Kristan Higgins is the Queen of warm and funny small town romance – hers is a world of “real life, true love and lots of laughs.” And her readers love her for it. Hi there I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today Kristan talks about staying true to what you know when the ‘market’ is screaming another message, and why she’s ruthless with her own work. Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: Why Kristan ditched her first attempt at writing Why small town romance suits her perfectly Ignoring the market – Yes or No? The benefits of being a good listener The writers she admires most The one thing she’d done that’s made her success Where to find Kristan Higgins: Website: kristanhiggins.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KristanHigginsBooks/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kristan_Higgins What follows is a “near as” transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions. Jenny: But now, here’s Kristan. Hello there Kristan, and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us. Kristan: Thank you so much for having me Jenny! Jenny: Beginning at the beginning – was there a “Once Upon A Time moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction? And if there was a catalyst, what was it? Romance author Kristan Higgins Kristan: You know, there wasn’t a moment like that. I wish there were, because it sounds great being knocked on your side wanting to do something. I really wanted to be paediatrician, and I still think that would be great except I have no aptitude for maths or science. I never thought about being an author until I was 36, and my son was three years old at nursery school. The day was approaching where he would be at school all day. I thought- I’ve got a couple of years before that happens, and I really would love to stay home with the kids, and be the person to get them off the school bus, and be around for other events and everything because I had been a stay at home mum until that point. My husband was working two jobs, so I knew that it wouldn’t really be fair for the kids to go off to school and for me to be alone for 8 hours and not contribute to the family finances. So I thought, ok; I can bartend, or maybe I could write a book! I loved reading; if anything knocked me on the side of the head with a baseball bat, it was the love of reading from an early age. I learnt to read when I was four, and books made up a huge part of my life. So I felt qualified in one respect, in that I had just read thousands of romance novels. And I thought: I think I can write one, I think I can understand them well enough to write one. And why not? I had worked in advertising, so I had been a professional writer. I actually had advantages there, and I sat down to give that a try. Fools Rush In – Kristan Higgins Jenny: Your first novel was Fools Rush In, a contemporary romance, published in 2007. Was romance a natural genre for you – and was “Fools” the first ms you ever finished? Kristan: Well, it was. I had started another manuscript which is now sort of a joke to me; it was a historical romance set in Ireland during the Potato Famine. So if you’re familiar with my books, you’d think “it was what Kristan?!” So I started to write that book, and for some reason I thought it was a really good idea and then I went to a writer’s conference and I realised I had no knowledge of this era. I was just kind of making things up as I went along. It was really depressing, as you can imagine, stuck in the Potato Famine. So I thought, what I should really write is a romantic comedy set in contemporary time, set in a small town because that’s what I loved to read. That’s where I lived- I lived in a small town, so then I thought I’d be writing about what I knew. So Fools Rush In started at that conference, and finished about six months later in terms of the first draft. Then I spent another year revising it and reading the best authors in the genre; Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Susan Wiggs, Julia Quinn, and really trying to educate myself as a reader and a writer. Jenny: Yes, you’ve got humour in all of your books; a lovely sense of humour and I just wonder if you’re the sort of young woman who was the class clown, or who deflected awkwardness by joking about it? Kristan: Not really! I mean I think I was quieter kid; I wasn’t really the class clown type. I went to Catholic schools, and the class clowns were punished so I tried to avoid that at all costs! Although I did get whacked in the head with a Latin book once by Sister Eleanor. So I think I was quietly funny, and also a good listener. I think a really essential tool about a writer, but especially of a humour writer, is to be able to listen, to know a good story when you hear one, to get down the pauses, the beats and the punchline. I have a very funny family; we love to make fun of ourselves and each other. I once said nothing gives me as much joy as my mother falling! I remember one time it was slippery out and icy, and we were getting in the car. She was just gone! She just slid right under the car and I was calling out after her. Those are the kind of moments that I love to revisit! Jenny: I know that feeling of just laughing when you know you really should be staying serious, but you just can’t help it! Kristan: Exactly! My mum is such a good sport- she was laughing too! We have a good time. I do love to incorporate humour in my books, because I like to laugh, I like to be entertained, and I think humour is something that creates such a bond with the reader. If you can laugh with someone, then you understand them and I think it’s a great way to create intimacy with the reader. Jenny: More than ten years and more than a million books later and you’ve published 18 books, gathered multi awards from serious and frivolous publishing bodies and you’ve tried your hand at some series as well as the stand alones…. What do you most enjoy writing? Kristan: I love them both. When you write a book that’s not connected at all to another book, you have a completely fresh slate. But that