Author Interviews!
In addition to recommending three new romance novels a week, I also occasionally interview the authors of them!
Find the archive below:
Kate Canterbary (In a Rush, The Worst Guy) | Forced Proximity Interview
Every Kate Canterbary book I’ve read has rearranged my brain chemistry somehow. She manages to write about complex workplaces and experiences in such a deceptively approachable way it feels a little bit like magic, and a lot like an author I absolutely wanted to talk to.
Ruby Dixon (Ice Planet Barbarians) | Forced Proximity Interview
If you’re a person who has heard the book title “Ice Planet Barbarians” and isn’t curious at all, you’re a person who is a liar. I spent two months, machine-like, reading every single one of the books in the Ice Planet continuity, which at the time of writing is two complete series of about 10-15 books each and one new in-progress one. I talk about it c…
Olivia Dade (Zomromcom) | Forced Proximity Interview
When asked who writes the kinds of books that seem to leap straight from my own interests, tastes, insecurities, and sense of humor and into my heart, I’ve long answered Olivia Dade. I’m a plus-sized woman in film; she wrote one of my favorite Hollywood romance series
Ella Dawson (But How Are You, Really) | Forced Proximity Interview
I feel like I’ve known of Ella Dawson for years, being an extremely online millenial, but it wasn’t until I read her debut romance novel, But How Are You, Really, that I realized I needed to also just know her. And thanks to the incredible timing of getting her book off hold from my local library and her somehow discovering this newsletter separately… i…
Julie Olivia (If It Makes You Happy) | Forced Proximity Interview
As a kid, I didn’t live very close to roller coasters, but the few times in my childhood where a family road trip ended up near one, I was the first in line. I love the feeling of being dropped at high speed from a high height. There’s a reason my favorite place to drive is Utah (that 80MPH zone with basically no traffic for 50 miles in any direction… p…
Charlotte Stein (My Big Fat Fake Marriage) | Forced Proximity Interview
My first Charlotte Stein book was Never Sweeter, a former bully romance that lit my brain on fire. When Grumpy Met Sunshine redefined the way I perceive both epistolary elements and grumpy heroes. I’ve read her entire backlist, and I think my brain might just be a little bit on fire forever? There’s a particular brand of stream-of-consciousness anxiety-…
Aydra Richards (A Deal With A Notorious Devil) | Forced Proximity Interview
This is the quickest I’ve ever heard of an author (via Bluesky recommendations!), read their entire backlist, reached out to interview them, and gotten a response. I went on a straight through binge of Aydra Richards’ historical romances on KU starting the final week of 2024 and continuing through the first week of January 2025, and I am beyond delighte…
Jeannie Lin (Lotus Palace Mysteries) | Forced Proximity Interview
Last year, after two years toiling in the romance mines alone, I decided I needed two things: a refreshed academic focus on prose writing (since I’ve spent the last 10 years as a screenwriter) and a community of writers with a similar romance bent. So after doing some research, I decided to enroll in a UCLA Extension class about romance writing, led by …
Julie Anne Long (The Beast Takes A Bride) | Forced Proximity Interview
As Lorraine Heath put it in her own Forced Proximity interview recently, “there isn’t a single [Julie Anne Long] book that I haven’t loved. She’s so poetic. There’s a beautiful rhythm to her stories.”
Lorraine Heath (In Want of a Viscount, A Tempest of Desire) | Forced Proximity Interview
I’m still a little bit pinching myself I got to speak with THE Lorraine Heath, one of the first historical romance authors I read, an author whose deep backlist gave me equal parts terror and delighted anticipation.
Forced Proximity Interview | Kate Clayborn (The Other Side of Disappearing)
Kate Clayborn was the first author I read the entire backlist of when I began my romance deep-dive back in 2022. Her Chance of a Lifetime trilogy blooded me, raised me, sent me to college, and are who I return to most frequently when I need a pep talk and a little bit of comfort.
Forced Proximity Interview | Maya Rodale (Hidden Herstories, Dangerous Books for Girls)
A fellow newsletter author who gave Forced Proximity its first boost by recommending me to her own list, I’m so stoked to share this interview with Maya Rodale! Her book Duchess By Design permanently rewired my brain, as well as my expectations for historical romances.
Forced Proximity Interview | Christina Lauren (The Paradise Problem, Something Wilder)
For Christmas 2021, my husband got me Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating, and I devoured it in under a day, having absolutely zero context for romance as a genre or Christina Lauren as a powerhouse name in it. Now, of course, I realize how lucky I was to begin my romance reading journey with one of their books...
Rebecca V. Archer (Rum Sips and Salty Lips) | Forced Proximity Interview
A few years ago, I took Sarah MacLean’s “Mastering The Art Of Great Conflict” class, and someone took the initiative to create a Slack channel for attendees, for support, draft swapping, and solidarity. It died out pretty quickly, but before it did, I connected with
Forced Proximity Interview | Stephanie Archer (Vancouver Storm, Queen's Cove)
That’s right, folks, we do interviews here now! And in honor of last week’s hockey roundup, it made perfect sense to me to queue up my interview with author Stephanie Archer, who you probably know from her latest hockey romance series about the players of the fictional Vancouver Storm team, or perhaps from her quartet of romances set on the fictional Ca…
Know Your Newlywed | Forced Proximity Interview
As some of you know, I’ve worked in indie film and the surrounding industries for nearly a decade now, and far before I got into romance novels. On that journey I had the opportunity to meet, separately, two incredible fellow creators; Hillary Nussbaum (who I collaborated with in New York several times) and Heather Taylor (who we
Forced Proximity Interview | Olivia Hayle (The Connovan Chronicles, Seattle & NY Billionaires)
Last week, I recommended Olivia Hayle’s How To Honeymoon Alone, the first book of hers I’d ever read. Now, having made my way through her entire backlist, I’m delighted to have her here as my latest interviewee, just in time for her latest book, One Wrong Move