Episode 270: The Power of Prozac and Jelly Beans with Elissa Sussman
“I think it’s important to have [sex scenes] because I think we rarely see women enjoying themselves. We rarely see media where the end of the story is ‘and everything worked out great for her.’”
- Elissa Sussman
Kate and Doree ponder the social definition of aesthetic, and then author Elissa Sussman (Funny You Should Ask, Once More With Feeling) joins them to talk about navigating career highs while dealing with personal lows, elevating your community after going viral on BookTok, and using romance writing as a platform for teaching and talking about sex.
Mentioned in this Episode
July Event with Rachel Lynn Solomon + Elissa Sussman at The Ripped Bodice
Connect with Elissa Sussman
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Transcript
Kate: Hello friends, and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Kate Spencer.
Doree: And I'm Doree Shafrir.
Kate: And we're not experts.
Doree: We are not. We're two friends who like to talk a lot about serums.
Kate: I need to talk to you about something. Oh,
Doree: Okay. Go on.
Kate: So many months ago, perhaps even a year ago, we had kind of an influx of listeners who floss their teeth in the morning, kind of make themselves known, and the thought of flossing in the morning felt overwhelming and daunting to me. I'm a nighttime flosser Doree. Recently I have started flossing my teeth in the morning and now I'm wondering how I can ever go. I don't think I can go back. I think this is now who I am. I think I'm a twice a day flosser.
Doree: Is there a problem with being a twice a day flosser?
Kate: I don't think so. I feel like I've leveled up
Doree: Then. Great.
Kate: It feels great.
Doree: I'm happy for you.
Kate: I Don't know what clicked, but one day I was like, no, you know what? I need to get some of this nighttime gunk out of my teeth.
Doree: I will occasionally do a floss if I eat breakfast. And then I'm like, I feel like there's something in my teeth.
Kate: You go in there for a morning cleaning session,
Doree: But it's not consistent. I don't do it all the time, but I will as needed. I'm not opposed to doing it.
Kate: Right. You're not anti a morning floss?
Doree: No, I'm not.
Kate: I Bought myself a Colgate tooth whitening l e d kit.
Doree: Okay. How's it working?
Kate: I cannot tell if it's working. It is the most absurd production. You have to wipe your teeth with a tissue and get them super dry after brushing and flossing, and then you paint them with this whitening paste or I don't know, a teeth whitening solution. And then you have to wipe the brush because otherwise the brush hardens with the whitening solution. And then you have to let your teeth dry with this stuff on it. And so you're sitting there in the bathroom fanning my teeth with my lip tucked under. It's an absurd production. Then you insert the little l e d mouth guard and then to work it, you plug it into your phone. A whole thing.
Doree: Wow. You plug it into your phone.
Kate: Yes. Which really threw my husband for a loop. He was like, why is that plugged into your phone?
Doree: It is funny to me how everything has become phone activated or phone optimized.
Kate: Right.
Doree: Just it's interesting to me. This is interesting. I, I tried Crest White strips a few years ago and my teeth were very sensitive to them, which I guess is a thing. And so I haven't tried anything since then. I know that they do now make Crest White strips in a sensitive formula, so I was thinking about possibly getting those.
Kate: I also find Crest White strips to be, I'm too sensitive and just, they kind of make me gag the strange non-flavored flavor.
Doree: Yeah, it's weird,
Kate: But this Polish has kind of been working. I can handle it, but again, questionable if it's working. And anytime I ask a dental professional about getting my teeth whiten, I've never done it professionally. They always just say, get those crust strips.
Doree: I know, I've heard that too.
Kate: So this is my version of that is this weird paste with the l e d light mask that plugs into my phone. But if you try those sensitive strips, let me know what you think. Because I'm intrigued.
Doree: I keep adding them to a cart, like my target cart and then not actually pulling the trigger.
Kate: I do think that if you end up liking a Crest strip, Costco has them, and that would be
Doree: They have the sensitive ones.
Kate: I don't know about sensitive, but I do see the Crest strip. I will check the next time I'm there. Interesting. Interesting. That seems like a great bulk purchase.
Doree: That does seem a really good bulk purchase because it also seems like one of those things that you can't just stop using.
Kate: You have to be consistent about it.
Doree: Yeah. You have to maintain,
Kate: I was talking to a friend and they had the whitest teeth I had ever seen, and I asked, I asked like, are you whitening? What do you do? Because this has become a little bit of a fixation for me. Me and my coffee teeth, I don't know, a mid forties. I've been drinking coffee and tea for two decades. Plus there's, I could stand to kind of brighten them up a bit. Anyway, said friend told me they drink beverages with their lips over their teeth. Just that's how they've always
Doree: What?
Kate: Yes.
Doree: Like this?
Kate: Hold on, lemme just see your Yes,
Doree: No, what?
Kate: Yes. Yes. And they think that is how their teeth have stayed so white.
Doree: I don't even understand how that is possible. How do you even do that?
Kate: Your lips form a protective layer over your teeth. Ade, right now I'm wrapping my lips around my teeth. Let's see if I have a water bottle here. So it'd be like, I don't know.
Doree: I, yeah, I don't know.
Kate: This is what they look like right now, though. They look the same to me. The other thing is that I think I've done this five times now with my new little l e d phone tool. They currently look what I believe to be the same. So I'm not sure if this is actually working.
Doree: Have you taken before and after pics?
Kate: No, I never remember to do this. It's like anything I clean out a closet or a drawer.
Doree: I know, I know. Same. Oh, when I reorganized Henry's playroom, I texted it to a couple of my friends whose kids are the same age as Henry, and they were like, where are the before pics? And I was like, yes. Ooh. Forgot to take them. Cause you what? You can't go back.
