S05.22: Trailblazer K.J. Charles

Fated Mates - A Romance Novel Podcast

Fated Mates

Society & Culture, Documentary, Books, Arts

4.9 • 889 Ratings

🗓️ 15 February 2023

⏱️ 102 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today, we’re welcoming KJ Charles to Fated Mates for our next Trailblazer episode! Known for her work helping to bring queer historical romance to the modern genre, KJ joins us to discuss historical romance, how it remains relevant in the modern world, her work centering queer characters and communities in romance, and the start of her romance career as an editor of Mills & Boon medical romances. We also talk about the arc of her career through early small press publishing, indie publishing, and now, as a traditionally published author. We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did, and we are so grateful to KJ Charles for joining us.

Transcript

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0:00.0	There's historical romance that just have only the vaguest relationship to the actual history of
0:08.2	Britain, and there's historical romance that gets really down and dirty into it and where the
0:12.8	author has really delved into it. And although I, you know, I prefer the second kind, but I don't
0:17.3	think the first kind should be dismissed because it is doing something else. I don't think every historical romance needs to go, but there was only 28 dukes and most of them had syphilis and no teeth, and everyone's got lice. I don't want to read books where everyone's got lice, you know? If I want lice, I'll have young children again. I would rather read a book where they just sort of throw their hands up and just
0:37.6	going, okay, we're hairing the hell out of this, you know, because actually, Georgia Haya,
0:42.1	although she did loads of research and everything, when she actually did the bits of really
0:45.9	historically rounded, which is to say an infamous army in the other words, they're awful,
0:50.6	they're so boring, they're dreadful, nobody reads and nobody wants to read them.
1:01.4	The sort of glittery, bawly, wonderful, romantic ones, we love them, and it is good that people do that, and I think there is space for both. This is actually something I'm struggling
1:05.5	with at the moment, because like a fool, I've been trying to write a Duke book. I mean, fundamentally my problem is,
1:12.9	and this really does cut quite deep into the fact that I write historical romance, is I sort of
1:18.6	feel like the Atari Stocracy should have been executed. That was the voice of K.J. Charles,
1:23.8	an author who helped establish a place for queer historical romance in the modern genre,
1:29.2	writing, as she describes her work, hair, but gayer.
1:33.2	In this Trailblazer episode, we talk about KJ's writing, about the way she views the historical
1:38.7	romance genre, about building communities of queer people on page, and about her work as a romance editor back in the day from Mills and Boone.
1:48.7	You are listening to Fate of Mates. I'm Sarah McLean. I read romance novels and I write them.
1:54.2	And I'm Jennifer Procop, a romance reader and editor, although I'm not want to call myself that today because
1:59.2	AJ Charles was a real romance editor and I'm just like gonna like
2:03.0	be like, okay, well I... You know, listen, you just have 19 more years to go.
2:08.9	Hire me, Mills and Boone, so I can feel real.
2:11.3	Oh my God, imagine. What a good job. What a fun job.
	...

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