PLEASE NOTE: This is a minimally-edited transcript that originates from a program that uses AI.
Anita Rao 0:00
This is Embodied, a show about sex, relationships and health from North Carolina public radio W UNC. I'm Anita Rao. I have been reading a lot of romance and romantasy books this year and taking stock of what I find most gripping. I like good character development, strong sensory language, and I'm okay with a slow burn, as long as the payoff is worth it. When I came across the work of romance writer Kennedy Ryan, it checked all of these boxes and more. Kennedy's work brings emotional gravitas and poeticism to love stories that center black and brown women who own and fight for their own pleasure. I recently got the opportunity to meet Kennedy and talk about her writing in person at flyleaf books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Kennedy and I share the same alma mater, UNC Chapel Hill, so it was a delight to interview her in a place that means a lot to both of us. We talked in front of an audience of book lovers, and today we're sharing a special bonus episode that drops you right into that event. If you like what you hear, make sure you're following Embodied @embodiedWUNC on Instagram and Tiktok and in your podcast feed to stay up to date about any future live events we host. Okay, enjoy the conversation.
So for many of the people in this room, Kennedy Ryan needs no introduction, but if you are new to Kennedy, she is a New York Times and USA Today best selling romance author, she has released 23 books in the past decade, and her Skyland series, which we're going to talk a lot about today, is currently in development for a television series with peacock. In her words, she writes for women from all walks of life, empowering them and placing them firmly at the center of each story and in charge of their own destinies. Kennedy, welcome to Embodied. Welcome back to Chapel Hill.
Kennedy Ryan 2:08
Yay! Hi. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to talk.
Anita Rao 2:14
So before we get into your career as it is today, I want to go back briefly to your roots. You grew up in Granville County, not too far from here. Your parents were both pastors...
Kennedy Ryan 2:28
Yes, my, well, my father was in higher education administration, okay, was like a Dean of Students. Then he was a professor, and then he was a president, okay, HBCUs, a few. HBCUs.
Anita Rao 2:40
Okay, but romance novels were not something you were really supposed to be reading
Kennedy Ryan 2:46
Contraband. My I think my mother's exact words were, you ain't gonna bring no devil in my house, so. But I was determined. I mean, I started reading romance in the seventh grade, and my mother was horrified and but I just loved it so much, so I snuck it into the house. I would hide romance novels in my mattress, under my bed. I would go to the library and have all of the mommy approved books out, and then I would have like, little hidden pockets where I would, you know, check out the romance novels and smuggle them into the house, and by the time I graduated from high school, I had about 400 romance novels in my closet that she had no idea about, and I did not tell her until I was in my 30s.
Anita Rao 3:33
What was it that like grabbed you about romance at such such a young age.
Kennedy Ryan 3:37
Such a young age. I think that I enjoyed. I it was kind of my first introduction to love. You know, outside of what I saw in my real life, it was an introduction into love, and I loved the happily ever after. You know, I'm thinking about what seventh grade Kennedy was seeing in romance novels, and I'm older than probably everybody in the room. So romance at that time was a lot. It was very historical heavy. It was a bunch of harlequin romances, Harlequin presents, silhouette and, you know, Joanna Lindsay and Kathleen woodwis And, you know, so it was a lot of historical and so historical really imprint on me. If you listen to the faded mates podcast where you know Sarah McLean and Jen, they talk about imprinting, and how the first books you read in romance kind of imprint on you and affect what you love kind of forever. And so for me, historical romance is still my favorite sub genre. Thank goodness. It's a lot more diverse now than it was when I was growing up, because it was very, very wet, you know, that was it, you know. And I think that growing up having to self insert, you know, not seeing and especially you mentioned, growing up in. Ramon County, which is, you know, small and where I grew up, very rural area with a very tiny library and limited offerings. As far as books were concerned, there wasn't a lot of diversity, especially in romance. So I was getting my diversity from places like Bebe Moore Campbell and from Toni Morrison and from Alice Walker and, you know, Terry McMillan, so I was getting the diversity that I was finding was by and large outside of romance.
Anita Rao 5:27
And you can see, yeah, you can see that imprint in in your book, obviously, bell hooks and and this is us, an incredible black author. So let's talk a little bit about you have this very well articulated approach to your work you described as three pronged so it's curiosity, creative conviction and artistic urgency. Yes,
Kennedy Ryan 5:49
Yes, creative creative conviction, artistic urgency and intellectual curiosity.
