Can't Get Enough with Kennedy Ryan

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Welcome to the shit show.

Things are going to get weird.

It's your favede villain, Kale Lower.

And you're listening to Barely Famous.

Welcome back to another episode of Barely Famous Podcast.

Today I'm sitting with one of our favorite authors, Kennedy Ryan.

Welcome to Barely Famous Podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

I have been counting down the days until this interview, and we've talked a little bit on social media because I was like, I was all up in your DMs.

I'm so excited to be sitting here with you.

And I did start your book.

Can't get enough.

Congratulations on the release.

Thank you.

How has it been?

What have the feelings been like about surrounding the release of this book?

You know, I'm excited, obviously, but also bittersweet.

Yeah.

Because this series is coming to an end.

You know, it's like leaving friends and Skyland is like a real place to me, you know.

And so it feels like, and I'm excited about whatever's next, what is next.

I'm already writing the next book, but still, you know, this is a series that really changed the trajectory of my life and of my career so it's kind of bittersweet to leave it and all of my readers are like you could do a spinoff you could do this you could do a novella we're not ready to leave so i think we're all kind of having you know early withdrawal well so how do you determine when it is the end of a series like because you could keep going how do you decide okay this is the third book this is the final book in the series right and who knows what will happen you know like a lot of people um for people who haven't read these are three women you know who are uh when we first start they're like late 30s, and now they're all like early 40s, which is really cool for me in the context of the romance genre because you don't always see it.

40s, not old, but quote unquote, older women

in the genre.

So it started with these three women, and it's really like this friendship group.

And so I just wanted to do a story for each of those three women.

And it was very intentional because I wanted these three women make very different life choices, right?

Like the first, in the first book, Before I Let Go, Yasmin, she is an entrepreneur, but she's also, you know, a mom and she's engaged with her kids.

And then Soledad in the second book is a stay-at-home mom and she sees her home as like an enterprise and she sees her highest calling as raising these amazing daughters, sending them out into the world.

And Hendrix in this third book is childless by choice and she's completely focused on her career.

It was very intentional to put these choices as coexisting and these three women as coexisting and completely accepting one another.

100%.

Right.

And what I really wanted to do with that is so many, that's the essence of feminism.

That's the essence of womanism and feminism is choice and respecting our choices.

And so often culture pits us as women against each other for our choices.

Like you're lazy because you stay at home.

You neglect your kids because you work.

I wanted to depict this group of women who just accept one another and who respect each other's vocational and life choices.

So it was just that unit, you know, and it's really, I know it's a romance novel, but there is all kinds of love in here.

And one of the core ones is that there is almost like this platonic soulmate friendship with these three women.

And I really wanted to depict that.

So it was just them three, like the three of them.

And so that's how we came to three books.

But now, of course, people are like, what about their daughters?

They're about to go to college.

You could write a new adult.

You could, you know, whatever.

So that would be kind of cool for the future.

That would be cool.

Yeah, Beja and Lupe, who are the daughters, you know, that, yeah, people are really into that and you know there's just all kinds of ideas that they have for me to write what's so funny is talking to you right now you articulate and you speak the way that you write

which is really cool i i have not come across that with other authors yet just because i think that sometimes authors put themselves in a different headspace to write but because this is you know immersion and you know real life scenarios, it's so interesting that you actually are exactly like, it's almost like your voice is, I don't know, it's so interesting.

So, Abby Jimenez did a quote for the cover of your book and said, Kennedy Ryan is my go-to for deep, emotional, and sensual storytelling.

What is it like to have the support of other authors?

It's amazing.

And, you know, it's so funny because it's, I have to pinch myself because I'm like, these people are my friends.

Like, they're the biggest names in the business.

Like, you know, people like Emily Henry and Abby.

And it's so funny because I was signing books somewhere the other day and the person who was helping me was holding my phone to take a picture and Tia Williams called and she's like oh my gosh it's Tia Williams Tia Williams is text is calling you and I'm like yeah you know so for me it's like these are my friends how lucky am I that like some of the most talented writers of our generation really of romance writers are um my friends and we we look for ways to support each other yeah uh so that feels it feels amazing but that's not unlike the story right with the three best friends women supporting women even though they might not be in the same genre, they might not do the same, you know, campaign as you to launch the book that you're, you guys are all supporting each other, which is really, really good.

Absolutely.

I look for chances to do that all the time.

I'm always looking for ways to promote other authors, especially other authors who maybe are just getting started or who are getting less visibility.

I'm very, very intentional about promoting black and brown authors because of reduced visibility.

So they're always in my news.

I'm always shouting them out.

I'm always reading them and making sure I mention them because, you know, it's tougher when you don't have the same level of visibility.

So if I'm ever in on a platform in a position where I can promote people who are not getting the same level of visibility or traction, then I want to do that.

But speaking of visibility, because people have done that for me.

Really?

Would you, is there anyone that stands out in your mind right now that, you know, helps you?

Yeah, I mean, people, people like Emily.

You know, I was an indie author.

I wasn't even traditionally published.

And I don't know what made me.

I read Beach Read.

And I don't do this.

I slid into her DMs, into Emily's DMs.

This is during the pandemic.

And I'm like, hi, I'm Kennedy.

Like, I write romance.

You probably don't even have any idea who I am, but I have just like gone down a rabbit hole and read all your YAs.

And I was just gushing.

And she's like, oh, my gosh, Kennedy, I'm reading Queen Moof right now.

Like, you know, it's like that.

And then we started doing talks, you know, like she would come all.

We did a couple of podcasts together.

Yeah.

And

she, she once, she said, Kennedy, I need you to watch like Good Morning America tomorrow.

And I was like, okay, I think it was Good Morning America.

I was okay.

And I'm thinking, Emily's going to do a cover reveal or something.

And she gets on there and they're asking her.

And I didn't even watch because I forgot.

And she's like, Kennedy, did you see?

And she was talking about my book like on Good Morning America, whatever show it was.

And I was like, Emily, she said, I told you to watch.

And I was like, Emily, I thought it was your cover reveal.

Did you see a clip of it though?

