The Favorite(s) With Layne Fargo

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Welcome to the shit show. Things are going to get weird.

It's your favourite villain, Kale Lowry.

And you're listening to Barely Famous.

All right, Lane Fargo, thank you for joining me on Barely Famous podcast. Thanks for having me.
I'm so excited to be here. Me too.
So I actually just listened to the favorites on audio. Oh, amazing.

Okay. Yes.
And so I was so super excited when you agreed to do this because I was like, I have never listened to

an audio, an audio book that was so well done. And I love audiobooks.
I always have three.

three books going at the same time. One audio, one Kindle, one physical copy.

If other books are not done on audio like the favorites, I don't want any parts.

Full cast. Loved it so much.
And what inspired you to do the favorites?

Well, it kind of came out of two failed projects, actually.

I was working on a book about ice dancers, but it wasn't the favorites. It was more of a like thriller, murder mystery kind of thing.

And then I was working on a gothic romance and they were both terrible. And I kept going back and forth between them.

And then I reread Wuthering Heights to try to get inspiration for the gothic book and decided to make a Wuthering Heights retelling about ice dancers. And that's what became this book.

But it was sort of like a long winding road, lots of existential crises and like failed avenues in there, but it worked out in the end.

No, I, it was fantastic, and I have not stopped recommending it because I'm so obsessed with it.

The favorite specifically includes multiple perspectives and interview transcripts, which I thought was an incredible element to the audiobook.

What inspired you to have like the different elements in the book?

My love of trashy sports documentaries,

especially ones about Tanya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. I watched a lot of those.
Okay. And

I just think it's such a fun format because you get to hear from all these different people and it's a little like irreverent and dramatic.

And also in the original Wuthering Heights, it's told by sort of secondary characters about the main characters.

So I wanted that aspect of like kind of a chorus of people talking about them, like gossiping essentially. No, truly.

It was giving me Perez Hilton vibes when I was listening to it.

And it was so interesting too, because I'm like, that was, you know, when I got onto social media, Perez Hilton was just making like his rise to, we'll say stardom or whatever.

And so he has become like, people recognize his voice and know him as soon as you, and sort of like.

Ellis Dean in the book. That's the vibes that I was getting.
Yeah, that was absolutely one of my inspirations. And I chose to set the book at the time I did.

Like it takes place between like the year 2000 and 2014 because I wanted to cover that period of time where there was the celebrity gossip tabloid culture but before social media became such a big thing where people could like put out their own narrative and like tell their own story so they were sort of um like it was just a weird time to be famous, especially as a woman.

Like I was thinking about Britney Spears shaving her head and all that stuff around that time where it was like people are commenting on her, but she doesn't really have the means to speak for herself because where would people go to like hear what she has to say at that time yeah it's all mediated through publicists and things like that um so yeah i just thought it was like an interesting time to set it and then i didn't have to deal with like twitter and instagram and

twitter is a very um

toxic place so i try to stay off of twitter as much as possible but in your it does temper and um they never learn do they have audiobooks as well yes and do they have full cast no those two they're both two narrators so it's like two different voices.

Oh, okay. I mean, to me, that's still the same vibe.
If there's no like extra element with like the tabloid stuff, do you get to pick who does your narrating? Yeah, actually,

they usually send you kind of a short list of narrators with samples to listen to, and then you can rank your favorites.

So that's what I did, except for in the favorites, Ellis Dean was the one exception to that because

Johnny Weir, the figure skater turned commentator, voices Ellis on the the audiobook. And that was like

my idea, but just a completely delusional idea I didn't think would go anywhere. But it did.
But it did.

They were kind of like, yeah, we'll ask him. We'll probably say no.
And I was like, yeah, totally. Just ask him.
It's so cool that he's even heard of the book now.

And like, I'll just be satisfied with that. And then he did it.
And he did such an incredible job. He's such a good job.
He's funny. No, I love that.
So, have you built a relationship with him?

No, he did DM me on Instagram once. And I was eating breakfast and I was like, drop my phone.

No, but that's cool though that he has read the book.

Yeah, I'm going to some skating competitions later this year and my friend I'm going with is like you need to just take a copy of the book and hold it up and scream LS Dean until he pays attention to you and I'm leaving or I'll get arrested.

I mean it would be worth it. Maybe.
You could write a memoir about it. Yeah.

The setting spans from Kat's childhood through training to the fallout of the final skate, obviously. How did you decide on the timeline?

I know that you touched on that just now from, you said 2000 to 2014 is that right um is that sort of you kind of touched on it already yeah and i knew that if i'm writing about olympic skaters that's sort of built in you know it's every four years so i knew i had a certain amount of time like if i wasn't gonna have them go to the olympics the first time they could and succeed like if i wanted them to fail a few times or have various drama go on that it was gonna have to cover a couple olympic cycles so that gave me something to work with and what inspired the friend of me relationship um between Bella and Kat?

It was just something I wanted to read, to be honest.

And I

was feeling like this sounds bad when I say it, but I based it a little bit on my own relationships with other writers. Like we're not as toxic and dramatic as these two for sure.

But there is that element of like, if you're an ambitious woman and you're friends with other ambitious women in your field, there's going to be jealousy. There's going to be like negative feelings.

And in order to stay friends, I think you have to be able to hold both of those things at the same time where it's like i love you i'm happy for you i want you to succeed but i'm also so jealous of you right now and like to be able to be honest about that yeah so that's what i wanted to write with cat and bella where it's instead of them being just like pure frenemies like trying to sabotage each other all the time or super supportive besties it's like something in the middle that really

better represented like my own complex relationships with other women. I have never been able to put that into words.
I have felt that way in my life, especially from being on TV at 16 till now.