Anita Rao 5:54
Okay, so how did these three things inform the issues you decided to take on in the Skyland series in particular?
Kennedy Ryan 6:01
Yeah, I think. And just kind of briefly, kind of breaking those down, because, like, what is that? Yeah, creative conviction, if anybody's familiar with, like, the strengths, finders and things like that, yes, my, I'm, it's kind of rare. I'm very, very high belief. And not many writers are high belief. And it is the engine for everything I do. Belief is, which is, like, I need everything feels like a cause, you know, I really need to believe in something, and that makes it I mean, when my son was diagnosed with autism within a year and a half, I had started a foundation for families who have children with autism, because I'm like, I've got to save the world, you know, like, that's my default is, there's a problem. How am I a part of fixing it? And when I talk about my work, I talk about not just like, releasing books, but deploying books and sending books on a mission. That's probably also some of my like, preacher, Mama, you know, like missionary, like you're sending this book on a mission. And so that's kind of creative conviction, artistic urgency is I am looking at the world, you know, and I'm like, there's something that's happening in the world that needs more light, that should have more discourse, and where does what is the intersection between my art and that, you know, for example, I'm really, really concerned about The the concerted push to roll back equity efforts. And it's fine, you know what? We just dismantled affirmative action. The courts just dismantled affirmative action. So I find that creeping into my work right now is how I'm How is something that I'm going to write about somehow shining light on the urgency of the equity efforts that are being dismantled that we fought so hard for as an as an example, and then intellectual curiosity, I like to learn as I'm reading. I always say that if I'm writing a book, I'm probably reading five or six. If I'm excited to learn something new, I believe that if I'm presenting it in the right way, my readers will be excited about it, and it will stir their intellectual curiosity. And so that's kind of like the equation. It's like creative conviction plus artistic urgency plus intellectual curiosity equals a Kennedy Ryan book. So I say all that to say this is the first novel I ever wrote before I let go. Is the first novel I ever wrote. I wrote it like 15 years ago. Of course, it came out two years ago. It predated me really thinking about the why you know me writing so those characters there, they had different names, but the losses that are in there, the grief, all of that was in there. I always say that this book was waiting for me to grow up. And I say that because it was all of the pain but none of the healing. And I think that there wasn't healing because I hadn't gone through healing. I, you know, and when you talk about that kind of equation of why I write, I brought that into this process after, you know, revisiting this years before, I didn't have, you know, my son at that time. I hadn't, I hadn't navigated the world as a special needs mom, and, you know, understood what helping my son navigate the world looked like. I, you know, deal with depression, and at the time, I was undiagnosed and I didn't. I'd never been in therapy. My husband and I had another 15 years of marriage, you know, where you have real trials. And you know, you at the around the 10 year mark, you're like, is this really gonna work?
9:29
LAUGHTER
Kennedy Ryan 9:29
And so, you know, I had navigated all of that as a grown woman, yeah, you know, and very, very different than having written whatever that was, you know, 15 years before. And so I brought those things and really thinking about destigmatizing therapy, especially in marginalized communities, more specifically in black communities, most specifically for black men, yeah, you know. And so that was kind of the mission that I was on, was I wanted. And so many people like, I'm on Tiktok all the time, you know? So I see videos of. Out my books all the time, even when I don't want to. I'm like, not interested, not interested, right? Um, so. But people, I always see people say, Oh my gosh, Josiah, like, Why can he just be, you know, he's not a book boyfriend because he didn't go to therapy and time. And I'm always like, that's so interesting, because I wasn't trying to write your book boyfriend. You know, for me, for me, what I was most concerned with is women, especially who have partners who have been resistant to be and really laying out a model of what it could look like for a couple who has experienced so much grief, so much loss, and one of them begins to engage in therapy and in healing, and one of them out of the stigma that is in culture, you know, and that stigma is there for everyone, but when you get into marginalized communities, and then you get into the black community, it's even more of a stigma. And really modeling a couple that, you know, there's a partner who resisted therapy, yeah, and then over the course of the story, begins to engage in that healing process, begins to understand how valuable that is. And if he had started off in therapy, I wouldn't have had the chance to unpack that. I wouldn't have had the chance to model that. And so many women message me, email me, oh my gosh, thank you for before I let go, I just handed it to my husband. I just said, read this, or I just read them the parts about therapy, you know. And we're in therapy now, or we're in marriage counseling, where I called my insurance company to see if they pay for therapy, you know. And for me, that is the first metric of success, you know. You know, being a New York Times bestseller and all the other stuff that's amazing, like it really is, but for me, it's impact, and knowing that the mission I sent that book on it's accomplishing in people's hearts. And so with that particular story, that's, you know, how that equation comes in, is really wanting to have an impact as far as marginalized communities and therapies and grief and loss and navigating those things.
