In Walks a Woman

This book and this episode is like a fruit smoothie by the sunny seashore–light, sweet, gentle first love vibes. This is a YA selection we have chosen to find out what the youngest set values in romance stories.  Appropriately, it is not an “E” episode–first time in the season!  Sonja and Vanessa are joined again by their Designated Gen Z Reader, Sage McHenry, to better understand the meteoric rise of this book series…now television series.Unless you’ve been living under ye olde proverbial Rock, you know that the “Summer I Turned Pretty” franchise is a cultural phenomenon with staggering fan engagement on all social platforms.  Join us as we explore what makes it so appealing and what tropes it shares with other romances we’ve analyzed this season. Of course, Vanessa asks Sage some pesky questions, like, are all the messages of the series positive for younger female readers. As always, Sage “Designated Z” McHenry gives as good as she gets.  Join us to see what you think…can we enjoy something and look at it critically?  Along the way, incest jumps out at us, Sonja loyally picks the “right” boy from the series to keep her daughter happy, and Vanessa finds out the golden retriever she hastily adopted might not turn out to be as adorable as he seemed. 

Welcome to our 2nd episode of “In Walks a Woman Writer”!   Amy Stuber joined us in the studio, and the time flew by.  Listening to this conversation, you’ll feel like you are sitting in your favorite coffee shop with Amy who is so kind, so unassuming–and yet so ridiculously talented.  Amy’s 2024 short story collection, Sad Grownups, won the prestigious Pen/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection.  The collection is wide-ranging, packed with women’s experiences, and haunting in its melancholy telling and perceptive understanding of modern American life. If you’ve ever seen a stranger on the street and wondered, what is their story?, this is the collection for you.  Amy’s imagination is rich and empathetic, and these characters will stay with you, long after you finish her luminous collection. We uncover so much in this conversation, including Amy’s literary influences, her inspirations, and why she believes short stories are the perfect fit for readers today. Along the way, some empty-nester secrets spring out of the vault, the Boss rides by with ghosts in his eyes, and we unmask a Joan Didion thief. REFERENCES:If you are in the Lawrence, Kansas area, Amy would love for you to pick up her book at her favorite local bookstore, The Raven.  Support Amy’s local bookstore and  Buy Here!The Pen America Literary Awards are considered the “Oscars” of books, so it’s hard to exaggerate what a big deal it is that Amy won it.  Get the whole scoop here, at the Pen Book Awards site. What we get from it is KANSAS. HAS. TALENT. 

Sonja and Vanessa go on a thrilling journey with Millennial reader and Romantasy fan/expert, Haley Bajorek.  If you’ve ever wondered what Romantasy is, why it has a huge fan base, whether it’s for you, and where to start, this episode fills in all the blanks!For Gen X readers like Sonja and Vanessa who grew up on tales such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, the focus of this episode, Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses (2015) is a radical departure.  Dare we say a paradigm shift.  Forget moody men dressed up as fortune tellers by firelight–Haley helps us get our bearings in Romantasy worlds where giant wolf-lions turn out to be hot fairies who look like Chris Hemsworth…with pointy ears. and retractable claws. Biting might happen.  Riddles must be solved. Miles must be traveled.  And here we are (again!) talking about the female odyssey. Romantasy is a genre by women, for women, and very much a female community endeavor, and even if it’s not your cup of stars, Haley offers a bite-sized, juicy taste of this feminist branch of fantasy literature.Along the way, we wish we had a harem, we get vertigo learning the practical implications of having a “mate,” and skulls and peppers become sign posts to new worlds.  REFERENCES:We could not have done this episode without the guidance and collaboration of our dear friend, Haley Bajorek, who often goes bravely where no man would go, and we are so lucky to be in her circle.  Thank you, Haley!If you want to dip your toes into Romantasy, you can start with Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses, like we did, and if you want to check out her whole universe, the Sarah J. Maas Website would be a good starting point.If you are more in the mood for dragons, check out Rebecca Yarros's Website where love and battle take flight.

