467. Realizing Sexuality Through Romance with Tara Scott

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello there. Thank you for inviting me into your eardrums. I’m Sarah Wendell. This is Smart Podcast, Trashy Books, episode number 467. This week, Tara Scott, who reviews for me at Smart Bitches and who also reviews at several other locations online, is talking about how reading lesbian romance helped them realize their sexuality after having grown up in a very conservative, religious environment. Romances help people understand so many aspects of themselves, and I love hearing how romance has helped Tara live more authentically.

Now, I do want to issues some general TRIGGER or CONTENT WARNINGS: we talk about growing up queer in a conservative church environment, the specter of conversion therapy, and the discovery of mass graves at indigenous residential schools.

I will have links to all of the books and the different places we discuss online in the show notes.

Hello and thank you to our Patreon community. Every patron pledge helps make sure that every episode receives a transcript, and that makes every episode accessible as possible to everyone, which is very important to me. If you’d like to join the Patreon community, it would be awesome to have your support. Have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches.

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As I mentioned, links to the books and the assets we discuss in this episode will be in the show notes and at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast. But for now, let’s start this episode, shall we? On with my conversation with Tara Scott.

[music]

Tara: I am Tara. I’m one of the staff writers here at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. I think it’s been almost two years now? I am also a regular reviewer/contributor at Lambda Literary and at The Lesbian Review, and I also have my own podcast called –

[“Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey plays]

Tara: – Queerly Recommended with Kris Bryant – [laughs] – who is an author, where we are just dorky and give queer media recs all the time.

Sarah: Okay. So the reason I’m playing this is I have a very important question here.

Tara: [Laughs]

Journey: Just a city boy –

Tara: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Journey: – born and raised in South Detroit –

Tara: [Laughs]

Sarah: Okay, so south Detroit, south Detroit is Canada! You are act- –

Tara: That’s where I’m from!

Sarah: – and that’s actually where you’re from! So this song –

Tara: Yep. Yes.

Sarah: – is about you.

Tara: Yeah. Right?

Sarah: Okay! All right, so –

Tara: That’s basically me. [Laughs]

Sarah: You didn’t know that song was about you, did you?

Tara: I didn’t; I also didn’t even know that people thought of South Detroit as Canada, but, yeah.

Sarah: I think I’m the only person, Adam and I are the only ones who are like –

Tara: That’s exactly where I grew up.

Sarah: – which is Canada, ‘cause if you go due south from Detroit, what’s there?

Tara: The town where I grew up.

Sarah: Exactly.

Tara: [Laughs] Oh, that’s so, that is hilarious. Or at least the county where grew up, for sure. So maybe I’m not exactly in there, but definitely I have family who is.

Sarah: Right!

Tara: It’s not about me; it’s about my family.

Sarah: Oh, absolutely! Absolutely. And they should not stop believing.

Tara: [Laughs] No. We never will.

[Laughter]

Sarah: You’ve no idea how delighted I am to not only know that this song is about you, but that you are technically from the Canadian South Detroit. Yay!

Tara: Isn’t that the best?

Sarah: Yep! It’s amazing. So –

Tara: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Sarah: – you mentioned at one point that romance, reading romance helped you –

Tara: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – figure out your sexuality.

Tara: That’s correct.

Sarah: So romance made you gay.

Tara: [Laughs] Uhhh, kind of!

Sarah: Unrealistic expectations. So please tell me the start of the story: where did you begin, and how did you get to where you are now?

Tara: Ten years ago I was pregnant with my oldest daughter, and I was completely checked out at work. It was a highly toxic work environment, and I couldn’t go look for another job because, I mean, I was pregnant with my oldest daughter. [Laughs] And in Canada, with our year-long maternity leaves, it’s a real bad choice to go find another job at that point. Like, you want to wait until you’ve had your baby, you’re done, you’re whatever. And so somehow I – I can’t even remember how I came across it, but that was when I first became a fan of the site, and I was getting recommendations from, like, you and whoever else was reviewing at that time, and I remember, like, the joy that was Pregnesia –

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Tara: – and some of those other – [laughs] – some of those other F books?

Sarah: Reading Pregnesia while you’re pregnant, ooh!

Tara: Oh my God. What was that book that you gave an F that then you got thanked for because she sold so many copies? That book was a real trip. [Laughs] It was one of the Harlequin Presents.

Sarah: The [Billionaire] Playboy Sheikh’s Virgin Stable-Girl –

Tara: Yes! That’s the one!

Sarah: – by Sharon Kendrick.

Tara: [Laughs] That’s the one. It was hilarious!

Sarah: Not only did the author, does the author still thank me and dedicated her next book to me –

Tara: That’s right!

Sarah: – but two employees at Harlequin HQ dressed up as the billionaire playboy sheikh and the virgin stable-girl for their in-office Halloween party and won the contest.

Tara: Oh my God, that’s the best thing I’ve ever heard.

Sarah: That book is an unlimited gift.

Tara: Yeah, right? If anybody hasn’t read it yet, like, do yourself a favor and find it, ‘cause you will laugh your ass off.

Sarah: It, it is among my favorite books and among my favorite reviews.

Tara: [Laughs] Right? Worth it. But I’ve, you know, I really got into Victoria Dahl, Maya Banks, that Lorelei James gigantic cowboy series –

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Tara: – with all the books in the world. But around that time, I was scrolling through Jezebel, as one does –

Sarah: As you do.

Tara: – ten years ago, when they’re not paying attention to anything at work – [laughs] – and they reprinted a list from Autostraddle that said, it was called something like the, the top ten lesbian romances on my Kindle right now.

Sarah: I love, by the way, Autostraddle? I love them so much. They are amazing.

Tara: They’re the best, right?

Sarah: I absolutely adore them.