also means more work for you as a writer; you have to invent the place, the town, the people, the issues that the setting might bring up, all the characters are new. So I wrote Blue Heron, a five book series about a town in Western New York where they grow a lot of grapes and make a lot of wine. So that was really fun to write. In your dreams – Kristan Higgins It was planned to be a three book series about the three grown children and this one family, and then it morphed into five when the heroine’s best friend was such a fun character that I decided to write her story too. And then she had a twin brother, so I had to write his story too. In that respect, it was very easy because I knew where I was going, I knew the supporting cast. I knew the town, because it played such a big role in my books. The town is very important. But it was also harder, because I had to adhere to what I had said in previous books. A tossed away comment might be something that traps you later. For example, I said that one of the characters was divorced and I had never really thought about that character and his past romantic life, but it was there in print. So I had to make an ex- wife for him. And sometimes you think you have an idea of who the heroine will be, and then it turns out not to work out. It’s things like “that’s too easy of an arrangement, they’re really not going to make a great couple. Who else have I got?”, or does somebody come to town who’s new? There’s challenges and freedom in both stand alones and series I think. Jenny: Sure. Was that Jack who was divorced? That was an interesting one, because it was believable that he might have married that sort of girl. And then it was believable how it only lasted 8 months! Kristan: Yes! Jack and Emmaline were supposed to be together in my imagination, and then I thought there’s no good reason for them not to be together already, there’s no conflict for them to overcome, there’s nothing standing in their way. They’re perfectly suited for each other if they want to be together; why has it taken so long? I thought that also felt a little incestuous to have Jack marry his sister’s best friend. So I kind of did a census of the town, and I thought it was interesting that I already had a lot to work with. So Emmaline was the hero for Jack. She was kind of an unlikely heroine; certainly I don’t think anybody would have guessed that she was standing in line for a romance, but she was there. She was sassy and fun, she had a great personality already established from a previous book and I thought, I like her! I like how she’s the unexpected choice. Jenny: A lot of your stories are grounded in families and small communities – certainly the overriding link in all of the series seems to be that strong sense of place and of belonging – or not belonging – Finding that place you can call home… What’s the fascination of the American equivalent of “village” life for you? The Perfect Match – Kristan Higgins Kristan: Well I live in a small town in New England. We have about 6000 people I think. I grew up here, and then went off to college and then lived in a city before moving to New York City when my husband and I were married. Then when we decided to have kids, we decided to go back to Connecticut and be closer to my extended family and my mum. So living in a small town is very interesting; everyone really does know everybody else’s business or has heard of it fourth hand. You can’t get more than two degrees of separation away from anybody; I’m still known as Noelle’s daughter in this town and my children’s mum. There’s something really comforting about that, yet also maddening. There are days when you crave anonymity or just to be able to go out and not run into the six people that you know. Then there’s the histories that go together- he was mean to me on the school bus when I was in third grade, I will never forgive him- that sort of thing! So I do love that little microcosm of a small town. And I think they’re really appealing to readers, as the trend has been so strong in small town romance. But when I was new to writing, it wasn’t. It was kind of a knock off of Sex and The City and a lot of romantic suspense. And so it was either Chick Lit set in Manhattan where everybody wore fabulous shoes and worked in a magazine, or it was ‘she’s a US Senator and he’s her bodyguard’. That kind of thing. So I was writing a romantic comedy in a little town, and it worked. I think it worked for the same reason as I wrote it because a lot of people live in it, and it feels very warm and close in terms of community when you read a small town romance. You think, “I’d like to live there”. Jenny: I noticed a definite trend in Romance after “Fifty shades” came out a few years back to get into more explicit sex – and you’ve said your romantic action pretty well stops at the bedroom door… Did you feel under any commercial pressure to change that stance when S & M was trendy? Kristan: Actually, the opposite is true. By and large my readers say they really appreciate that they close the door. It can be very sexy and romantic in what I call “emotionally sexy”. But I’m not good at writing love scenes and I don’t really love them as a reader. It takes a very talented writer to make me invested in the love scene, because we read it so many times. We all know what happens, so something really special has to happen other than just the usual. I’m getting into trouble here! But my readers tend to thank me for writing clean books that they can share with their mums, their teenager, and only once did I get a really fun email from a woman who said “I’m 87 years old, and I wouldn’t mind if you turned up the heat factor because I have to get my jollies somehow!” I think there’s room for every heat level. I think there’s certain scenes I have written that are very steamy, but we just don’t go all the way with the characters. You do close the door. And then I’ve read some really explicit stuff that’s beautiful and really emotional and meaningful. So I love that there’s this whole range. I never got pressured to get more explicit, and