Kate: No. You Well, yeah. I mean, in our house, I feel like I can re-mess stuff up in a day and just redo it all. But what's frustrating is I think the before picks are more satisfying than the afters.
Doree: Oh, what do you mean by that?
Kate: I mean, it's more satisfying to see the mess. And I guess that that is what makes the after photo that much more pleasing too, or maybe that much more impressive is having the before to go along with it. I'm talking about a reorg of a drawer, let's say,
Doree: Yes, totally, totally, totally. The before picture just heightens the effect of the after picture. Yes. But I also think, I mean, we as a society, and I include myself in this, are addicted to the rush of the before and after pic. And that goes for weight loss pictures too, which I think are really damaging.
Kate: A hundred percent agree. And I have been actively for, I don't want to say years trying to get them removed off of my Instagram, that kind of Instagram explorer page.
Doree: Yes.
Kate: I feel like no matter what I do, no matter how many times I say not interested or please don't show this to me.
Doree: Right. Just like, here you go. Yes.
Kate: Yes, they are. Well, yes. I mean the before and after body transformation photos are problematic in so many different ways, but I agree if we remove those from the conversation, just talking about the way we kind of do get a dopamine hit from the before and after of let's say a home renovation or this corner of my garden, all of it. So why is that so satisfying?
Doree: Yeah, and for me, I'm realized that the challenge isn't even so much. I mean, the challenge is the reorg that I find that very daunting and overwhelming, but it is satisfying. But the true challenge is the maintenance,
Kate: Which is not ever reflected in the after. Right.
Doree: No.
Kate: Cause the after is the immediate after.
Doree: Right. What I actually want is before the after and then the six months later.
Kate: This is such a good point.
Doree: does it look like the before picture or does it look more the after picture.
Kate: It looks more like the before. Hundred percent.
Doree: The part that's so hard.
Kate: You make such a great point because I think also, and I think Casey Davis talks about this in our conversation with her aka struggle care. This idea of the way everything we now consume is so visually based.
Doree: Yes.
Kate: An after pic isn't necessarily the most effective solution. It just looks the nicest on the gram. And I think this is something I don't know about you, but I struggle with this a little bit. I've cleaned up this drawer and made it work so effectively for our family, but it doesn't like look that cool or that amazing.
Doree: Right. And you see, I feel like you see this or I mean, this was kind of the phase of life I was just in, but I felt like I saw this a lot with nursery pics.
Kate: Forget it,
Doree: Because it was like, does a baby actually ever exist in this room?
Kate: No.
Doree: There's aesthetically very pleasing, but I don't see any true evidence of a child.
Kate: Right. Because if there would be three dirty diapers that have been thrown away in two days, there would be crap everywhere. Also, my kids talk a lot about aesthetic. That is a word that gets thrown around a lot with younger generations.
Doree: Interesting.
Kate: That I, they'll say, I love this aesthetic or this person's aesthetic, and that's not something I ever was thinking about at 20, much less 12.
Doree: Yeah, totally.
Kate: I also appreciate too, our first kid, we had our first kid when we lived in an apartment, a one bedroom apartment. So our nursery was a corner of our bedroom. We shoved a crib in a dresser and that was it. And I think a lot of times these, or you set up a nursery and then your kid ends up sleeping in a bassinet next to you. It doesn't. Right. As you're saying, it's not reflective of the lived experience.
Doree: Exactly.
Kate: I would love, I wonder what it feels like, who I think about a lot. Remember the man who stopped consuming news after 2016 and was written about in the New York Times?
Doree: I do remember him, yes.
Kate: Okay. I'm not saying we should live like that because that is whatever issues with that whole story at many levels. But what I am curious about is what if we had consumed no visual internet media for a while? I know there are folks who do this, but for me, this would be very hard. But if I didn't look at Instagram or TikTok for a year or Facebook, would my thinking change? Would my perception of style change would what I think is cool change if I wasn't bombarded with all this continuous visual imagery? Maybe.
Doree: Yeah.That's an interesting question.
Kate: I don't know.
Doree: I don't have an answer.
Kate: I know, I know you. I think the ways in which our social media impact our consumption and our feeling of not having enough is also so interesting. And I think that goes with aesthetic and style and homes and all this shit. It all is connected. It's kind of similar to the article you sent me today about Sambas.
Doree: Oh, go on.
Kate: Well, they're talking about, you sent me a really interesting article just about the ways in which the samba is the hot shoe, but it's also peeking and people who have maybe worn it for more than one or two years are upset that it's now the cool shoe and just the ways in which we even are being influenced in this. It just feels, I don't know, style feels more streamlined and less varied I think because of the ways in which it's all just on social media and we all have access to it.
Doree: Yeah, I think that's very true.
Kate: Not the tangent I set out to go on when I talked about flossing this morning, but an interesting thing to think about
Doree: That is just what we do here. Kate, should we introduce our guest?
Kate: We have our dear friend Elissa Sussman on the pod today. Elissa is wonderful. She is the best-selling author of the book. Funny You Should Ask, she's also written three young adult novels. She went to Sarah Lawrence College. She received her MFA from Pacific University and she lives here in Los Angeles. Her family and her latest book Once More with Feeling is Out Now. It just came out. Elissa writes just really smart, funny, wonderful romance books and YA books, and she's just a delight to chat with. We're very excited to get to have her on the pod today.
Doree: Before we get to Elissa though, I do just want to remind everyone that you can visit our website Forever35podcast.com for all those links that you're curious about and follow us on Instagram @Forever35podcast. And do call or text us at (781) 591-0390 or email us at Forever35podcast@gmail.com. And I also just want to say if you missed the picture of Kate in her new horse girl sweatshirt on her Instagram. I'm sorry you missed it. It was very good.
