Smart Podcast, Trashy Books: A Romance Novel Podcast

We’re back with more Holiday Wishes! This week we’re talking with Garlic Knitter, Claudia, Christine, and Jo.A few notes:First, my voice is not great. Some of these were recorded when I had a dreadful cold, so I apologize in advance.Second, if you’re a sympathetic crier like I am, please know that when Christine and I are talking, we both get a little choked up while talking about grief and the infuriating unfairness of American healthcare. It’s an emotional conversation and a beautiful one – thank you for sharing so much of yourself, Christine.Updates? Updates!Thanks to your Patreon pledges, we have reached our goal with the F’ICE campaign, and all dynamic ads will be turned off permanently for everyone who listens. Thank you so much! You can gift a Patreon membership if you'd like! It's easy and very flexible.AND! The Smart Bitches Candle Collection is LIVE! I partnered with Wax Cabin Candle Company, an independent small chandlery, to offer two limited edition candles just for the holiday season!They are on sale now through early January, and you can buy one or both in a gift set! And they are going very fast! The Smart Bitches 20th Anniversary candle is an 11 ounce hand poured soy candle with notes of sea salt, book pages, sandalwood and jasmine.The Bad Decisions Book Club candle, also 11 ounces, is designed to be the perfect pairing for late night reading, with scents of sweet tobacco, book pages, leather, rose, and sandalwood. I had a marvelous time picking out the scents.So if you’re looking for the perfect gift for yourself or the book lovers in your life, check out the 2025 Smart Bitches Candle collection. You can shop small, support the site, and spread light and warmth this year. 

Ready for more wishes and recs? And bad jokes? I bet you are! This week we’re talking with Agnes, Emily, Sarah Jane, and Jenn – and Min the cat.And in the outro, you’ll hear from ShoesforAll, aka Sarah.And! Important announcement 1: thanks to your Patreon pledges, we have reached our goal with the F’ICE campaign, and all dynamic ads will be turned off permanently for everyone who listens. Thank you so much!Important announcement 2: the Smart Bitches Candle Collection is LIVE! I partnered with Wax Cabin Candle Company, an independent small chandlery, to offer two limited edition candles just for the holiday season!They are on sale now, Friday November 28, through early January, and you can buy one or both in a gift set!The Smart Bitches 20th Anniversary candle is an 11 ounce hand poured soy candle with notes of sea salt, book pages, sandalwood and jasmine.The Bad Decisions Book Club candle, also 11 ounces, is designed to be the perfect pairing for late night reading, with scents of sweet tobacco, book pages, leather, rose, and sandalwood. I had a marvelous time picking out the scents.So if you’re looking for the perfect gift for yourself or the book lovers in your life, check out the 2025 Smart Bitches Candle collection. You can shop small, support the site, and spread light and warmth this year.We also mentioned:The episode where we discussed frozen shoulder and other fun menopause things is Episode 658. Romance and Penetrative Sex: A Conversation With Jane BuehlerThe episode where Earth is Garbage and Space is Horny is Episode 392.You can download Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinburg from the author’s website.Emily mentioned some birds, and if you’d like to know what they look like, here are pics!The pileated woodpeckerThe red bellied woodpeckerThe great crested fly catcher 

It’s time for our annual Holiday Wishes episodes!Every year I connect with listeners around the world, where we talk about books, wishes, and bad jokes. So this time of year, my guests are…all of you!In this set of wishes, we’ve got classics, new mysteries, and series romances. And we’ve got Sapphic yearning!I have a record number of people signed up to do holiday wishes conversations with me, and these episodes are so uplifting and delightful, I’m extremely excited.And! There is still time to sign up! If you’re part of the Podcast Patreon or After Dark, you can still pick a time to connect with me.

Amye Archer, host of Little Miss Recap, was a guest on a recent paywalled episode of Fixing Famous People talking about soap operas. I was entranced. Amye is a fan of soaps, going way back, and I was very eager to have her as a guest to talk about soaps, the romances within soaps, and some of the overlap between soap fans and romance readers.After we talk about the matrilineal cultural inheritance of soaps and romance, we have a challenge. Amye brought some of her most memorably unhinged story lines from soaps, and I have brought some of my most memorably unhinged story lines from romance, and we’re going to swap.Please note that in this section we mention sexual assault, faked deaths, transphobic language and quicksand. During the recommendations, Amye mentions her memoir, which is about weight loss and addiction, so we discuss antifat bias and shame.This is a long one, so we’re going to keep you company.Did you have a favorite soap or soaps? Which ones?You can find Amye Archer at her website, AmyeArcher.com. Her podcasts are:Little Miss Recap – Also on InstagramGen X: This is WhyMurder She WatchedWe also mentioned:Northern DisclosurePump Up the Volume

