This week bestselling authors Rachael Johns and Sophie Green answer a couple of listener questions - one from a writer we’ll call Mindy, as she wishes to remain anonymous, and another from Ike Levick.

In the course of answering their questions Rach and Soph talk about why they write, how they define success, and how they move past blocks in their writing and get out of their own way.

If you have a question for Rach and Soph, you can email it to [email protected]

For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com

Rachael's latest book is The Other Bridget

Her next book is The Work Wife (to be published in January 2025)

For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com

Sophie's latest book is Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society

Her next book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (to be published in August 2024)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rachael Johns decided to scale back her presence on social media for a little while - not leaving it entirely but restricting how much time she spent on it. With two books to write this year, it's no surprise she needed the time. The surprise came when around the same time as she made that decision she discovered that fellow Western Australian and international bestselling author Natasha Lester made a similar decision, and so did so did Jack Heath, prolific author of books for children and adults.

So Rach suggested that we invite Natasha and Jack come on the podcast to discuss this with us, and a lively and highly interesting discussion ensued. Whether you're an author wondering if you need to build a social media presence or scale back the one you have, or just generally wondering about it, we hope you'll find what we have to say thought-provoking. 

Books mentioned:

Stolen Focus by Johann Hari

Doppelganger by Naomi Klein

For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com

Rachael's latest book is The Other Bridget

Her next book is The Work Wife (to be published in January 2025)

For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com

Sophie's latest book is Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society

Her next book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (to be published in August 2024)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The editorial process is something every published author goes through but which time and repetition tends not to ameliorate … alas! 

In this episode bestselling novelists Rachael Johns and Sophie Green talk about the different stages of the editorial process, both the ones we go through before turning in a manuscript and what happens as a manuscript is turned into a book. Hopefully it’s interesting for writers who haven’t experienced it yet and for published authors it may be cathartic to listen to! We certainly liked chatting to each other about it and hope you enjoy listening in.

Writers - do you have a challenge or conundrum, or a question about process, how to get started, or anything at all to do with writing? We’d love to be your writing agony aunts.

Readers - we would love to hear from you too! You can ask us questions about our books … and we’d also be happy to be YOUR agony aunts. We may not have professional qualifications but we sort out problems for our characters all the time, so if you’d like to get something off your chest/ask for some input/just see what we think about something, let us know.

If you have a question for us, please email [email protected] and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line.

And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email.

For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com

Rachael's latest book is The Other Bridget

Her next book is The Work Wife (to be published in January 2025)

For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com

Sophie's latest book is Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society

Her next book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (to be published in August 2024)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Soph met author Amanda Knight at an event in Sydney for Rach's THE OTHER BRIDGET they chatted about the podcast that Rach and Soph had already started recording, and Soph mentioned that we would love to have questions from listeners. Amanda said that there was a subject she’d be interested in talking about: imposter syndrome. 

So the three of us did talk about it, at length, on episode 7 of the podcast and even if you don’t have imposter syndrome (although don’t we all at some stage?) we hope you find this episode interesting. Many thanks to Amanda for her honesty and vulnerability. 

Writers - do you have a challenge or conundrum, or a question about process, how to get started, or anything at all to do with writing? We’d love to be your writing agony aunts.

Readers - we would love to hear from you too! You can ask us questions about our books … and we’d also be happy to be YOUR agony aunts. We may not have professional qualifications but we sort out problems for our characters all the time, so if you’d like to get something off your chest/ask for some input/just see what we think about something, let us know.

If you have a question for us, please email [email protected] and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line.

And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email.

For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com

Rachael's latest book is The Other Bridget

Her next book is The Work Wife (to be published in January 2025)

For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com

Sophie's latest book is Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society

Her next book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (to be published in August 2024)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're up to episode 6! How did that happen? In this episode Rach and Soph talk about their writing processes; whether they follow rules when they write; what happens in head hopping, Rach's panic about her new manuscript and how Soph has inadvertently become her writing therapist. 

During the episode Soph mentions Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies quiz and you can find that here.

Writers - do you have a challenge or conundrum, or a question about process, how to get started, or anything at all to do with writing? We’d love to be your writing agony aunts.

Readers - we would love to hear from you too! You can ask us questions about our books … and we’d also be happy to be YOUR agony aunts. We may not have professional qualifications but we sort out problems for our characters all the time, so if you’d like to get something off your chest/ask for some input/just see what we think about something, let us know.