Welcome to our first episode of “In Walks a Woman Writer”!  We are proud to kick off this special author series with talented Kansas poet and veteran teacher, Melissa Fite Johnson.  You are in for a treat as Melissa’s warmth will make you feel welcome, and, like Sonja and Vanessa, you’ll be grateful for Melissa’s shrewd insights about life and writing.  Melissa’s third collection, Midlife Abecedarian, is filled with nostalgia, self-discovery, and a wisdom that only comes through reflecting deeply on one’s younger self…or is it selves?  After she shares her poems on the show today, you’ll wonder why-oh-why you don’t already have this collection on your bedside table, right at the top of your TBR stack.  Melissa’s poetry is honest, precisely crafted, and nothing short of revelatory.  Plus, pop culture pulses through her verses.  In fact, if you remember what it was like to look for videos at a Blockbuster store, Melissa’s recollections of being a teen in the 1990's will feel like cozying up in your favorite oversized sweater. We discover so much in this conversation, including Melissa’s literary influences, her unique writing process, and why she believes poetry should be for everyone. Along the way, we blow kisses to a young Luke Perry in his white t-shirt, try to dress like So-Called Claire Danes, and Poetry and Pro Wrestling go on a date. REFERENCES:Melissa loves her hometown bookstore, The Raven, right here in Lawrence, Kansas, so if you want to buy her book, she’d love it if you’d check them out.Midlife Abecedarian is published by Riot in Your Throat Press.Melissa Fite Johnson’s website is here.

First, you should rush to read Sarah Waters’s The Paying Guests, a fantastic romance thriller set in 1922, post World War 1 England.  We don’t give spoilers, exactly, but the historical context we cover gives you some idea of events and situations that come up in the novel.  And the novel is wall-to-wall women’s issues:  society’s expectations of decorum, cooking, cleaning, birth control, wifely duties, sex, widowhood, spinsterhood, motherhood, and a fair amount about 1920's housekeeping.  Sonja helps us understand the economic state of the UK after WW1, women’s voting rights, early attempts at family planning, abortion law and practices, and whether there were laws about lesbians.   Along the way, we find out some people (not female people, mind you) once believed that robust menstruation was a sign of good health, and we learn that “servants don’t organize themselves,” while someone dramatic dons a dress made entirely of jewels.REFERENCESWe reference other IWAW episodes here:  S3E1 on Tristan & Iseult; S3E on Romeo & Juliet; and the reference to the “ritual death” is from our episode on Julie Ann Long’s The Perils of Pleasure. Sarah Waters has written several novels during her very successful career, and you can find out more about her at her website.The biography that Sonja mentions is Vera Britain’s Testament of Youth, which is still in print, and if you want an overview of her life, this article from The Guardian offers a quick insight.Marie Stopes’s 1918 work, Married Love, can be found at Project Gutenberg.Here’s a great essay about the fear that lesbians were taking over Britain after World War 1:  "The Cult of the Clitoris": Sexual Panics and the First World WarCheck out Maude Allen in her jewels-only dress as Salome.Here’s a 2024 article from The Guardian, that hits the high points of the Edith Thompson and Freddie Bywaters's Trial, plus how even a hundred years later, Edith’s heirs are trying to clear her name.  

Ernest Hemingway’s 1929 A Farewell to Arms is almost always captioned as a tragic romance.  Is it?  Tragic, yes.  Romance…debatable.  Is Frederick Henry a compelling romantic hero and Catherine Barkley an inspiring romantic heroine?  Join Sonja and Vanessa as they run through the text (SPOILER ALERT), and give their verdict on the love story.This show will also offer you a mini Hemingway bio, an explanation of his writing philosophy and style, and it highlights distinctions between warfare on the Western and Italian Fronts in World War 1.  Vanessa also shares an overview of feminist literary critics’ takes on Hemingway’s treatment of Catherine–both supportive and disapproving.Along the way, we discover how Catherine Barkley feels about rent-by-the-hour hotel rooms; we bump up against old-man-doctor theories, claiming the benefits of “good” alcohol during pregnancy, and stale Cheetos--of course--make a cameo. REFERENCES:Other Episodes of IWAW are mentioned:  the reference to Tristan and Iseult is explained in IWAW S3E1; the reference to Elly and Gaunt and Paul Fussell (author of The Great War and Modern Memory) are explained in our episode on Alice Winn’s novel, In Memoriam, IWAW S3E8; to learn more about Romeo as a romantic hero, check out our 3-part series on Romeo and Juliet that starts with IWAW S3E2; Colin Eversea is the hero of Julie Ann Long’s The Perils of Pleasure, covered in IWAW S3E7; and the reference to Esther in Sarah Water’s The Paying Guests links to our next show, that drops on Friday, 8/22/25.  Stay tuned!Here is a link to Ernest Hemingway’s essay, "The Art of the Short Story" from 1959.CORRECTION:  The quote from Hemingway in which he mentions raisin bread is actually from a 1954 TIME Magazine interview that can be found here.The audio of Hemingway's Nobel Prize Speech is a quick listen, in case you are interested, and it focuses mostly on the loneliness of a writer’s life.

