are like, who are you? And it's like, they're the ones buying the bridal magazines basically. And they're, they are like so devoted and so lovely and so precious and just like, Earnest, and I think it's a really nice cultural slip, and I have it on good authority that she does this deliberately. Because I think that within romance there's like this, this stereotype that like the women, and again in a heteronormative Sure romance novel, the women fall in love and the men kind of like begrudgingly fall after them. And it's like the flip on this, like the men are like my love, my heart. And they're like, Um, no um, wow. But it's, it's very, it's very, uh, good if you're looking for a more like traditional, um, romance food. I've been, uh, reading a lot of Lisa Klaus lately. I recently did a, a reading series called The Chaos Klaus, where I read 15 Lisa Klaus novels completely out of order, which really stressed a lot of people out. Um, there was a lot of screeching in my dms about that Um, so, cause they were, she's one of the greats and she's of the Great For a reason, because they were serialized or is it because they just, people want them in order. It's like a series and they want you to read the series in order and I would be like, no, I had like books from five different Lisa Klaus series cuz Lisa Klaus has written something like 60 books more than that, like a ton of books. And I was only reading like 15 or 20, I don't remember the exact number. And so they were from probably. Five different series and I put them in like a generator, and read them completely out of order, um, wow. And it really stress people out They really, I hate it. I hate it. The protein is that way. Did it feel more like a composite to you then? I mean, did you get some kind of, of different view because you weren't reading them as a serialized, you know, work? He really enjoyed it. There are certain books that I think definitely work in a series, particularly when they're very character driven and a character does something very, very, very naughty in one book. Um, and you write them off as, as of an, you know, irredeemable rake and then Surprise, they're the next book. Um, I read the Surprise. They're the next book first. And then, you know, like three books later read the one where they did the very naughty and I was like, what? Sebastian, how dare you That's all we're doing right, is borrowing from other people for sure. And, um, not literally, not plagiarizing, but it's like, oh, that moment or that type of arc or that character redemption or whatever, I love that. I'm gonna try to, you know, incorporate that. And I think reading them out of order had a lot of value because it enabled me to kind of, I think sometimes when you see a machine already put together, it's hard for you to like visualize it. As parts. Yeah. Mm-hmm. But if you see all the parts laid out on the table, it's, it's interesting for the brain to be like, okay, how would I arrange this? How would I put this back together? And I think that reading that series out of, there was some series you absolutely cannot read out of order cuz they don't make sense. How can we find you online? You don't wanna come to your door necessarily. Well, maybe we do. Let me, let me get my notes. Cause I can never remember if you're still on Twitter. Um, which I'll be fully transparent. I have a Twitter account I drop in like once a month and then I chaos tweet like six things in a row, and then I disappear for another month, Um, but if you are still in the wasteland, that is Twitter, I am at Eliza underscore MacArthur. Um, but you can mostly find me on Instagram where I am at Eliza MacArthur writes, um, just all one. And you can, I have a, a thing in my bio that links you to like the Patreon. If you go to my website, it's eliza macarthur.com. Um, I have a, a teaser page. I basically have some excerpts from soft flannel, Hank how you can subscribe to the Patreon. Um, I post a new chapter every week, unless there's like a major holiday where I am ill with the plague. So that rarely happens. Um, and then on Facebook, I. I am trying to get Facebook. I know Facebook's a super important tool for writers. I just, I hate it, um, but I am facebook.com. Slash or back slash I never remember. You know the one, um, Eliza's mc readers. E l i z a s m a c r e a d e r s. Um mm-hmm We're trying to be punny. I love it. Um, so yeah, maybe you all can help me grow my Facebook page, which is sad and I'm never there cuz I forget I have it. Um. Do you have a newsletter associated with your website? Oh, Lord. Um, you can subscribe on my website. I'm gonna get back into it. My, my p my PR company, uh, my PR rep is constantly screaming at me about a newsletter and I was like, I'm warning you, it's just gonna be a lot of stuff about my dogs in the uterus. That's okay. here's, here's some book stuff at the very end, um, she's like, I really don't care. That's a good lesson for life. There will always be people that don't like you. Oh yeah. Not everyone has to like you. You know, you have to like you. And that's it to me. To me, part of it. In some people is the, the personality is part of the brand, you know? I think so. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. I think you see that with a lot of, like, you see that in romance a lot. Not so much the romance I read cuz it's a really broad, like anything, it's a super broad category, but you have a lot of romance authors who, um, tend to use the same cover models and they bring those cover models to their signings. And so like, it's like a whole thing and like that, that is as much like, it's part of the brand. And, um, so will you be bringing cover models to the, the signings? I mean, if they would wanna come, I would have to do like a reverse model search from, because I designed my own covers cuz I'm a graphic designer. I would have to like, go through the Shutterstock and be like, okay, who is this model? Who is his agent? Let me email be like, hello, random stranger. You do not know me. But you are now the face of a small town former cop who falls in love with a witch. Love it. Do you wanna come to this convention? Um, and hope I don't get a restraining order. You know, it might be interesting if you do. I, I'll frame it. I'll be like, the cover model would not come. Uh, but here is the frame restraining order that the cover model sent me. Please take your pictures with it. Um, yeah, no, I don't, I don't think they would do that. They get really touchy. There's a lot of models that won't do erotica covers. They have like very strict policies. Um, but. It has been great. We've been talking to Kate Beer who writes as Eliza MacArthur Well, thank you for your time, Kate, and until next time, keep writing all the things