Tara: Yeah, they’re – ah. The, the, the content they’re doing by and for the queer community is among the best in the world happening right now.

Sarah: No question.

Tara: And so I didn’t know that lesbian romances were a thing, and I actually turned to my coworker, who’s remained to this day one of my best friends; I was like, did you know lesbian romances are a thing? And she’s like, what are you talking about?

[Laughter]

Tara: I was like, the books! Did you know the book – did you know this was a thing? ‘Cause I didn’t. And so I read, the first one I read off that list was And Playing the Role of Herself by K. E. Lane, which is one of those books – there, there are a couple of books, and this is one of them, where if you ask a group of queer women, what was the first lesbian book you read? Depending on the generation, that’s one of them.

Sarah: Oh, that’s interesting!

Tara: Mm-hmm. A generation older, it’s Curious Wine –

Sarah: Yeah.

Tara: – by Katherine V. Forrest. Like –

Sarah: Yeah.

Tara: – it’s just, there, there are certain books that are like lightning rods and just, like, change people’s lives. And that was one for me, and I, I liked it! I, I really liked it, and I was surprised how much I liked it, and I kept reading on that list, so I read Above All, Honor by Radclyffe; I read It Should Be a Crime by Carsen Taite. Found Bold Strokes Books that way. But just kind of kept reading them, and I was still reading some male/female romances, and then that kind of trickled to where I was only reading lesbian romances, and one day my husband sat me down and he said, okay, so you’re reading a lot of lesbian romances –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Tara: – and that’s totally cool, first of all! Like, this is not a problem. But do you think you might be bisexual? Because if you are, it’s okay –

Sarah: Aw!

Tara: – and you’re not going to go to hell. And the reason why all of that especially was important was because I grew up deeply churched. When I was a toddler – so my parents both grew up in the Catholic church, they stayed in the Catholic church, but when I was a toddler they both became “saved.” Like, they were led to that kind of evangelical experience by a, by a friend who was in the Pentecostal church, and they decided, we’re going to change the Catholic church from within! And – [laughs] –

Sarah: Really?

Tara: – you’re, you’re not. That train’s been going for hundreds of years, and it’s going to do what it wants to do. But, so of course the Catholic church did not change.

Sarah: The devil you say!

Tara: Right.

Sarah: I’m shocked!

Tara: But that meant that our family changed, and we went to the local Baptist church. And so I grew up at, in Canada it’s called the Fellowship Baptists, Baptist Fellowship – I don’t really remember; I haven’t been involved in a while. But that’s where I grew up in the height of the purity culture movement, where you are, like, signing those pledges to not have sex until after you’re married; where you’re getting those purity rings. Like –

Sarah: Oh boy.

Tara: Yeah.

Sarah: When did your family switch to going to a Baptist church? Because just in terms of the liturgy and the –

Tara: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and the theology, going from Catholic to Baptist is, that’s a journey.

Tara: Yeah, it’s massive. It would have been, I was probably about ten or eleven, so it would have been around –

Sarah: Oh, a really good, impressionable age, just pre-puberty.

Tara: Yep. Yep.

Sarah: How come we’re not singing all the other songs anymore? I don’t understand.

Tara: Right. Why don’t we go to the same church as the rest of our family and our cousins and aunts and uncles? Yeah, it would have been like 1989, 1990? So, like, just perfect for me to be in youth group. And, and it wasn’t like we just went to church. Like, our family was a part of the infrastructure –

Sarah: Yes.

Tara: – of the church.

Sarah: Yeah.

Tara: Like, my dad was a deacon; my mom was on the kitchen committee; she and I worked in the nursery; I led Sunday school. We went to Sunday school; we went to – there are like eight other things that I could list, and I’m not going to. [Laughs]

Sarah: So church was like a, like a part-time job for everyone in your family.

Tara: Yes. And so the point –

Sarah: And probably your major social outlet too, yeah?

Tara: Absolutely!

Sarah: Yeah.

Tara: And even after I moved out, like, I stayed as a part of it. Like, I, I was still, like, when this happened, I was still in the church. It wasn’t a Baptist church, but it was an evangelical church. So this idea that it could be okay was unfathomable to me, and it definitely led to a crisis of sorts that I’m grateful for now? Like, it was difficult at the time, but, like, I, I literally needed someone to give me permission to look within and see, is this a thing? And then realize, oh, it’s definitely a thing! It’s a thing that I compartmentalized.

Sarah: Yeah. And it’s a thing that you can’t engage with it, because you have been taught that to engage with it in any direction, outward or inward, is bad, and you must punish yourself immediately.

Tara: A hundred percent. But it’s like now I can look back, of course, and it’s like, why did I like watching Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves so much? Oh, ‘cause I thought Maid Marian was really beautiful. [Laughs] Like –

Sarah: Well, I mean, you’re not wrong.

Tara: Right?!

Sarah: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, the thing I love about that movie, complete aside, is that everyone who’s in it is in a different movie.

Tara: Yeah! [Laughs] Right?

Sarah: Like, Kevin Costner is one movie, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is in a completely different film, and –

Tara: We’re not sure where Morgan Freeman is.

Sarah: Morgan Freeman, he, he exists on his own plane, and then Alan Rickman –

Tara: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – is like, he’s in a comedy.

Tara: Yes.

Sarah: He’s doing an episode of Black Adder turned up to eleven and a half. Like, I love that movie –

Tara: It’s the best.

Sarah: – because everyone’s doing a different thing, but also, much like there are specific lesbian romances that were the –

Tara: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – lightning rod for different communities, I, I bet a lot of people had some sort of an awakening with Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

Tara: I mean, I like to think there’s multiple Robin Hoods that are responsible for awakening multiple things, because, I mean, that animated one – [laughs]

Sarah: Whoooa. Okay. Hot scoundrel fox, I had a real problem watching the, the Pixar movie with, what was it, Judy and –

Tara: Zootopia.

