Be a Cockroach at the Columbus Book Festival

Rob Harvilla (00:00):
It shames me that one of you has published a new book in the time since we've last spoken. I'm very embarrassed.

Alex Rowland (00:05):
Oh, my next book comes out next week. Did I not mention that?

Rob Harvilla (00:08):
<laugh> Okay, you should have mentioned that. And now I feel terrible. I've just been sitting around lo these months while you actually generated material. Congratulations to both of you. <laugh>.

Laura Maylene Walter (00:23):
Welcome to Page Count presented by the Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. I'm your host, Laura Maylene Walter.

Laura Maylene Walter (00:34):
All right, so the plan for today's episode was to share the panel conversation I had at the Columbus Book Festival in July with authors and podcasters, Rob Harvilla, Libby Kay and Alex Rowland. What actually happened is I drove all the way down to Columbus for the event, I logged along microphones and a recorder, extension cords, all that stuff, got all set up, tested everything...I wasn't very familiar with this equipment; it's not what I usually use. So I was really checking to make sure everything worked right. And it did, and it looked like things were going great. The panel was going great. Long story short, I noticed about 40 minutes into our hour-long conversation that I had never actually hit "record" when the session started. <laugh>. There are some reasons for why I thought it was recording when it wasn't. There were red lights involved, I was checking the audio levels...

Laura Maylene Walter (01:22):
I won't get into more detail. It was absolutely my fault. Definitely embarrassing. So I hit record 40 minutes in, but of course by then most of our conversation was lost. And in case you're wondering, yes, I know, I didn't actually have to admit that I didn't hit record. But as you'll hear in this episode, part of our conversation was about podcasting and about the mistakes we've made as podcasters. So the fact that in Page Count's two and a half year history, this was the first and only time I ever neglected to hit record on an episode, and that I did it in a live event that I had to travel to get to...that was just all too perfect. So I thought, I'm just going to be transparent. I'm going to tell you that I did not hit record, not my finest moment, but thankfully Rob and Alex and Libby were really cool about the whole thing. So they agreed to get on Zoom with me and rerecord part of our conversation. So what you're about to hear is our do-over, followed by the last 15 or 20 minutes or so of the live event that I did manage to save. I'm going to turn it over now to the real stars, who are these authors and podcasters--people who are way too smart to forget to hit a big red button. Enjoy.

Laura Maylene Walter (02:38):
All right listeners, thanks for your patience as we time travel a bit today. I'm here on a Zoom call with my guest authors, and we're all pretending we're back at the Columbus Book Festival at the Columbus Metropolitan Library, where we convened in person in July to record this episode before a live audience. But as I already disclosed in my intro, things didn't go entirely as planned. So now we're here trying to recapture the magic of that in-person conversation. What makes this especially frustrating, or maybe appropriate depending on how you look at it, is that in addition to being authors, my guests are podcast hosts. Award-winning, popular, beloved podcast hosts, and during our live event, we discussed podcast production, including some mistakes we've made along the way. At the time I didn't have one big splashy mistake to share, just lots of little deficiencies. But now look, here we are. I've done it <laugh>. So let me introduce our guests.

Laura Maylene Walter (03:28):
Rob Harvilla is a rock critic host of the podcast 60 Songs that Explain the '90s., and author of the book by the same name, Libby Kay is an author of romance novels including the Buckeye Falls series, and co-hosts the Romance Roundup podcast with Liz Donatelli. Finally, Alexandra Rowland is the author of fantasy books, including, most recently, RUNNING CLOSE TO THE WIND. Alex was a four-time Hugo Award-nominated podcaster as a host of Be the Serpent. Thank you all so much for being here and Groundhog Day-ing this entire conversation with me. I am humbled and grateful and deeply ashamed. Welcome! Glad to have you.

Alex Rowland (04:10):
No need to be ashamed.

Libby Kay (04:11):
Yeah, don't be ashamed. We're all human.

Alex Rowland (04:13):
We're all human. Exactly. Jinx <laugh>.

Laura Maylene Walter (04:16):
No one has more sympathy than fellow podcast hosts, that's for sure. But one of the things I really enjoyed about this panel at the Columbus Book Festival is that I think all three of you represent a really interesting mix of podcasts and also of books that you write. We have a book that actually came out of a successful podcast, and we have podcasts that more broadly celebrate books and reading and perhaps don't tie as closely to the author's own books. I would put myself in that category with Page Count. But before we get into the podcast of it all, you were in Columbus this summer to promote and talk about and sell your books. So let's hear a little bit more about each of your most recent books. Alex, let's start with you. Can you give us an overview of RUNNING CLOSE TO THE WIND?

Alex Rowland (04:59):
Yeah, absolutely. RUNNING CLOSE TO THE WIND is a comedic fantasy adventure novel about a crew of scrungly queer pirates who accidentally steal the most valuable secret in the world and have to find a buyer for it while dodging horny sea serpents and taking part in a plot-relevant cake competition. It is kind of humor in the vein of Terry Pratchett, and the broader themes are about resistance against institutional oppression, especially in marginalized communities, and networks of support.

Laura Maylene Walter (05:33):
Awesome, thank you so much. And Libby, can you tell us about your latest book, which is FAKING THE FALL?

Libby Kay (05:40):
Absolutely. And actually this is great that we had to delay because it's perfect for this time of year. It is a fall-themed, as the title would suggest, fake dating trope, meaning that the hero and heroine are pretending to date. And of course they're going to fall in love. It is part of my Buckeye Falls series, but you can enjoy it as a standalone. It's on the sweeter side, so not too much shenanigans going on on the page. So it's good for fans of something like Hallmark maybe or those sweeter Lifetime movies or even Netflix. Actually, again, it's nice that we were delayed because the sequel to that, FOREVER TO FALL just came out last month. So I can do a shameless plug for that as well. And that continues on with some more of those crazy Buckeye townsfolks. So yeah, so if you're in the mood for a sweet romance this fall, I would highly suggest you pick up both of them. <laugh>

Laura Maylene Walter (06:23):
Yes, and congrats on the latest release. I'll be sure to link to that book as well in the show notes. And then finally, to start to make the podcast and book connection, we'll turn to you, Rob. Your book is a companion to your podcast. I hope you'll tell us a little bit about it, 60 SONGS THAT EXPLAIN THE '90s. But I did call this out during the Columbus Book Festival, so I'll do it again because I loved how you summed it up on your Lisa Loeb episode. You called your podcast "bizarrely vivid and insultingly mundane personal reveries. That is my brand." So maybe you'd like to expand on that a little bit. Tell us about your podcast and your book.