Anita Rao 12:06
Let's talk about how you write about sex and sensuality in the body. And I've been reading so much romance in the past years. It's been really interesting to put your book in conversation with others. And one of the things that stands out to me among many is that your characters think and talk about their bodies in a really sensual way. It's not just how their partners look at them, but when they're looking in the mirror, they're seeing things that are sensual. They're seeing things that they're seeing their own sexuality in real time, and especially the fact that you're depicting women in their 30s and 40s who have gone through big body changes or in postpartum phase, like talk to me about the way that you the questions you're trying to encourage women to ask about their own sexuality through the women that you write in your book.
Kennedy Ryan 12:53
I think one of the first things I'm thinking about with women in general, in romance, is agency, and that comes to your body, and that is owning your own pleasure, which I think a lot of times in culture we don't really like, our pleasure is something that people tell us how we're supposed to experience, as opposed to us having agency and us having say over our bodies and how We experience pleasure. And I think that's something that I'm thinking about. I think are my characters are usually vocal, you know, about what they want, yeah, and communicating to their partner. I want this, this, make this feels good. You know, I'm so glad my parents aren't here. They were supposed to be at the first
Anita Rao 13:40
So were mine. I'm not here either. Better for both.
Kennedy Ryan 13:43
It was so funny. My mom called, like, two days ago. She was like, we're not gonna be able to make it. I was like, Oh, shut Darn it. Now I'm gonna have to talk about sex freely. So, so that's one thing is just like agency and owning your own pleasure. But I think it goes also to when you talk about women in their 30s and their 40s, like culture starts to try to erase us pretty early. You know, it's like, oh, you're writing older heroines. They're 30 years old. And I'm like, seriously, yeah, you know. But romance, when you look at the genre, it, it trends young, yeah, you know, like, a lot of times the heroines are like, 19 and in their 20s and 25 and I've written that before, but I'm like, That's not where I am in my life. I'm very interested in, you know, I'm thinking about before I let go. There's one of my favorite scenes in that story is a sex scene where, you know, they're intimate for the first time in a long time, and she's a little self conscious because she has stretch marks, and she has because. And he says something like, you know, this body gave me my children, it'll always be beautiful to me, you know. And so I'm constantly thinking about and in Soledad, and this could be us, has stretch marks, and she, you know, she's cognizant of, like, the loose skin. I. And a lot of times, those are not things that we get to talk about yeah and, and also in the context of, like, sex and a partner who loves you, not just in spite of, but because of, you know, those however your body comes yes, no pun intended, you know. So I think those are the kinds of things that I'm thinking about. And you like that, didn't you? It took a sec, it's coming. And I think that when you talk about sex scenes, I always talk about this when people ask me about intimacy in my books, is that I don't want to write skippable sex scenes, and when I say that, meaning that so I hear so many people say, Oh, it's a sex scene. I just kind of like flip through it, because they're all the same, or they all feel the same, or it feels repetitive, or whatever. And what I like for intimacy to be very meaningful, even if it's a one night stand, yeah, like, I want it to feel like that is not just like wasted real estate in the book, but that it's moving the story forward, and that it's moving the relationship forward, and that something happens in that physical connection that translates to heart to soul, you know. And I want it to be that if somebody skips the sex, you know, in one of my books, when they get to the next chapter, like, whoa, wait a minute. I don't know what happened. Wait a minute, I missed something. Yeah, you know. And so that's what I'm constantly thinking about when I'm writing a sex scene, is, how do I make this unskippable? How do I make something that we how do we move this relationship forward in such a way that if this sex scene didn't exist, this thing that they reached, this place they reached in their relationship, would not have happened?