Kate: I'm sorry you missed it.
Doree: But you can buy your very own horse girl sweatshirt at balancebound.co/shop/Forever35.
Kate: It is a very cool sweatshirt.
Doree: It is a cool sweatshirt. I mean, I feel like a bit of an imposter wearing it because I'm not a horse girl. But
Kate: I think that what it is, is it's the embodiment of horse girl energy. You don't need to identify as a horse girl, a horse or a girl to wear one.
Doree: Okay.
Kate: It's really, it's an open and welcoming tag that I think you really just, it really just kind of embodies the vibe of a horse girl. And that vibe is girl vibe earnest and covered in Hay.
Doree: Nay. All right. We will be right back with Elissa.
Kate: All right. Here we are face-to-face over video chat with a friend who we often see in real life.
Doree: It's true.
Kate: It dawned on me. I was like, oh, this is funny. We're doing this. We could have done this in person, but this works too.
Elissa: Sure. It's the sa, it's basically the same. Oh, basically the same thing.
Kate: I mean, we're all very close to each other. We often write together. Thank you for the writing group. Shout out. And the acknowledgement.
Doree: Yeah. That was so
Elissa: Of course. I mean, it was like
Doree: So nice.
Kate: Truly. We should be thanking you for your dining room table.
Elissa: Well, we should thank Josh who built the dining room table, who did an excellent job.
Kate: Friends. Elissa has a very nice big dining room table where writers can gather and eat jelly beans.
Doree: And Elissa always has snacks.
Kate: Always Snacks. Yes. Always has tea.
Doree: LaCroix.
Elissa: Yes.
Doree: And You don't even drink LaCroix.
Elissa: That's why I'm the most proud of it. Cause I don't drink LaCroix at all.
Doree: I love that.
Elissa: But I like to be a good hostess.
Kate: You're a great host. You're a great hostess host. Yep. Can confirm
Elissa: In unison.
Kate: Yes. Yes. We do talk often at the same time. So good. That's true. I love it. Buckle up. Alyssa, we always like to start by asking guests about a self-care practice that they have. And I'm very eager to hear yours as one of our I R L friends. What is self-care to you these days? What does it look like in your life? What is one thing that you do as self-care?
Elissa: I do a lot actually, because as you know, and some people know I've had a horrible past several years, so I've really had to prioritize self-care because for the first half of it, I was like, I'm fine. I'm just going to work through grief and trauma and all that stuff. And then at a certain point it was like, no, you can't do that anymore. We the grief my body.
Kate: Yeah.
Elissa: No, no, no, no, no, no. So I think the number one thing I do for self-care is take Prozac. That's my, the thing that really stabilizes me, makes me, puts the floor up a little higher. So that's always good.
Kate: I like how you put that.
Elissa: Yeah. And I dedicated my book to
Kate: You Sure did.
Elissa: To Prozac and to Jelly beans, because those are my true loves pretty much at this point, because they're the ones making it happen.
Kate: So now, I don't know how much you feel like getting into the shittiest, all the shitty times that you've been experiencing over the last couple of years. But needless to say, you've gone through, I would say, some of life's biggest challenges while also simultaneously experiencing career highs. Which I imagine is a real mind fuck.
Elissa: It is a huge mind fuck. I mean, just to sort of give a brief rundown of the past few years. In 2019, my family lost my brother-in-law, my sister's husband and my father-in-law within a eight week or eight day period. And then a year later, pandemic started. That year was also the year my dad got diagnosed with cancer the following year. My last grandparent passed on Christmas Eve, but she's Jewish, so she probably did that on purpose.
Kate: I like that humor.
Elissa: She was also extremely ready to go, probably one of the most miserable people you've ever met. And then in January of 2022, my mother-in-law died. Then my dad died in May, and then my beloved dog died in August. So it was a lot of stuff happening. And the intense part was, a lot of the stuff that happened with my dad happened simultaneously with all the stuff that was happening with funny,
Kate: Funny you should ask,
Elissa: funny you should ask the book,
Kate: Your first adult novel.
Elissa: My first adult novel, actually the week it was also the week I learned, we found out that he had cancer. So it was really low, low, low. And then, hey, career changing news that you're getting. This is amazing. And then he ended up dying a month after the book came out, while the book was going viral on TikTok. So it's definitely been, I'm Jewish. So we find humor in the darkest of dark times. And so there is an element where I'm like, it's so ridiculous. If you put this in a book, people would be like, all right, calm down. This is a little unbelievable guy.
Kate: This All doesn't happen to one person in the short of a time period. Come on
Elissa: Yeah. And then there was all of this even more family drama stuff that came out, like Emily Henry level shit about my dad that came out. And I was just like, Hey, my life is a romance novel, but not in the way I wanted at this moment. Thank you so much. So
Kate: Was there a part of you that you said you tried to work through it. What kind of shifted? Was there a moment where you like, oh, I really got to because I think that's normal. I mean, I wouldn't mean to stop by first backtracking. I think that it is very normal to try to cope in different ways that that's how we, we've all maybe done it. Was there an instant where that shifted for you? Or was were you just kind of like, well, this is actually not working?
Elissa: I mean, I think the fact that once more with feeling, which is the book coming out or that's already out now, was so difficult to write in a way that I'd never experienced before. It was difficult to the point where I was like, I don't even know what are feelings? What are characters? What is dialogue? What is conflict? I just, I felt like I didn't know what I was doing at all. And I kept turning in drafts that my lovely agent, my lovely editor, they were so kind and they were just like, it's a book. Yeah, you're d, you're doing it right. You are writing. Good job.