There are, I see other girls from the show doing, doing certain things. And I don't, I don't hate them for it.
I'm just like, but how, like, why not me kind of deal?

But I'm still simultaneous, like it's coexisting. My happiness for them and my jealousy is coexisting.
And I've never been able to put that into words. Why did she get to do this?

But I'm over here just as ambitious, work just as hard, if not harder. And so that's so interesting that you said that.
I think it too, it's like a guide to what you want, right?

Like if you see someone else get something and you're really, really jealous, it's like, okay, I either want that exact thing or there's like something about it that is attracting me.

And so it can be like a like a compass pointing you in the right direction too. If you don't let it eat you alive.
Right. More for me, I have never wanted felt like

a jealous, I want to hurt them or like sabotage them more as an inspiration, jealousy. Like, okay, well, if they can do it, so can I, but how the hell do I get there now?

And so you don't have to be a figure skater to relate to that and to resonate with that and i i really love that and i can appreciate that um out of all your books that are published or unpublished who was your favorite character to write

oh um

probably kira in my first book temper um she was so because as I mentioned, she was the main character of my first book that I ever wrote that ended up not going anywhere.

And it was like, I just couldn't let her go. Like of all of my characters, she came to me the most fully formed where I just heard her voice in my head.
And she's really not that much like me.

Like I feel like Scarlett and Kat, some of the other characters I've written, I see more of myself in them. But Kira feels like she exists outside of me somehow.

Like she was just in my brain and I miss her still.

Actually, I talked to another author that sort of had a similar

Alice Feeny loved Daisy Darker. She said that was like her baby.
And so that's so interesting. Like you just have, you develop relationships with these characters.

My Rebecca over here and I were talking on the way here and she was talking about how she'll like cry at shows because she becomes so attached to characters.

And I said, that's how I feel about characters in the, in books that I read. Like you just become, I can't imagine as an, as an author, like what that dynamic would be.

It's hard to let them go sometimes. I bet.
Because then you're like, do you want to carry that character over into another story? And you can't because you've already used them.

Yeah, you kind of get to that point where like I can't, I love Kira so much, but where I left her at the end of Temper, I don't really think I could write anything else.

Like, I don't know what her, the next phase of her story would be. Aw, that kind of like a bittersweet feeling.
Yeah. Yeah.
Do you have any self-insert type of characters?

In the favorites, it's definitely Inez Acton, who's one of the documentary characters, because she is, she's just saying like what I would say is a snarky, extremely online bisexual

about

these tragically heterosexual characters and their life choices. like everything that I wanted to say, I put in Inez's lines.
I love that so much.

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You're a career writer.

Did you always want to be a writer? When I was little, I always wrote. Like I wrote little stories and stuff

and like plays, but I never thought it would be a viable career. So it was like I did want it, but I didn't think it was possible.
Right.

And then it was in my late 20s. It was like Saturn return age, if you're into astrology.
Yeah.

It was like that time.

i did national novel writing month and that kind of gave me the bug to like do it more seriously but it still took me like i had a book i wrote for that that didn't um end up getting picked up at all like i queried a bunch of agents and was rejected a bunch of times and that classic story uh and then

I finally kind of figured it out. It was just like, like, I don't have an MFA or anything.
I'm not like trained as a writer. So it was just a lot of trial and error and figuring it out until now.

I have three books out. So what inspired you to keep going after you inquired, you what did you say? You

queried. Yeah.
You queried agents and then it didn't get picked up. So what made you want to keep going? I knew it was like I had a lot to learn and that the book wasn't really where it should be yet.

And I did get a few rejections from agents where they were more like personalized rejections,

which like it sounds weird to be like, that gave me hope, but it did. It was like, okay, they see something in my work.
Like they took the time to write this to me.

I had one agent for that first book. She wrote me this really lovely rejection.
And in it, she said that she felt like there was something inauthentic about the characters and the worlds of the book.

And I

like it hurt real bad.

At first, I was like, oh my God, ouch. But then I realized it hurt so much because she was absolutely right.

Like I was writing something that was a little more, that first book was a little more like dystopian. It was like trying to be on trend or something.
I don't know.

And yeah, so I kind of like took that to heart and tried to write things that were more authentic to me going forward.

And so I really thank her for that rejection, even though it stung, like it really like set me on the right course.

No, I mean, it doesn't sound weird to me to get some constructive criticism back because then you know sort of what to do moving forward and what agents are looking for without compromising sort of your being true to yourself.

Yeah. So I think that's, that's amazing.

But the first book that we're talking about, was that the one that was rejected like a hundred times? Yes, that's the one that I got that rejection on and 99 plus more. I would keep track of them.

I made this little,

I've always been very motivated by like stickers even since I was a little kid.

So I made myself this sticker chart and every time I would get a rejection, I would put a sticker on the chart to keep track of them. And it was like weirdly comforting.

But would you ever consider like maybe reworking it and then self-publishing it? Not that. No, I don't think so.
I don't know.

I kind of want to use it in like, well, well, first of all, the character from that main character ended up being the main character in my debut, Temper.

I kind of like took her out of that and put her in another book. And then there are some things about the whole dystopian setup.

It was like set in like war-torn Chicago, which is feeling a little real to me right now. Yeah, because you live in Chicago.
I do. And there's some stuff going down.