Sarah: Zootopia, yes! I had a real problem watching Zootopia because that was basically fox Robin Hood, and I’m watching this movie with my kids, and my inner self is like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! We want to, we want, go back to the fox!

Tara: Right?

Sarah: I love the Disney Robin Hood so much. Yep, feck, fox-ual awakening, in fact, yes.

Tara: Oh, that’s, and, like, you are not alone!

Sarah: No!

Tara: There are so many –

Sarah: Oh no.

Tara: – so many people –

Sarah: Oh no.

Tara: – out there.

Sarah: Oh yeah. Sarcastic rogue heroes are my fave! Anyway.

So now that we’ve taken a deep dive into my types –

Tara: Yeah. [Laughs] Uh-huh.

Sarah: – let’s go back to your types.

Tara: Yeah.

Sarah: So when your, so when your husband sat you down –

Tara: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and said, do you think you might be bi, and no, you’re not going to hell –

Tara: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – you were still very much in the perspective that you had grown up with in your church; that had stayed with you.

Tara: That’s right.

Sarah: Ouch! Discomfort.

Tara: Yeah, and to be honest, I remember him saying that, and I remember, like, but I don’t even remember my response.

Sarah: Wow!

Tara: It’s like my brain didn’t capture it. It’s like my brain just like, he said that, and it just like, bzzt. [Laughs] Like –

Sarah: Skip over that part! We’re not –

Tara: Yeah.

Sarah: – going to unpack all of this; we’re just going to pbbbt! Yeah.

Tara: Well, which, I get it. I mean, it was a protective thing, and –

Sarah: Of course!

Tara: – when I, when I think about it, like, I can’t say for sure all of what happened. Like, I do know that I was at least attracted to enough boys as I was growing up that I could point to, like, okay, well, clearly I’m not gay, ‘cause I’m attracted to this person. But then when I look back and I can think, oh, okay, so I was attracted to like four boys and then like how many girls? Like –

Sarah: And foxes.

Tara: – you know.

Sarah: Yeah, don’t forget the foxes.

Tara: And foxes, right. Oh, never forget the foxes.

[Laughter]

Tara: And I wonder if it was just protective. I didn’t know many queer kids growing up. It was not an area where it was safe to be queer, that’s for sure. But –

Sarah: And also a time when it was really hard to be queer.

Tara: Well, and I mean that area of South Detroit –

[Laughter]

Tara: – is – I’m about to say, like, a hard truth, but it feels good saying South Detroit –

Sarah: Sorry! [Laughs]

Tara: – that – no! That’s just what it is now – that, that area of Canada is one of our bible belts, which I didn’t know until I left, but it’s like, or there’s, like, the one lesbian who was like four years ahead of me in high school who they talked so much shit about her –

Sarah: Ahh.

Tara: – and she got right out of town; that’s what you do. And so, like, I’m in this very church environment, and it’s like I, I didn’t know what conversion therapy was at the time. It wasn’t a thing that you heard about, but, like, I’m almost positive I would have been sent –

Sarah: Yikes.

Tara: – I have to think, and, like, I don’t think I knew that at the time, but I think I knew something bad would have happened at the time.

Sarah: So you knew enough that even though you necessarily didn’t have the words for what you were thinking or –

Tara: Yeah.

Sarah: – words and context for what you were feeling –

Tara: Yeah.

Sarah: – you knew, I should not be talking about this.

Tara: Yeah! And I mean, maybe it’s not fair for me to ascribe that particular egregious intention on my parents, given that we can never go back and know for sure –

Sarah: Of course.

Tara: – and so in a way this isn’t even specifically about my parents.

Sarah: No! Their community would ver-, there are people definitely –

Tara: That’s right.

Sarah: – in that community who would have been like, oh, well, I know exactly what needs to happen now.

Tara: That’s right.

Sarah: If your child has said that they are queer, then here is where they go to have that –

Tara: Yep.

Sarah: – undone. Ugh.

Tara: Exactly. Exactly! I mean, not that far off from my aunt, who was literally sent away when she got pregnant as an unwed mother.

Sarah: Oh!

Tara: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: And it’s not that long ago.

Tara: Right? No.

Sarah: Seems to be a recurring theme lately in Canada.

Tara: Oh, fucking Canada. Right? Like –

Sarah: Now, listen, I, I have absolutely zero, zero square kilometers on which to throw shit from down here? I have a –

Tara: No, but –

Sarah: – I have a raging case of Despairica. I, I don’t know what the equivalent name is for Canada, but I do, I, I, I know this feeling; it’s a horrible feeling.

Tara: I think the only thing that’s been surprising about the discoveries at the residential schools is how many people have been surprised by it, and that has made me almost as angry –

Sarah: Yeah.

Tara: – as finding out the actual numbers of bodies at the residential schools. Because I think Canadians, we love our identity as the kind country, and we love saying, well, the, that country has the racism problem, and that country has this other problem, and whatever, and it’s like, no, no, no, we have our own problems at home that are systemic and that are terrible and that we need, we need to deal with.

Sarah: Yeah.

Tara: So, I mean, and if there are any Canadian listeners who are wondering, like, what can you do? Like, just as a minimum, I would start by making a donation to the organization that supports residential school survivors, because there is one.

Sarah: Yeah.

Tara: That is a thing that you can do to participate in reconciliation if that’s something you’re interested in.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. And, and also, not only were there residential schools in the US and in Canada, but they closed, 1997, 1998 was the last closure?

Tara: Yeah, I think the la-, the last one was in the late ‘90s.

Sarah: Yeah. Not that long ago!

Tara: No.

Sarah: Not that long –

Tara: No!

Sarah: So these are, these are, these are people who would have been our neighbors.

Tara: Yeah.