Anita Rao 16:50
Yeah, this might be a hard question to answer, because it might just be how your brain works, but the way that you write, in a sensory way, about the physical body is so stunning. Like, I was looking back at all of my notes this morning from your books, and I've, like, underlined so many times. Like, how did she think of this? I have one example that I've written because I have no idea. Okay, so you're describing as you say, like, her lips are the color of crushed plums. Like the juice that oozes out. I know because I bought plums and squeezed one to see if it matched my memories of those pretty pouty lips. I'm like, how do you think of that? So, like, how do you Yeah, what is the art to describing physical appearances?
Kennedy Ryan 17:28
Physical appearance is very important to me. Yeah, especially because I write, for the most part marginalized characters. I'm always interested in ways to talk about skin tone and whether it's Sienna, or, you know, whatever the color is, believe me, I'm like, pulling out my like, paint swamp, you know, like, just, I like to talk about physical appearance in creative ways. People are always saying, I just feel your books, like, in a way, like I just feel them. And it's some it evokes something. And I think a part of that is because I'm always thinking about all five senses, like, when you're talking about plums and you're talking about, you know, I'm always thinking when I'm describing physical appearance or anything, you know, or setting, I'm thinking about the five senses. And how can I engage a sense that might be unexpected, like taste or like smell or like texture, like, how does love have a texture? You know what I mean? I can't, I will misquote it. But my favorite kiss, I think, that I've ever written, is in the kingmaker, okay? And it says something like, If a kiss has a color, it, it looks like this. And it, you know, it pulls from, like, what's in the setting, like the sky, and it's pull it's describing, it's using the atmosphere to describe what's happening. Yeah, and I think that that can be very effective from a craft perspective, of bringing those senses in, bringing it using the setting to describe the emotion or describe what's happening. And it's it digs a little deeper than just describing the surface of something completely.
Anita Rao 19:03
Yeah. Another craft question that I think folks might be interested in hearing you about is process. You mentioned a little bit that you are a researcher. I have talked to a lot of authors, but reading about your research process the most intensive I've ever heard. You spend like half of your time writing books, at least researching. You do in depth interviews with people who have shared lived experiences with your characters. So maybe talk. Talk about, let's talk about, this is us a little bit, and an example of the research that went into that book.
Kennedy Ryan 19:32
Yeah. I mean, for this is us. First of all, when I am writing a character who is a part of a community that I'm not like Soledad is African American and Puerto and Puerto Rican, you know, Puerto Rican heritage, she's black and Puerto Rican. And I was like, I know the black. I got the black, you know, but I really wanted to make sure that the Puerto Rican aspects of her heritage were well represented. Yeah. So I did interviews. Which I always do, I do I did lots of interviews. And when I'm doing lots of interviews, some of the questions I'm like, what, what brings your heritage to life? And a lot of that is food, you know, food and clothing, traditions. A lot of those things kind of like, bring dimension to something that could be flat if you're writing from the outside. And so I'm always trying to get inside and talk to people who actually live that, because there there are subtleties to each community's experience that just observing from the outside, you don't you don't get Yep. And so I had probably seven to eight Puerto Rican people I interviewed and then recruited some of them as sensitivity readers, which is kind of my process is I'll interview a whole bunch of folks I probably interview for this book. I probably interviewed about 25 people. Wow, which is pretty standard for me. It's usually about the first thing I do is create a subject list when I start writing a book, is who are the people I'm going to engage with, who's going to help me? And so when I drafted my list, it was, you know, Puerto Rican sensitivity readers and people I want to interview. And then the autism representation was very, very, very important. I've been an autism mom for over 20 years, but if you know anything about the autism community, we always say, if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person, it's such a broad range, a spectrum experience. And so I drafted a list of families, you know, that I would talk to. But then also, and this is really, really, really, really, really key, talking to actually autistic people and making sure that their voices were heard. And then this is an extraordinary step. I will admit, I hired an actually autistic editor, like I have, like we have our own editor for the publisher, and then I have a private editor who edits for me before I get to the editor with the publisher. But then I went and found an editor who is autistic, and I hired her, so there were three editors for this. Could be us.
Anita Rao 22:04
What's an example of something that editor said to you that transformed a scene or a character or way that you described something in the book?