I did.

I did.

Yeah.

So, I mean, she's done that for me.

Like, Abby has done so much for me.

Abby is constantly

and she texted me.

She's like, oh my gosh, I've just been talking about you on my tour everywhere I go.

So, I mean, people are always doing that for me.

Tia Williams and I are very good friends.

We did, I think, three dates on our last tour together.

We're doing two dates on this tour.

Jasmine Giller, the same.

We're doing two dates together on this tour.

So it's constantly looking for ways that you can promote other people.

And I'm always looking for ways to promote indie authors, especially.

As much as indie authors, you know, really appreciate that.

I think the audience also really loves a good crossover.

I always ask people, you know, what, what is your dream collab?

If you could collab, would you with another author?

And if you, if you, your answer is yes, what, who would it be?

I think it would be hard.

I think I would drive someone crazy.

Okay, fair enough.

My process is very intense and very immersive.

But I did, you know,

I've never co-written with anyone except one person.

And it was like a holiday novella.

I don't know if you've ever read Sierra Simone.

No.

Oh, you should.

Okay.

She's a former librarian.

Okay.

But she is just, she,

I don't even know how to describe her brand because she wanted to be a nun.

So she writes around priests and issues of religion and Catholicism, but it's just absolutely filthy.

Are you serious?

Oh, yes.

Oh, my God.

We have to do it.

But then she is so brilliant.

So the whole time that you're reading it, you feel like I am reading someone's thesis.

Like, what is this?

And she is a dream collab for me.

When we wrote together, we approach writing from different lenses, but we often arrive at kind of like the same place.

Right.

And a lot of things.

I am constantly, I don't know if you're like a strengths finders person or personality, that kind of thing.

One of my big strengths is, one of my top strengths is belief.

Okay.

And so when you're belief, you're constantly looking for meaning.

You're constantly wanting, you're looking for conviction and things that, you know, drive.

And so I'm constantly trying to figure out how is my work going to change the world?

Okay.

And Sierra's constantly asking about the world.

She doesn't care about, she's just like contemplating the world.

You know what I mean?

I don't know if that makes sense.

No, it does.

It's like I'm going from out in and she's going from like in out or whatever the opposite of that is.

But

she is a dream collaboration and we wrote like a holiday novella together.

And by the, I thought it was going to be so hard.

By the time we finished,

we couldn't tell who had written what.

Like really?

literally it's like seamless it was so seamless and we had a google doc and she would go in and she'd be like hey i'm gonna adjust some stuff in chapter one i'm like cool oh i think i'm gonna adjust some stuff in chapter three by the end i was like did you write this she's like i thought you wrote it you know so she's one of my closest friends in author world and i'm she's in we're in kansas city um she lives in that area and so on the tour i'm gonna see her oh that's nice on the tour yeah i'm sure people would love for a collab with her again oh yeah people People constantly ask us to write a full-length novel or, you know, things like that.

Yeah.

I mean, there's, there's several people who I could do that with, but she's the one who comes to mind because I just, I admire her so much as a writer.

Right.

And if you guys already know how each other works, that kind of

thing.

Like, I don't know if it would actually happen, but she's

one of like a huge dream collab because I am, she is, there are people who, like, there are people you love, and then there are people who are writers, writers.

Yeah.

She is a writer's writer.

Okay.

Meaning when you're reading her work, you can't help but appreciate the craft of writing.

And it's a little different.

Like you admire lots of people, but when you're reading certain books, you're like, gosh, I wish I'd written this book.

Or, oh my gosh, I could never write this book.

Or I see the craft that it took to create this.

And I admire this so much.

And so you'll hear, sometimes you'll hear writers talk about other writers as she's a writer's writer.

That's kind of how, that's kind of how I think of her.

Several people, but definitely her.

I think we, that's how we feel about you.

Oh.

100%.

Like, Like there's just a different type of storytelling in your books that is very, it sets you apart from other authors.

And no disrespect to any other authors.

I'm just saying it's a very different experience reading your books.

And I love that about you.

Thank you.

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In your books, you talk about a lot of realistic things, and it's very immersive,

but you are a mom.

So how do you tell the story of a woman like Hendrix who is childless by choice?

And I think that women who are childless by choice get a lot of hate

and people don't understand it.

Right.

So how do you put yourself in that position to write from her perspective?

Yeah.

And that is the thing, that's the very reason I wrote it.

One of the hallmarks, I like to think one of the hallmarks of my brand as a storyteller is what I call scenes,

meaning I'm often writing from the margins to the center.

And what I mean by that is there are certain identities, communities, decisions that relegate people to the edges.

Right.

Like I think of that as like black women, brown women, neurodivergent, fat, disabled.

Like a lot of our stories are on the edges of culture, on the edges of cultural narrative.

And I like to push those identities, those communities, those decisions to the center

and say, okay, I know you're not used to seeing your story.

You're used to being the sidekick, the best friend, the whatever.

This, this story, you're the main character.

You're going to be celebrated.

You're going to be centered.

You're going to be loved outrageously.

You deserve joy.

You deserve a happily ever after.

And we don't often see that.

And in romance, in the context of romance as a genre, you rarely see women who are childless by choice.

Like that interrogates what people's thought of a happily ever after is because they're like, oh, at the end, I want the bonus epilogue and I want the proposal and I want the marriage and I want the baby, you know?

And this series, I think, is in a lot of ways interrogating what a happily ever after is.

Meaning, looking at book one, which is before I let go, they start off divorced, you know, and it's like, okay, this is an interesting romance novel.

Book two, by the ends, and I don't want to be spoilery, but she's not even sure she wants to be married ever again.

Right.

And then in book three, yes, you know, but she's never going to have children.

And so I think this whole, all the books in this series and a lot of my work is interrogating what is a happily ever after and who gets it.

Right.

You know, and when you talk about childless by choice, who gets joy?

Who gets a happily ever after?

And when I was writing this story or talking about writing this story, it's so funny because there were people who were like, Aren't you afraid that people will think Hendrix is cold?

No, I don't get that feeling.

I was like, Why would you think?