So I, yeah, I don't know.

I could see incorporating that stuff into another story or even like, I had a book idea a while ago that didn't go anywhere, but it was like using the plot of that book as like within the new novel.

It was like a movie being made that was based on that. So I feel like it will come in again someday, but I don't think I would put it out as is.
No, but that's so cool though.

And you took a character from one story and brought it, brought her closer to her into the next story. That's awesome.
And she made so much more sense in the new story.

I was like, oh, okay, you never wanted to be in this other plot. Like you were waiting for this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How did your background in theater and women's studies influence how you write in general? Um, I'm not going to say, you know, specifically to the favorites, but just write your novels.

I mean, the women's studies thing basically just that I hate the patriarchy, and that's like in all my books. So that's not a mystery.
The theater background, so I was never an actor.

I was more like backstage. I did playwriting and like historical research and things like that.

And for the favorites, especially, it was very helpful in writing the documentary portions, which are mostly dialogue. It was more like writing a play.

So writing these characters and trying to make their voices distinct, even when it's just words on a page.

I mean, obviously you listen to the audiobook and the actors then bring it to life and bring like even more to it.

But I was really trying to make it so like, even if you're just looking at the words on the page, you could tell who was speaking, even if you didn't see their names. It was giving when I,

Daisy Jones and the Six is like that. So I actually love that.
But

how long did it take you to write each of your books?

That's a hard question.

Let's see. Cause there's so many different, it's like

I would write it and then there's like editing. And my first book, probably like a year, year and a half.
Second book was shorter because I sold it on proposal.

So I like owed it to my publisher much faster. Yeah.

And then the favorites, once I figured out what I was actually writing about a year and a half, but there was like another year and a half to two years before that of being confused and trying different things and existential crisis.

I'm trying to like, not have to do that every time, although I kind of have done it again, actually.

Oh no.

But so do you think that it's getting easier, would you say, over time or not? It's not getting any easier. It's just equally as hard.
It's just equally as hard. It's,

I think it just, because it does take me quite a while to write a book, it's like, I want to make sure I'm writing the right. book.
Yeah, absolutely. I've written a lot.

And I'm really jealous of the people who can just like turn out a whole draft really quickly. And then, yeah, I have to spend a lot of time questioning myself and overthinking.

overthinking what does it feel like for you when you are about to publish your work like do you get that like

nerves are you excited are you you don't look at anything like any oh look at everything yeah i would i feel like i would be the same way like did it chart did i i don't know i'm like how many times can i google myself in one day

My first book, I had like insomnia for weeks and was just a mess of panic attacks and everything um now i've been to a lot of therapy and i'm medicated so i'm much more like emotionally regulated about it relatable it's still it's very exciting but also like

it's like even your closest friends like no one really cares or understands the same way like your writer friends kind of get it because they go through the same thing but it's almost it feels like you know like a wedding or a baby shower, like some like big life event, but it's not recognized the same way the rest of the world.

So it's sort of, it's strange. It's like a weird experience.
What is the support like from other authors if there is like a support there? Do you have relationships with other authors?

Do you not really communicate with them? What does that look like? I have a lot of great friends who are other authors.

There's like plenty who are more like Instagram acquaintances and we like comment on each other's posts and boost each other's books and do events together and things like that.

And then I have a group group chat of close friends who are also my critique partners who will like read things in progress.

And that's where like all my kind of inside thoughts go, like the things that shouldn't be on the internet. That's my big recommendation to all.

authors is like have a trusted group chat because otherwise you're going to want to say things on the internet that you shouldn't. Say it to the group chat.

And the magic of the group chat is mutually assured destruction.

So

they can't like say what they can't release what the screenshots of what you said without like retaliating.

Is it ever weird though, if you have,

we'll say you're releasing a book and then you find out maybe through just the grapevine that another author is releasing a similar, a book in the same genre. Does that ever get weird?

Or do you kind of try to boost each other? Or like, how does that work? Because for me, I'm buying every book. It doesn't matter if two books are coming out at the same time.

But obviously we know that in today's economy, not everyone can do that. So is there ever, does it ever get weird? It hasn't for me.

Um, I've experienced that mostly with They Never Learn because there have been a ton of books in the last,

well, since 2016, let's say everyone can do the math on that, um, like of women writing these really angry books about the patriarchy and like women killing bad men.

And like, we've all been inspired by world events and whatever else. Um, so I love that it's become almost like a little micro trend.

And I try to like find those other books that are similar to They Never Learn and read them and post about them. And because I'm like, yeah, if someone read my book, they're going to love this too.

And it is just sort of a virtuous cycle.

The favorites, there aren't a lot of other books like it. Like a lot of the figure skating books that are out there are more straightforward romance, which is like great.

I really enjoy those books too. But I would love for there to be more books like The Favorites.
And then I would definitely like befriend those authors and boost them.

I think i can't think of another book that had like a had toxic toxic um like characters like that i also have never heard an audiobook like that so i wish that everybody were wrote books like that um truly because sometimes you get these audiobooks that are it's like um just monotone the entire time.

Every character is the same voice. And I'm like, I don't know about that.
The forecast ones are very cool. Yeah.
In general, I would say I try to think of other authors.

They're like colleagues, not competition. And like, as you say, it's, if you read a book you like, you want to read like 10 more books like that.
So it's not like they've read one another, done.

It's, it's, we can all help each other. No, I always say, like, I want everyone at the top.
You don't have to sit at my table, but I want to see you up there too.