Doree: Do you think that they were kind of treating you a little bit with kid gloves because of all the shit that had gone down in your personal life?
Elissa: Oh yeah. I mean, they were being extremely generous and I kept them appraised of everything that was happening. And I had lunch with my editor recently and she was like, yeah, we were a bit worried about this book. And I was like, yeah, me too. I really was getting to a point where I was like, it's going to come out and I'm going to be like, it's a book. That's all I can say about it. I wrote it. It's a book, please, let's never speak of it again.
Doree: What do you think happened? Because it obviously did come together. Did you have a moment of epiphany or did it all just seem to start gelling at some point?
Elissa: I think I realized that I had stopped writing for myself at some point. And so when I was like, okay, you need to really lean into the things that you love about this story and you need to forget, you need to forget everything else. I was really in my head about, because Funny was the first book that I'd written that had been successful in any way. And I had readers and I had an audience, and I was really stressed and worried about pleasing other people, pleasing my editor, pleasing my agent. I just wanted them to be happy and proud of me. And so that was what I was totally focused on. And I think once I realized that wasn't working and I had to listen to, the reason I think funny works is because I wrote it with no expectations. I wrote it completely for myself. I was just like, the
Doree: Stakes did not feel high
Elissa: There. No stakes. I was like, I'm a ya writer. This is my side gig. Maybe I'll publish this under a pen name. Who knows? I was fully expecting, I'm just going to be in the trenches in the YA world, grasping for attention forever. And maybe when I'm 70, someone will send me on a tour and that will be amazing. So I was just like, yeah, romances for me for fun. I was writing this book at the time. People were like, you can't really do a romance with dual timelines. First person wasn't as popular was coming. Emily Henry was publishing and Kate Clayborne was publishing Love Lettering, which is one of the first person romances that I absolutely love. But I think it was still, we hadn't gotten to the romcom boom yet when I was writing it. And I just happened to write it at the right time and find the right people. Cause I had written other romance novels before that just that were more traditional and dual p o v and third person and more trophy and not a complicated, unnecessarily difficult timeline plus interstitial nonsense, which funny was. So when I gave myself permission to do that with once more, that really fixed everything.
Kate: I want to ask about you as a theater kid because this is a book about theater at its heart and about theater kids who grow up and it's a love story. We're talking now about once more with feeling your new book and you are a self-professed theater kid. But what kind of struck me was in the acknowledgements of the book where you talk about how are a theater kid who can't do any of the aspects of theater, a person who loves this thing so much, but it's not maybe necessarily what you are good at. And it just really led me to think a lot about how we don't often give ourselves permission to love stuff that, to just love something, whether or not we can do it, and how we put a lot of, there's a lot of pressure on ourselves to be able to do the things that we love in this way. And I would just like to hear about your journey as a lover of theater, but as someone who maybe felt like they couldn't do it, I don't know. Tell us about your theater kid identity.
Elissa: Yeah, I mean, I was always, my home videos from childhood, I was doing writing, directing, and starring in Hanukkah plays that I forced my extended family to watch.
Kate: And were you a theater family? Was anyone putting this bug in your ear?
Elissa: Well, we did. We had a cassette tape of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Greatest Hits, which we listened to in my dad's car that was on the radio or on playing on the stereo all the time. And my grandparents loved theater and they would take us to see things and my mom would take us to see theater. But none of 'em are performers. None of them are into that kind. They're not public speakers, they're not people who want to be the center of attention. And I'm the oldest of my family. So yeah, I think I was just this kid who just loved performing. I loved attention theater. I mean was really young. There's a video of me and my brother doing a puppet show with my mom, and we had my grandparents come over and they had little popcorn and my brother was just so shy. So in the video he's just leaning up against my mom or whatever, and I'm just like, everyone paid attention to me. This is great. It's running around the room. But I got put in, my parents put me in, I was in a theater camp for a little bit for a few summers, and then I did this theater program that was one of those things where it's like everyone gets an equal part, which I don't think is actually a really good way to teach theater because yeah, you're not, that's preparing you for anything at all. But I enjoyed being in shows and then I didn't do theater in high school at all. And then in college I went to Sarah Lawrence, which is an artsy school and auditioned for things.
Kate: And Wait, so you were a theater person?
Elissa: Yeah.
Kate: You were doing theater. Okay.
Elissa: I was doing theater, but I was like, I got into one or two plays. I was not good at it. I didn't all the things that you should love about the process, like rehearsals and memorizing lines, and I just liked the applause afterwards.
Kate: I like, you lived for the applause. Like Lady Gaga
Elissa: I lived for the applause. I loved the attention and the excitement afterwards and things like that, but I wasn't, wasn't good at becoming another character. I wasn't good at inhabiting other parts or whatever. And I think I realized at a certain point that the work that would be required for me to be a decent actor, I just didn't really want to, that wasn't fun to me or it wasn't something I was willing to do versus with writing, it's like I've put myself, myself through the ringer with no one asking me to do it. I'm just like, right. It's totally, the train is moving on its own. And I think I realized if I didn't have that for something like theater or acting, it's like you're never, you're screwed. You have to have that engine.
Doree: Okay. But then, okay.
Kate: Oh, go ahead, Doree. Go.
Doree: Well, I was just going to say, people might be like, why are they asking her about being a theater kid? Talk about your book, which is about theater kids. Could you, for the benefit of our listeners who probably have not had a chance to read your book yet, could you just give a brief summary of what the book is about?
