S08.01: Cold Open: Craft, Criticism, and Summer Vacation

Fated Mates - Romance Books for Novel People

Fated Mates

Society & Culture, Documentary, Books, Arts

4.9 • 889 Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2025

⏱️ 100 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Season Eight! How is it possible you're all still here?! We're so incredibly thrilled to have you all with us for another season. We've got big plans for talking to your favorite people, getting under the hood of your favorite tropes, and filling your TBR pile with your new favorite books. We quickly find ourselves in the deep end, talking about craft, criticism, and romance’s place in 2025. But first, we share what we did on our summer vacations.

Season Eight. Wowzer. Honestly, we love knowing you're out there. Thank you so much for listening.

If you'd like more romance chat in your life, please consider joining our Patreon, which comes with an extremely busy and fun Discord community! There, magnificent firebirds hang out, talk romance, and be cool together in a private group full of excellent people. Learn more at patreon.com.

Notes

If you’re a writer looking to learn more about in person events for romance craft, check out Romancing the Craft in Anaheim this fall or Spring Fling which will be hosted by Chicago North Romance Writers in spring of 2026.
Australia is not actually a land of criminals, but Tasmania is a dark place…the sky we mean. On the This is Love podcast, there was an episode about it! Check out the Night Sky app, which will help you identify the stars you are seeing in the night sky.
Martha’s Vineyard is great, actually. But watch out for ticks and sharks. Speaking of Jaws, it’s a different vibe without that music and here’s more about John Williams and the power of the score.
AP isn’t doing book reviews anymore, and that means that there will be less book news in papers across America. We talked about the decline of cultural criticism this week. Read more about music criticism and film criticism. This goes hand in hand with news that less Americans are reading for pleasure.

the difference between premise and narrative

Transcript

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0:00.0	God, season eight.
0:01.9	I mean, you dummies out there, just listening to us.
0:06.6	You know what's amazing is I really, if you would ask me, how much could you talk about romance?
0:13.9	17 episodes.
0:15.4	Sure.
0:17.1	1,700 episodes apparently is to answer everyone.
0:19.7	Oh, my God, it's never ending, but like...
0:21.8	In an amazing way.
0:23.1	You know, it's cool.
0:24.2	I literally, as you know, because you have email, I have done a lot of work over the last day.
0:30.0	It's true.
0:31.3	Just like teeing some things up for the end of the year, the calendar year.
0:37.2	Very exciting.
0:38.5	You know, really starting season eight on September 1st, this when we're recording this.
0:45.3	Like, it really feels new and crisp in the fall, as F. Scott Fitzgerald would say.
0:51.4	There you go.
0:51.8	And, you know, I just feel like we are, we always have something cooking.
0:58.4	We do always have something to cook. God knows the two of us always have something to say.
1:03.2	Well, I mean, listen, here's the thing, everybody. What you don't know is we don't say it all.
1:09.6	Yeah. If the podcast didn't exist, Sarah and I would just
1:12.0	have to do it to each other in text all day long. So, um, yeah. So anyway, welcome to season eight.
1:20.0	Season eight. Amazing. And you know what? We started this podcast in October.
	...

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