Alexis Darya was consumed with her day jobs.

Yes, day jobs, plural.

When she decided at 30 that she needed to make room to pursue her creative

passions, the outgrowth, a Rita award for best first book, and some of the most buzzed-about

romance novels in the past few years, including her most recent book, the second in a series,

Al-La La Gadios. Alexa shares how she got her first deal, how those deals have

evolved over time, the hustle she is still in to make writing possible, and the art of writing

fanfic and the other effort.

Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you so much for doing this.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm excited.

My favorite episodes are episodes where our audience has specifically requested a guest,

and you are one such guest, where your name has been circulated a number of times.

And yet, you are like a sphinx. I have Googled you to the heavens.

I have listened to multiple interviews you have done. I know almost nothing about you.

So fill in the gaps for me. You're born and raised in the Bronx. Yes. Your family is Puerto Rican. Yes, my mom's side of the family. So as I understood it, you didn't get a degree in English. Oh, no. A degree in computer. I have a BFA in computer arts, but I went through a number of majors before I got to that point. What did you think you wanted to do? Well, I always wanted to be an artist. And for people in

New York, I went to the fame school, LaGuardia for visual arts, but I didn't think that was a viable

career path. It's not that it was discouraged, but I couldn't see the way forward with that. So I went

into finance first when I went to school. And that was a total mistake. From there,

I worked at a bookstore for six years because I've always loved books and I loved writing, took me a roundabout

path to finishing school. I did eventually get a BFA. And I worked freelance for a long time. I worked for

magazine for a little bit. And then when I was 30, I was like,

...