After mentioning Heather Graham, one of the Grande Dames of RT, so many times while recapping issues of Romantic Times, I got to sit down with her to talk about her career, the way the industry has changed, and of course, her memories of Romantic Times, both the magazine and the convention.We talk about…Her memories of meeting Kathryn FalkThe earliest Romantic Times ConventionsHer incredible RT partiesThe work of hosting conferences.Heather has had one of the most interesting career paths, and this is a guest with whom I could just turn on the mic and say, “Please, tell me everything.”TW/CW: At 48:40, there is a discussion of groping, and if you’d like to avoid it, please skip ahead one minute.You can find Heather Graham at her website, TheOriginalHeatherGraham.com, and find all her short stories under “For My Readers.” You can also sign up for her newsletter.We also mentioned:JR Ward meets WrathThe full collection of JR Ward meeting the different actors in full hair and makeup – please note she is really overcome and crying at one pointBoucherCon, the World Mystery Convention Music:Purple-planet.com

My guest today is Lux Raven, author of the Siren’s duology that starts with Siren’s Mark, which came out – together – in early October. Lux wanted to join me on the podcast to talk about disability portrayals in romance, and about her own journey to diagnosis and how it influenced her writing – and vice versa.We talk a lot about the pernicious ableism in the writing of disabled characters, and about writing your catnip when you desperately want to see your experience in a romance.Last week was Invisible Disabilities Week, and we timed this episode on purpose. So if you’re dealing with an invisible disability, we see you. You are loved and if no one has told you today, you’re fabulous.TW/CW: at 16:50, we discuss antifat bias and misogyny in medical care, and if you’d like to skip over that, it’s about 1 minute total.Music:purple-planet.com

We’re going back to May 2016 to look at the Ads & Features in Romantic Times magazine. The kilts are kilting and the abs are ab-ing, and we’ve got some questions.How do we feel about the terms “book boyfriend” and “pre-con”?How much of the 2016 conference depended on Twitter to announce pop up signings and special limited time events?And do you remember how important Twitter was to a conference?How many different ways are there to photograph a very muscled shirtless man? I think we’re going to see all of them.So hop into the time machine, we’ve got the snacks, and we’re off to May 2016.Patreon folks, you have an extended cut of this episode, available through the app or through your private feed.We also mentioned Elyse’s review of Imagines, complete with Amanda’s specialty Photoshop....Please consider joining our Patreon campaign to turn off all the dynamic insertion ads. We're more than halfway there!

I’m bringing back a classic episode from the archives of the show, and because she has excellent taste, Amanda said it should be this one. When I originally published this episode, I focused on how silly we were – and we are plenty silly.But since then Amanda and I have talked about the fact that when we recorded this, we were, in fact, baked out of our gourds.So it’s a different kind of time travel: We’re going back to June 22, 2018, when Amanda, Elyse, and I were cruising on the special herbs at the Romantic Times BookLovers convention in May – the last RT convention.You can see how many full circles that is – I think this is why Amanda suggested this episode.We’re going to talk about Amanda’s weakness for Val Kilmer, the ranking of Hemsworths in order of physical density, how bad of a style icon was Anita Blake really? And can Amanda and Elyse find a villain hero I’d be interested in? Nah.As I said in the original intro:This is what happens when Sarah, Amanda, and Elyse get really silly, and stop making sense. And given that this has been A Rough Week, we hope you enjoy our completely bubbly, goofy, discussion.It’s still been a rough week! So I hope this makes you laugh....We're on our way to turning off the pre- and post-show dynamic ads, and we're halfway! If you join the Patreon, you're helping me turn them all off, and you're supporting the show, while also getting some fabulous benefits. Visit patreon.com/smartbitches for more info.

Grab your carry on, your snacks, and a blanket, because we’re hopping in the time machine again to go back to the May 2016 issue of Romantic Times to look at the new releases and reviews!This issue caused some big questions.Coke or Pepsi?Backstreet Boys or NSYNC?Did you worry about spontaneous combustion?Should I read the Midnight, Texas trilogy by Charlaine Harris?How many erotic romance titles in this issue contain the word “dirty?”We have lots to talk about so let’s get started!We also mentioned:Our review of Summer Supernovas by Darcy WoodsElyse’s review of Sleeping Giants by Sylvain NeuvelAmanda’s review of the Sleeping Giants audiobook.