A couple podcasts
Back in March, I recorded not one, but two podcasts! That was a brand new experience for me, and then I wound up doing it twice over the course of one month. But it was a lot of fun! Both podcasts have now gone live, so you can listen to them and learn a little more about each one here.
To All the YA I’ve Loved Before
The first is an interview with fellow YA author Kaycee Racer about what life was like as a teen, which honestly was kind of a funny thing to talk about, because it’s been years since I even thought about it! You Know You’re Old Whenβ’. But it was actually kind of a cool thing, because it gave me the opportunity to talk at length about asexuality, aromanticism, and my journey to discovering I was aro-ace. And honestly? Part of the reason I don’t really think about my teen years much is because there was a lot of trauma tied up in them, particularly about being aro-ace but not knowing that was a thing, and thus not knowing what my deal was or why I just wasn’t getting this dating thing. But now I do know, and I’m comfortable with it, and have been comfortable with it for so long that now I can look back at my awkward teen years and everything that bothered me about them for so long and be like, “Well, I get it now.” I can think about things that happened in high school, and instead of feeling ashamed about them, I can cut my teenage self some slack. And that’s a good feeling!
Listen to the interview below:
Note: This was previously a much longer episode which included a discussion and book review of Cheerleaders from Planet X. Unfortunately, the series has been restructured and all full episodes prior to July 2022 have been removed. However, the author interview portions are still available. If you saw an older, longer blog post from me back in April about this episode, that’s why. Since that blog post specifically addressed things that were talked about in the episode that’s no longer available, it didn’t make sense to leave it up.
Jewel Riders Archive
A week after recording “To All the YA,” I recorded another podcast with a special significance to me! This was with Chris Kanther of the Jewel Riders Archive, and it was a co-interview with my sister, fellow author Jane Watson! We talked about our favorite fandoms as kids, including, of course, Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders, a cartoon from the 1990s. We also talked about how our fandoms inspired our writing as adults, and I got to go on a lengthy screed about why the 2003 live action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon is the best version of Sailor Moon, one of my favorite topics. π Another reason this episode was a fun one is that both Chris and Ronnie Delmar, the other founder of the Jewel Riders Archive, are from my hometown, and none of us knew it until we were adults and had moved out of the area. (In fact, I didn’t know that Ronnie was from there, too, until Chris told us during the interview!) So there were 4 Jewel Riders geeks living in the same town at the same time and none of us knew it. It really is a small world! I hope you will check this episode out, as it was so much fun, and it was also great to be able to do something like this with my sister.