Kennedy Ryan 22:11
Yeah, and I think that this is the value of having someone who's actually autistic as I can't remember the specific of what I had said, but she, they, it's they. Their pronouns are they? They said interrogate, if that is infant, is infantilizing, you know, like interrogate, if that thing that you just wrote treated this person who is 1213, years old, like a child, like a much younger child, interesting. And the tendency sometimes of special needs parents, especially special needs parents, who, like my child, who is only partially verbal, you, if you're not careful, is to infantilize and to assume that they don't know certain things or that they don't want to make certain decisions. And they really pushed me on that, which I really, really appreciated, yeah, in making sure that there was no infantilization for these characters, and it was very crucial my decision to make them twin boys, yes, and both autistic, because I did that strategically to express in just the smallest way how diverse the expression of autism is. So you have these two people who have essentially the identical genetic makeup. They're raised in the same place, and yet one of them becomes very verbal, very expressive, in the ways that people think about intelligence. Because a lot of times when someone is not verbally expressive, we tend to think that they're not smart, yeah. And so you have one who is very verbally expressive, still has social challenges, lots of sensory and behavioral challenges. And then you have one who is essentially nonverbal, partially verbal, has those behavioral challenges, but their expressions of it are very different, and I made them identical so that I could do that in kind of a controlled environment.
Anita Rao 24:02
You have an author's note for that book that acknowledges your desire to write about experiences of autism, but you also talk about so many things in your author's note in your acknowledgements that are so beautiful or so tender and really well crafted. And one of the things that you write in this could be us, I think, in the acknowledgements, you say you shared this book with your husband, and after he read it, there was one particular scene where he teared up and he said, it's us, like you just wrote about us. Yeah. So talk about how your own love story informs the way that you write.
Kennedy Ryan 24:34
In so many ways. I think, I think that you don't have to be with the love of your life to write good romance. I'm just very blessed that I am, and I think my husband and I have been together for 27 years, and we've been through a lot. You know, I always, I don't always tell this story, but my son was diagnosed with autism, and. My husband lost his job the next day, and it was devastating. And you know, an autism diagnosis now is very different than an autism diagnosis then, yeah, there were so few resources, insurance paid for almost nothing. It was a very expensive endeavor, and it was just frightening, isolating, too. Very isolating, very frightening, very expensive, and so, and we really didn't know what it meant. And then so for my husband to lose his job the next day was it was really devastating, and it sent us into kind of a dark chapter of our marriage. And there was a lot that we learned about each other then. And I think that people are always like, Why do you put people through so much Kennedy ever after? And I think that one of the things that having my relationship, my marriage, is that I feel like love that is tried is strongest, yeah, you know, and that love when it's tried is is that's when it's like brightest is because if you love someone and it's never tested, then do you really know how much you love them? You know? And I think that I'm constantly in my work testing love, I'm constantly pushing the boundaries to see how how much strain. Happens before we break, or how much strain happens before we realize we're not going to break, and what causes us to strengthen those bonds so that we stay together? I think that's a big part of how it influences my writing, specifically, and this could be us I had there's, and I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't written it, but it was a scene, and it happens in a toy store, and it's, I'll just say it's a meltdown, because if you have, if you are a loved one, or you've ever worked with anyone on the spectrum, then you know that for a lot of them, it doesn't take very much, like, it could be, like, just this smallest thing that you would never anticipate since start, starts a meltdown, yeah, especially if they're like, they need routine, they need things to be the same way, or they're expecting something to happen in a certain way, and then it doesn't it just it can throw things off. And that's what happens in this scene. And I had written it, and I was, I was like, there's something missing from this scene. And I went, I realized that it took me a long time to write about autism years, because there was so much that we had navigated that was difficult, and putting that on the page is very vulnerable. And so I wrote it. I think the first pass of it was kind of like on the surface, and I knew it was missing something. And I went back in my mind to those times when we would have meltdowns in the grocery store in very public places, and everyone's staring at you and, you know, you can't figure out what's wrong or how to help your child. And then the store manager is coming over. And, I mean, I've had police officers, you know, come like with their hand on their weapon. You know, when my son has been having a meltdown and I've had to, like, stand in front of my son, you know, especially as a young black man who now is six three, you know, it's one thing when you're a toddler and you're having a really, really hard time. It's another thing where it's a six foot black man who's having a really hard time and is crying, and, you know, it's different, yeah, and so I went to those times, and it deepened the experience. And so I never let my husband read my books early. Like, really, no. He's always like, Can I read? No, literally, he's like, on release day, he's like, I'd release it. He's like, I bought the audiobook. Good. Enjoy that. He's like, Yeah, I just bought the audiobook. Okay, so I never let you buy books early, but I let him read that one scene, and I was like, I just want to know what you think about this. And he did get emotional. He's like, it's us. It was like, This is us. And I'm like, Yeah, you know, it is. So in those ways, you know, especially in the ways that our love has been tested, I think it influences how I see relationships and and then in very surface things, you know, if you've ever read hookshot. And you know Keenan from hookshot, who's a jazz head, like my husband's a huge, huge jazz fan. Like and basketball like, we are huge basketball people. We first bonded around basketball and one of the most fame, I don't know if I wouldn't say famous, because I don't think my books are famous, but like one of the...