Elissa: So once More with Feeling is a Friends to Lovers, to Enemies to Lovers, dual timeline. Oh, triple Timeline, romance, I dunno. About a former pop star who becomes entangled in a scandal, career ending scandal, and then reunites years later with the person that she was involved in the scandal with and they're now putting together putting on a Broadway musical, which she's going to star in and he's going to direct
Doree: Well, and she was a teen pop star and he was in a boy band.
Elissa: Yes. So it's like, it's theater and it's also pop music and yes,
Doree: It's very fun. And as I said to you after I read it, something that I appreciated about it was that you don't have to be a theater person to enjoy the book. I think perhaps your enjoyment of the book will be enhanced if you get a lot of the references. I got maybe half of them maybe, but I still really enjoyed the book. So I feel like that's important to say because I wouldn't want people to be like, oh, well, I'm not really into theater. So because I think it's a book that anyone will enjoy
Kate: As a person who married into liking theater. I mean, I like it. But yes, I had a different experience than you, not a very theatery kid experience, but loved the book. But you were able to turn your theater kid brain on by writing a theater romance.
Elissa: And it was fun. It was really fun to just be able to put, I mean, I'm sure I'm not alone in this. I think I do my best work when I'm writing about something I really, really love and want to talk about and have an endless well of excitement for. And I think when I leaned into that also and was like, oh yeah, what are the fun aspects of theater that I'm not really showing in the book? And it's like rehearsals and going out of town for tryouts and just the sort of weird I, I'm really interested in exploring micro communities within our larger communities. And I think the theater community is so fascinating. It's one of those things, it's the writing community. It's like you kind of all know each other a little bit and it can be very comforting, but also can be clique-ish. And there's a whole nother language that gets used. There's a whole, there are certain people who are stars within that community that outside of that, no one knows who the hell they are. I'm watching a show with my husband and I'm like, oh yeah, that person's a Broadway person. That person's a Broadway. It's a show that's filmed in New York. So I'm like, that's a theater person. Theater person. Theater person.
Kate: Is it succession or is it a different show?
Elissa: The classic elementary with Johnny Lee Miller. Oh, cool. That I will go to my grave saying is better than the Benedict Cumberbatch.
Doree: My mother is also a big fan of elementary and tried get to get me to watch it. Billions is a show that also has a lot of theater people.
Elissa: Oh, I didn't know that. But I isn't Billions. Isn't Elizabeth Warren obsessed with Billions?
Doree: Is she?
Elissa: I think she's obsessed with some show.
Doree: I mean, I wouldn't surprise me if she was obsessed with Billions, but yeah, there are a lot of theater people because I would always, when I used to watch it, I would Google the actors and I'd be like, who is this person? It turned out they would be this huge Broadway star.
Elissa: Yes. Yeah. Huge.
Doree: So
Elissa: I love it.
Doree: So we're just going to take a short break and we will be right back.
Kate: Elissa, Can I ask you if a person is, someone's listening and they're like, I don't like musical theater, what would you say, what show would you tell person? Would you say, Hey, go see this or go listen to this and get back to me. I want to welcome you into the theater world and here is the doormat you're going to cross.
Elissa: Yeah, I mean, that's a hard one because it's, it's really going to be personal. My husband is not really a theater person, and yet he loves Gilbert and Sullivan, which is like, that's even too much for me. I'm, that is like,
Kate: No, that's old timey.
Elissa: It's old timey. It's very operatic. It's very dramatic. And I'm like, all the things you make fun of me for liking about theater is Gilbert and Sullivan to 10,000 degrees.
Kate: Oh my God. I love this for him.
Elissa: But fine, but fine. And my dad's favorite musical was a chorus line. Why? I don't know. But I think the musical six, which is touring right now, I think is a really good gateway drug because it feels more like a concert. And it's actually, I think if it's kind of a good book to read while you're reading once more because it's about pop stars. It's basically, it's about Henry the eight, six wives. But they're all modeled after different pop stars and they all have, their music is all modeled after different pop stars. It's like an hour and a half, but it's a concert instead of, it's really fun. It's so much fun. The audience is amazing. Everyone is so into it. And I think if you go to a show with a really engaged audience, it's hard not to get excited about that.
Doree: And someone who was not a big theater person, I can tell you the first show I remember being like, oh my God, this is so fun. Was Book of Mormon.
Kate: Oh yeah.
Elissa: Book of Mormon is great. I mean, the Lion King is, that's a really good one for people because the music already and it is one of the most beautiful, most inventive stagings of a show. So
Doree: I'll also say Mama Mia is a good one.
Elissa: Yeah, I mean, these are all, I mean, I've liked some, me and my friend Greg are obsessed with the Wedding Singer musical, which no one likes. And I'm like, I think it's great. I think it's super fun and silly and we have really bonded over that. But yeah, I mean, I feel like there's a musical for everybody just, and it's weird when people talk about musicals are so fluffy and silly and stuff, and I'm like, most of the musicals that I know have very dark themes.
Kate: Oh my god.
Elissa: Pajama Game, which is an old 19 Doree Days in the movie. But it's like, it's all about union busting basically. And then cabaret is all about Nazis in Germany and all of that stuff. So there are some very serious seam that happen, but they just do it in a way that is a type of entertaining.
Kate: Elissa, I have heard you as a writer be very outspoken about sex positive portrayals scenes, especially for women in books. Can you just climb up on your soapbox and just give us your general thoughts on this area as we love a soapbox, we like to straddle a soapbox.
Elissa: Well, I will straddle the soapbox,
Kate: Get on the soapbox. I've heard you be, I think you articulate this very well, and I think it's, romance is hot to trot, but I feel like this kind of gets overshadowed in the conversation and is still, obviously romance is not always treated with a lot of crap.