Sonja and Vanessa LOVE Alice Winn’s 2024 novel, In Memoriam, a moving love story of two soldiers fighting on the fabled Western Front in World War 1.  Winn nimbly weaves numerous, real historical events through the friends-to-lovers romance of two teens who fight bravely for their country but have to keep their love secret from that very government–on pain of death.Our goal in this episode is not to summarize or spoil the novel, but rather to act as a useful companion to the text.  You could listen to it before, during, or after reading the book. Most of us know more about WW2 than WW1, and when we encounter historical novels, we often wonder, “how much of this really happened?”  Our episode hopes to offer a larger historical context and flesh out some details that Winn mentions briefly in the narrative, character dialogue, and setting descriptions.   Can you read and enjoy this novel without knowing more about WW1?  ABSOLUTELY.  Winn never lets you feel lost or confused, but if you are a fellow historically-curious reader, we’ve done a little homework for you. So relax and enjoy the research! Along the way, Sonja politely describes how early 20th century European royalty were one big, um, family, followed shortly after by Vanessa explaining feathers as weapons. REFERENCES:Do yourself a huge favor and pick up a copy of Alice Winn’s In Memoriam.Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory was a landmark study of the impact of World War 1 on our fundamental understanding of the world, of war, of trust in government, leading to the modern sense of alienation and fragmentation.George Orwell’s essay “Such, Such Were the Joys,” published posthumously in 1952 describes his youthful experience at an elite all-boys boarding school as a "world of force and fraud and secrecy." Is Gaunt “a Darcy”? refers to the main argument of Dr. Rachel Feder’s brilliant work, The Darcy Myth (IWAW covers it in Season 3, Episode 6)Margaret MacMillan's insightful essay, "The Rhyme of History: The Lessons of the Great War"  can be read hereThe history podcasts mentioned in the show are The Rest is History, History that Doesn’t Suck, and Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History series “Blueprint to Armageddon” that can be purchased directly from his site, dancarlin.comFURTHER READING SUGGESTIONS ON WW1:Now it Can Be Told by Philip Gibbs is a reporters description of WW1 after the war when he could finally tell what he really witnessed because government censorship (on all sides) made that impossible during the conflict. It can be purchased here.If you are curious how the war happened, Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers is very accessible to the nonhistorian reader.Barbara Tuchman’s 1963 Pulitzer Prize-winning account, The Guns of August vividly portrays the sheer scale and violence of the opening of the war. 

Sonja and Vanessa dip into a wonderful historical romance novel by Julie Ann Long, The Perils of Pleasure, Book 1 of 11 in her marvelous Pennyroyal Green series.  We set up the first three chapters, but that’s just the premise of the book, and there are no spoilers.  We discuss the literary lineage of regency romance novels, like this one, both to Pride and Prejudice and even to Tristan & Iseult.   Sonja brings up some thought-provoking questions worth considering:  What is the specific appeal of “Regency” romances? Are there essential elements that any good romance novel must contain?  Is it disempowering to women to read romance novels?  Along the way, we find out that Jane Eyre and Elizabeth Bennet share a crucial life moment, Vanessa finally learns what a “plot moppet” is, and Sonja discovers that she needs to write a Regency, Amish, vampire romance novel.REFERENCESJulie Ann Long’s The Perils of Pleasure can be purchased here.Julie Ann Long has a website that gives a good sense of her whole (very impressive) body of work.A Natural History of the Romance Novel by Pamela Regis can be purchased here.  This was such a great resource!  If you love romance novels, you would find Regis’s study fascinating.  And check out the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books Website.  Savvy and fun!