Rob Harvilla (06:58):
It's true. I have two quick things. First of all, it shames me that one of you has published a new book in the time since we last spoke. I'm very embarrassed.

Alex Rowland (07:07):
Oh, my next book comes out next week. Did I not mention that? <laugh>

Rob Harvilla (07:10):
Okay, you should have mentioned that. And now I feel terrible. I've just been sitting around lo these months while you actually generated new material <laugh>. Congratulations to both of you.

Alex Rowland (07:20):
Thank you.

Libby Kay (07:20):
Thank you <laugh>.

Rob Harvilla (07:22):
Second, my personal feelings about writing and podcasting have changed entirely since we last spoke. And so I will try to approximate my feelings from July. Okay. 60 SONGS THAT EXPLAIN THE '90s. The podcast launched in October of 2020. It is, as the title suggests or tries to suggest, one song per episode, and it starts off with a long sort of monologue from me. I thought I would freestyle it eventually, but I never did. I just write it word for word and sort of deliver it as a monologue. We ended up doing 120 songs. The show finally wrapped up earlier this year, in the spring of this year. And the book 60 SONGS THAT EXPLAIN THE '90s emerged as a companion to that. I went back to the script, which by that point had totaled 700,000 words or so. And I tried to condense them radically, severely, violently into a book that you could actually pick up and carry around.

Rob Harvilla (08:18):
Mundane reveries, et cetera are my brands. You know, I have been a rock critic for 20 years. I've never really talked much about myself, certainly about my family, you know, my feelings per se. But over the course of the podcast, what people seemed to respond to the most were my super mundane reveries of like, I drove to Denny's while listening to this song and I'll remember it forever. Like people responded to that, and not because of me or even because of that song, but it just got them thinking about their own mundane reveries, you know? And so this show is the most response to anything I've ever gotten. And I think that's sort of what people responded to was just the idea of how songs intertwine with our lives in spectacularly pedestrian ways that feel very important to us. And so the book came out in November of last year of 2023. The show is preparing to come back in a newish form and I think that's it. Yeah, <laugh>.

Laura Maylene Walter (09:14):
Yeah, I will. I mentioned the Lisa Loeb episode, which I will link to, but that I think is a good example listeners of an episode that has a deep personal connection. Well, before we move on, Alex, since your new book will have come out by the time this airs, can you tell us a little bit about that?

Alex Rowland (09:30):
It's called YIELD UNDER GREAT PERSUASION and it is a cozy, gay romantasy about second and third chances and the hard, difficult journey towards self-forgiveness. It's got a one-sided enemies to lovers cause one of them has had a grudge since they were like nine years old. And the other one has been pining and yearning since they were nine years old. And also they've been sleeping together for 10 years. So they're both idiots and they fall in love <laugh>, and it's got plant magic and like a cozy small town community and gossip and nosy, busybody gods. So also kind of like good for that fall vibe cause it has a lot of the harvest time kind of vibes to it. So there you go.

Laura Maylene Walter (10:12):
Excellent. Well congratulations to you. Well, I would love to ask about how podcasting fits into your lives as writers. So you're authors, Rob, in your case a journalist, and there's this perception of writers kind of enjoying being alone in a room just doing the writing work, and podcasting is much more public and putting your voice out there. So can you talk about that connection? What drew you to making a podcast, how did your podcast begin, and how has that worked out with your writing lives?

Alex Rowland (10:40):
Be the Serpent started because I had two friends, Macey and Freya, and we were having some really amazingly deep conversations over our slack chat about literature and fan fiction and kind of the role of fanfiction in the broader literary conversation. And we were having so much fun talking about these things, but it was a lot of typing and so we said maybe it would be cool to talk about this with voices instead to save our hands. And then like 10 seconds after that we said, as long as we're talking about it, what if we record it and do a podcast? We're on sort of indefinite hiatus right now, but we've spent four years releasing an episode every other week talking about these books and movies and TV shows and fanfictions that we loved and the tropes that they feature and why we love those tropes and how each different thing was approaching the trope theme of that episode. I think that I do enjoy being alone in a room, but you know, being alone in a room with a couple friends is also really, really good. And it's definitely made me a better writer. It certainly made me a better critic because it was basically a grad school program in thinking about literature and batting ideas around and digging deeper past the surface. So I'm so, so glad that I did it. We had such an amazing time and yeah, I really learned so much about it.

Libby Kay (12:12):
So for me, I definitely like the writer side of things being, you know, in a room on the couch writing and just being in my own head. But I think the only thing I like more than writing romance novels is reading them. And that's how Romance Roundup started. My co-host Liz Donatelli has the Reader Seeks Romance channel already. And so she's been doing a variety of shows and interviews that are romance-related. We met a few years ago at a book club here in Columbus, Ohio, and we started basically just talking about books to the point of insanity, kind of like what Alex just referenced. And we thought, oh, we're pretty fun and witty and we think we have good opinions. So what happens if we start coming up with different themes, you know, each week having a different theme. And then we had some connections to other romance writers, influencers, podcasters. And actually again, it's great, this is delayed cause we just celebrated our one year anniversary of the podcast. So this is just fabulous.

Alex Rowland (13:02):
Congratulations!