There have definitely been times where I've read a book and I'm like, I want to read more like this. Like tag a book that I should read.
And I haven't really had a whole lot of success.

I will say, like, The Nightingale, if you liked that one, read The Storyteller.

Completely different author, but same sort of category. I cannot think of one like the favorites.
So that one might be on its own, which is a good thing, kind of.

The only thing I can think of that is like.

a completely like spot-on accurate comp for the favorites is a movie which is challengers okay like tennis threesome movie when i saw that it was after i'd finished the favorites but before it had come out okay i was so obsessed with it and i was like i just want to like watch or read like a million more things like this but the only one i can think of is the book i wrote which i'm sick of right now because i just got done editing it

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And you also write

toxic, if you will, female characters, but they're like unlikable and then you love them, right? Like I fell in love with all the toxicity and the favorites.

Is that sort of like a theme in all of your books? Absolutely. Yeah.
It's a theme in my books. It's a theme in my life.

Same. I just, I, so I ordered

They Never Learn.

And unfortunately, I forgot to bring it with me, but I'm sort of hoping for the same sort of toxicity. Oh, if I'm being honest.
More so.

Okay.

that's probably my. I mean, she's a well, she's a murderer, but like, has she ever done anything wrong in her life? I don't know.
You be the judge.

No, I love that because that feels very much like me. But would you consider yourself to be an unlikable female character? Yeah, totally.
Really?

Well, I just think, okay, so I actually used to have a podcast called Unlikable Female Characters for about four years. We can bring it back.
Sign with the Killer Network. We can bring it back.

Yeah, it was not as fancy as this. It was just us like recording on our computers in like various closets.

But

it was like what we kind of found through recording four years of episodes about unlikable female characters is that it's basically impossible to write a female character that is universally beloved or even liked.

Cause it's like, if she's too nice, then she's a pushover. But if she's too mean, then she's a bitch.
And it's just like, you can't win. That's what I learned.

So now I'm just like, I'm going to write the kind of women that I aspire to be and want to read about, which are like ambitious, uncompromising,

affairable.

Because what does it actually cost to be the good girl that everyone likes? Yes, exactly. I don't know that I would want to be that person.
Sometimes I do get in my own head about it.

I'm like, I just want everyone to like me. But then I real, I remember who the fuck I am.
So

exactly. Do you think being disliked is actually freedom?

Yeah. Well, I think it's just inevitable.
It's like, it's going to happen. So you may as well.

I think the freedom comes in embracing it and just being realistic about like not everyone's gonna like me and if i am trying to live my life to make everyone like me or writing in a way to make everyone like what i write it's just not gonna

i don't know it's not gonna be authentic it's not gonna be very good probably like as far as the writing i i always say if i tried to write a likable female character i would hate her and then i wouldn't be able to finish the book yeah yeah yeah no that makes sense um so when you were writing the favorites did you sort of have all of that in mind and you were like, I want this to be as realistic as possible?

Yes. I wanted it to be very realistic.

And it's very dramatic, obviously. Like there's a lot of drama in this book, but that is pretty realistic to the figure skating world.
Like it's a very over-the-top world.

I always say they're like hyper-competitive theater kids. Okay.
Like it's just a lot.

So pretty much everything that happens in the book is based on something that really happened, not like all to the same couple.

I think that's where I'm stretching it a little bit, like when it all happens to Kat and Heath, although they kind of bring it on themselves sometimes. How do you name your characters?

Well, in this case, it was really easy because it was based on Wuthering Heights. So it was all like Kat, Katarina, Kathy,

Shaw instead of Ern Shaw. So I had like something to go off of.
Sure. In my previous books, I've usually the first name is like vibes.

And then the last name, I've done things like In Temper, my debut all the last names were um streets in chicago oh cool and

then in they never learn all the character names uh the last names are um buildings on like places i went to college or grad school that's cool and then i named all the buildings on the campus in that book after my friends a little easter eggs in there when i wrote a book my first book in 2014, I was watching Pretty Little Liars and I renamed, they were real people in my life, but I just changed their name for privacy reasons and I picked character names from Pretty Little Liars.

So that is so funny, but like something I would do.

Do you think women who stop trying to please everyone get labeled as a bitch or as, or just honest? And I think it's interesting because any woman that is opinionated or

maybe doesn't align with what everybody else is doing does get labeled as like a bitch or bossy or, you know, things like that.

So how do, how do you feel about that knowing that you write book people, you write characters in your books that are like that? I just embrace it at this point.

I'm just like, yeah, Katarina is a bitch. So am I.
Like, deal with it. You know, just like made it part of my identity.
Yeah. No, I kind of love that though.
And do you think that

today in society that we're raising women who are speaking up more? Or do you think that we're sort of still where we where we've always been with women not really speaking up?

I think women are speaking up more. I think we see the backlash to it, obviously, in so many ways.
But I think that's hopefully like the death throes of that kind of thinking.

I mean, women are certainly raised now to be

more ambitious and to just like want to be a full person instead of just being a wife, just being a mother, like whatever it is, like it's service to someone else. Sure.

It's like you can have all those things. You can have a happy marriage.
You can have kids, like whatever. It's your choice, but you are like a whole person first and foremost.

And I think in generations past, like even my mother, my grandmother's generation, it was more like your life is supposed to be about your husband or about your children.

And if you have any desires or ambitions, that's like just a little hobby you do on the side. And I'm like, absolutely not.