If you like your literature with a side of pop culture, you’ll love what’s on the menu for today: Rachel Feder’s clever & informative study, The Darcy Myth: Jane Austen, Literary Heartthrobs, and the Monsters They Taught Us to Love (2023).  Let’s face it, whether or not we have read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and whether we love or hate it, Lizzie and Mr. Darcy’s love story has had a massive influence on our culture, specifically in terms of how straight women view the “story” of love and envision their “ideal” guy.Sonja and Vanessa examine the main argument of Rachel Feder’s thoroughly entertaining exploration of our collective love for Mr. Darcy.  Feder asks an important question:  what effect has loving Mr. Darcy in fiction had on our real lives? Is Feder right that we might have taken the fantasy too far?  This episode is for you if you have ever met a woman (or been a woman…) who is dating a guy that everyone else thinks is a jerk, but YOU understand him, and YOU know he’ll change, and YOU are willing to do the work to transform him. If this sounds eerily familiar, then Rachel Feder’s insightful book might help you understand the psychology at work, and this episode will (hopefully) sell you on checking out or (better yet) buying The Darcy Myth.Along the way, Sonja and Vanessa brush up against the possibility that Longbourne is a haunted house, once again find themselves circling back to questions about female odysseys, and–quite innocently–find themselves porn adjacent. REFERENCESCheck out Rachel Feder's Website for a list of all her works, including her newest book, Taylor Swift By the Book:  The Literature Behind the Lyrics, from Fairy Tales to Tortured Poets (2024), co-authored with Tiffany TatreauMarriage: a History by Stephanie Coontz can be purchased here.For a deep dive into Jane Eyre, check out On Eyre, a special series from Hot and Bothered Podcast, hosted by Vanessa Zoltan & Lauren Sandler.The mention of virginity as a “fettish” is in Virginia Woolf’s collection of lectures, A Room of One’s Own, specifically in the section entitled, “If Shakespeare Had a Sister.” You can purchase the entire volume, or there are many pdf versions of the “If Shakespeare Had a Sister” section, like this one from the University of Minnesota @ Duluth.The mention of Clarissa and Pamela are to two novels by 18th century novelist, Samuel Richardson.  Our 5th episode of season 3 is actually about Pamela (1740), and if you’d rather not read it but would still like to know about it, you will find that episode very helpful and fun.  We have not read Clarissa…yet?...it’s about 1,500 pages, so no promises…

Sonja and Vanessa have read a 500 page novel for you (or a measly 400 pages, depending on which edition you read).  You’re welcome!  It’s about a 15 year old girl named Pamela, who is the most beautiful woman on earth (according to everyone in the novel), and she’s a servant girl who is “accomplished” (in Pride and Prejudice fashion…even to the extent that everyone marvels at how well she carves a chicken–now that’s an accomplished young lady, dear listeners).  Pamela finds herself the lust-and-later-love object of her decade-older employer, Mr. B—-, and there are comical cross-dressing scenes, hidden letters, mugged parsons, and our “poor, dear Pamela” jumps out of at least one window.Come along for this entertaining romp through this famous early novel that was the first English BEST SELLER in history, consider the ideas threading through it that are (sadly) still very much with us today, and the surprising prequel vibe it has for Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.  Jane Austen might have perfected the enemies-to-lovers plot…but she didn’t invent it, and here’s a book she for sure read.  See what you think!Along the way, we meet a “scribbling” woman (over a hundred years before Nathaniel Hawthorne coined the expression), link The Breakfast Club to 18th century literature, and Sonja and Vanessa wonder why they didn’t just call the podcast “Idle Sluts in the House.” REFERENCESDr. Octavia Cox, of Oxford University, has several wonderful educational videos about 18th century literature, and this one on the success of Pamela in 1740 is incredibly informative with helpful visuals.More information on Dr. Octavia Cox can be found here.Here is a picture of the original title page of Samuel Richardson’s novel, Pamela.Here is a picture of the original title page of Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe, 1722.Tate Museum's 4 Paintings by Joseph Highmore of scenes from Pamela, including Mr. B– disguised as a drunk maid sitting in a corner, spying on Pamela as she undresses.Gaze here upon the portrait of Samuel Richardson that Vanessa printed out and framed to have before us in the studio as the pod was recorded so we remembered to be kind to Sam.