Libby Kay (13:03):
We can celebrate Romance Roundup. So that's kind of how that started is just a couple readers who really like romance books. Obviously I'll throw a shameless plug in there now and then for Buckeye Falls. But the show really is about the romance genre and it's kind of our love letter to all the different types of kissing books out there. And we try really hard to not just stick in our comfort zone. And that's been part of the fun of the show is trying to figure out, like, how do you describe things that you might not have liked but you still want to recommend because there's a reader for everything? So that's been one of the fun challenges with it. And again, it's just two friends having a good time and we've met some really great people along the way this past year. And I'm just very fortunate that people still want to listen to us talk about romance books cause I'll do it until they stop

Alex Rowland (13:46):
<laugh>

Rob Harvilla (13:48):
For me, this is my first podcast. I had been a rock critic for 20 years for various alt weeklies and websites and whatnot, and with rock criticism, I can fall into a trap of being a very technical, very jargony type of writing, you know, where all the guitars are angular and all the records are seminal, you know, and I find myself speaking in a language that only other rock critics can understand or at least only they care about. You know, just a level of arcane knowledge that you have to have to decipher my 1,000 word review of the new Drake album or whatever. And so the idea behind the podcast when it started was to talk about music in a more general, more celebratory way that brought in more people. That there was no barrier to entry,

Rob Harvilla (14:35):
just if you love these songs or if you've ever loved any songs from your teenage years, you can find something to relate to in this show. And as a writer, it's made me a much better writer because I have to read my writing out loud. My sentences tend to be quite long. I love a good semicolon, some parentheses, some em dashes, preferably several of each in every sentence. You know, 200-, 300-word sentences. I love it. When I tried to read those sentences out loud on the show, I sound absurd, right? And so I write shorter, I write clearer, I write in a more conversational and coherent tone that I think that has just really improved my writing overall. And I think that translated over to the book. I think because the book is based on the scripts of the podcast, the book itself hopefully is a lot more conversational and just able to bring people in, even if they've never read a word or cared about rock criticism in the slightest.

Laura Maylene Walter (15:34):
Speaking of writing out your podcast script and reading it, a lot goes into making a podcast, especially editing, just like writing. They're similar in that way. So each of you have different types of experiences with the production side of the podcast and the editing side of the podcast. Everything from completely do it yourself to being hooked up with Spotify <laugh>. So one phrase I do remember from our July meeting was "podcast princess." I think it was you, Libby. So why don't we start with you, what is a podcast princess, and how can I become one?

Libby Kay (16:07):
Yes, <laugh> a podcast princess is someone who's fortunate enough that their co-host likes to do all the technical stuff <laugh>. So I literally just plug in my microphone, make sure I have my lighting right, and Liz takes care of everything. We do it just like we're doing it now, through a Zoom call. She handles the editing, she adds graphics for YouTube channel. We do share interviewing duties. But yeah, I will be honest, I am incredibly grateful. Liz is of dynamo and she does all the logistics and I just sit here and try to look cute <laugh>.

Laura Maylene Walter (16:36):
And what about you, Rob? I believe you're our other resident podcast princess, is that right?

Rob Harvilla (16:40):
I do recall immediately declaring that I too was a podcast princess because I am the Spotify guy, right? I work for The Ringer, which was bought by Spotify three or four or five something years ago now. And I am extraordinarily fortunate, you know, to have an editor, to have a producer, to not have much to do at all with the back end of the show. My producers are out in Los Angeles. I write out the scripts, I send them the scripts that include the clips from the songs that I want to play at exactly, you know, those points. I try to make it as easy for them as possible, but there's no getting around the fact that I jump on Zoom with a guy in LA who records me and then edits the thing together. You know, obviously I'm going to flub a line half a dozen to a dozen times per episode. The back half of my show is also a conversation with a different critic, author, or podcaster every time. That producer of course edits that down. I am extraordinarily fortunate that I just have to walk around my house here in Columbus and mutter to myself and then write it down and read it out on Zoom, and then somebody takes it from there. I have a vague sense of how monumental the editing, the production side of podcasting is, and I am very fortunate that I don't really have to do any of it.

Laura Maylene Walter (17:50):
Well Alex, what about you? What's your experience like with editing and producing the podcast?

Alex Rowland (17:56):
Well, I can say that I was not the podcast princess <laugh> on our podcast. I was the audio editor for us. We had a, especially by the end, we'd worked out kind of a workflow that was right for us where Macey is really--Jennifer Mace, one of my co-hosts--is really, really good at remembering the titles and authors of everything she's ever read, including all of the fan fiction, picking out the three quote unquote tent pole pieces that we're talking about per episode. Because every episode we talk about three different pieces of media. So she had this just encyclopedic memory for everything she's ever read and an ability to pick out like three different things that would really work together to talk about whatever theme we wanted to, which was not to say that Freya and I were not welcome to offer suggestions or say, Hey I'd really like to talk about this book, but Macey was fantastic at saying, Oh, if we want to talk about this book then maybe this fan fiction and this movie would be a good pair to go with it.

Alex Rowland (18:55):
So that was fantastic and invaluable for her. Freya, as I remember, Freya Marske, whose new book is coming out probably around the time that this is being released. SWORDCROSSED, it's amazing. Plug for Freya. She's really good at writing the not quite outline for an episode cause we didn't outline it but we did have bullet points for like the topics and themes or discussion questions. And then I was the person doing the audio editing and also being the liaison to our transcription team cause we had some real life people who were doing all of our transcripts for us so we could release those at the same time that the episodes came out. So yeah, teamwork makes the dream work for us. <laugh>

Laura Maylene Walter (19:34):
<laugh> Yeah, and I remember we talked about transcripts briefly in Columbus, and just for anyone listening who might want to do a podcast, here at Cleveland Public Library, we use edited transcripts, where we go through the automatically generated transcript and edit it just because for accessibility. It's really important to us that anyone who wants to access the content in a different way can do so. So it's just a little plug for if you're able to do that. I know now the transcripts are just generated automatically in Apple Podcasts I think. But they're a complete jumbled mess.

Rob Harvilla (20:05):
Spotify, too. They're a mess. Yeah, they're humorous value only, I think.