Aisha Curry just got in, was getting a ton of backlash for the interview that she just did, where she was talking about how hard the transition was, realizing, okay, I'm essentially put my life on hold to marry this man.

And like, we all know that the opportunities that came with being married to Steph Curry, right? But she's talking about she never really wanted to to be a mom.

And so now she's trying to find her happiness and the balance in marriage and motherhood and then also pursuing her career and her ambitions. And people have been ripping her to shreds.

And I'm just like, you can have all of it, but it's all about finding that balance.

And I didn't really understand why everyone was, they were saying that, oh, they're going to get divorced and she's going to try to get half. And I'm like, that's not what this is about.

She's just simply saying that she wanted to live her life and be a full person, not just a mom or just a wife. Exactly.
But that's not what people hear.

I feel like when women say things like that, people who are really bought into the more like traditional path, it's like they hear an attack on like their life choices and who they are.

Where I think what feminism is about is for every woman to be able to choose for herself what she wants to do, even if it is choosing the more traditional route. Like that's valid too.

But the point is to have the choice. Absolutely have the choice.
Like I don't care if someone wants to serve their husband and is submissive to submissive to their husband at all times.

that doesn't have shit to do with me yeah it's like as long as you have the choice i think that's what it's what it's really about but do you think that likability and authenticity can coexist

um

hmm

i think i don't know it's like sometimes some people will like you some people will hate you i think if you are trying to be likable if that's like your goal that's not going to be authentic in most situations it wouldn't be for me anyway That's so interesting.

So if everyone is just authentically themselves, most people will not align and not like you. Or you'll find the people who you do align with.
You like attract the people who.

are actually aligned with you. And like I find that with my work, it's like I certainly get those reviews where they're like, I hated this character.
She's so selfish. She's whatever.

But then I get the reviews where someone just really identified with Katarina or with Scarlett or with Kira and they felt seen.

And so it's like it attracts the right people as opposed to, and it kind of, then it repels the people who are not like a good fit for you and your work. For the favorite specifically,

I feel like that's why I probably loved all the characters. And I've also found myself, I want to be liked, right?

But anytime I've done things where I'm like, oh, well, maybe more people will like me, I hate myself for it. Does that make sense? Absolutely.

Even in content creation, writing, just like anything, I'm like, this is not me. And I'm miserable.

So I think that that's impressive to me that you sort of have that theme in all your books. I think that's great.

What's something that you've stopped apologizing for as a woman?

Just being selfish in general. Like I'm, I think to be an artist, you have to be a little selfish.
It's like you need your time and your energy for your work. Yeah.

And I don't have kids. I am married and have been married for quite some time, luckily to a man who's super understanding of that and gives me that time alone.
Yeah.

But it took a while for me to not feel bad about asking for that, being like, I just need to be completely alone right now. Like, don't talk to me.

He understands. But

yeah, just like not apologizing for that at all has been a big thing.

And every once in a while that like cultural conditioning kicks in where I'm like, oh no, I should be, you know, thinking about others more so.

But you really have to, like, in order to focus on your work and like make it the best it can be. I think you need to have that, that selfish ambition sometimes.

Did he, does he read your books before you put them out?

The first one he did. Lately, he's been reading them when they're at the like advanced reader copy stage.
So they're like pretty much edited because otherwise it's just so many versions.

And you're like, I guess I can't ask you to read this again. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. How many versions of books do you typically go through? Or is there not, it's not a one-size-fits-all?

It's definitely not a one-size-fits-all. It depends if I'm on.

deadline or like kind of how much time I spent on it on my own. Like the favorites, I didn't have an existing contract with the publisher.
So I spent a lot of time working on it on my own.

And then my literary agent read it. And then we sent it to editors.

with other books it's like gone straight to the editor or gone through like several friends and even like my first book my partner did read and give some feedback on really now he's so glad I have professionals to do that he's like I don't want to do this anymore I have actually seen like I've read books and obviously it's nobody's fault but like where I've pointed out like their final copies like out for sale and they have like mistakes in them.

And I always, I never know if like an author would appreciate me reaching out and telling them or if they would hate my guts for it. So I just haven't ever said anything.

If you reach out before the paperback goes to print, it's helpful because

we can make corrections. Good to know because there was a book.

I'm not going to say who it was because I love this author so much and I don't want to hurt her feelings, but I was reading it on a plane.

And when I tell you the amount of mistakes in there, I was like, oh, I don't, would she, because we've talked and I don't, I don't want to like embarrass her or anything like that.

But now that I know that, maybe I'll just send like a nice little email or whatever. But that's cool.
Yeah.

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What does being the villain mean to you? And is there a villain in any of your books, in temper, in, you know, the favorites in any of them? There's definitely a villain in temper.

And then they never learned the villain is sort of like the patriarchy.

As it is in real life. Yeah, as it is in real life.

And it's a man in temper too, who's sort of like emblematic of that.

I don't know what being the villain means to me. I know in the favorites, I did not want to have a clear villain.
I wanted everyone to

just, you know, sometimes make choices that we might not agree with or might not think were the best thing to do in the moment. But even like Sheila Lin, who's the

coach,

she like some people might consider her a villain. I don't.
I think she, like, if you kind of understand where she's come from and how hard she's had to work and everything, like, I get where she is.

She's a very

Miranda Priestley kind of character.

I mean, I, I resonated with all the characters in the favorites. I feel like such is life, right? Like, we all make choices that not everyone's going to align with.
And you can still love that person.