Why would you think that people would assume she was cold?

Well, you know, she doesn't want to have kids.

And it's so interesting to me because I had even like 2022 is when Before I let Go dropped.

And I had hinted in that book, This Woman doesn't want to have children.

So it was really before this kind of cultural discourse that we've been having over the last maybe six months or so exploded.

So I already knew that about her, but I was was like,

I understand

that people are defining women by our wombs.

We are bigger.

We are more than our reproductive capacity, you know, and we are in a space right now in our in our country where we are being defined by our wombs.

We are, our bodily agency has been taken away from us.

Our

rights, our bodily rights are being taken away from us.

And Hendrix articulates this in the book.

Me making a choice not to have children is reproductive agency.

1,000.

It is me deciding.

And like you said, I have a kid.

So great, you have a kid and you don't.

Great.

We get to decide.

She says this in the book.

I get to decide how I move my body through this world.

Right.

And not only that, but you don't get to tell me where I put my love or how I express my love.

And she says, you know, I'm a godmother.

I'm an aunt.

I'm a mom who's taking care of her aging parent who has Alzheimer's.

I'm, I'm, you know, all these other things.

Right.

There are women who are mothering.

Right.

You know what mothering actually is, who never physically have children, and we should respect that.

1,000%.

Yeah.

And how they are contributing to the world.

It's interesting because all of the...

all of the books in this series I have related in some way.

It doesn't matter what walk of life you come from.

There are parts of all three of these books that you can relate to.

And I absolutely love that.

I get so much feedback from women who have kids, stay at home, who relate to Hendrix.

Yeah.

You know, and it's not, and that's the other thing is that we usually have so much more in common than we don't.

They relate to her drive.

They relate to her compassion.

They relate to the way she pours into the community.

Like this one thing about you doesn't completely define you.

Right.

There's just different parts of all three that are so relatable.

And I think so many people appreciate that about all the books.

We're also interrogating like, why is it that men aren't ever questioned about the choices they make if they choose not to have children?

If they choose not to get married, like it's fine.

no but with women it's like there's a clock there's a why there's a all these expectations and i like to write women who are like you don't get to define me i get to define me 100 i love that and in book in this could be us

um you write about autism yeah which i think is huge and there's so many people who resonate with that so what made you decide that you wanted to include incorporate that in your books yeah i am i'm i'm an autism mom you know and i have been for over 20 years uh my son son was diagnosed when he was two years old.

And maybe two years after that, I actually started a foundation for families who have children with autism.

I ran it for like 11 years.

Then when my career kind of took off, I ended up transitioning into what we have now, which is a lift for autism, a bookish auction that raises money for autism.

So I'm deeply embedded in autism advocacy, in autism fundraising.

That whole world has been my life, you know, for a long time and is probably a lifelong passion.

But I had never written about it.

Okay.

And

I wasn't sure when I would, or I thought probably that the first time I wrote about autism, it might be our family story or a memoir or self-help or a parenting book or something like that.

And when I got to Sola Dad's story, I was like, I think I'm ready to write about this because working with autistic families for so long and, you know, even just knowing the things that we have done, my husband and I have done with our son, they're some of the most sacrificially loving parents that you you will ever meet.

And I wanted the energy and the devotion as a father to match Sola Dad's priority for her children.

I was like, what does a partner?

Because this, I always talk about this.

When I'm writing a woman and a man, I build the woman first and then I write a man who deserves her, a man who is worthy of her.

And so I knew who Sola Dad was as a character.

And I knew that the most important thing in the world to her was her children.

And I was like, I want to give her a partner who the most important thing in the world to him is his kids.

And when I started thinking about what does that father look like, I thought about my husband, you know, and how the kind of dad he is to our son.

And, you know, our son, he,

it's not a lot of the things that he does and wants and says are not quote unquote age appropriate, but I call them Miles appropriate.

His name is Miles because it's whenever he learns to do things, whenever he wants to do things, but he walks, sometimes we're walking through the grocery store.

Now, my husband is 6'5.

Okay.

And my son is 6'3.

So you're talking about about two big guys, two big guys.

And my son will grab his hand and they will, he will hold his hand throughout walking through the grocery store, these two big guys, and he's like holding his hand and he's just so tender with them, you know.

And I'm like, and I've seen that not just from my husband, but I've seen that with other parents throughout the years when I've been working with the autism community.

And I was like, what if, you know, I depicted a dad who was that level of devoted and that level of accepting of his children.

And I thought, you know, depicting that specific identity and that community was something that I had a lot of investment in.

Right.

But it's such a spectrum condition that even writing that book, I still interviewed probably another 10 families.

So that is part of your interview or part of your writing process all the time.

And my background is journalism.

And so I, um, I, I think I kind of approach writing fiction the same way I do writing journalism.

Yeah.

So I, before I write anything, I have, I make a list of subjects, you know, people I'm going to interview.

And it's usually it's coming out of what are the lived experiences of the characters and what are the vocations of these characters.

So usually I'm interviewing probably 10 or so people and then I'm reading a lot.

The book I'm reading now, I just read five memoirs for, I'm reading a lot.

And then I also take masterclasses, you know, like I'm, when I wrote a book, Real, a couple of years ago, he was a filmmaker.

And so I took masterclasses from like Scorsese and Spike Lee and all of these directors.

And I took a masterclass on cinematography.

And the guy who I'm writing now,

he's a composer.

I'm taking a master class on scoring.

You know, it's like, I need to

be...

I need to be well-versed.

Right.

You know, if you're writing a character who is obsessed with filmmaking, you expect that sometimes I'm not going to know what the heck he's talking about.

He just goes off and starts talking about the 70 millimeter of this.

And I'm like, I need that jargon.

I need that language.

I need to be able to embody that passion.

And I can't do it on the surface.

So it's a very immersive process.

And I do all of that before I even write.

I think like that process is probably 60% of the project is just that.

And then the last 40 is maybe writing.

So

what would you say the timeframe is for by the time you do, we'll call it research in your...

the journalism aspect of it.

How long does that take before you even develop the story?