Elissa: Yeah. I mean, anything that mostly women do and enjoy or people on the fringe of any society we belittle for sure. And I think with sex scenes, I think it's really important to show them. I'm not saying that all writers should do it. If you want to do closed door, that's absolutely fine.
Kate: And closed door, just for someone who's like, what? I don't read romance. What are these people saying is a book that doesn't actually show, it's just suggested but not shown.
Elissa: They literally,
Doree: And then they went into the bedroom.
Kate: Yes, yes. Fade to,
Elissa: and then the next morning everyone was happy
Doree: And they're like, But what?
Elissa: Who put what and where I need to know. And then there's wide ranges of how descriptive sex scenes can be and all of that. So there's a plethora of options for people out there who want to read different types of sex scenes. But I think it's important to have them because I think we rarely see women enjoying themselves. We rare. I mean, we rarely see media where the end of the story is, and everything worked out great for her and she's having orgasms and happiness that how many times do we see characters, female characters get raped for character development for someone else, not even for her. And so romance is the opposite of that, where it's like, here's a character. We are showing everything in this book is about her growth and her desires and needs. And this is, I'm talking specifically about a more traditional male, female, heterosexual romance. And luckily we're branching out beyond that and we're having amazing writers being able to, they've already, they've always been in this space, but they're getting sort of more attention and they're getting more marketing and more focused, which they need and deserve. And I think it's what I'm saying about women also applies to people who are non-binary or trans or who just don't see themselves or queer who don't see themselves in popular media usually. And especially do not see people who look like them experiencing pleasure and experiencing the type of pleasure that someone is giving them with such excitement and love and care. And so I think that's very revolutionary and very, I think anyone who is writing romance, anyone who's centering marginalized voices is going to be writing something that is revolutionary and important. And I also think now, especially with this huge fight and backlash against women's or just a bodily autonomy, it's more important now that we write sex scenes that are medically accurate. And because I think I read, when I was a teenager, I read romance novels and I learned a lot about sex from romance novels. And some of it is incorrect. Unfortunately, we as a society do not know what the hymen is. We just don't know. We talk about it as if it is something that it's not. And that is really interesting to me. I think we still, as a culture still within the romance community, we have a little bit of an obsession with virginity. And I think it's important to push back against that and to push back on it by having sex scenes that have lu the characters, use lube characters use, talk to each other, consent to things, and show that these are all extremely hot consent is very sexy. And I think romance both reflects and affects the way we as a society view sex. And I think it can do a lot to educate its readers. And I think unfortunately now where sex ed is being pulled out of schools and all of this information about your body and what you can do with it is being denied of young people. We have to be accurate in the stuff that we're writing because this is where they're going to get their information. Unfortunately, I wish that was not the case, but that is people are going to read these books and be like, oh, this is what I should expect. And I like the idea of expecting young women in particular to be like, oh, I should expect to have an orgasm whenever I have sex because I am very much against this idea that it is so much more difficult for women to experience pleasure than men. I think societally we've taught women that and that has made it, I don't think it's a biological thing, I think it's a social thing. So I'm not a doctor, I don't know. But I feel like if we let women talk about masturbation and sex and pleasure the way that we let men do it, I think more women would be like, oh, I know what I like and I know what I want and I know that it's not impossible to have an orgasm,
Kate: Or I'm not having an orgasm. Here's some information that might help me get to that. Or just understand my body and my desire better. Okay.
Elissa: Yeah. So that's my soapbox.
Doree: Elissa, we touched on this a little bit, but I was hoping you could expand a little bit on what the experience of going viral on TikTok with Funny you should ask was like. I would love if you could walk us through when did you first get an inkling that something was happening and when did you realize that it'd become an actual thing? Because if you're not familiar, Elissa's first adult book, funny You Should Ask, which I adored when super viral on TikTok not, and it, okay, correct me if I'm wrong also, it wasn't immediately after it came out, right?
Elissa: No. Yeah, It was a few weeks after.
Doree: Okay. Please set the scene for us
Kate: Also. Sorry. In addition to setting that scene, I thinka lot of folks are unaware of the power that TikTok has in terms of books right now. There's a massive kind of readership sharing community called Book Talk. But even if you're not a participant of Book Talk, I think TikTok has this real power to drive people to things they didn't know about. And folks might not be aware of that yet. So just adding that to the list,
Elissa: Really. I mean, it's interesting cause I'm not on TikTok, I have no idea what's going on, TikTok. I think that's probably for the best. I don't think anyone on TikTok needs me to be there,
Doree: Which by the way, I think is so interesting because I feel like there's all this pressure for authors themselves to be on TikTok. And I feel like for the vast majority of authors, it doesn't matter if they themselves are on TikTok.
Elissa: No, that is, don't not what sells your books.
Doree: Barking up the wrong tree.
Kate: Hard agree. Yeah. Yeah, hard agree, Doree.