Laura Maylene Walter (20:11):
<laugh>. Yeah, exactly. Well, for those of you whose podcasts had an interview component, I'm curious about your experiences interviewing guests. Either if you have a favorite guest, someone that you were really thrilled to interview or that went particularly well. Rob, I know we talked, of course, about your Courtney Love interview in Columbus, but also just if you have advice, because that's a whole separate art form...if any of you have advice for bringing someone onto the show and interviewing them. And I will be taking notes as well.

Alex Rowland (20:41):
We didn't have guests frequently. I think we had a handful maybe, 5, 6, 7 during the four years. But the thing that I really noticed was how much it changed the sort of dynamics of the group. Because when it's just the three of us, we kind of have a rhythm to how we are talking and we know each other's signals for, "Oh Freya wants to say something next, she's making her 'I have something to say face'" kind of thing. But yeah, bringing a fourth person in for one thing, it just means that you have less time to talk yourself. You're going down from like roughly 33% of the time talking to 25% if it's fair and balanced. Although, when you have a guest, I think it's polite to give them a little bit more time to shine since they're the the sort of guest star that day. But yeah, we did try to keep it just sort of a balanced kind of conversation. And I think that the other thing was just being aware of the chemistry and picking people who like you feel comfortable enough to talk to so that you can have that chemistry, because I think that that really comes through in the audio recordings for the audience.

Libby Kay (21:46):
Absolutely. I will mirror what Alex said. We've had authors on, and usually with authors we are having them on because they have a new release coming out and so that's the focus of the interview. We do not share the questions ahead of time, but we do allude to the types of questions we're going to ask. The difference being when we have on like book influencers or publishers or publicists, those times we're usually a little bit more specific and we'll say we want to talk about fall 2025 releases, you know, please come with four books. We're going to have about 20 minutes to talk about it just so they're not over preparing, under preparing. I agree with what Alex said. It definitely, you know, shifts the dynamic. Usually, if we're having an author on that doesn't have something coming out right away to promote, it's someone that Liz and I have read and adored, and so it's basically us gushing for half of the show and them responding to us being fan girls. The chemistry's important and we try to take on as many people as we can, but we also don't want the show to just feel like it's just us interviewing people constantly. Like we've heard from listeners unless they're all our family and they're lying to us that they enjoy Liz and I having our banter moments. So we don't want to get rid of that and just turn into this robotic like and "tell us about your book." You know, we wanted it to be a little bit more organic...unless they're family and they're all lying to us.

Laura Maylene Walter (22:55):
Something writers worry about, too.

Libby Kay (22:59):
Oh yeah, all the time.

Laura Maylene Walter (23:00):
<laugh> Yeah, definitely. All right Rob, well, half of your podcast does involve interviewing someone, but you have had some celebrities on as well. So give us the tea. What was it like interviewing Courtney Love? Or others?

Rob Harvilla (23:13):
One does not interview Courtney Love. I think one sits on a Zoom call and lets Courtney Love cook, right? If you did a scientific analysis of my hour and 45 minute conversation with Courtney Love, I talk probably 8% to 10% of the time, maybe down to 5%, and that's the way I wanted it, right? Like, it's Courtney Love, like just let Courtney Love talk. She was so gracious with her time, you know, with her vulnerability. You know, that's not a situation where I need to be involved at all, quite frankly. It's cool that both of your shows are sort of based in friendship and then you became podcasters. You know, that chemistry...I've been reading a lot about podcast chemistry between hosts and how you need it, but you can't really define it. But I think just having a foundation of being friends and just bantering, it feeling like a group text, or like friends getting together over drinks or whatever.

Rob Harvilla (24:05):
I don't think that you can replicate that feel. It has to be organic, it has to be true. It has to feel true and I think that's really cool for me. You know, the interviews, I think, have always been the weakest part of my show. I feel that I've gotten better as an interviewer over the course of 120 episodes. But like Libby was saying, I worry about the robotic Q and A sort of back and forth, making it feel like a conversation versus me asking a question and them answering it. You know, the stiffness of that. I really struggled. I don't know, my parents say that the show is great <laugh>, maybe my family lies to me too. But I think I've gotten better as an interviewer, better at making it more of a conversation, more of a cool hang than a really stiff, "I'm asking the questions and you answer them" sort of vibe.

Alex Rowland (24:53):
I really think that that's what the audience is looking for. Some of the nicest feedback that we got more than once for the podcast was people telling us that it made them feel like they were sitting in a room with three smart friends listening to them say interesting things about the topic. And yeah, that's like cozy, and comfortable. Some podcasts that I listen to, and I'm not going to name them, but it feels like emotional labor just to listen to them because the chemistry isn't there and I want it to be. So yeah, it's really important.

Laura Maylene Walter (25:21):
And that is the challenge when you're an interview-based podcast and interviewing different people all the time, that you can't predict the chemistry and you can't fabricate it. It can be tough. And I also, I have a journalism background as well, and I would often record my interviews, like my phone interviews, and sometimes I'd be listening to them back, and I remember this was years ago thinking, "Wow, I'm so glad no one else can hear these interviews. I'm so glad it's not like up on a podcast or something like that, LOL." And now here I am doing it on purpose <laugh>. Yeah. So here we are <laugh>

Alex Rowland (25:52):
But surely you get better it with practice, you know, like with all things.

Laura Maylene Walter (25:55):
Yeah, exactly. And it is a different approach, definitely, if you're interviewing someone knowing it's for a podcast versus just trying to get a collection of good quotes for an article.

Alex Rowland (26:03):
Exactly.

Laura Maylene Walter (26:04):
So it's definitely a completely different process. But if we are going to get meta today, let's talk about either mistakes or lessons learned along the way. I have to start with Rob just because your book has a whole section on this <laugh>, either words you pronounced incorrectly or mistakes you've made. What you like to share a few of those with us, please?

Rob Harvilla (26:24):
This actually didn't go out in the episode, but I almost referred to the National Organization of Women as the NWO. That is not the correct, that's a wrestling term, NWO. That is not correct. I've mispronounced so many words. I mispronounced O-B-G-Y-N, I pronounced it "ob-gin." I have no explanation for this.