if I had I would have said no. I’m just not really good at it or comfortable with it. It seems to have worked out pretty well. Good Luck With That – Kristan Higgins Jenny: You’ve summed up what you’re trying to achieve as “real life, true love, and lots of laughs . . .” Not so much the rich and the beautiful ….. I loved the way you restored Jessica and Levi – a couple of the” trailer park kids” in the Blue Heron series – to lives of self respect, love and fulfilment. Do you find readers respond well to this approach? Kristan: Yes, I think that it’s an opportunity to create tension and conflict that’s more than just the romantic tension conflict. So in this area, as is true just about everywhere, you know there’s the rich and the poor, the seemingly rich and the poor. There’s labels and opportunities that are given to one group, but aren’t given to another. So I do try to work that angle, because I think it’s just a fact of life that if you grew up in certain parts of my state, you’re going to go to a great college and you’re going to find a very solid secondary education. If you lived in some of the cities in my state, you are guaranteed not to because we’re so erratically funded. To see someone come out of poverty is so rewarding as a reader, or a story on the news or something where you see someone who has overcome the odds like Jessica and Levi making lives for themselves. Levi joins the military, Jessica puts herself through college in little bits and pieces. In my Cambry- On-Hudson series, it’s a wealthy town set outside of New York City, so you have that too. You have the city living in the distance where a lot of people commute to work, and you have New York as this backdrop almost in the backyard. Then you have the regular people of the city- the people who feed the wealthy folks, who make their clothes, rent their buildings and that kind of thing. So I love exploring that as an author, and I think it’s an element in all my books now that you’ve bought it up. If you only knew – Kristan Higgins Jenny: Susan Elizabeth Phillips suggested in a recent USA Today interview in the Cambry-On-Hudson series that you’re moving slightly away from romance and more towards woman’s fiction? Is that a conscious choice? Kristan: I think it’s an organic part of my writing. I didn’t really have a career plan, and I still don’t. I take my career book by book. So even when I was writing the series, I thought “ok I’ll try this, I’ll give it a go”. If it goes well, that’s great. If not, I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing, which was stand alones, But the move to womens’ fiction was just kind of a natural drift I think. All my books have those elements. Usually I see the differences that in womens’ fiction, the male point of view isn’t told as much, whereas in romances it’s almost back and fourth conversation in one chapter. I think that the issue in womens’ fiction is more about the female protagonist’s journey towards overcoming some of the issues in her life, whether they’re financial, emotional, family issues, circumstances. The romance is part of that journey, but it’s not the central journey. Jenny: Both those books revolved around sister relationships. Sisterly relationships are strong in the Blue Heron series too. Do you have any sisters, and what is the fascination with sisters? Kristan: I do have a sister, and she is wonderful. We’re very close; we always have been. She’s 15 months younger than I am, so she was a grade behind me in school. She was my best friend growing up. We lived in a rural area, and we had one other girl who lived close enough to play with us. But pretty much it was her and me. I think in some respects, there’s no person who knows you as well as your sister, whether for good or for bad. You grew up together, you share genetics, you have the same parents, the same relatives, you’ve been on the same holidays. So you have this history and richness of shared experiences that I think is so impacting in our lives. In one of my books, the sisters are adopted, so they didn’t have that shared history; that makes it an interesting dynamic between them. In another book, they’re half sisters so again they didn’t have exactly the same upbringing. I do think there’s something really primal about the sisterly relationship. I think it’s so interesting that two women can see the events of their lives that were so often the same, but at such different heights and perspectives. I love exploring that. Jenny: Yes, I must admit I’m one of four girls and that is just so true; we are all so different in the way that we remember what happened in our home and between our parents. There’s quite different lessons taken away by each of us. Moving to a more general focus, away from specific books to your wider career Sex and the City – Not for her Jenny: Is there one thing you’ve done in your writing career more than any other that’s been the secret to your success? Kristan: That’s a great question. I think the best thing I’ve done, although it wasn’t really a conscious choice, was not to listen to the market. To write what I really wanted to write, and to be ruthless with my writing. So I didn’t try to write a Sex and The City, Chick-Lit type of book when those are popular, because I knew I didn’t know how to. I just thought- I’m going to write this book, this is the book I’d love to read. That’s been true even as my books shift slightly in their focus. I try not to think about what the market or data says- I just think about the next book I want to write. Because what’s been true is if I wanted to read it, it seems like other people share that as well. It’s hard; it’s hard to an author as you know. There’s so much information out there, so what do you listen to and what do you ignore? I’ve always kind of ignored everything and thought, ignorance has served me well! I just kind of listen to what I want to do in the next 6 or 9 months of my life; what book do I want to write then. And being ruthless with my books has served me very well too. I’m not one of those authors who is in love with her work, I don’t