It'll vary from book to book, depending on how much research I have to do.

Okay.

This one is very intense.

And I take extra care when it's a live, when it's a marginalized or a disabled experience, because I just don't want to get that wrong.

You know, and I'm very careful.

Like even when I wrote This Could Be Us, obviously I interviewed other parents, but I interviewed, you know, healthcare professionals.

And then I hired an actually autistic editor.

Wow.

Meaning I wanted someone who was actually autistic to edit the book before I sent it to my publisher.

I wanted someone who was actually autistic to go through the entire novel and make sure that I wasn't doing harm to that community, that I wasn't infantilizing those kids because that happens a lot with autistic people.

It's sometimes, especially if, like, my son is only partially verbal and one of the characters, one of the twin boys, is only partially verbal, there tends to be this assumption that

because they can't talk or whatever, that they aren't, that they are not as far as long as maybe they will be.

So it was so helpful because she identified, you know, let's not say that, let's not say it that way.

Okay, this is a little infantilizing.

And this is me, somebody who's been, you know, raising an autistic kid and really embedded in the community for 20 years, but I am not autistic.

Right.

And so I'm very careful with all those lived experiences.

When I was putting together the questions for this interview, I asked the team, and maybe you could tell me: is it children with autism or autistic children or can it be both?

Yeah.

And I address, I actually address that in the book because some people prefer children with autism and some people prefer autistic children and or autistic people.

And it's best just to ask people what you prefer.

And literally in the book, there's a scene where the social worker comes in and she goes, do you prefer autistic children or with autism?

And they say what they prefer.

And I put that there because part of the reason it was so hard for me to think about writing autism for a long time is because everybody has ideas about everything.

A lot of them are competing ideas and it can get like, no, this is right.

No, this is wrong.

No, you're doing this wrong.

Oh, you're a bad mom or you're, and it's hard to write a story that encompasses all of that.

So you can't, you know, you just write a story that's respectful of different viewpoints.

And so that's what, you know, that's the way I'm going to be able to do that.

Including that part of the conversation was important.

Including that part of the conversation was important because if I just said autistic, then the people who are like with, no, it's with autism and, the opposite.

So I just wanted to demonstrate that for me, what's important is respect, is respecting what people want.

Right.

And so he could, they could have answered the opposite way, like they could have said autistic or with autism, but the point is that you ask and that you respect what people want and how they want to refer to themselves.

Right.

No, that makes complete sense.

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You're also representing...

blended families and step parents and a step parent stepping into a new family and connecting with, you know, what would be eventually maybe maybe stepkids or just your lifelong partner and their children.

And I thought that was really cool too, because I, you know, have blended families with all my children's dads.

And so I thought that was really cool to represent that too, like with the story.

And it's cohesive and it doesn't feel like too much.

It literally feels like something that would happen every single day.

Well, and that's what I like about it is I like when I was talking about seeing this, like people who may not used to be seeing themselves in cultural narrative at the center is I like to write in ways where people recognize themselves.

Like, oh, that's what I do.

Oh, that's how, that's what my family looks like.

Right.

And I think normalizing that families look different.

You know, I have in Can't Get Enough, we have two women, you know, who are married, who have a child.

And in this could be us, and before I let go, we have two guys who have adopted a kid.

Like it is,

we should normalize that you can choose how your family looks.

Right.

And I think the more, and it's not like a big deal, like, oh, look, it's these two guys.

Yeah.

They're just the neighbors, you know, and they're just like, oh, you're baby.

It's, it's normalizing to see the different iterations of what family looks like.

And it should be, and I hope that when we normalize it that way, people begin to respect people's choices.

100%.

It reminds me of when the movie Encanto came out and, you know, all the kids that were seeing, you know, black and brown kids were seeing themselves, you know, and the representation of it.

And it was in such a way that made sense, you know?

And so I feel like that's the same for your books.

Yeah.

I love that.

I hope so.

I am somebody who's like real precious about writing.

And I feel like there's like this element of the divine in the creative process, whatever that means to different people.

But I'm always looking for something that says you're on the right path.

And that said, and the reason I want to make sure I'm on the right path is because I believe, I believe I was put on this earth to tell stories that will crater in people's lives, that will have a lasting impact.

So I'm constantly looking, and I believe that if I write the right story at the right time, it will find people where they are.

And so, I'm always like, Am I on the right track?

And so, of course, I wrote before I let go first.

I had written before I let go, like in 2022.

So, Sola Dad was already established as the name.

And so, then when I was writing This Could Be Us, Belle Hooks has a book called All About Love.

And it is one of the books that Sola Dad reads when she's rebuilding herself after her husband, who's trash ass.

Yeah.

We don't like him.

We don't like him.

You know, he's when once he's, you know, out of the picture, which is not super spoilery, because even

in the blurb, we say that.

And she's rebuilding her life.

She's reading this book called All About Love by Belle Hooks, which is like a treatise, like a feminism treatise on loving yourself first.

And she actually starts to self-partner, which you're like, okay, it's a romance novel.

Why is she dating herself for half the book?

Because it's necessary.

It is necessary, but people don't talk about it, right?

I mean, in certain situations where you're healing from something else, you don't want to go into the next thing with those things unresolved.

Anyway, I'm on an airplane and I'm reading, I was like, there's two books that I want to read as foundation for building Soledad's character.

One was I was going to reread Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, which is, if anyone's familiar with that, the heroine is Janie and she basically lives in the shadow of men her whole life, you know, and then over time, like builds herself and self-actualizes.

And I was like, I'm finally going to read All About Love by Belle Hooks.

So I'm on this airplane and I'm reading and I come across, and it's in the book too, like Soledad has this moment because I had this moment.

I'm reading all about love and Bell Hooks refers to like this place of peace that she has created for herself as Soledad Hermosa, right?

And it's, it's, um, it's, I think it's Spanish.

Yeah.

Um, she goes, Soledad Hermosa.

And I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Okay, does that say Soledad?