Anita Rao 29:39
Your books are famous. They are.
Kennedy Ryan 29:45
One of the most well known lines from that book is, I'd play you at the five. And I had never heard that, you know, and we were watching something, and I was like, what did they just say? I played the five. My husband goes, Oh, yeah. That's center. You know, the five position is center. So sometimes they'll just say, I'll play you at the five. And I'm like, I gotta go, right? So, like, there's so many things like that. And he'll sometimes say something that he thinks is really romantic. And he'll be like, you can use that.
Anita Rao 30:18
Put it in my notebook, dude.
Kennedy Ryan 30:20
Okay, I'll write that down.
Anita Rao 30:24
I love that. Okay, one more question. So we teased earlier that the series that this book is a part of is currently in development at peacock. Yeah, I think John Legend is...
Kennedy Ryan 30:34
One of them, one of the producers. John Legend is one of the producers. Malcolm D Lee, so if you watch the best man franchise, the movies and the limited series, John, John Legend, Malcolm dealey, and then Deborah Martin Chase. And Deborah Martin Chase is an icon like, if you remember, sister of the traveler, yeah, if you remember, and she discovered Anne Hathaway and Princess Diaries. Right? Yeah. Now she's like a Tony Award winner because she's producing plays on Broadway. She's the first black woman to ever have a major deal, an overall deal, with a major studio. She is. She's amazing.
Anita Rao 31:14
Okay, and so you're bringing, yes, you're working with some incredible people. And I'm curious specifically about what it's like to talk about the depiction of the sex scenes and the steamier parts of your books, and how that's being translated to television, and the role that you play in that.
Kennedy Ryan 31:30
Yeah, I think, well, I'm an executive producer, which is great, because I get to speak into it some which is amazing. And where people always like, is it still happening? I'm like, baby, it takes some time, plus, we had two strikes, you know, in the middle of this, but we are definitely still working really, really hard behind the scenes, and we do have updates, but they won't let me share any of them yet. So, but we are moving, and it's amazing, I would say that some of that's still to be determined, you know, because we are in a certain stage of the process where writing is starting to come into play, with showrunner and all of that. And so I think that one of the things that we that drew them, Drew Universal Television, and then Pete got to the project, was that it's not, quote, unquote, just romance, yeah, but that it's very late, a very layered story that has all of these other things that wrap around a love story. And, I mean, they love the fact that it's steamy, you know, so they want that soap Enos to it, because they look at things like bridgerton and they look at, you know, the shows that the romance novels that have translated really well, yes, keeping that core sensuality and steamy factor and not being afraid of it. So I think that you'll still see that tastefully done, yeah, you know, but you'll definitely still see that. And I'm very interested in, you know, 40 year old black women on television getting their broke back. They're back broke.
33:01
LAUGHTER
Kennedy Ryan 33:05
We want to see it. There's not cobwebs down there.
Anita Rao 33:13
So good. Okay, I guess one more thing we have to say before we pivot is that you just released, or you just announced the title of the third book. So this, if you often read this, Skyline book is gonna be three or silent series is gonna be three books each about one person in the friendship, and the third book is about Hendrix. And the title is, can't get enough, yes. So tease, as much as you want to, what we can get excited.