Elissa: Yeah, and I mean think it's, it's so hard because you know, want to be able to tell people like, oh, this is how you become successful or this is how you get ahead and it's so much is luck. So much is timing. So much is just right time, not right place, right book, right person, so little that you can control. Having said that though, I had compared to my YA books where I had virtually no publisher support, I had an amazing have, it's the same team I'm working with for once more, the most amazing team of women who just, any sort of inkling of an opportunity they saw, they chased it. They were like, okay, we we're sending this influencers on TikTok that we think we'll like it. And then when something started taking off, they used the Random House sort of Instagram and TikTok to help it along and they were ready for something to happen. And I think any of my other books that just wouldn't have existed. So I had an amazing team who laid the groundwork for potential, not for it to go viral, but for it to grow and to find an audience. So I mean, it's all kind of a crazy blur because it was really, the week that it was going viral was the week I was offline because my dad was dying and I was literally in my mom's kitchen on my phone watching it climb the Amazon charts and then watching my dad on a baby monitor dying. So it was this weird thing of getting these texts from my agent being like, this is so great. And getting amazing emails from my team who were just, they were all so happy. And it's such a great experience when you do feel like it was a team effort. And I felt like I would not be here at all. I would not have gotten as much attention as I did if I didn't have the amazing people who supported the book within Random house, which is not something that happens for everybody for sure. But it was it this weird thing where I was just, I don't even know what's happening. They sent me a few videos that they were like, people are really liking this. And I was like, okay, is there anything I can do? And they were like, Nope. And I was like, okay, cool. I'll just keep refreshing bestseller list or whatever and just see what happens. And I remember one morning I woke up and I checked it and I told my it was above a hundred at that I was within the top a hundred. And I told my husband, I was just like, what is I still my mouth guard in? I was half awake and I was just, it was the glamorous life of a writer, so it's so weird.
Kate: Do you feel like pressure to have that same experience with once more? Because that's the other thing is it's also so can be so arbitrary and you're, here's this new thing, please also have, make this go viral. Yeah. Are you able to let that go, or is that something that weighs on the back of your brain?
Elissa: It definitely weighs on me. Yeah. I mean, that was the big roadblock I had to get over. And I think sort of coming to the realization for better or for worse, that it's like, all right, I have a specific type of voice and either you like it or you don't. And so far people are liking it. I got lucky. I got lucky that I'm a voice that people want to hear at this time that they're interested in. And because I don't think I'm a better writer than any other, I know a lot of really talented writers who have written amazing books that don't go viral, that don't, it's just not the right time, it's not the right circumstances, which is also a good thing for me to remember, just to be like, this isn't really something you can control. This is something that you just have to be ready for. And when there is opportunity, you have to just go for it and try to use the opportunity the best that you can and to use it in a way that makes you feel. For me, it's the best thing about going viral and developing a name within our industry is that I get to make connections with other writers and I get to know other people in our community and I get to help elevate other writers. And that's the thing that's really exciting for me. So I'm like, okay, how can I use this in the best in way that makes me feel like this is a community thing and not just about me and my success by itself.
Kate: I love it. I'm fully excited. That's very accepting. But yeah, no press, no pressures. Also, it's also the change the metrics of four years ago books and TikTok weren't a thing.
Elissa: Yeah, Things changed so fast. Yeah. You never know. You can't anticipate anything. You have to, the thing I always say is you have to write the book for yourself. So at the end of the day, you at least have one person who liked it. Really all. I've had so many experiences with my first three books where it was, the experience with the publisher was like, we published it.
Kate: Right? Bye bye. Yeah,
Elissa: Sorry. We don't know why it's, it's not top of the charts. I mean, we didn't put any money into it, but it's probably your fault. This book probably wasn't good enough. And it's being when you have such, cause I had a YA book come out six months before Funny came out.
Kate: Oh wow. Yeah.
Elissa: No one knows about it. I think they're both good books. Proud of both of them. One of them had an entire team of people to support them and one of them had an editor who wouldn't return my emails so slightly different.
Doree: Is the publishing, industry listening.
Elissa: It's just, it's a good thing for me to just remember. I'm not special in that sense. So it keeps me from getting on my high horse about my own abilities and my own skills and just being be grateful and be generous to other people. And I think knowledge is an incredibly useful thing to share with other writers. And I really try to be a good citizen of the writing community and try to help other people and encourage other people. And I'm definitely a proponent of high tides Lift all boats.
Doree: I have appreciated how transparent you've been just on our text chain.
Elissa: Thank you. Thank you so much.
Doree: Yeah. Just quickly before we wrap, are you reading anything right now that you want to shout out?
Elissa: Oh, there are some really good books coming out in June. I am super, super excited for Rich for Rachel Lynn Solomon's Business or Pleasure. I don't know if you guys have read it yet. I haven't read it yet. Oh my God. But when I talk about books that we need as far as talking about consent and talking about her book deals with Abortion, it's just a character who's had, I'm hopefully not giving anything. It's not a plot point, but the fact that it's just even mentioned, it's like, yeah, we should have been doing this for years. We should have just normalized it within this community. And her book is great because it is so sexy and so fun and it's just like, I cannot say enough about, I'm doing an event with her at the Rip Bodis I think in July, and I cannot wait to talk to her about it because the book is, it's just delicious. It's really, really good. So that's a book I'm really, really excited about. I dunno, what am I mean, the Daydreams by Laura Hankin just came out, which is great. Which is also a pop star or child star sort of mystery entangled things. And then romantic comedy by Kurt Curtis Sittenfeld just came out, which is also sort of a normy regular person romance, which, so it's like these are books I think that if you like funny or you once more, they're really good comps for that. But yeah, I mean there's a ton of stuff coming out. We are have a wealth of amazing romances that are coming out and I'm very excited for both the things that you guys are working on when I get to.
Doree: Oh, thank you. When I get to tbd, tbd, TB d Elissa, this was really fun.
Elissa: Thanks for having me.
Doree: Thanks for coming on the show. Where can our listeners find you? I know you're doing some events around once more is release. Yes. So where could people find that information?
Elissa: Oh, that information is, I am pretty much only on Instagram as far as social media, and I'm just assessment, if you can spell my name correctly, correctly, you'll probably be able to find it. I think I'm the only one. And then I have a website, which is also just my name, and there's a place you can subscribe to a newsletter which comes out occasionally. I'm very proud of the newsletter title, which is Elissa Explains it all.