You know, in this book that was written like 30 years ago, you know, that I did not even know about when I named Soledad in book one and her name just pops out and I'm like, oh my, I started crying because I was like, and everybody thinks that when they read that and they book in the book, they think that I chose the name Soledad because it's in that book.

And I'm like, no, I chose that name long ago.

It just was there and it was resonant.

And that's how you know it was meant to be?

That's how, that's what, yeah, that's how I know it was meant to be.

Do you ever incorporate parts of yourself in any of your characters?

Oh, for for sure.

Yeah, for sure.

I think

I didn't want it to be this way, but when I was writing Before I Let Go, and I've talked about this very openly,

that character, Yasmin, is coming out of a very deep depression.

She's had a major law, a few major losses that drive her into a very dark place.

And she ends up going into a deep depression.

And she and her husband end up not really recovering from that season of their life and divorcing.

Right.

And so when I was writing that book, well, first of all, I wrote the first version of that book.

It's the first book I ever wrote.

I wrote it 15 years ago before I let go.

Before I let go.

Are you serious?

Yeah, I wrote like a damn, it was the same.

It was the couple.

It was the, you know, restaurant.

It was the kids.

It was the losses.

It was all of that.

And I wrote, it was, I just wanted to see if I could write a book.

So it's the first, it had a different name.

For funsies.

For funsies, yes.

Like you were just like, I'll just try this.

Yeah.

I mean, because I was a writer.

You know, that was what I was doing.

I could do that.

And then I started reading romance again.

I've been reading romance since I was in the eighth grade, had stopped, came back to it later in life, loved it, and was like, maybe I could write a romance.

And I was like, let me just see.

So I write before I let go, but it's called Something Different.

And the friend group wasn't there.

Like it was just, and I always say that book was waiting for me to grow up.

Like because it had all the hurt and none of the healing.

It didn't have the therapy.

It didn't have all of those things.

And I honestly think that because I had another 15 years to live as a wife and as a mom and as a friend and to grow it myself, all of that informed that character.

So while she was dying, she obviously is navigating depression.

And

I was writing the, you know, rewriting the version of it from 15 years ago, which is what we have now.

And the book was like six months late.

And I had the worst writer's block.

And I was like, what is this?

And I go to my writing coach and she's like, we talked for a while.

She said, you know what?

I don't think this is writer's block.

I think you need to talk to somebody.

I'm like, no, talk to someone like who?

A therapist.

And so I was diagnosed with depression while I was writing before I let go.

And so I had.

I, the same things that Yasmin is navigating, finding a therapist, I went through three therapists before I found the right one.

She does the same thing in the book.

And then, you know, there was this, and especially, it's, I think there's a, one of the things I set out to do with that book was to destigmatize therapy because it's, you know, stigmatized everywhere.

But especially when you get into marginalized communities, it gets even worse.

And then black men, it's like, whoa, you know, and so I really wanted to deal with that.

And I started taking

antidepressants.

And it immediately, you know, I felt a difference immediately.

So Yasmin starts doing that.

There's so many, I don't advise writing a book about depression when you're in the middle of it yourself.

Right.

But the first time I went to the therapist that actually worked, I said, Look, I got a book due, and it's six months late.

I just need you to fix me so I can finish my book.

And she said, I really don't care about your book.

You know, I was like, No, I need you to care.

It's six months late.

Yeah.

And she was like, I really don't care about that book.

She said, I believe if we just focus on you, you could write the best book of your life.

And I don't know what the best book of my life is, but I know that Before I Let Go is the book that changed my life and that changed my career.

And so, definitely, there's so much of me there.

Obviously, there's a lot of me that's in sola dad's story and i think people will be interested to know that you know um hendrix is childless by choice right and i'm you know very obviously very very passionate mom i think i'm more like hendrix than i am anybody else in the series i was thinking that too about myself truly like i relate to her a lot yes i do too but what so i talk about therapy all the time yeah i did intensive therapy for four and a half years twice a week um and i just put my i took a little bit of a break and then um put myself back in therapy pretty recently and i think that to your point it is so stigmatized oh yeah and it's so important and i think if i remember correctly and before i let go josiah was like sort of yes against it a little bit very deliberate we have to talk about it and if we talk about it maybe they'll understand it and they'll have a different perspective and so i think that incorporating things like that in your book is so so so important just for everyone yeah and i did it specifically for that like i wanted women because sometimes when i hear like when readers talk to me about, they'll be like, I didn't like the fact that Josiah wouldn't go to therapy.

But that's real life.

Right.

And also, I wanted to model for women who have that experience.

I wanted them to see a partner on page who is resistant to therapy and over the course of the story, sees the value of it and begins to change, engages in therapy and begins to heal.

Because if he hadn't done that work on himself, they would not have been able to reconcile.

Right.

And so women, what I love is that so many women are in my DMs and they're like, I just give the book to him now.

And I say, just read this.

And she, you know, they'll say, we're in couples therapy now.

He's in therapy.

I called my insurance company to see, you know, if it's pay, if they'll pay for therapy.

That for me is my intention.

Like, I talk about not just releasing books, but sending them on a mission.

Yeah.

And that's the mission I sent that book on.

When there was that, was therapy.

And I think that's great.

I think that men specifically too, just in general, no matter walk of life, like men seem to be more resistant than women to therapy and i just don't know why yeah so it's it's really cool that you how has your husband um been supportive through like incorporating things like that oh um i mean completely you know he and i were talking uh the other day i mean he's with me on tour you know he goes with me on tour he's he's incredibly supportive of everything like my writing process is so immersive um that it's hard sometimes for me to like be in the real world and write.

And so I will go away to a hotel or something for a week at a time.

And I will get, let's say it takes me a month to get 20,000 words written.

That's just kind of arbitrary.

In that week, I will write as much as I could have, that I, as I wrote in a month.

And my husband holds the house down and takes care of, you know, our son.

He's like, just go, just do it.

Just do what you have to do.

He's incredibly supportive.

all the time.

And, but I'm that way for him too.

Like throughout our lives, we have always looked for, what do I need to do to make things better for you?

There's this line in Can't Get Enough where the hero says, let's just be good to each other.

And what I mean by that is we're going to be fine.