And you just, you have to have more empathy and understanding for who they are and how they got to that place.

And I feel like it does take a little bit of self-awareness as a person to maybe, I'm only speaking for the favorites because that's the first one that I read, but, or listened to rather.

I don't know. I feel like when you have a lot of self-awareness, you look at people from a different lens because you're like, you're just going to give them the benefit of the doubt most of the time.

Yeah. Cause everybody, I mean, unless they're just evil, which I think there are like a few people in the world that are evil.
Yeah.

But for the most part, everyone is doing their best and like trying to make the right decision and not trying to hurt other people. For sure.

And I think the characters in the favorites, there are certain things even where, like, Bella, who's Kat's friend of me,

friend, friend of me. Um, like, there are certain things she does that readers ask me about a lot.
And I'm like, Yeah, that was not a good thing to do.

But I think she did have, like, in her mind, good intentions in a way, but it's just sort of twisted, like, considering how she was raised and how competitive she is. Um, like the thing where she

shares that article with Kat right before she's supposed to skate. Like people are like, oh, she was doing that to sabotage her.

And I'm like, it kind of had that effect, but I think in Bella's mind, it was just someone's going to tell her this. It should be me.

And then afterwards, she's almost questioning in her own mind, like, was I trying to sabotage her subconsciously? I'm not sure. Like, that's interesting to me.
It's like we can do things that.

are harmful, but we didn't intend it that way. But then we still are like responsible for what happened.
That's sort of like the conversation surrounding karma.

It's like, you always have to consider the intention, intention, but regardless, I mean, you still have to pay the price, I guess, even if it if it wasn't ill-intended. Um,

one of the girls on my team was telling me about some Olympic scandal

where someone went to jail

like years ago. I want to say it was ice skating maybe, and they like slashed, like bashed her knee in or something.
Nancy Kerrigan and Tanya Harding.

I'd never heard of that. What, really?

And I was thinking about when she told me this, I was like, wait a minute, the favorites that I just listened to on audio, there was like a whole like scandal with like,

that's crazy. Yeah, that's like the most famous one.
That was 1994, I think. I was two, so that's probably why I had no idea what the heck she was talking about.

Yeah, it's there's a great movie called iTanya with Margot Robbie that's about Tanya Harding, the skater who was like accused in all of this.

My theory is, so the actual crime was done by her idiot ex-husband and some friends of his. And I think she didn't.

What was the crime? It was her big rival, Nancy Kerrigan,

like they took a, I think it was like a crowbar metal rod or something and at practice at nationals, like ran up to her and smashed her knee.

And she like there's really famous footage of her crying backstage, being like, why, why me? Like, because it was like a month and a half before the Olympics or something. And she was

expected to go and potentially win gold. She did end up like recovering in time for the Olympics.
I'm kidding. I'm going to have to look this up.
It was very influential on this book.

And the book is dedicated to her and two other skaters, Satanya Harding. And have they read it? Did you talk to them? No, I wish.

I mean, maybe now after this interview, we'll send it to them and say, like, this is, but that's, I had no idea.

So when I was, we were talking about, you know, doing this interview and they were telling me this. And I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about.
And so I didn't really press further.

I was like, I'll just ask Wayne because I don't know, but I had no idea about any of that i'm so excited to like bring this into your life like it's such an incredible story but now i'm gonna go down a rabbit hole for the remainder of this weekend and basically try to figure this out i didn't know that there was that big of a scandal

yeah please so uh tanya harding and nancy kerrigan were involved in a scandal when harding's ex-husband jeff can't pronounce his last name and

spiritor sean eckard arranged an attack on kerrigan to prevent her from competing in the olympics after a man clubbed kerrigan on the knee at the u.s figure skating championships, Harding was accused of having prior knowledge, though she only pleaded guilty to hindering the prosecution by covering up the attack afterwards.

As a result of her plea, Harding was banned from competitive figure skating for life and fined.

Kerrigan, though injured, recovered and won the silver medal at the 1994 Winter Olympics while Harding finished eighth.

The other context of this is that they were rivals for a really long time and Nancy Kerrigan, they both kind of came from like poor, like blue collar backgrounds, but Nancy Kerrigan was more able to present herself as this like proper lady kind of like ice princess type, which is what they want in figure skating, where Tanya was more rebellious, like she would skate to rock music and she was like a little less refined, more athletic though.

She could do like incredible jumps.

But so she had this reputation for being sort of like quote unquote white trash and the judges didn't like her, the officials didn't like her.

And so the lifetime ban, like that is such a harsh punishment for what happened when like it wasn't even really proven that she had anything to do with it.

I think they were excited to have a like a reason to get rid of her.

Which one was Tanya? And that was the one that got banned.

Sort of like lace broke at the Olympics and she had to go plead for extra time with the judges. There's this famous image of her putting her skate up on the boards and like crying.

I need to look this up. Yeah.
You're going to go down such a rabbit hole. I'm so excited for you.

The lore.

Okay, so what if you got an opportunity for any of your books to have movie or TV adaptations? One, what would be your first pick of your own books? Definitely the favorite. Okay.

I want to see them skate in real life so bad. Well, would you have, would you do that? Would you do a show or a movie?

It's been optioned for, well, actually, so it was optioned for a TV show and then that didn't go anywhere as most options don't go anywhere. And then now it's optioned for a film.

and so fingers crossed my fingers my toes everything is crossed and i hope that with that the lore of this other olympic scandal also more people learn about it because i hadn't again

made like that scandal in the 90s made skating so popular for a few years there and particularly the Olympic final where both Tanya and Nancy were skating.