Laura Maylene Walter (26:46):
Amazing.

Rob Harvilla (26:47):
I have three lovely children; I should know better a thousand times over. And yet that did occur. I choose to think that one of the charms of my show is charming mispronunciation of various very common English words and phrases. You know, it's fun for people when I don't know what I'm talking about <laugh>, even when I'm talking about it at great length. And that's another thing, like you say, all journalists hate the sound of their own voices and all journalists cringe through the transcriptions of their own work. Like you, it is shocking to me the amount of my voice that I have allowed to make public <laugh> this podcast. I guess I've gotten more comfortable with that idea in the abstract that applies both to the monologues and to my interviews. I've found what's different, as you say, about interviewing somebody and trying to get one or two quotes out of context versus trying to create a conversation that can be listened to in full that does not feel like emotional labor. I would like to avoid that if at all possible.

Laura Maylene Walter (27:49):
Yeah, I think that's also a connection between podcasting and writing, or a disconnect, which is...I don't want to stereotype all writers, but some writers have always been big readers, maybe more than speaking, and maybe we've seen a lot of words and know them and have absorbed them, but we've only read them. So then to say them out loud, we don't even realize how wrong they might be. Someone once gave me the advice that if you are reading out loud and come to a word you don't know how to pronounce or you're not sure, just say it loudly and confidently. Like don't try to do the thing where you sort of like mumble it out, because maybe your confidence will push you through. So I don't know, I haven't gotten there yet, but that's just a little tip.

Rob Harvilla (28:26):
I don't know if that's good advice. I'm going to say that.

Rob Harvilla (28:30):
Because I used to think that the word "banal" was just "anal" with a B, and I just imagine myself like confidently yelling BANAL. Yeah, I maybe don't do that.

Laura Maylene Walter (28:43):
Yeah, okay. Point taken.

Rob Harvilla (28:44):
No offense to that person.

Laura Maylene Walter (28:46):
<laugh> Point taken. All right, Alex and Libby, what about you? Any lessons learned or anything you would like to share about the difficult side of podcasting, or any mistakes you might have made?

Alex Rowland (28:55):
I think the one thing that we learned very quickly was the value of investing in a good microphone. Because the first episode that we did, we didn't know if we liked this, none of us had done podcasting before, so obviously we didn't want to invest money in equipment. We were just using whatever we had on hand. So the audio quality is god-awful. But we realized I think like within the first two, three episodes like okay, we are enjoying this. We should probably up our equipment a little bit just so that it's not terrible to listen to. So we spent like a hundred bucks each on microphones, and that made all the difference in the world. You don't have to buy things to start out, but if you do it a little bit and discover you like it, go ahead spring for it. Mostly everything else is just sort of the things that you learn from experience, like what your workflow is going to look like and how to avoid things like someone's glass full of ice clinking in the background. Like how do I clean that up in audio editing, stuff like that.

Laura Maylene Walter (29:56):
Libby, anything you'd like to add, or are you perfect and your podcast is perfect?

Libby Kay (29:59):
No I mean it's perfect. I just sit there and do my thing. <laugh> Uh, no, I mean pretty much shadowing what Alex said, Liz actually, cause again she loves to do the editing, has turned some of our favorite bloopers into actual outtake reels that she shared on YouTube. A fun way for people to see what it really looks like, obviously with better language because sometimes we really let it rip when we're frustrated <laugh>. But we've gotten better at knowing good times to record. Like sometimes when you're interviewing you have to go with when people are available, but if it's just the two of us, we realize that some Mondays are not good days for us and by the time that we're logged in we look like zombies. We sound like zombies. And Mondays are not good to the point where I can tell now when I watch some of our older episodes, I'm like, ooh, that was a Monday show <laugh>. But yeah, we've also gotten better at faking it too. We can just put it on and we, you know, we have a rhythm now, so embrace the bloopers if you want to. But again, editing is great because then it makes you look like you know what you're doing <laugh>.

Alex Rowland (30:51):
And really, I don't think there's anything wrong with making mistakes. We live in a society now where there's so much perfection around in terms of like everything being clean and glossy. But when you're making mistakes, you sound like a human and it makes it easier for other humans to connect with you. And so that's not a bad thing. Like don't be too embarrassed of your mistakes. It happens.

Laura Maylene Walter (31:16):
Yeah. Absolutely. And there are worse things in the world than making a mistake on your podcast, you know. <Laugh>.

Alex Rowland (31:22):
<laugh>

Laura Maylene Walter (31:24):
Okay, well I so appreciate all of your time and for joining me on this Zoom after the event. So really truly appreciate it. But I do have one last question, which is, now that some time has passed, I would love to hear about your experiences at the Columbus Book Festival. This was only the second year the festival had been happening. It was my first year attending and I was just shocked by how full it was, how many people were there, the energy, um, but I wasn't there with a book. I was there to speak with you. So tell us about that. What was that like for you and for bringing your book there?

Libby Kay (31:58):
I thought it was fabulous and I'm not just saying that cause I live in Columbus. I was beyond impressed with the turnout. I unfortunately had to miss last year's because we were out of town. But the panels I was on were well attended, the audience was engaged, they had great questions, the staff was very attentive. I almost sold out of books, which is great cause that's not always the case. And actually, I'm going to sound all sappy, but I'm a romance writer so it's okay. I had a couple of women who came to my romance panel when I was shamelessly plugging my book continuously and saying, oh, and it's coming out in August. They actually showed up at my launch party last month in Newark, Ohio. And it was really sweet because I was like, oh yay people. So I mean there were people there. I don't mean to make it sound like it was me and two strangers.

Laura Maylene Walter (32:37):
That's always the fear, though.