Kennedy Ryan 33:39
I think that we've seen, like, glimpses of Hendrix. If you've read the first two books, you know that she has an aging parent, and so that definitely factors in. She is hilarious. You know, I think this may be maybe, like, one of the funniest books that I've written, because I'm not, I know this is gonna shock you guys, but people don't think that my books make them laugh. It's like Kennedy makes people cry. So I'm not exactly like your rom com girl, but I think this is one of the funniest books that I've written, and I think some of that comes out of the comic relief you know that Hendrix has offered in these two stories, especially like that one is the heaviest of this series, and I think Hendrix offered a lot of comic relief there, and then I think we kind of unfolded a little bit more of her character, and this could be us, and saw her as, like, this amazing, supportive friend for Soledad. And so I'm really excited to put her at the center of a story. I think when you talk about sex positive, like she's the most sex positive, the most vocal about her desires and her body. You know, she's a plus size character. She's a darker character. She which is very exciting to me, to see a dark skinned, plus size woman being chased. Yes, you know, I call it a chase, like a chase story. Pursuit story, because there is a the hero is folds first, you know, I can't wait, okay? Because Hendrix is a very magnetic character, you know, and he's drawn to her very, very early in the process. And if you read the blurb, it talks about, you know, forbidden fruit is the juiciest. So you'll get to see, you know, what's forbidden about their connection. But Hendrix is a powerhouse. You know? We know that she and also, I think those two books are very local, like this series is a love letter to Atlanta, you know? Because though I was raised here and went to school here, I lived in Atlanta for like, 20 years, so Atlanta really feels the most like home of anywhere I've ever been. And so I started writing that series living there and so and Skyland is kind of like a fictional community, but probably, if you're familiar at all with Atlanta, like Virginia Highlands, like Decatur, you know, like those areas, very charming, but with such great proximity to, like, Atlanta center city. But Hendrix's story flies a little bit, you know, it's a little more glamorous. You know, we're talking about, like, courtside seats and private jets and, you know, like she because she's it, she works in entertainment. She's a manager for celebrities. And so there's a lot more glamor that's in her story, and her story travels a little bit more, but she's also a country girl, you know, and some of that is, like, my own roots, you know, going back home and visiting, yeah. And so I think you get to see that she does have this glamorous life, but she's definitely rooted, you know, in where she comes from, she's a very authentic character. And I'm just, I'm excited about I'm for out, full disclosure, I am the most nervous about this book, really, absolutely, like, I'm so nervous, and I think that's partly because she's such a crowd favorite, like so many people have, from the beginning, been saying, I can't wait for Hendrix's book. And I'm like, oh gosh, I really don't wanna let you guys down.
Anita Rao 37:05
I'm sure you won't.
Kennedy Ryan 37:06
So I'm very nervous, but we're almost done with the cover, which I'm really, really excited about. I love the covers for these stories, and I've been very involved in shaping those covers, and so before I let go was like a GMA pic. So it was like on a billboard, and for Good Morning America, and then this could be us, was an Amazon pick. So it was like on an, you know, billboard for CBS. And for me, I'm hoping that Hendrix ends up on somebody's billboard. But it's like, for me, when I started really asking myself, why am I writing? And one of the things I wanted was for black and brown women to be clearly seen in big spaces. That is for me, like, incredibly rewarding, like to see, you know, these covers on television and on tar, you know, in target and airport and all the places, and just see how far this see, and now, you know, going to television just to see how far that representation will go is really, really important to me, so.
Anita Rao 38:09
Amazing. Well, thank you so much Kennedy for the conversation. Thank you.
Thank you all for joining us for this special episode of embodied. A huge thanks to Kennedy Ryan for the conversation and a Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill for hosting us. Thanks also to everyone who attended and asked some killer questions. We couldn't include the Q and A in this recording, but check out our social media accounts for more behind the scenes of the event we're @embodiedWUNC on Instagram and Tiktok. Jenni Lawson is our technical director who recorded this live conversation. Amanda Magnus is our editor. Kaia Findlay, our producer, and Nina Scott, our intern. If this is your first time listening to Embodied, welcome. We are thrilled to have you. Please follow this podcast. You can hear more conversations about sex, relationships and bodies, and check out the show notes for some links to episodes we think romance lovers will enjoy, in particular. Embodied as production of North Carolina Public Radio WUNC. We'll be back on Thursday with a new episode. I'm Anita Rao, taking on the taboo with you.