More people watched it than the Super Bowl that year. Like it was people were watching it in like sports bars.
It's the peak of popularity of figure skating in the U.S. But you know what?

It's so so interesting because when you really look at the dynamics of that, it's like nobody, people are always interested in the drama. If it's not drama, it doesn't sell.

And if somebody is not doing well, it really just takes off. You know what I mean?

Like people really resonate with pain and misery a little bit more than they do, like the happiness, the ice princess sort of vibes. Yeah.

So. I mean, I hope that doesn't happen to anyone else, but maybe if they're having a hard time getting people to watch the next Olympics, maybe there needs to be a scandal.

And that brings me to the next question. Why do we love watching women break the rules?

I don't know, but I sure do.

I mean, like rules were mostly made by like old white men. So

not the patriarchy again. Of course, the patriarchy again.
They're the place where I talk about everything.

You had mentioned a few minutes ago that when readers reach out to you about, you know, certain things that characters do, do you read the reviews on your books? I do.

Um, I haven't been as much, okay. So there always comes a point where you just hit the saturation point, and they're basically all saying the same thing.
Like you've seen,

like across the spectrum, it's like the people who love it, the people who hate it, but they have kind of similar reasons. So then you get bored and stop reading them.
That's my experience.

But for a while, yeah, I uh I am a monster who reads my reviews. I kind of am amused by some of the really angry ones, actually.

Like every once in a while, I'll find one that actually hurts, but usually I'm just, it's almost, um,

like, I think sometimes it's a, it's almost like an advertisement for your book. Cause if someone's like, I hated this book, the female main character was so unlikable.
It was so toxic.

There was so much drama, one star, then like someone who wants to read a book like that is like, that book is for me.

I actually, so I had bought, um, did you partner with the book of the month at all? Yes, this one was a book of the month. Okay, so that's how I found it.
Okay.

Um, but I put it at the top of my list because one of my girlfriends had recommended it. And then another girlfriend came over and she was like, you have to listen to it.

And so I literally went into it blindly. I did not even realize it was a figure stick, figure skater on the cover until after the fact.
I went into it blindly.

I had no idea what the heck I was getting into. I don't read people's reviews on Goodreads, especially because I have found that like people in the book talk community and I don't align.

Like I just don't, I've tried to like take their recommendations and then I'm not, it's so crazy how subjective reading is.

And I just love more books. I like books that are a little bit different, like Strange Sally Diamond, The Favorites, like the unlikable, likable characters.
You know what I mean? Yeah, I love it.

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Do you have any books that are similar vibe to the favorites with toxic characters that you love, that you didn't write?

I mean, I love all of Taylor Jenkins Reed's books. Like Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a top favorite of mine.

And when I was writing this, one of my goals was to make it feel as real as that book does. Like you just really feel like you could look up Evelyn on Wikipedia, try MDB.
Yeah.

I was like, is she real? Is this me?

Yeah, I wanted it to feel like that, but Taylor does a great job of writing these complex female characters like Daisy Jones as well, where it's like she does a lot of of questionable things, but you are on her side and can understand the psychology behind that.

So I think she's really great at that.

I'm trying to think of books. This is the problem when you're a writer.
I'm like, I've read all these books. They're coming out like a year from now.
Oh, like art copies or whatever. Oh, okay.
Okay.

You don't have to say any of any of them. I don't want to.
I'll have a pitch for Into the Blue by Emma Brody that's coming out, I think next fall, I want to say, 2026. Sure.

And it's very much like, if you liked the favorites, you'll okay i have not heard of that author so that will be yeah that'll be an interesting read um women are forced to constantly wear different masks to appease other other people how do we stop doing that do we read more books that have characters that are like your characters that would help yeah i think so give people like um a new perspective maybe i feel like the on my reading journey and all the books that i read just have they reshape my brain i swear every single time i read something that i'm so invested in i just look at things so much different.

And I feel like maybe that, maybe people just need to read more. Yeah.
I think that helps with that issue and with like empathy and just expanding your worldview and everything.

I can't imagine life without reading. How have you been impacted by Book Talk? Because I feel like

Book Talk really inspired me to read

more.

And I know bookstores are going up left and right now.

Do you feel, you know, a shift in the reading community since book talk took off definitely i mean first of all i will say i'm just like a lurker on book talk i'm just i feel like i'm too old for tick tock really nobody's too old for tick tock trust me nobody's too old for tick tock i feel very like how do you do fellow kids when i go on tick tock but um i what i love about book talk is like it's made reading cool in a way yeah that like it's it's almost It's like a lifestyle.

People have all their special editions with the beautiful sprayed edges and their like book sleeves and stickers on their Kindles. And I love that.
Like just making reading trendy is great.

And then it's been so cool to see on BookTalk how readers have discovered these books that maybe weren't given the big marketing push or even like 5, 10, 15 years old and made them these huge hits.

Like, I love that.

My book, They Never Learn, had a little bit of a book talk bump for a while. I had,

it was like a year, at least a year or two after it had come out, there was a big surge in sales. And I was like, what is going on?

And it was like a couple book talkers had made videos about it that had gotten fairly viral. And like, that's incredible.
Yeah. No, that's awesome.
I, it's cool too, because I think

word of mouth for advertising. And even though I don't align, I still might like favorite or like bookmark a video to go back to to like order the books.