Libby Kay (32:38):
Oh yeah, totally the fear. That was one of the benefits that I wasn't anticipating. And people have been engaging with me since the event. They've started following me on Instagram and I've been getting messages and you know, people have sent me pictures of the book saying, oh, I saw your book came out and I got a copy. And I'm like, yes! So for me, it exceeded expectations after the fact and the event itself from where I was, I thought was great. Well organized, well attended, everybody communicated well with where we needed to be. So no notes on my end. <laugh>

Alex Rowland (33:07):
Yeah, Columbus Book Festival is maybe the best event I've ever been to, or at least if it's not the best, it's up there. Certainly top five, no contest on top five. Incredible turnout. There was an incredible energy that I got from the attendees too. Like the panels that I was on, I agree, were very well attended. I had the longest book signing line that I've ever had in my career, which astonished me. It was incredible because so many of those people were saying, I'd never heard of your books before. I just saw you on this panel. And I came and I have bought three of your books. And it was so striking to me and it really moved me how many people were so willing and ready to fall in love with a new book they'd literally just heard about. And the energy was incredible.

Alex Rowland (33:52):
That organization was incredible. They had a green room for the panelists and authors, which was very well staffed and also very well stocked. They gave us hot lunch. The food was incredible. Hot food in a green room? Usually it's just like some granola bars and bottles of water. It was astonishing. I felt so well taken care of as a panelist and as an author. And I am begging the Columbus Book Festival to have me back next year? <Laugh> Yeah. I cannot do anything but gush about how amazing that event was. Just seriously, 10 out of 10 all across the board.

Rob Harvilla (34:28):
No, it's a really beautiful thing and it is really heartening just to be around so many people who are so engaged, you know, who are in line to buy books. Books that you might not have heard of before they got there that day. You know, being at panels, being engaged, asking questions, it's a beautiful thing. I went last year, I didn't know it was the first year last year. It felt like an event that had been happening for years and years, which speaks to the organization. just the vibe of it that, it already feels like an evergreen thing that's been around forever. Like that's a really cool. I took my kids last year, and my kids are just sort of climbing around on things. I'm not really able to focus on the panels, on the authors, on any of that.

Rob Harvilla (35:05):
But just to walk out into that, you know, the giant courtyard where there was like 200 tents, publishers, bookstores, you know, individual authors, organizations to just walk around, and for it to take you a solid hour or two to walk around and even begin to see anything. Living in Columbus, it's just the same way that you walk by a bookstore and you just feel good knowing that it's there, right? Just knowing that a bookstore is bringing that energy into where you are. Like just multiply that times a hundred. And just the idea that Columbus has this beautiful thing that's only two years old but already feels like such an established, such a beloved, part of the city. It's such an honor to be a part of it.

Laura Maylene Walter (35:49):
So definitely next year, listeners, go to the event. For authors who want to apply to be a part of it, Alex, I'm glad you mentioned the food, because the green room absolutely blew my mind. Because I've been to a lot of different types of festivals, and I'm always grateful for anything, you know, but the hot food, restocking everything, it was mind-boggling. Writers don't ask for much, so you can impress us with hot food. We really, really will appreciate it.

Rob Harvilla (36:12):
Yep. A few meatballs and we're done <laugh>.

Laura Maylene Walter (36:14):
Book festivals, pay attention. All right, well thank you three so much. I really appreciate it. And we are now going to travel back in time. We're going to rejoin the end of our conversation in Columbus. We're going to enter that conversation just after I had asked about the parasocial relationship dynamic of podcasting and how our authors today feel about attention from their listeners and their readers. So we'll turn to that to wrap up. Enjoy.

Alex Rowland (36:42):
With publishing my books, I like having quite a close relationship with my fans. I have an official Discord server for fans of my books where people come in, they talk to each other, they talk to me, they ask questions. And it's wonderful to like feel that sense of community and connectedness with the people who love my work.

Libby Kay (36:59):
I mean, we saw the hordes of people waiting to see me when I walked in <laugh>. I'm totally kidding. We haven't even been doing this for a full year, but I'm very pleased and proud with the people that have been leaving us comments like on our YouTube channel. We've done a couple live call-in shows...

Alex Rowland (37:13):
That's fun.

Libby Kay (37:13):
It's a lot of fun. It's stressful as anything. We did one a couple weeks ago, I was like sweating through my outfit because we had so many people waiting to get into the waiting room, like oh my god, people actually want to talk to us. So that was fun. But we have a fan who like she knows about our unofficial mascot, and she was so afraid she couldn't get in. And then at the last minute Liz and I were literally about to end the recording and then she came in and it's just nice to hear. In hindsight I'm like, oh my gosh, does anyone care what Liz and I really think? And then to have her say like, oh I never missed an episode and I do care. And she doesn't know anyone that we know. So that's obviously a big deal. So yeah, it's so far it hasn't been creepy. I'm actually hoping it gets creepy and then that'll be a new problem to have.

Alex Rowland (37:51):
<laugh> A sign that you've made it <laugh>.You know you've made it when...

Libby Kay (37:56):
Yeah. From the fans that we've heard from, it is lovely. And actually that's the one episode we're doing about romance book covers is because this super fan of Romance Roundup is like, "I love when you talk about the covers, you guys should do an episode of that." And we're like, well you know what? You're our number one fan so darn right we're doing that. <laugh>

Rob Harvilla (38:13):
The parasocial thing is real. You know, when I was writing, I would write a review of the new Drake album, right? And one guy on Twitter would be like, you suck. And I'd be like, thank you. And that would be my interaction with the public, right? But something immediately started happening with this show, and I think it is the parasocial nature, just your voice in someone's ear like on a road trip or doing gardening or something like that. It does make the listener feel like they know me to some extent. The DMS, the emails I started getting, were so kind and so detailed and so personal, you know, and some of them are quite heavy. I don't talk about Covid a lot, but people's experiences of Covid and people they've lost and like people they used to talk about music with that they can't anymore for whatever reason. And so this show sort of replaces that and reminds them of that person. And I'm just sitting in bed at night reading these emails sort of tearing up cause I'm just goofing around. Right? The heaviness of it is such a lovely but such a serious thing. I've never had an experience like this before, but I think that is down to podcasting and just the conversational nature and just the voice in your ear.