You know, you don't have to think about insecurity.

You don't have to think about if you're good, if you want what's best for me and I want what's best for you, and we're actively seeking that for each other, we'll be fine.

You know, so I also want, I want to model for women that you don't have to settle for someone who is intimidated by you.

You don't have to settle for someone who needs to diminish you to make them feel bigger.

You don't have to settle for someone who thinks that their ambitions and their goals and their dreams should supersede yours.

Right.

You know, and I have that in my husband.

Like he has his own ambitions.

He has his own goals and dreams, but he is never asking me to sacrifice mine for that.

And we are constantly looking for ways to support each other.

And he's been listening to Can't Get Enough on audio, which is how he prefers to read.

And he's just getting a kick out of the fact.

He's like, I always see us in these books.

I always see parts of our lives in these books.

Yeah.

And so it's kind of, it's, it's fun.

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I started thinking about honestly the scarcity of black romance on shelves.

I wasn't seeing it in bookstores.

I wasn't seeing it enough.

I wasn't seeing our faces.

I wasn't seeing our stories.

And I recognized that I had built a platform where if I was properly supported and I had the right resources and I had the right team and I could get visibility, that I was in a position where I could do something for me, yes, for my career, where I would possibly see.

And it's so funny that I say this because when I started talking with my friends, I was like, We started talking about the branding for the series and talking about what I wanted the covers to look like.

And I was like, I want it to be unambiguously black women with their natural hair.

I was like, Because imagine if one day we are seeing these books on the shelves in bookstores.

And then I specifically said, imagine if we saw this glorious black woman with a big afro on a billboard one day.

Right.

Right.

And so I get chills too.

And so before I let go

was a GMA

buzz pic and it was on their billboard.

And then this could be us was Amazon's best romance of the year last year.

And it was on their billboard.

And every time I look at it and every time I walk into a bookstore and I see my books there and I see these beautiful black women with their natural hair, I'm like,

this is what it was supposed to be.

And when one of us succeeds,

it convinces some people, oh, it's not just her.

Like if we support black authors, if we give them resources, if we help them find visibility, and not only that, if we give them voice, where they can curate a space that centers what black women want or what brown women want, like not just like, I want to squeeze you into this space that I've already created, but I'm going to allow you to curate a space for blackness, where it's like, what do you want to see on your cover?

How do we reach you?

How do we reach these readers?

What are they looking for?

What do they want to see on the page?

When you are given space to do that, that's where blackness, brownness, disability, all of those marginalizations thrive when we are given voice and space, right?

And so that's what this was.

You know, this whole series was that.

And it's so funny because now I'm like, somebody's like, yeah, they told me, you know, we saw what Kennedy Ryan did.

And we just, we're like, we can do that.

Yes.

And I'm like, yes.

How does that feel though?

How does that feel?

It's not just me.

I mean, I think it's all these authors who are doing that, but you have

even a piece of influencing anyone to say, well, if they can do it with her, let me find mine, you know, let me find who we can build up that way, who we can make successful.

It feels incredible.

You know, and I think like there are a couple of times when I've won awards where it was like, oh, no black author's ever done this or no black author's ever done this or, you know, whatever.

For me, it's like when you break through a ceiling, you have to reach back.

When you kick open a door, you have to leave it ajar.

Like you don't, I was raised that way.

You don't hoard things for yourself.

You're constantly looking for how you can help other people.

And that is good energy.

Right.

And it propels you forward and it propels other people forward.

There's such a scarcity mentality sometimes when people feel they're in competition.

with each other.

I don't understand it.

I don't understand that.

It's inf, it's, I know it's not literally infinite, but it feels like there's infinite readers, you know, like I'm not competing with other authors for readers.

I'm competing with myself.

Right.

I always say that there's room for everybody at the top.

We might not be sitting together, but there's room for all of us.

And there's no reason why you can't bring up other people when you're making your way at the top.

I don't understand the gatekeeping situation.

If you had to sum up,

I guess,

what your books give

or a message that you would like readers to take from your books as a whole, What would it be?

Specifically for women to never settle.

In relationships, career, everything.

Never settle.

Yeah.

And that when you're moving through life, people are constantly going to be negotiating with you.

They're constantly going to be negotiating for you to settle.

No, you can't have the family if you want this.

No, you can't have, you know, this career if you want this man.

You can't have this if you want that.

You're going to have to, and sometimes you do have to make choices, you know, and you, maybe you can't have everything at the same time.

But Hendrix is a great example of this because she's talking about, you know, I, first of all, she is someone who's 40 years old, you know, she, and the reason I like writing quote unquote older characters, not that that 40 is old, but in romance, 40 is older.

The reason I like writing older characters is because I like women who have spent time with themselves.

I like women who understand who have taken the time to really understand what they want.

out of life.

Yeah.

You know, because when you really understand who you are and what you want out of life, it is harder for some trash man to convince you otherwise.

That's a problem.

Right.

Like you're like, no, that's not, you're trying to tell me that that's who I am.

I already know who I am.

I'm not looking for you to tell me who I am.

I'm not looking for you to tell me what my life is going to be or what I need.

I already know that.

I can't, I'll misquote it, but it's actually a quote in This Could Be Us.

It's Eartha Kid.

And she talks about how she wants to live this amazing life and she's looking for a partner who will come and walk beside her, who will share that life with her.

And that's Hendrix.

She's like, you're not going to shrink me so that you can feel bigger.

And I would rather go through this life with an amazing family, with great friends, with God kids, love everywhere.

And, you know, she says, you know, I can get dick anytime I want.

You know, like, so she's like, I don't, I don't need that.

You know, like, she's like, I can, I can have all of these things.

What I'm not going to do is compromise who I am.

to be with you.

I'm not going to settle for less.

And that's one thing that that's a resonant message that i hope every every woman who's reading any of my books realizes you are worthy you deserve respect and i always say this you deserve to be loved outrageously yes you know and it really gets on my nerves when people who don't really know romance talk about unrealistic expectations and talk about how you know women are we're so weak-minded that we're gonna read about a billionaire we're gonna think the only man they're telling me to get is a billionaire and i'm like oh my gosh like how weak-minded do you think we are right because what women are really drawn to is being respected, is being loved, is being considered.