Sarah: Yeah, they would have been alive now.

Tara: Yeah, absolutely.

Sarah: I’m sorry that y’all are having this experience. It is awful, awful, awful to deal with this, the deliberate ignorance of your neighbors, whether it’s deciding that there’s not racism or deciding not to get a Goddamn vaccine.

Tara: Oh, right?

Sarah: Yep!

Tara: White supremacy is a hell of a drug. [Laughs]

Sarah: It really is! It really is.

Tara: So that’s the thing that I, I have trouble with sometimes, because I recognize that I have privilege on a number of axes, and the only areas where I have less privilege, I would say, is, you know, because of my queer identity and being a woman, and even then, like, being a gender-nonconforming woman, but, like, I have class privilege, I have skin privilege. What do you do with that when you know that it’s systems deep and the systems need to be dismantled, but also you can’t do it all on your own anyway.

Sarah: Yep! I will give you a quote –

Tara: I keep –

Sarah: – from my former senator, who I voted for twice, but I no longer live in his, his state. Cory Booker says –

Tara: Mmm.

Sarah: – never let your inability to do everything impede your ability to do something.

Tara: Yes! Absolutely.

Sarah: There’s always a thing you can do, even if it’s a small thing. It’s, it’s –

Tara: Yes.

Sarah: – better than having done no things!

Tara: Yeah. Abs-, yes.

Sarah: So you realized, because your husband very kindly said, hey –

Tara: Yes.

Sara: – do you want to examine this?

Tara: Yes.

Sarah: And he had to make sure to say, I don’t think you’re going to hell.

Tara: That’s right.

Sarah: Wow.

Tara: Yeah.

Sarah: So how did you approach that and start to undo that thinking? ‘Cause it’s really hard to reframe yourself like that.

Tara: I mean, to be honest, I should have gone for therapy – [laughs] – but I didn’t! I have since gone to a therapist, and she kind of knows; I, I shared some of this with her as a background, because I, I really wanted to have somebody who’s queer competent and who understood that this was kind of some of my damage? And I continue to work through it even now. Like, expressive writing is an absolute gift and a thing that I do quite a lot of, but at the time we talked a lot. Like, he and I, we just, we do all the time.

Sarah: You and your husband.

Tara: Yeah! Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: Okay.

Tara: My husband and I are ver-, if we’re good at anything, we’re really good at communicating with each other.

Sarah: Yep!

Tara: And so we just talked and talked and talked and talked until I was able to start saying it to some people.

[music]

Sarah: I will be back with more of my conversation with Tara, but first I have two things to tell you about:

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And now, back to my conversation with Tara Scott.

[music]

Tara: But also around the same time, reviewing is kind of the other part of what saved me –

Sarah: Really!

Tara: – as well.

Sarah: I didn’t know that!

Tara: Yeah! One day I reached out to somebody I was following on Twitter, and I said, hey, you should review this book, and she said, you should review it. Why don’t you send me your review?

[Laughter]

Tara: And that –

Sarah: But you were hoisted by your own petard!

Tara: Right! Well, I had marketer in my Twitter bio, and so Sheena from The Lesbian Review saw that and was like, maybe she can review! And so I became the first regular contributor other than her. There were some people who were giving, like, guest ones occasionally, but, like – yeah, that’s what I started doing, and then because of that, I got hooked into this community of not only queer women but queer readers.

Sarah: Ohhh!

Tara: And so it was like, I found this group of reading friends that I’d wanted since childhood, because that was my, like, reading was always my thing! I taught myself to read when I was four. Like, my mother never worried when I was quiet ‘cause I had a, she would just, I would be reading. Like, she, every time she would look, oh, look, there she is again; she’s reading a book. But nobody wanted to read as much as I did. Until I found these people that, like, we were reviewing together, and then we set up a Face- – well, actually, Sheena set up a Facebook group to go with this podcast that she got me doing with one of the other reviewers. We were running book clubs on there, and it was just this constant, like, it was so validating to have, like, book friends, but also queer book friends and who I could also talk to – I mean, I wasn’t, like, sharing all, all of everything – [laughs] – with everybody in the Facebook group, but the people that I built connections with, I was able to talk to about this, ‘cause I didn’t have many queer people in my life, in, like, in my real life – as if that’s not real life –

Sarah: Yeah.

Tara: – at that point, and, you know, now I have more, but it was so helpful to have that and to have community.

Sarah: Because then you develop language! You have a language, you learn a language for how to describe what’s going on in, in your mind, but also, even though everyone’s story is different and everyone’s –

Tara: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – coming out and realization is different, there’s still that unifying moment of, hold on a minute, the dominant narrative –

Tara: Right?

Sarah: – is this; this is the dominant narrative that I am being told that I should be, and I don’t fit it at all.

Tara: Right!

Sarah: That’s a big, that’s a big realization, and it’s, it’s really helpful –

Tara: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – to know that everyone who has that realization against what they’ve been told has that moment, even if the experiences of it are entirely different.

Tara: Yes, absolutely. Well, and that’s where reviewing turned from something fun – because at first it was like, oh, I love that I can capture this energy that this book has given me –

Sarah: Yeah.

Tara: – and put it somewhere, like, which is very, very good and cathartic –

Sarah: Isn’t that fun?

Tara: It’s the best!

Sarah: I love that part.

Tara: Especially for books you love?

Sarah: Yes.

Tara: Like, it’s incredible. But it shifted from that to realizing that my own personal mission could and would become connecting more readers with queer books.

Sarah: Yeah.

