Alissa Callen’s wide-open-space romances – whether set in the Australian outback or Montana mountains – give a bright lift to the darkest day. That’s what her readers tell her, and she couldn’t hope for a more rewarding response.

Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today USA Today Best Selling author Alissa talks about what she loves most about writing rural and small-town fiction, and why she’s thrilled her books are in school libraries.

Six

things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:

Why readers love small town romanceHow you can have too much shopping and cocktailsThe one thing she'd do differently next time roundYarn bombing in Dubbo - it is a thingThe healing power of natureThe nicest thing a reader ever said

Where to find Alissa Callen:

Website: www.alissacallen.com

Facebook: @AlissaCallenAuthor

What

follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for

word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.

Jenny:  And now

here's Alissa. Hello there, Alissa, and welcome to the show. It's great to have

you with us.

Alissa:  It's such a

pleasure to be here.

Alissa Callen - Author of rural and small town romance

Jenny: Beginning at the beginning, was there a Once Upon a Time moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction, as distinct from other things you might have written. And if so what was the catalyst for it.

Alissa: I think I'm that stereotypical writer who was that childhood reader. And if I look back I probably read too many books and probably needed to get another life. But I was a very avid reader as a child/bookworm. And then I did English at university because that was my thing. And I've always wanted to write and I dabbled at writing but it wasn't a definitive decision that I needed to do this.

Words always been her "thing"

I have four children and somehow I had time amongst raising

my children. I thought 'Oh I might actually put pen to paper.' And I did! I

grew up in the country. I live on a small farm now. So it was only natural that

my stories played themselves out against a rural backdrop.

 I have also lived in

America and I love the mountains over there. So I'm just really lucky that what

I love to write, is actually what the market will read because I can't imagine

myself writing anything else.  Words have

always been my thing.

From a family of scientists

And it's really interesting because I come from a family of

scientists. We have a lot of very analytical brains in the family, and I'm the

odd one out.  It is interesting because

through the wonders of DNA we've actually found a missing branch of my family

tree and that's where I fit. There's a professor of medieval literature there.

There is another person who writes, so I think writing has always just been in

me and it's who I am.

Jenny: You

describe your books as small town and rural fiction but they are really sweet

romance stories when you look at the heart of them, aren't they?

Alissa: They are.

I think it's very interesting because I do write for the two markets and I find

that small town stories and rural fiction in Australia are interchangeable terms

really.

Sweet clean romance

Rural fiction has such a wide spectrum. You can have small

town books. You can have medical romance, you can have medical suspense, as

well as rural fiction. So in Australia there's such a wide umbrella.

But then for the American market they don't have the term ‘rural

romance’ so it's just basically small town. 

But their core ingredients are very similar. And I think that they are

essentially romance. In another life I was a counsellor and I do know that life

doesn't deliver the 'happily ever after' for everyone.  So I was drawn to a genre where it doesn't

matter what my characters go through. At the end there's an uplifting and feel

good ending, because I know in real life that things don't always turn out that

way.