Kate: So good. I mean,
Elissa: So you guys very good. I'm definitely leaning hard into the nostalgia of being an elder millennial,
Kate: But it's a Clarissa Explains it all, reference, which if you're not familiar, give that a Google Yes. One day and just have fun.
Elissa: I mean, what a classic.
Kate: Oh Such a good show. Classic.
Elissa: We're rebooting things. Why is no one rebooting? Clarissa explains it all.
Kate: That's a great question.
Doree: Great question.
Kate: Maybe its secretly in the works, I mean, right now we're in a writer strike, so we can't reboot anything, but
Elissa: Nothing can be rebooted,
Kate: Nothing
Elissa: After he strike is over, call me.
Kate: Yes, call Elissa for Clarissa.
Elissa: I Have lots of ideas.
Kate: Thank you, Elissa.
Doree: Thank you Elissa.
Kate: Doree. You know what's fun is Elissa and I often will meet up, go for hikes together, and she and I talked about these books that we had yet to write on a hike one day. And I can still remember us hiking up Fryman Canyon and her being like, I have this idea of a journalist who interviews a celebrity and it's like,
Doree: oh my gosh,
Kate: one of those sexy, sexy interviews that kind of goes viral and then they have to meet again 10 years later. And I was like, yes, write it. And then I was telling her my idea for my book, which became in a New York Minute. And it just is one of those memories that I have that is very special to me when it's always amazing when ideas and brainstorms and things you just hear a friend say in a conversation become these actual works.
Doree: That's so cool. Yeah. That is so cool, huh, Kate? Yes, friend. Last week you said you were going to clean your office Before I came over.
Kate: I did do it. I mean, it wasn't necessarily clutter free or anything, but I did get the food and the crumbs all picked up.
Doree: It looked pretty good to me. I have to say.
Kate: Thank you.
Doree: What do you have going on this week,
Kate: Doree? I have to be honest with you, I have been really struggling with going to bed, not just having a bedtime that is actually sustainable and gives me enough sleep, but also getting off my phone. I've found I've kind of been doing that thing where I am, I don't want to say numbing out, but a little bit of scroll numbing.
Doree: Yes.
Kate: And I also, because of the way my brain works, I have a little bit of a problem where, and this is why phones are so rough for me, is I'll see one thing, I saw a clip of a girl group from the late nineties singing a song, and then I had to google them because I was like, I remember this song, but who are these girls? And they're the group Be Witched and Oh, they're from Ireland and oh, the sisters in the group had a brother who was in the Irish Band Boy Zone. I've got to now Google Boy Zone and learn about Boy Zone. So this is kind of what I do.
Doree: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Then it's like, are all the members of Boy Zone still alive? I've got to find out. I just kind of, yeah. Can't stop. And I think that's the challenge with all this kind of the way in which it's so easy just to scroll and search. So I need to revisit my intentions of getting my phone out of my bedroom. And actually Anthony and I are making a family screen plan for all of us to get on the same board with. Yes. And it's like for kids and adults in the house. And we're going to try to get off our phones at 9:00 PM so hopefully that will help because I have been staying up till one or two in the morning.
Oh my gosh, Kate.
Kate: I know Doree. I know.
Doree: I was going to say, I was about to say I, oh, I've been staying up a little bit late too, like 1115.
Kate: No.
Doree: Oh No.
Kate: The other night I went to sleep at almost, well, I finally at one 15, I was like, I need to stop. And I put my phone down, but then my brain was like, tap dancing away.
Doree: Oh no, you were overstimulated.
Kate: Exactly, exactly. So I really have to be, it's really hard for me to shut that cycle down.
Doree: Whew.
Kate: I know, I know.
Doree: Okay, well,
Kate: So that's where I'm at. How about you?
Doree: Well, last week I, I said I was going to continue sort of taking stock and this is an ongoing process. I will say,
Kate: You never need to stop taking stock.
Doree: You never need to stop this week. And kind of going forward in the last few weeks, I feel like I've been over committing to,
Kate: I have seen that in action. I have seen that in action.
Doree: Yeah, I'm not talking necessarily talking about work stuff. I'm mostly, I'm actually mostly referring to social stuff.
Kate: You had a week where you had a lunch or a coffee meeting or something every day.
Doree: Yeah, it was crazy. And I need to reign that in and set some better boundaries. And one thing that I need to get back doing, and I actually did do that a couple times recently, is tell people I can't do something. Not because I'm actually busy, but because I already have too many things going on that week. Do you know what I mean? Yes. I'm not actually busy during this time spot, but I already have two lunches this week or whatever. You know what I mean?
Kate: Yeah. Yes.
Doree: And that actually happened when you and I were trying to figure out a goodbye dinner for Sammy. Oh, because you had had stuff going on. Well, I had a rule coming out of lockdown. I had a rule that I tried to adhere to that I didn't want to go out more than two nights a week.
Kate: I remember this
Doree: and I've been pretty good about it. But then every so often there's exceptions. And I do find that if I go out more than two nights a week, it's just not good. And I already had two commitments this week and that was why I was like, can we make this a lunch?
Kate: So good call.
Doree: Yeah. So that was one of the things where I was like, Ooh. But I am also now realizing and look, are, I also just want to say these are good problems to have. I am very grateful that my problem quote unquote is that I've too much going on socially. That's like a great problem to have, but I don't know. I need to find the balance. On that note, let us remind everyone that this podcast is produced and edited by me Doree Shafrir and you, Kate Spencer, and produced and edited by Sam Huno. Sami Reed is our project manager. Our network partner is Acast. Thanks for listening.
Kate: Bye everyone.
Doree: Bye.