Tara: And because it was so transformative for me, how many people didn’t know about all the lesbian books out there? ‘Cause there are thousands and thousands! And unless you have somebody literally pointing you towards them – especially then, especially ten years ago, because at that point, no major publishers were putting out any f/f books, and now there’s a handful, right? Like, Avon’s done a few. Like, we basically have Meryl Wilsner’s book; we have that new Casey McQuiston book, which I’m not going to shut up about for the next year and a half ‘cause I love it so much –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Tara: – we have Alexandria Bellefleur’s first book. You know, like, there – Olivia Waite. And I think there’s a Cat Sebastian, but that’s, like, largely it from the large publishers? And so at the time, like, you really needed, like, a map and a compass and possibly a Sherpa – [laughs] – definitely some snacks to sustain you while you get there, ‘cause it was this little, walled garden –

Sarah: Of expensive books, too.

Tara: – of indie publishers.

Sarah: Let’s not forget that when you’re talking about these books, these are ten, fifteen dollars in e-book each.

Tara: Yes.

Sarah: So you need –

Tara: Yes, because it’s all –

Sarah: It’s all small press!

Tara: – it’s all indie publishers, yeah!

Sarah: Yeah, and that’s, that is not to knock the price of doing business. Like, of all things –

Tara: No.

Sarah: – I understand the price of doing business. But it’s also hard to say to a reader on a limited budget, these are the books; just pick one. You need, you need more, you need more information before you drop, you know, a lot of money –

Tara: That’s right.

Sarah: – on a single book.

Tara: That’s right.

Sarah: Especially because a lot of libraries also don’t stock them.

Tara: No. That’s been getting better.

Sarah: It has been getting better, but it’s harder to find them in libraries.

Tara: Yeah. Ten years ago it was very difficult.

Sarah: [Laughs] Yeah.

Tara: It was very – it was not – like, literally, if I hadn’t found that list, I don’t think I would have found them until – geeze, I’m trying to think when they started coming up in Book Twitter. Was it like five years ago?

Sarah: Yeah. Yeah.

Tara: It depends on who you find. You have to know the right people on Book Twitter.

Sarah: Yeah.

Tara: So I decided that I wanted to be that people – [laughs] – that people – on Book Twitter. And that, and that’s why, like, if you follow me on Twitter, I have five tweets that go out every day. Yes, I recycle them – sorry, I have a job and a family and things to do; I can’t write them new all the time, but they’re still – and I have something like four hundred of my reviews on there –

Sarah: Yeah!

Tara: – across all the sites that I review at, so if you’re looking for those books –

Sarah: You’re going to find them.

Tara: – it’s – you’re going to find them. I mean, you have to like what I like – [laughs] – but you can at least go to the sites and see who else is reviewing. If you don’t like what I like, maybe you’ll like what, like at The Lesbian Review, maybe you’ll like what April likes, or maybe you’ll like what Victoria likes. Like, there’s a ton of us there, each of us with our own tastes and followings.

Sarah: So as you read more lesbian romances –

Tara: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – and as you sort of started to unpack the idea that, well, hold up, maybe this –

Tara: Yeah.

Sarah: – applies to me; maybe I am bisexual –

Tara: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – what happened next? Was this like a, oh, I feel great now! All good! Thanks much!

Tara: [Laughs]

Sarah: We’re all great now!

Tara: No!

Sarah: Yep, everything’s fine.

Tara: No! It was, it was really hard, probably for about a year, ‘cause I think the thing that it took me a long time to figure out is that discovering a new part of yourself like perhaps, say, a latent sexual orientation – [laughs] – awareness, it’s one of those things that means everything and nothing all at the same time.

Sarah: Oh, that’s a really good way of putting that!

Tara: Right? Like, nothing needed to change, but at the same time, because I had this awareness, it felt like everything was different, and the biggest question that I had is, what do I do with this?

Sarah: Yeah.

Tara: And luckily I was – and still am – married to somebody who’s incredibly patient and willing to go that whole journey with me, because I know people who, their partners were not okay with that, and those marriages didn’t survive, and I think, because he was just always there –

Sarah: Yeah.

Tara: – and he wasn’t, he wasn’t ever threatened by it? He wasn’t ever afraid of it?

Sarah: Yeah?

Tara: To him it was just, okay, cool, more information, and then from there my relationship with my gender presentation changed. I should dig up an old photo, but basically, I, I joke about the, the photo from when I started at my current workplace, and I’ve been working there for five years, compared to, like, what I look like now is like, that person looks like my Mormon cousin. Like –

[Laughter]

Tara: – oh man! I, you know, I had hair past my shoulders. Like, very, very femme-presenting, but, like, very plain femme-presenting, I guess? Like, I wasn’t invested in how I looked; I didn’t really care. I mean, it probably didn’t help that I was still nursing at the time. [Laughs] I didn’t care about anything. But I gradually started, like, I cut my hair, and then I cut it shorter, and then I cut it into a very obviously masculine cut, and then I switched over from, like, more typically women’s office wear to, you know, collared men’s shirts that I had tailored to take them into the right places and wearing them with high tops and, like, very, like, so that you look and it’s like, oh, yeah, that person’s very queer. The thing that I find hilarious is that no matter how I cut my hair, though, until I shaved my head, and then my mom didn’t say anything, but every other time I cut my hair she was like, ooh, it looks so cute! And I just wanted to say, like, mom, it looks super gay –

[Laughter]

Tara: – but okay. You know what? She’s supportive in her own way, and I think it’s really sweet that she tried to – and also, like, we haven’t talked, like, my – I have talked to my parents about it. We don’t talk very often about it, but I think just as, like, the ultimate sign of loving me as I am is that the person who took in those shirts was my dad.

Sarah: Oh! That’s so sweet!

Tara: He was like, sure, no problem; let’s figure it out; because he does tailoring, and I went back on a visit and brought ten shirts with me, and I brought ten shirts back home to Calgary that fit me perfectly.

Sarah: Aw! So your dad took in your shirts. You have –

Tara: He did.

Sarah: – grown into how you want to dress; you’ve grown into how you want to present yourself –

Tara: Yeah.