Laura Maylene Walter (39:17):
I don't want us to run out of time, so we will open it up to audience questions. I invite you to ask questions either about their books or about the podcasting process or their writing process. Yes. In the back.

Rob Harvilla (39:31):
I don't recall dissing the Backstreet Boys. Okay.

Laura Maylene Walter (39:35):
And I just want to repeat that. The question was about how did the book come to be for Rob's project?

Rob Harvilla (39:40):
Yeah, when I sat down to write the book, I had done maybe 70, 80 episodes. You know, each had a script. Each was somewhere between five and 9,000 words long, it's hundreds and hundreds of thousands of words of raw material. There were like 120 songs I wanted to talk about. And so just going through the scripts and finding the parts that I liked and just trying to piecing them together and sort of getting the songs, you know, the artists bouncing off each other in interesting ways. Like what are the different ways you can sell out? Dividing them into chapters and can I get from Celine Dion to Courtney Love on one page? So I forget what I did with the Backstreet Boys. I didn't...okay. It falls off a little bit. Anything after "I Want It That Way" is like a step down, you know what I'm saying?

Rob Harvilla (40:24):
Like, it's more about the greatness of the early songs. Right? Okay. I apologize <laugh>. So I'm trying to remember and I don't think I'll be able to remember exactly how I handled the Backstreet Boys, but most likely what I did was just went back to that script and just found, I think I was talking about the ways that the lyrics to that song do not translate into conversational English. You know, like, "Tell me why, what, et cetera." I don't want to say greatest hits of the podcast, but that's basically what it was, to start a separate document of all the parts of these episodes that I want to try and Frankenstein together and de facto, you're talking about a page or less per song per artist. It's just a pretty radical act of compression. But I tried to be nice.

Laura Maylene Walter (41:06):
And you had a question? Go ahead.

Alex Rowland (41:08):
So the question was what made me fall in love with the genre of fantasy? I have loved fantasy for all of my life. My parents were both big nerds who loved fantasy and science fiction as far back as I can remember. My dad was reading me bedtime stories at night. He started with like Narnia, and so I was just introduced to it at a very early age. I kinda just never went away from it. It is the genre that I read more than anything else. Fantasy even over science fiction, and I love science fiction. I've made jokes that every couple years I go on like a romantic retreat in the mountains for a weekend with science fiction. But then fantasy is always who I come home to, you know? And I love how much space it gives you to be creative. I love how much opportunity there is to tell stories that are like allegories of things that are happening in the real world while still having that like slight distance from the things that are happening. We're living in a very hard and troubling time right now. And fantasy is escapism and fantasy has so many rich opportunities for storytelling in it.

Laura Maylene Walter (42:12):
I would love to ask the same question of Libby as well. What drew you to the romance genre? You mentioned earlier there's always a happy ending, and I imagine that might be part of it, but can you talk about that? What do you love about the genre?

Libby Kay (42:23):
Oh my gosh, how much time do we have? Even as a kid, I remember watching movies that had no romantic element, but if there were two characters that seem to have chemistry, I'm like, oh man, I hope they get together. <laugh>. I usually read primarily fiction as an escape because you know, life. I just like that it's two people on a journey. I know that it's going to end well in some way. I know it's predictable, but there's a comfort in that. And that's one of the things that I love about our podcast. You think, well how can you talk about something where you know what's going to happen? But there's so many different ways to get there and that's part of the fun of romance is you know, how are these two people going to get together? And sometimes it's fun to be critical and like, should they be together? To me that's always been part of it is that comfort level. Yes, it's predictable, but it's also, you know, it's brain candy. It's fun.

Alex Rowland (43:07):
It's about the journey, not the destination. Yeah.

Laura Maylene Walter (43:09):
I saw some other hands...Do you mean specifically how much time our authors spend listening to podcasts versus producing podcasts? That's a great question.

Alex Rowland (43:19):
I have a couple podcasts that I like listening to. I would say I was mostly just like following like a couple podcasts that I liked. I don't feel like we were really doing anything super creative in terms of our structure. If we were doing something a little bit more experimental, I think that I would have needed to listen to like way more podcasts than I did. But also I really like fiction podcasts. Campaign. Skyjacks is one of my favorite ones. It's a live action roleplaying podcast about like pirates except in the sky. And it's set in a world that's inspired by the music of the Decemberists. It has some of the best storytelling and music production that I've ever seen for a podcast. They get songs commissioned for the podcast that are like the songs that would be sung in the world, like sea shanties and things like that. Their audio editor is just a genius. We weren't doing anything nearly so fancy. We were just like three nerds talking into our microphones together about stuff that we were enthusiastic about. So it was kind of a pretty straightforward structure for us.

Libby Kay (44:29):
There are obviously other romance book-related podcasts, although none as good as Romance Roundup. <laugh> But I'm curious, I've listened to some of them. I find that more of my time in terms of preparing for the podcast is spent with reading or researching other authors, because part of the show we talk about things that we've read and enjoyed. But another part of it is talking about other authors5' upcoming releases and doing research on promoting that. And I will say I benefit from my day job of being a librarian, because I know how to do quick research and have it be accurate and get that snapshot of what I need to tell people. And then I think people can tell when I get really excited about it, because I'll probably talk about it way too much. But I would say for me, for how our podcast is, more of my time is spent researching the books and the authors than the competition, for lack of a better word.

Rob Harvilla (45:17):
I just listen to music constantly, dude. I just, I terrorize my kids with music made three decades before they were born. Right? You know, I just, I'm driving them to laser tag and they're like, "Who is this?" "It's Salt-N-Pepa." "Is this for the podcast?" "Yes." That's just my life: constant soundtrack in the background of whatever it is I'm doing, whether my family enjoys that or not.

Laura Maylene Walter (45:38):
All right. One last question.