You know, that's what, that's what's true in those books.

Right.

You know, and so that's, I think, the message I want women to get is that you don't have to settle.

Men, or any relationship doesn't have to be a man.

It can be same sex.

Or you want a partner who's going to add value.

You're not really, like, I think so often we hear that, we hear men talk about we need a man to be happy.

No, we, we are happy ourselves.

We find value in ourselves, but we want someone to add value and walk beside us.

Yes.

And, and I appreciate that in all of your books.

Is there a message that a reader or someone from your audience has ever said to you or messaged you that has stuck with you?

So many.

And I, you know,

at some point, I realized I had to ask myself, like, what does success look like for me?

And I kind of had to change the metric because I'm like, who knows if I'll ever hit the New York Times list?

Who knows if I'll ever get books made into a movie or whatever?

Who knows if these things will happen?

Because some of them are so out of your control.

And I was like, I cannot, I'm not the kind of person who wants my happiness held hostage to things that are completely out of my control.

And so I was like, okay, my first metric of success is going to be impact.

How do I, I don't know how successful the book is going to be, but does it reach and touch the people I meant for it to?

Right.

And so that has been my metric for success for years.

And so some of the most impactful messages I have received, I have a book about, it's a survivor story.

You know, people are always like, Is this even a romance?

You know, because she is getting out of an abusive relationship, healing herself, and then finds love.

And I have gotten so many messages from women who were in abusive relationships, who left them after reading that book.

I have gotten so many messages from women who grew up in abusive households and never understood why their mom stayed, who said, I hadn't talked to my mom in five, six, seven years.

And after I read Long Shot, I went back to her and said, now I understand.

So all kinds of messages out of Long Shot.

So many out of before I let go around depression, around grief, around loss.

You know, and then what's really impactful is just people saying, I wrote a book called Real.

And it has the heroine has lupus, you know, and so many people are like, thank you for writing.

I've never seen, you know, a heroine in a romance novel who had lupus.

Right.

And that it ends joyfully.

Right.

You know, and that she's being loved unconditionally.

So for me, it's the seenness.

It's like I see myself and it's the

impact of making those decisions where it's like, somehow you wrote this fictional thing that was a connection to my real life and it actually changed what I chose or it changed what I did.

Like those little moments of transformation are for me what it's about.

I love that so much.

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If you could

do an adaptation of your books to a movie or TV, would you do it?

Yeah, I mean, you know, we're doing it now for the Skyland series over at Peacock, and it's such a learning experience.

It is such a learning experience.

Um, but it's, it's such an amazing team that's working on it.

Yeah.

Um, but so yes, um, I would definitely do it.

Um, I am fortunate to be an executive producer in the process, so I get a little bit of voice.

Right.

I'm one voice, you know, right, one voice in the chorus of voices because it's a lot of voices.

Um, but I, I am not not the kind of person who drops my book off and is like, let me know how it goes.

Right.

You know, so I, if I, I would avoid situations like that because it would be too frustrating for me.

Right.

At the same time, I don't, I am young in that process, so I don't want to assume I know everything.

I just want to be involved, you know, and so that's what I've, what I've shot for.

I think for the audience, we sometimes get frustrated with how they have to change certain things from books to movies or books to TV shows.

And so I do like to talk about it on the podcast as much as possible because I think Colleen Hoover was the first person to open my eyes to why certain things have to change.

And in her experience, if I remember correctly, is that you know, you're writing, we'll say 350 pages for a book.

Yeah.

But in order to tell the story for a movie, you have to cut that TV or movie script down to 150 pages.

And so there are details that you have to cut to make sense to the viewers.

Right.

And I think that no matter how many times I say that, people still get frustrated.

And so that's why I wanted to touch on it again.

Yeah.

And I think also when you, it's a different form.

So when you're reading a novel, you know, we have the benefit of that.

character's thoughts.

Yeah.

You know, so we know exactly what they're thinking.

And when you, when it's on screen, you don't have that.

Like in a script, you don't have that unless you like do the internal voice, you know.

But most, most of the time, you're not doing that.

So that affects those decisions.

And then for me, these books, and it's all three stories that are being adapted for television, it is not a movie.

And it's not like, this is what happened, and we're going to put it into this two-hour block.

Right.

This is being adapted for television, which is hopefully an ongoing series.

Yeah.

So and then you have, it's an ensemble cast, you know, so these books are written chronologically.

And so you may have to bring these, you know what I mean?

You have to adjust.

Sometimes you have to adjust timelines.

Sometimes, you know, to make it all work at the same time.

Like there's certain TV.

Yeah, for TV.

Yeah.

So that is something that I have to get used to.

And I'm sure my writer, my readers will, because they're like, but wait a minute, you know, but I think the thing that's also hard for them is like casting.

Like they have this very specific thing in their mind.

They're like, what?

Who is that?

You know?

So

it's very interesting.

But for me, I understand too, that when you're adapting something for television and you want it to be season after season after season, it has to have this engine.

It has to have something that keeps making it go.

Yeah.

And sometimes like in a book that's more quiet, like before I let go is a book that's a little, when I say a little more quiet, so much of it is depending on what the characters are thinking and feeling.

And then in a book like This Could Be Us, there's a lot of action.

Right.

You know, there's like the embezzlement.

And then there's, you know, it's like, oh, he's in prison.

Oh, you know, it's all these like, whoa, whoa, explosion after explosion.

And what I mean by Before I Let Go is a little more quiet is we're talking about she's wrestling with depression.

You know, he's wrestling with grief and what they're in therapy.

And it's just, it's not as much of a like, boom, surprise, shock, awe.

And so you kind of have to figure out, you know, how are we going to even all of this out and keep the audience engaged.

But I think that's really important for you to talk about so that your readers can understand because I think there's a world where you can love the TV show or the movie and the books, you know, and not have to, oh, I like the books better.

Well, you know, there's a way to tell both stories in both formats.