Sarah: – you’ve grown into your identity. How much is, how much of queer romance is still part of that?

Tara: It’s, I mean, I still, I still love to read it. I would say it’s still the majority of what I read. Although I have to say, I did burn myself out on it last year. I, and I don’t know if it was that I finally burned myself out after almost exclusively reading lesbian romance for nine years, or also pandemic life? Like, I think the, the two together were just –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Tara: – real bad for that? So I started reading a lot more nonfiction, and I’ve currently, I’ve been on a kick for the last couple months about reading about the, the birth of the punk scene in New York?

Sarah: Cool!

Tara: Yeah, it’s fascinating. I’m still reading about it, and, which was perfect preparation for One Last Stop because one of the characters comes from kind of that scene. Sorry; apparently all I’m going to be talking about now is, I just, like, I’m very excited about that. It’s 2021, and I’m like, let’s talk about the punk scene of the early 1970s, please and thank you? [Laughs] Like, this is my new pandemic obsession.

Sarah: This is not a bad obsession!

Tara: No.

Sarah: Because it certainly –

Tara: No, well, my –

Sarah: – connects enough to the present day.

Tara: Right? And my obsession last year was RuPaul’s Drag Race, which I had never – I think I said that –

Sarah: Yeah.

Tara: – earlier this year, right? And I had never seen it before, and the thing that’s interesting is realizing, oh, RuPaul’s Drag Race might not have necessarily been able to exist without the punk scene either, because RuPaul was in a punk band.

Sarah: Yup, it’s true! It’s all connected.

Tara: It all comes together.

Sarah: It’s all connected. So one of the things that you struggled with in your review of the last, was it Alexandria Bellefleur’s last book?

Tara: Oh yeah, Hang the Moon? Yep.

Sarah: One of the things that you struggled with with Hang the Moon was that a lot of readers were confused, and some were condemnatory of the fact that the heroine in that book is bisexual and has had relationships –

Tara: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – with women in the past. In the book, though, she is with a man in this book; the book is labeled as a queer romance, and the author had to say repeatedly, yes, the heroine is bisexual; the heroine is bisexual.

Tara: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: And there were people who you spoke with who said that wasn’t queer enough.

Tara: On my podcast Queerly Recommended, one of the things that Kris and I do, a constant segment of the show is we talk about what we’re reading or watching or gaming or whatever that’s queer.

Sarah: I can relate to this.

Tara: Right? [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah!

Tara: It’s a –

Sarah: I, I understand.

Tara: So –

Sarah: I know all the words to this song.

Tara: So I said that I was reading Hang the Moon, and I think we pulled – yeah, we did. So one of, one of the ways that we promote the show is that we pull clips from it, use Headliner, and then –

Sarah: Yeah!

Tara: – put them on our, all of our socials. And when we shared that one, there were a few people that reached out to me, and in one case, one of them even left the author tagged, which I really wanted to kind of throw up about –

Sarah: Oh, that’s –

Tara: – specifically to say, sorry, but I’m not going to read it ‘cause there’s a man in this. And it was like – [sighs] – I get why people would be confused about the marketing, because we’re not used to seeing “Own Voices” queer books that have people of opposite genders on there, but I also don’t know how you fix that problem.

Sarah: No.

Tara: Why did you have to tell me that? I mean, I do also have a couple people on Twitter who like to tell me every time they disagree with my reviews.

Sarah: Oh yeah, I get email that says, I hate everything you love. Keep up the good work! But it’s –

Tara: Right?

Sarah: – it’s one thing – well, this is, it’s a whole other conversation, but it is one thing to, I think, say to me as a reviewer, wow, my take on this book was totally different; I liked it or I didn’t like it for this reason; and I see what you’re saying here, but this did not work for me. And, you know, there’s that, whoa, did we read the same book? feeling. Like, that can be –

Tara: Yes.

Sarah: – very disorienting, and, and it can be very challenging and a little scary to own an opinion that is in such opposition to what everyone else is saying.

Tara: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: The, the problem I have is when there’s the addition of, well, what the hell’s wrong with you?

Tara: What if you just had your other opinion and didn’t come into my virtual house? I mean, granted –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Tara: – I leave the front door open to my virtual house, so I get that it’s on me. Like, if I’m going to put these out –

Sarah: Somebody’s going to respond! But there’s –

Tara: – somebody’s going to –

Sarah: – the element of the response that’s, well, what is wrong with you? Is like, oh boy. Ehhh.

Tara: Yeah. I’ve actually gone as far as muting a couple of people.

Sarah: Good! It’s your social media; do whatever you want with it! You don’t have to apologize for –

Tara: Yeah.

Sarah: – upcycling content. You don’t have to apologize for resurfacing your reviews at any time and any way you want! I do it all the time!

Tara: No.

Sarah: Yeah, but you also aren’t obligated to listen to somebody who wants to tell you what’s wrong with you.

Tara: No. No, I do not. But yeah, with that book, I don’t know, the whole thing just made me sad because the vibe that came across was very like, well, this isn’t a valid queer couple, and it’s like, so, does the character Annie need to, like, pull out her this-is-how-many-girls-I’ve-dated card? But also, even if that was the case, does that mean that my queerness is less valid because I’ve never dated a girl?

Sarah: Right. Yeah.

Tara: I hope not – [laughs] – ‘cause living very queer over here.

[Laughter]

Sarah: What lesbian romances do you recommend the most often to someone who hasn’t read or hasn’t read a lot of lesbian romance?

Tara: Hmmm.

Sarah: Do you recommend Hang the Moon?

Tara: No, I would – [laughs] – I would not recommend that specifically, that one specifically, ‘cause that is not, if they’re asking for an f/f romance, that’s not fair.

Sarah: Okay.

Tara: But I would recommend the first book. I think that one was very cute.