Alex Rowland (45:41):
So the question was about a word I coined in 2017, hopepunk. Just for anyone who isn't familiar with it, during the first year of the Trump administration, the world was dark and terrible. And I made just kind of an off-the-cuff Tumblr post that said, "The opposite of grimdark is hopepunk. Pass it on." Meaning that, like, the genre or subgenre of grimdark is very much about like, the world is terrible and everyone is terrible and like everybody dies and everything is corrupt. So I was looking at it as more like the glass is half full rather than half empty. And as mentioned, I published a an article called “One Atom of Justice, One Molecule of Mercy, and the Empire of Unsheathed Knives,” which was kind of a manifesto about what hopepunk is and how important it is to maintain hope in the face of everything terrible happening.

Alex Rowland (46:31):
It is a candle in the dark that keeps the darkness back. It is what keeps you going. And also, I think a lot of people misunderstood what hopepunk was because we all have an inclination to reach for softness and comfort and things that are going to be easy. That's not what hopepunk is like. "Punk" is the operative half of the word there. Hopepunk is about standing up for what's right and fighting back for justice and giving a shit about the world around you. I don't think that there's really anything that I would add to what I've already said about it. I would encourage all of you to vote in the election. Please check your voter registration, make sure you're registered even if you think that you really, really are. Like, just take the two minutes just to make sure and yeah, keep actively working for the world that you want to live in.

Laura Maylene Walter (47:23):
Well, we're almost out of time. So one last quick question kind of along the lines of hope and, I would say, survival. I would love if each of you could share maybe a quick bit of advice or your thoughts on surviving as a writer, as an author in the publishing industry, or as a journalist. I am taking the inspiration for this question from, I believe, on your podcast, Alex, you talked about being a cockroach <laugh>. So why don't you take it away, and then I would love to hear from Libby and Rob, as well.

Alex Rowland (47:51):
Yeah. So that is the one piece of advice that I always give people if they are thinking about being a writer or if they already are like a published author who's struggling in the publishing industry and wondering if there's a place for you or if your stories matter. The publishing industry is hard and scary and you're not always going to win the roll of the die. You know, misfortune will happen. Sometimes your book contract will get canceled. Sometimes you will hit writer's block or burnout or your agent will retire or your editor will explode <laugh>. But if you want to survive in the publishing industry and you want to have a career as a writer, be a cockroach, be un-killable. All you have to do is survive. No matter what happens, something good, something bad, meet Triumph and Disaster and treat those two imposters just the same. I can't remember what poem that is from, but I'm sure I'll remember it at 3:00 AM tonight. But no matter what happens, your next move as a career writer is just to write another book. If you hit the New York Times Bestseller list, that's cool. Write another book. If your book contract gets canceled, cool. Write another book. That's it. You just have to survive. You just have to keep going and you just have to like be un-killable.

Libby Kay (49:11):
Yeah, literally the same thing. Rejection is part of it. It is a rollercoaster ride of emotions, which I'm sure my husband could sit up here and bore everyone to death about how I handle that. But <laugh> you have to keep going. Not every book is for every reader, and that's totally fine. And don't read your reviews. Because, I mean, even though I have more positive than negative, I have a lot of positives. But that one negative review of the person who says they read it because it was a book club and they felt like they had to...nd I'm like, well, then why did you have to put on here that you don't like it?

Rob Harvilla (49:38):
Don't go on Goodreads, man.

Libby Kay (49:38):
Yeah, so don't read your reviews. And I hate to say it cause it sounds so cliche and like I'm one that makes it sound easy, but you have to have a thicker skin than you think and have people in your corner so that when you get those rejections you can say, can you believe that they said no? Because then when people say yes, it's even more exciting.

Alex Rowland (49:56):
And keep those conversations in the group chat, privately. Not on social media.

Libby Kay (49:58):
Oh gosh, yeah. Oh yeah. All of my struggles are internal. Again, something my therapist loves. But yeah, you gotta keep going. And it is not going to always be wine and roses, but when it works out, it's bliss and I love it. And sitting here talking to all of you today is just magical. And so that's why you should keep going forward. <laugh>

Alex Rowland (50:17):
I do read my Goodreads reviews.

Libby Kay (50:19):
You're brave <laugh>.

Alex Rowland (50:21):
Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing. It's an exercise in having a thick skin, as you said. And it makes me check in with myself and like ask myself a question like, am I wanting to do this because I want to essentially self-harm by reading like bad reviews when I already feel like crap? In which case I don't do that. If I'm already feeling stable sometimes I'm like, you know what? I would like to see what sort of criticism is out there. Maybe some of it is valid, maybe I can learn something. And sometimes I have. Most of the time I haven't. But that's okay. But here's the thing. Here's the thing. By doing this, I encountered my favorite review of all time. It was a two-star review and I will now quote it for you in its entirety: "Meh." <laugh> I had the same reaction you just did. I burst out laughing. I loved it. It was my favorite review I've ever gotten.

Rob Harvilla (51:08):
That was me actually. <laugh> I do want to apologize for that. I was in a grouchy mood.

Alex Rowland (51:14):
Apology accepted. I forgive you.

Rob Harvilla (51:15):
Okay. That's an honor.

Laura Maylene Walter (51:17):
Well, I think "meh" and cockroaches, I mean, can you add anything else to that?

Rob Harvilla (51:21):
That's gonna do it. No, I don't believe that I can.

Laura Maylene Walter (51:24):
<laugh> Thank you all so much, everyone. Will you give it up for our featured authors? <applause>

Alex Rowland (51:36):
And one for our wonderful moderator. <applause>

Laura Maylene Walter (51:38):
Oh, thank you.

Laura Maylene Walter (51:44):
So thank you to our panelists. Thank you to all of you for attending. And please, now you can visit the official bookstore over there on this floor where our authors will be scurrying right now, I believe, like cockroaches and signing their books. So buy their books! Thank you.

Laura Maylene Walter (52:04):
Page Count is presented by the Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and leave a review for Page Count wherever you get your podcast. Learn more online or find a transcript of this episode at ohiocenterforthebook.org. Follow us on Instagram @ohiocenterforthebook or find us on Facebook. If you'd like to get in touch, email ohiocenterforthebook@cpl.org and put "podcast" in the subject line. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back in two weeks for another chapter of Page Count.