If you have a question for us, please email [email protected] and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line.

And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email.

For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com

Rachael's latest book is The Other Bridget

Her next book is The Work Wife (to be published in January 2025)

For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com

Sophie's latest book is Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society

Her next book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (to be published in August 2024)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's episode bestselling novelists Rachael Johns and Sophie Green answer another listener question, about whether they read other people's books while writing (spoiler alert: they do).They also catch up on what they've been working on since the last episode, talk about whether or not they show their works in progress to anyone, and the fact that they have listener reviews.

For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com

Rachael's latest book is The Other Bridget

For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com

Sophie's latest book is Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the fourth episode of Dear Rach & Soph, Rachael Johns and Sophie Green answer some listener questions about motivation and getting unstuck. And in the course of doing so Sophie talks about the importance of dancing and there is mention of possibly-maybe posting a playlist. That playlist can be found on Spotify and YouTube.

The track listing is:

‘Nataraja’- The Dum Dum Project

‘Im Ninalou’ - Cheb i Sabbah

‘Into the Groove’ - Madonna

‘Dig’ - Fanny Lumsden

‘Abalele’ - Kabza De Small, DJ Maphorisa ft Ami Faku

The book mentioned in this podcast is DANCING IN THE STREETS by Barbara Ehrenreich.

Writers - do you have a challenge or conundrum, or a question about process, how to get started, or anything at all to do with writing? We’d love to be your writing agony aunts.

Readers - we would love to hear from you too! You can ask us questions about our books … and we’d also be happy to be YOUR agony aunts. We may not have professional qualifications but we sort out problems for our characters all the time, so if you’d like to get something off your chest/ask for some input/just see what we think about something, let us know.

If you have a question for us, please email [email protected] and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line.

And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email.

For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com

For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the third episode of Dear Rach & Soph, Rachael Johns and I talk about her recent book tour for her latest novel, The Other Bridget; my copy edit for my next novel, Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel, and the big question for the episode: why we write. You can watch the YouTube version of the podcast below, or find us on your favourite podcast platforms (some links below).

We recorded this episode on the day our first episode was released, so we didn't yet have listener questions - we have since had some, and upcoming episodes will cover those! And we'd love to have your questions.

Writers - do you have a challenge or conundrum, or a question about process, how to get started, or anything at all to do with writing? We’d love to be your writing agony aunts.

Readers - we would love to hear from you too! You can ask us questions about our books … and we’d also be happy to be YOUR agony aunts. We may not have professional qualifications but we sort out problems for our characters all the time, so if you’d like to get something off your chest/ask for some input/just see what we think about something, let us know.

If you have a question for us, please email [email protected] and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line.

And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email.

For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com

Rachael's latest book, The Other Bridget: https://www.rachaeljohns.com/books/the-other-bridget/

For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com

Sophie's next book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel: https://linktr.ee/arthourattheduchesshotel

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When bestselling authors Rachael Johns and Sophie Green met in person for the first time - in Sydney, early in February - they discovered that they have something quite unusual in common. Something which, on the face of it, doesn’t seem to have anything to do with their writing … or perhaps it does.

***

This podcast is called ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ for a reason - YOU! We would love to answer your questions.

Writers - do you have a challenge or conundrum, or a question about process, how to get started, or anything at all to do with writing? We’d love to be your writing agony aunts.

Readers - we would love to hear from you too! You can ask us questions about our books … and we’d also be happy to be YOUR agony aunts. We may not have professional qualifications but we sort out problems for our characters all the time, so if you’d like to get something off your chest/ask for some input/just see what we think about something, let us know.

If you have a question for us, please email [email protected] and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line.

And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email.

For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com

For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For this first episode Rach and Soph talk about The Other Bridget, Rach's latest novel, published in 2024. And they talk about a few other things too, including how they first met, the novels of Curtis Sittenfeld and eating disorders.

But it’s called ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ for a reason - YOU! We would love to answer your questions.

Writers - do you have a challenge or conundrum, or a question about process, how to get started, or anything at all to do with writing? We’d love to be your writing agony aunts.

Readers - we would love to hear from you too! You can ask us questions about our books … and we’d also be happy to be YOUR agony aunts. We may not have professional qualifications but we sort out problems for our characters all the time, so if you’d like to get something off your chest/ask for some input/just see what we think about something, let us know.

If you have a question for us, please email [email protected] and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line.

And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email.

For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com

For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.