think “I’ve had the best day of writing, words just flew out of me like bluebirds!”, you know? That never happens! I struggle over every page, and I’m critical over every page. But it’s helped, because I think in some ways I’ve worked harder than the super talented people. It doesn’t flow for me, it’s not easy and so I pour over every page and every story, trying to make it the absolute best it can be. Jenny: That’s wonderful. It’s refreshing to hear you say you don’t listen to the market! I notice you seem to have a quiet year in 2016 in terms of publishing – nothing came out that year in contrast to the years around it . . did you feel the need for a sabbatical from writing. On second thought – Kristan Higgins Kristan: Let’s see, I had finished the Blue Heron series, and I had a book come out in the Fall. My next book didn’t come out until the next winter. That was more of a decision on my publisher’s part, to give the womens’ fiction a longer time in the marketplace as opposed to the romances which tend to go more quickly once they hit the shelves. I did take a break between finishing On Second Thought and writing my upcoming book which is called Good Luck With That. I was in between contracts, and I hadn’t taken a break in 14 years of writing. I had finished a book, and started another one within the week. I thought, I’m not on deadline at this moment, trying to think about if I wanted to stay with my current publisher or move. I just wanted to think about the next book that I wanted to write, so it was really fun to have that time. I ended up researching a lot for this book, and attempting all the other aspects of being a writer which as you know Jenny, is not just writing fiction. It’s marketing, and interacting, social media and newsletters, blogs; all that stuff. So it was a nice little rest. Turning to Kristan as reader Jenny: The series is called “The Joys of Binge Reading” because I see it as providing inspiration for people who like to read series . . . .So – turning to your taste in fiction who do you “binge read” ? Kristan: Right now I’m binge reading K M Jackson who writes a small town, contemporary series. The food in her books is dangerous! All her writing is very rich, luscious and layered. Then she talks about food in the same way, and the book I’m reading now is set around a family run pie shop. So I’m starving all the time! I love her books. K M Jackson books a favourite Sonali Dev is a huge favourite of mine, and I recommend her very highly for lovers of womens’ fiction. She’s got the most beautiful way with words. And then for something a little different, I binge read Sherry Thomas’ Lady Sherlock series. It’s this brilliant twist on Sherlock Holmes, where Lady Sherlock is our protagonist and she’s a bit on the spectrum in Victorian England. So it’s a really brilliant series, and Sherry is such a gifted writer. Those are three recommendations right there. Jenny: They all sound great. I haven’t heard of those three people, so that’s wonderful! Circling back to the end (I see this as a bit of a narrative) Jenny: At this stage in your career, if you were doing it all again, what would you change – if anything? Kristan: No, I’ve been really lucky. Readers have been so wonderful to me. Deciding to become a writer was a shot in the dark and the readers picked up my book and recommended it, and I’ve really had a very lucky, blissful, blessed career. So I wouldn’t change a thing. Jenny: You’ve obviously also worked very hard; I’ve noticed you say that you basically turned around books and were into the next one the next week! That’s very nose to the grind stone isn’t it? Kristan: Yes. You can’t rule out hard work in a career, and it is hard work. Aside from being a mother, it’s the best hard work I’ve ever done! Jenny: What is next for Kristan as writer? New projects under development? Kristan: Yes, I have two books in the hopper. One is called Good Luck With That, and that comes out this summer. That tickles an issue that I think speaks to every woman, which is self acceptance and body image and how closely those two are intertwined. It’s the story of three friends who met as teenagers at weight loss camp, and a list that they had made when they were teenagers. 17 or 18 years later, that list resurfaces when one of the friends dies. It’s a book about friendship, and second chances but most of all really coming to take care, love and accept yourself exactly as you are. I’ve also just passed in another book, which is called Life and Other Inconveniences. That one is a multi generational story about a family- three women and a teenager, a 35 year old (the teenager’s mother) and the grandmother who raised the 35 year old. I’m really excited about that one too, and that comes out next summer in 2019. Jenny: I love both of those titles, they’re both fantastic Where can readers find you on line? Do you like to be in communication with your readers? Kristan: Oh yes, I’m very intimate with my readers! I answer all my mail myself. You can find me at kristanhiggins.com and all my links to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are there also. It’s been really lovely talking to you Jenny. Thank you so much. Jenny: I’ll look forward to those next coming books with a great deal of anticipation! Thank you so much, Kristan. Thanks To Our Technical Support: The Joys of Binge Reading podcast is put together with wonderful technical help from Dan Cotton at DC Audio Services. Dan is an experienced sound and video engineer who’s ready and available to help you with your next project… Seek him out at [email protected] or Phone + 64 – 21979539. He’s fast, takes pride in getting it right, and lovely to work with. Our voice overs are done by Abe Raffills, and Abe’s another gem. He got 20 years of experience on both sides of the camera/microphone as a cameraman/director and also voice artist and television presenter. Abe’s vocal delivery is both light hearted and warm and he is super easy to work with no matter the job. You’ll find him at [email protected]

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