Strong Feelings

It’s episode 69, y’all—and that means we’re getting steamy. Author Jasmine Guillory joins us for a look at the world of romance novels: why they’re important, what people get wrong about them, and what it’s really like to write them for a living. Jasmine is the New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding Date, The Proposal, and a new book, The Wedding Party, which just came out in July. Her hugely popular romance novels have earned fans from Reese Withersppoon to Roxane Gay to, well, us! We loved hearing Jasmine talk about why she centers black women in her books, how she writes about bodies in inclusive ways, and why romance novels aren’t guilty pleasures—but rather a sweet (and sexy!) comfort in tough times. People of color have always embraced stories that weren’t about us, so we have known that everybody else out there can do it… These are stories that everybody wants to see. —Jasmine Guillory, author of The Wedding Party We chat about: Jasmine’s latest book, The Wedding Party. It’s about Maddie a