Rough Drafts Welcome by Salt and Sage Books

Join us today in meeting the incredible editor Rebecca!

Rebecca, with her Master's of Fine Arts, talks with us today about who she is, what she loves, and how she edits. We discuss her passion for disability advocacy, the medical model of disability vs. the social model, and the way that books change the world. She is a sensitivity reader, autistic parent to autistic children, developmental editor, and broad reader.

You can book with Rebecca through our website at www.saltandsagebooks.com

Join editor and therapist Amy in her conversation with Erin as the two discuss all things trauma.

What exactly is trauma? What "counts" as trauma? How can you, as a creative, understand trauma better? We discuss PTSD, cPTSD, traumas both big and small, and the nervous system. As with all of our conversations with Amy, we're here learning things right alongside you.

CW: generalized discussions of trauma, neglect, and a variety of ab*se. We also briefly touch on P*lest*ne.

Salt and Sage Books is here to help with all of your writing questions, and we'd love to work with you to figure out how to represent trauma in your pieces.

You're a writer, your friend is a writer... why not read for each other? Save some money on an editor, you can have your writing friends read it!

Not so fast! Reading and editing for your friends can be an incredible experience if it's set up correctly. Join Erin in today's episode to discuss the pros and cons of editing your friend's work. It's absolutely possible to have it be the best experience ever, but you're definitely going to want to set some boundaries.

Erin's got the ideas from her own hard friend-editing experiences, and she's here to share them all with you.

We want to work with you! Check us out on social media and at www.saltandsagebooks.com

Erin has a lot to say about systems of power and the way that they interact with our fiction. 

We discuss punching up, punching down, and how systems of power inform what funny actually feels like. Erin explains why, to her, privilege and power go hand-in-hand. She discusses patriarchy, sexism, racism, ableism, homophobia, and a host of other charged systems that thrive on controlling the people “under” them. 

She also discusses what she sees as an author’s duty to be aware of the power systems that they write into their work, and to consider how those (often invisible) power structures can contribute to a lot of character depth.

If you’re interested in writing from an informed worldview, check out the editors and sensitivity readers at Salt and Sage Books. They’re experts at picking out the underlying power structures and their implications! 

www.saltandsagebooks.com 

To wrap up our romance novel February, Erin shares her thoughts on age gap romances. This trope has a lot of potential to be fun, flirty, and very enjoyable! But of course, as with all tropes, it has a dark side, too.

At Salt and Sage Books, we believe that as authors and readers know more, they do better; this episode operates on that assumption. Erin discusses child marriage, appropriate and inappropriate age gaps, and how patriarchy, wh*te supremacy, and the cultural and historical context impact our conversation about the romanticization and infantilization of women.

We want you to understand the problems so that your age gap romances can be as positively-impactful as possible.

While Erin does her best to talk around the specific words in case you have young listeners in the background, this episode does contain discussions of p*d*ph*lia, non-consensual relationships, and child marriage. Please proceed with caution and take good care of yourself!

If you'd like help with your novel, please reach out to Salt and Sage Books via our website, www.saltandsagebooks.com . We have lots of readers who would absolutely love to help troubleshoot your age-gap romance!

Welcome back to part two of Erin’s conversation with our sensitivity reader Amy! As a therapist and a sensitivity reader, Amy has unique insight into the way that relationships are presented in fiction (and more broadly as well) and why those misrepresentations—and lack of representation and diversity—impacts everyday people in a deep way.

The discussion opens with a conversation about how white supremacy is the norm in a lot of romance circles, and how that necessarily plays into ableism, sexism, racism, classism, and colorism; Amy brings up late-diagnosed neurodivergence as a perfect example of the intersection of all of those social issues.

The pair discusses the unhealthy patterns that exist within romance more generally, and how a lot of relationships show up as a us (as humans) trying so hard to gain control over an uncontrollable life as a way to find safety. Erin gets personal about the way that fiction negatively impacted her view of her partner, and how she had to do a lot of her own inner work to get back to a healthy space.

You can book a sensitivity read with Amy to look over your fictional relationship at www.saltandsagebooks.com! If you need help with a real relationship, we recommend finding a therapist. 

What exactly makes a healthy relationship, and why does it matter that fiction has them? Erin sits down for a conversation with Amy, a sensitivity reader and therapist, to discuss the ins and outs of relationship writing.

Have you ever noticed that the couples in fiction have the same problems over and over again? The woman magically changes the man, the man rescues the woman, the couple magically solves all of their problems by just communicating. They discuss the benefits of escapist fiction and how there is a lot of room in the world to do both fiction and deep-dives into healthy relationships.

Amy points out that, in real-life relationships, that sort of repeated pattern is coming from a deeper place, and that it’s worth exploring in fiction as well.

They discuss drama triangles, victimization, love-bombing, and other relational red flags that often show up in fiction. The conversation ends with a discussion about how to actually approach healthy relationships, and if it’s possible to have plot-moving conflict without a struggling relationship (spoiler: it is!).

They discus the series Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal.

You can book a sensitivity read with Amy to look over your fictional relationship at www.saltandsagebooks.com! If you need help with a real relationship, we recommend finding a therapist. 

Join Erin in a solo episode today for a discussion about dark romance, mafia romance, and problematic/villainous heroes. Erin is a latecomer to the romance genre and has some thoughts about the way that patriarchal conditioning has infiltrated the romance genre.

We start with a conversation about what makes a dark romance, what Erin's research revealed, and her theories about why dark romance, and especially problematic heroes, are so popular. She also gives you a breakdown of how she learns about a genre on a marketing level, specifically when it comes to Amazon's Kindle unlimited program.

Content warning that Erin does discuss abuse, including emotional abuse, financial abuse, and assault in general terms, patriarchy and patriarchal conditioning, Christianity, with a small nod to modesty culture.

Learn more about Salt and Sage Books -- and book a sensitivity read for your dark romance book to double check its impact -- at www.saltandsagebooks.com

Join us today to as Erin interviews the absolutely incredible Lydia!

Lydia is a highly intelligent, highly decorated, highly accomplished editor, author, and game developer. She's an incredible TTRPG developer, GM, and author -- and her editing skills match. Her know-how as a sensitivity reader and author has taken her to some really cool places, and we are so excited to introduce you to her today.

Lydia loves working with anyone writing Chinese-American characters, people who are working to make TTRPGs and gaming more inclusive, and writers who are writing vulnerable work.

You can work with Lydia through the Salt and Sage Books website! Book her today at www.saltandsagebooks.com

Welcome back to the conversation between our incredible editor, Amy Bowen, and our host, Erin. This is part two of a continued conversation about the intersection of creativity, mental wellness, prescriptions, medication, privilege, and power structures. If you missed part one, check out the episode just before this one.

In part two, the conversation turns to specific actions that all creatives can take to help accommodate for and support their own mental health.

We'd love to hear your thoughts about this one below!

To learn more about Salt and Sage Books and the work we do, please visit our website at www.saltandsagebooks.com.