Sarah: Oh yeah! Sorry, I said the wrong title. I said the wrong title; I meant the first one.

Tara: Oh! Written in the Stars, yeah!

Sarah: I’m sorry, Written in the Stars!

Tara: [Laughs]

Sarah: Good job, brain.

Tara: Yeah, I would recommend Written in the Stars.

Sarah: Yeah.

Tara: It’s very cute. It depends on the person and what kind of tropes that they like.

Sarah: Yeah.

Tara: I tend to try to be as specific as possible when I give recommendations, and so if they like friends-to-lovers, then I would recommend Poppy Jenkins by Clare Ashton, which is just delightful! And that one is actually kind of a second chance as well. All That Matters by Susan X. Meagher is another really popular one, where it’s not only a friends-to-lovers, but you actually get to watch the friendship grow?

Sarah: Oooh!

Tara: It’s lovely. It’s moody! It’s a real long book; it’s like five hundred pages or something like that, so if you’re talking about, like, bang for your buck in les fic, that is a great book for that.

[Laughter]

Tara: I also, for people that like, like zero angst, very fluffy sweet, Chelsea Cameron has a bunch that I love. My favorite is probably Who We Could Be or, hmmm, Marriage of Unconvenience.

So it just really, it depends on the kinds of books that they like, or if they want something with a little bit more of a literary bent, then I would probably choose The Escape Artist…by an author whose name escapes me at the present. [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s all right. No worries; I’ll find it.

Tara: Oh, Judith Katz!

Sarah: Oh!

Tara: And it’s, it takes place I think in the early 1900s, and it’s this young woman who is trafficked from Poland to Buenos Aires and in a, in a brothel, and there is a, she kind of falls for this street magician who is a girl wearing boy’s clothes, and it’s lovely.

Sarah: Ooh!

Tara: It’s really, really lovely.

Hoosier Daddy is a super gentle, by Salem West and Ann McMan, is a super, super gentle, very funny, very silly, kind of a, a great way in. It’s, I wouldn’t – it doesn’t have the vibe of a romance, if that makes sense. It’s a rom-com, I guess.

Sarah: Yeah.

Tara: So yeah, like, if, if you want a rom-com, then it’s good for that. But there’s, I promise, there are so many, so, so many, and the sector is exploding.

And now, the one I’m going to be recommending to everybody all the time is One Last Stop because I love it so freaking much. It’s, I finished it days ago.

Sarah: Why do you love it so much?

Tara: It has, found family is a massive thing, and I think it’s my favorite found family that I’ve seen before. The writing is gorgeous. And, I mean, just the idea of, like, how do you have a romance that takes place where, like, the actual, the two people falling in love are doing it all in a subway? It’s one of those, like, how is that possible? I don’t usually comment on things in author’s notes or acknowledgements, ‘cause I, you know, I feel like that’s very much the author’s, but the thing that I love, and I have to quote that because it would be stealing for me to say that is was me saying it, but I love that she calls it an Unbury Your Gays story, because it’s this character who’s trapped in time, who in theory should be dead, who is one of the leads in the romance and falls in love. And just the idea of unburying a gay is lovely when we know that, you know, burying your gay, like, Bury Your Gays is a big thing that’s happened in TV and – especially in TV, but also in film, where you see, like, Tara on Buffy and what’s-her-name in The 100. Please don’t come after me Clexa fans. I’m sorry; I never watched it, and I don’t remember which one died! I love that the book is just, it’s pure joy and passion, and I will come back to it again and again and again.

Sarah: Aw! It’s a queer Kate & Leopold, basically.

Tara: I don’t know; I never saw that!

Sarah: Okay, it’s not good; you don’t need to.

Tara: [Laughs] Okay, but what if I got kind of stoned first? Is, is that good conditions to watch it, or is it still too bad and just go watch something else?

Sarah: No, if you get kind of stoned – the thing is that Meg Ryan is charming, and –

Tara: As always. It’s Hugh Jackman, right?

Sarah: Thank you. God, brain! Wow, you’re tired. Hugh Jackman is charming. They are both charming.

Tara: Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Somehow, they don’t have much chemistry, and the script is terrible. But –

Tara: Oh no!

Sarah: But they’re cute! There’s some cute scenes. It’s not a great movie, but seeing it stoned –

Tara: Okay.

Sarah: – I mean, your brain’ll fill in all the stuff that isn’t there.

Tara: We watched Bedknobs and Broomsticks the other day for the first time –

Sarah: I love that movie so much.

Tara: – since I was a child, and my only regret is that I wasn’t stoned at the time.

Sarah: Ooh, ah!

Tara: Right? Neil was; he had a great time! I still had a good time, but I think I would have had a better time. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, you definitely want to watch that stoned. Oh, for sure.

Tara: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: That is one of my all-time favorite movies. I adore that movie.

Tara: What I did not remember from childhood is that it’s basically four or five movies smooshed together into one movie!

Sarah: Yeah, yeah! It’s like four different genres all packed together.

Tara: Yes. Also, just as a warning for you and anyone who goes to watch it on Disney+, they have the extended cut on there. There is an extra twenty minutes, and it –

Sarah: What?

Tara: – it feels like it. [Laughs]

Sarah: Really!

Tara: Yeah. I think they just added, like, more fighting to the battle scene, more soccer to the soccer game scene, more dancing to the dancing –

Sarah: Right.

Tara: – on Portobello Road scene.

Sarah: Yeah.

Tara: Like, I think they just extended it that way?

Sarah: Yeah. My favorite thing about that movie is that she wins because the dude has her back.

Tara: Yes.

Sarah: She is always the heroine, and she is always the one with the power.

Tara: Yeah. Yeah, and I loved his whole, like, wait, what, it worked?

Sarah: Yeah.