Yes.

Do you have any favorite authors?

Oh, yeah, I definitely do.

I was, I started reading, like I said, romance really young.

I started reading in the eighth grade.

So I was what we sometimes call imprinted by historical romance.

Okay.

So a lot of people now aren't reading historical romance.

I never even heard of that.

Historical romance?

No.

Oh my God.

I've never heard of that until you said it.

I've got some suggestions.

So some of my favorite authors are historical romance authors.

They're not people that are on like the tips of people's tongues, you know.

Like one of my favorite authors is Laura Kinsey, and she writes historical romance.

And she's been incredibly impactful to me because she writes very messy.

And what I, that's influenced me because a lot of my books are kind of messy, you know, like even Can't Get Enough.

It's, there's some messiness to it.

Um, this could be us.

I mean, you know, the love interest sent her husband to prison.

Yeah.

You know, it's like there's, you know, and in the first book, you know, he starts this relationship with like a, the ship.

Like it's, there's messiness to it.

Right.

And I enjoyed that.

Because it's real.

It's real.

Yeah.

And I enjoy, I don't like, I don't try to even write perfect characters.

I write, you know, good people who are flawed and then some really like trash ass people too.

But, you know, when we're talking about like the main characters, like the people that we want you rooting for, they're not going to be perfect.

They're going to be flawed, but still like, you know, good people who are figuring things out.

And she is an author who does not placate the reader, does not make things easy.

You know, it's messy.

It's sometimes dense.

And you're like, okay, this is a lot.

How are we going to get out of this?

I love that.

Yeah.

And she is an author who does that.

One of my favorite authors who is, she's actually no longer with us.

Her name is B.B.

Moore Campbell.

And I was reading her growing up and she has a book called 72 Hour Hold.

And it was one of the first books I read that really tackled mental health.

And it was even more, this is when I was like in high school.

It was even more taboo then.

For her to write about that was such a, whoa.

And that kind of imprinted on me too, like tackling these like heavy topics, but in something that's very commercial.

And I, it's one of the first ways when I really, and I talk about this all the time, how I see romance as a Trojan horse.

Yeah.

It's one of the first times, and that's not necessarily romance, but I started applying it to my genre and thinking I can have such good discourse in romance because it's so digestible.

Right.

You know, people love it, they're enjoying it.

And then I'm like, oh, but let's talk about some real stuff.

Yeah.

You know, if you're having such a good time and your guard is down, you know, let's throw this in there.

Let's throw this in there.

What do you think about depression?

You know, what do you think about whoa?

And so

don't necessarily write escapist romance, which it's completely fine.

I love escapist romance.

I want it sometimes too.

But I'm usually writing something that is not escaping from real life, but that is reflecting real life.

Almost like giving perspective.

Yes, for sure.

Yeah.

One of my favorite quotes is from Nina Simone, and she says, an artist's duty is to reflect the times.

And so I'm constantly looking for ways.

Even in this book, we're talking a little bit about equity and inclusion.

Right.

You know, we're talking, you know, there's all kinds of things.

It's like, how can I reflect the times?

And I kind of have like this, I'm such a nerd about it, but I have kind of like this three-pronged strategy that determines when I'm going to write a book.

Okay.

And the first is

creative integrity, creative conviction, which goes back to like belief.

Like, do I really believe in this thing?

Does it hold meaning?

Intellectual curiosity.

Like, am I going to be learning something?

Will my readers want to learn?

And then the last is artistic urgency, which is how is this work, for me, a work of art?

How is this work intersecting with something that's happening in the world right now?

And if I write about this right now, does it further that discourse?

Will it have, will it cause someone to ask questions about that, to interrogate that?

So when I write this thing, it puts these, these issues, these questions in front of people in a way that maybe they wouldn't have entertained had it not been for a romance.

1,000%.

Right.

And you're right on time.

With all three of the Skyland series, I think they were all right on time for sure.

I love them.

Future books.

You said that you're already writing something.

Yeah.

Is it a new series or a standalone?

No, it is.

Like, I have a book that we re-released.

I had self-published it, and my publisher re-released it traditionally last year.

It's called Real, which is one of my favorite books I've ever written.

I love the Harlem Renaissance, and it has a Harlem Renaissance, like story within a story.

And this is in that same world.

And my favorite thing to write is creatives.

And so this is, it's called Hollywood Renaissance.

They are making a biopic.

I will date myself, but

Hallie Berry did introducing Dorothy Dandridge, like back in the maybe like late 90s.

She did a biopic about Dorothy Dandridge.

And there were all these people who had never heard of Dorothy Dandridge.

And so this director finds this kind of obscure figure from like the Harlem Renaissance named Desi Blue, fictional.

But he finds her and he's like, discovers all these amazing things about her that we never knew because of the time she lived in.

So he decides he's going to do a biopic.

So the whole series is the biopic they're doing.

So the first book is the director and the actress.

And the book I'm writing now is the composer and the screenwriter.

And then the third book is the costume designer, one of the producers.

And it's like this whole cast of creatives.

And it's basically how they're finding love, but it's on the set of this biopic.

And it's like negotiating, you know, all their love stories in the context of making this movie.

So the next book is called Score, which is The Composer.

So Real is the first one.

The first one Score is the one I'm writing now.

Do you have a timeline?

I mean, I'm in the first draft of it.

Okay.

It'll come out sometime in 2026.

Okay.

So soon.

It's already almost halfway through

2025, which is crazy.

Yeah, but sometime in 2026.

That's so exciting.

And thank you so much for coming on Bailey Favorite.

Where can people find you?

I'm on socials all the time.

Probably too much.

Like I'm on Instagram.

It's Kennedy.

I I think it's like Kennedy Ryan1, Kennedy Ryan.

I'm on TikTok.

I'm on, I'm on threads.

And they can find any of your book signings and tour dates on your socials.

Yeah, because if you go to my socials, I have my link

in my bio.

I have everything.

Okay, perfect.

And you can get, can't get enough anywhere you can buy books.

Anywhere you buy books.

Yeah.

Anywhere you buy books.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

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