And I also think it's funny too, because I, if I listen to a book on audio or if I read a book on my Kindle, I have to buy the physical copy as my trophy.

So that's big for me.

But I have found a community on BookTalk that does the same thing. So I don't feel alone.
And I love that. Yeah.

My kids are also really big.

They're turning into bigger readers now. So my oldest son has picked up books or audio books because I have.
And then yesterday we were traveling

yesterday or the day before. And my second son brought his book with him to read.
And I was like, I love this.

So, and I know it's on social media more with like BookTalk, Instagram, Bookstagram, but also him seeing me do it as well, I think is helpful.

And I think that's good for the younger generations because we're moving so much further away from physical books and more into technology, which drives me insane.

And so I just, I think. If they're going to be on screens and on social media, it's good to see the people that are reading books.
Yeah.

And like good for boys to read more too, because they say the demographics are like, I mean, it's like the vast majority of people who buy books and check out books in the library and whatever are women.

And like, that's another issue with the patriarchy, right? It's like men to read more books. We need men to read books.

Learn a few things. Although I will say that there is a guy, oh, I can't think of his name right now, more followed than me on good reads.
And I'm like, fuck yeah, like amazing. I love it.

I just started getting into

I don't mean to be a man hater, but I am a little bit.

I did start reading S.A.

Cosby. Cosby, Cosby.
He's pretty good. And that, that would be great for men to pick up, some of those books because it's a male author as well.
So,

but yeah.

Obama is one of his favorite. It's one of his favorite authors.
I did read that, actually.

I read Razorblade Tears and then I listened to

King of Ashes. And they were both, they were both really good.
So

do you feel like women are starting to own the villain role these days?

Like I am, the women I know, the women I hang out with.

Same.

Me and alessandra like yep that's us okay this is a concept called read the scenarios and decide if this is revenge or reasonable um and this kind of just goes with the never learn theme where revenge and justice are

um you know coexisting i guess um your ex cheated and lied for years you leak the screenshots to his mom reasonable or revenge

Totally reasonable. I'm like, leak the screenshots to everyone.

You're like, if I'm going to suffer, so are you.

I found out my coworker was lying to, was lying about me. So I told her boss she was looking for another job.

I wouldn't say, that's more revenge. I also just, that's like not how I personally would go about it.
I feel like it would be more of a, I'm from the Midwest.

So like passive aggressive, undermining this person until she like actually has to leave would be the way I would do it. I don't know what I would do.
I'd probably just quit my job, to be honest.

I'd be like, fuck this.

He told me I was too dramatic. So I tagged him in a story crying that went viral.
That's kind of amazing. Yeah, that's just like, that's just funny.

I feel. Yeah.

I'm too dramatic. Well, now the world can see you crying.

A friend spread something I told her in confidence. So I told a secret about her online.

I would just, yeah, that. I wouldn't do that.
That feels more like petty revenge. I feel like that's just not your friend.
Like that's not your friend. So don't be friends anymore.

Yeah, I would agree with that. A girl I went to high school with talked crap about me online.
So I slept with her fiancé.

Unlike the characters in the favorites, I don't really believe in sexual revenge.

So

time and place, maybe that wasn't the time or the place. I used my ex's LinkedIn login and changed his headline to, quote, still lying for a living.

I'm like, what industry is he in? Because that could be, if he's like in advertising or even a writer, that's like, that's not such a bad thing.

If he's in advertising and marketing, you just did wonders for him. I know.

Okay. He told me I would never find better.
So I went and dated his boss. Hmm.
I guess I'm just not into all the ones that involve like a man. I'm like, I want fewer men in my life, not more.

Even for religion purposes. You know what? I don't know.
As a woman who is so pro-women, what the fuck am I supposed to do about having six sons?

I do not know. That's a lot of sons.

I have read a couple comments about, you know, Kale always talks about hating men and she has six sons, but like, I feel like maybe they'll pick up on what I'm trying to say. Do you know what I mean?

Like they're, they'll talk about periods. They'll go grab me a tampon if I'm bleeding.
You know what I mean? So it's like, I don't hate men. I just want them to be better.

Yeah, like, I think I keep seeing this meme that's about like the women who hate men the most have the best marriages. And I definitely find that to be true for myself.

Like I hate men in general, but I love my partner. And I can like talk about how much I hate men around him.
And he knows it doesn't mean him.

Cause he's like a good one. That's sort of the, like, I'm bisexual.
And that's the cliche of bisexual women. That's like, we love all women, think all women are beautiful and amazing.

And then we found like this one man. We're like, he's the good one.

And the rest of them suck. Yes.
That's where i'm at

you know what's so interesting is that the three bisexual women in this room all have that same we all think that way hate men but not our men yeah but all the rest of them can go to hell it's because we know that they're capable like that there are men who are capable of not being you know terrible like knowing what i say and how i think and you need use your critical thinking basically and you should feel the same way yeah it's like they can hang with our man hating and like learn a thing or two then

so interesting i feel less alone now thank you for that.

If you want to write your next book on me and hating men, that's fine. I'll be the, that'll be the main character of your next book.
We can call it Man Eater.

Where can people find you on social media and where can people find your books?

So my website is lanefargo.com and I'm mostly just on Instagram these days, which is at Lane Fargo. My books are available everywhere, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and especially in indie bookstores.

I always recommend people going to their local indie if they have one. Love that.
Thank you so much for coming on Fairly Famous. Thanks for having me.

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We're malleable. Yeah, you know, we're gay today.