Tara: [Laughs] That this charlatan is delighted and, like, shocked, though –

Sarah: Yeah.

Tara: – that these spells are actually a legit thing.

Sarah: Yeah!

Tara: It’s so good.

Sarah: I love that movie.

Tara: Yeah, she’s excellent in that. Angela Lansbury is just, like, what a boss.

Sarah: The two of them, they’re so cute!

Tara: Yeah. They are.

Sarah: So cute!

Tara: Yeah.

Sarah: So, aside from One Last Stop, what are you reading or looking at? Anything else you want to recommend.

Tara: Yeah! So if you want to join me in reading about the New York punk scene, I have been reading this for months! Because it’s not a book that I, I can’t sit down and read big chunks of it at a time, unfortunately. This will be a shock to no one, but, like, the punk scene was not kind to young women –

Sarah: Mmmmmmm.

Tara: – and you –

Sarah: No.

Tara: Yeah. So you hear a lot about, like, Iggy Pop is sleeping with a fifteen-year-old. I’m uncomfortable and I’m going to walk away for a little while, but –

Sarah: Yeah, I’ve got to take a break.

Tara: – the book Please Kill Me? It’s Legs McNeil and Gillian Somebody-or-Other [McCain] compiled an oral history, and so it’s nothing but quotes from people.

Sarah: Wow!

Tara: But the flow of the quotes is what gives you the structure of the narrative.

Sarah: That is some, that is some work, too. That’s cool!

Tara: It’s so good! It’s really brilliant. And you kind of just have, like, if you can stick it out until when Patti Smith shows up?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Tara: It gets amazing.

Sarah: Just hang on for Patti Smith in all things –

Tara: Just, yeah!

Sarah: – and you will be okay.

Tara: Well – right? ‘Cause it starts with, like, Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground, which is like, that’s fine! Interesting –

Sarah: Okay.

Tara: – but then it gets into, like, the Iggy Pop and The Stooges and their early days, and that’s where it gets kind of –

Together: – gross.

Tara: And so there’s that, and I’ve just started reading Covenant by Ann McMan. It is the fourth book in her Jericho series. So far, very good. The thing that’s interesting about this series is the first book, Jericho, is also one of those, like, very well loved when you ask in a, in a group of, of les fic readers, what’s your favorite romance? That’ll pop up. And it’s another friends-to-lovers where you see the friendship develop, and then they –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Tara: – and then the romance happens, and it’s, it’s quirky; it’s lovely small-town romance. And then the second book is a general fiction.

Sarah: Huh!

Tara: Which I thought was really brave, first of all –

Sarah: Right.

Tara: – to shift genre in the same series? Like, that’s not –

Sarah: That is a –

Tara: – typically done.

Sarah: That’s a big shift!

Tara: Yeah. And so all the rest of the books are general fiction, but it continues on with what is going in the town, and so if you like small towns with quirky characters, then it’s very good. The third book definitely has some difficult material because there’s a, a girl in the town, it’s actually the mayor’s daughter, and he is abusive.

Sarah: Right.

Tara: He is very, he is a very bad man. And now I’m reading book four, which opens with the mayor is dead; now what?

Sarah: Oooh!

Tara: The mayor has been murdered; what do they do?

Sarah: Po-, uh, pa-, party?

Tara: [Laughs] Right? Right, so –

Sarah: Bonfire? Bonfire in the backyard? I’ll bring the beer?

Tara: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: We’re making falafel for dinner tomorrow; you want to come over? [Laughs]

Tara: I, it’s, I heard the border’s reopening!

Sarah: Yeah! Come on down! It’s only – well, hang on a second – do you speak Fahrenheit? Let me look this up.

Tara: I do! I do, because I grew up in South Detroit!

Sarah: Oh, that’s right; I forgot! We, we’ve talked about this.

Tara: I actually – yeah!

Sarah: Well, currently it is 95 Fahrenheit.

Tara: That’s disgusting.

Sarah: It feels like 104, which in centigrade is a solid four-zero. No thanks!

Tara: Is it, is it humid there too?

Sarah: Oh yeah! Oh, of course! It’s DC, very humid.

Tara: Heeeck no!

Sarah: The air is thick and chewy.

Tara: No, no, no. No.

Sarah: It’s like, it’s like chowder!

Tara: Oh, that’s the worst description –

[Laughter]

Tara: – ever! Oh my God! No, you can come here; it’s 72.

Sarah: Yeah, but don’t you get like a wind that gives you a migraine?

Tara: I mean, yeah. Yeah! [Laughs]

Sarah: You have migraine wind.

Tara: Yeah, I do sometimes.

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you for listening! Thank you to Tara Scott for being so honest and vulnerable, to garlicknitter for the transcript, and to the Patreon community for making that transcript possible.

I am curious to know if romances helped you learn or discover something about yourself too. If you’d like to share, I would love to hear about it. You can email me at [email protected], or you can leave a comment on this episode at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast, but I always love to hear from you, and I would love to know what romances helped you learn about yourself.

As always, I end with a bad joke. I have a whole repository of bad jokes, and some of them are emailed from listeners, which is the greatest! This one is from Reddit, because it’s awful and I love it. Are you ready for a terrible joke? I hope so. Paranormal romance fans, this one is for you.

Why don’t werewolves ever know the time?

Why don’t werewolves ever know the time?

Because they’re not when-wolves.

[Laughs] When-wolves! That joke is from /TuttsMcGee. Thank you, /TuttsMcGee; that joke made my day. I hope you share it with many people and that they groan very loudly, because that’s what happened when I told it to people in my house, so you know, I’ve got to share the joy!

On behalf of everyone here, I wish you the very best of reading this weekend. We will see you back here next week.

Smart Podcast, Trashy Books is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic.media/podcasts.

When-wolves! [Laughs]

[end of fun music]