Episode Transcript
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0:00
[Jeff:] Coming up on this episode, Steven Salvatore is here to tell us all about "The Boyfriend Subscription."
0:11
[Will:] Welcome to episode 450 of the Big Gay Fiction Podcast,
0:15
the show for avid readers and passionate fans of queer romance fiction. I'm Will,
0:20
and with me, as always, is my co-host and husband, Jeff.
0:23
[Jeff:] Hello, rainbow Romance Reader. Welcome to another episode of the show. I
0:27
can't believe you just said 450. That's pretty amazing. We've been doing this for a while.
0:33
As always, the podcast is brought to you in part by our remarkable
0:36
community on Patreon. If you'd like more information about what we offer to patrons,
0:40
including the opportunity to ask questions to our guests, go to patreon.com/biggayfictionpodcast.
0:45
[Will:] Before we get to our conversation with Steven,
0:49
I think you should tell us what you thought about "The Boyfriend Subscription."
0:52
[Jeff:] Yes. As you might imagine, having loved Steven's YA books, I was head over heels for
0:57
his first adult romance. "The Boyfriend Subscription" is a wonderful fake dating,
1:02
opposites attract romance, that, as you'll hear Steven talk about in a few minutes,
1:06
is a retelling, of a sort, of "Pretty Woman."
1:09
Cole is a successful entrepreneur behind the VERSTL app, which allows sex workers
1:14
and consumers to form connections. He's working to take the app mainstream and
1:18
he's wooing investors. Teddy, on the other hand, is reeling from a divorce
1:23
and losing his business. He's on the verge of packing up and leaving New York for good.
1:29
But in a chance meeting at Teddy's favorite dive bar, Cole and Teddy meet. And before the
1:34
night's over, Teddy's agreed to spend a week as Cole's fake date. Teddy can help Cole project a
1:40
more traditional image as he entertains some investors. Plus, if Cole brings a date to his
1:46
sister's wedding, his parents will not pester him about not having someone in his life.
1:51
Of course, fake dating never works out like it's supposed to. Cole has rules. No kissing,
1:57
and no falling in love, and those go out the window faster than Cole would've liked. Teddy
2:02
too was just in this to make enough money to recover from bankruptcy and maybe not
2:07
have to move after all. With the feels come all sorts of extra scrutiny as people in
2:12
Cole's organization try to figure out exactly who Teddy is and what's in his background,
2:17
including how bad his ex screwed him over, because they're convinced that Teddy is just
2:22
in this to take Cole for even more money. Teddy's best friend, on the other hand,
2:27
is also wondering what Cole's real motives are. It gets deliciously messy at the sister's wedding,
2:33
as so many of these things kind of come to bear all of a sudden on the couple.
2:37
This is a super fun, super sexy book that is full of tropey goodness with a great
2:42
dose of "Pretty Woman" fun. I read an advanced copy of this not too long after I happened to
2:47
revisit "Pretty Woman" by seeing the Broadway musical on its recent tour,
2:51
and so it was so fun seeing how Steven made so many elements of the film work in this story.
2:57
Steven also gives us some great supporting characters with Cole's sister Mallory,
3:01
who is very happy to tell her brother that he needs to focus a little less
3:05
on work and finding himself a partner in life. Teddy's friend Kit is also no
3:10
nonsense about protecting her bestie, but she's also always down for a good time.
3:15
I hope you'll add this wonderful book to your spring reading list.
3:18
"The Boyfriend Subscription" from Steven Salvatore is not to be missed.
3:22
Now let's get to my conversation with Steven so you'll get all the details about Teddy and
3:26
Cole and why "Pretty Woman" is the inspiration for their tale. We also find out why he wanted
3:32
to start writing adult romance and what his favorite scenes were to write. Steven
3:36
also shares details on his next book, which happens to get its inspiration
3:40
from another Julia Roberts movie, and he's got some great recommendations for you too.
3:45
[Jeff:] Steven, welcome back to the show. It's great to have you here. It's been a few years.
3:49
[Steven:] Thank you so much for having me, Jeff. I can't believe it's been that long and I'm so happy to be back.
3:56
[Jeff:] I'm excited we "The Boyfriend Subscription." I love this book so much.
4:01
Cole and Teddy just really stole my heart. And you also used fake dating,
4:06
and we'll talk more about that too, because it's one of my favorite things.
4:09
[Steven:] Love a fake dating trope. [Jeff:] Tell everybody in your own words what "The Boyfriend Subscription" is about.
4:15
[Steven:] So "The Boyfriend Subscription" is really my gay ass take on "Pretty Woman."
4:23
And "Pretty Woman" has been one of my favorite movies since I was in high school, and one of
4:28
my best friends introduced me to it. I had always wondered like, oh, what, what would a gay version
4:36
of "Pretty Woman" look like? And the older I got, and now especially within the last five years or
4:44
so with OnlyFans, and Twitter, and every gay male posting everything in every online forum. And
4:58
then, figuring out how to monetize that. I just sort of started to think there's an idea here,
5:06
and I can combine that with "Pretty Woman" so that I can kind of turn it on its head.
5:11
And now it's the sex worker who has all of the money and power in the relationship.
5:19
But because it's a male/male romance, there aren't any archetypes really to play with,
5:28
like heterosexual archetypes. So, what if they're both, in some way,
5:33
kind of the sex worker? And so that was kind of fun for me to play around with and build
5:39
their characters off of that fun little role play I was thinking about in my head.
5:47
[Jeff:] It is an interesting spin and I, as you said it, I kind of thought about that a
5:52
little bit because I hadn't really focused on the fact that they're both, in a way, sex workers in
5:56
this story. For one of them, it is their job. It is the company that they built because it's
6:03
sort of an OnlyFans meets kind of Grindr sort of thing. Sort of, the way I looked at it.
6:08
[Steven:] Yeah. Exactly. It's like a Grindr, OnlyFans, in some ways, like match.com sort
6:16
of a situation. So yeah, there was a lot of kind of taking what I knew from just like,
6:25
gay culture and playing around with that. And then thinking about Teddy,
6:30
who is not a sex worker by trade or occupation,
6:34
but in a way kind of finds himself in that position in that whole like fake dating trope.
6:42
[Jeff:] What was it about "Pretty Woman" that captured you so much as a teenager,
6:47
and then to bring it forward into your storytelling?
6:51
[Steven:] I mean, I have to give all credit to Julia Roberts because I think she is just... she's
7:00
magnetic and the gravitas that she brought to that role. That movie came out in 1990,
7:11
I want to say. So, I mean, listen, I was four years old in 1990,
7:15
so I didn't know anything about anything. I was probably watching Disney Channel.
7:20
But as I got older and contextualizing her character in that movie it was, for the time,
7:27
pretty forward thinking in regards to women in sex work. And the amount of respect and
7:38
power that she demanded, and demanded in that role, I thought, felt pretty groundbreaking.
7:45
And I remember watching that as a teenager just being like, yes, go Vivian. Like,
7:53
I just, I don't know. I was drawn to her as a character. And that always stuck with me.
7:59
And then like every other movie that she's been in, her characters always tend to stick with me.
8:03
[Jeff:] And you give such a nice nod to Vivian by making that Cole's last name also.
8:10
[Steven:] Yes. Well, it's interesting because as you're reading "The Boyfriend Subscription,"
8:15
Cole's legal name is Vivian, which is obviously like Vivian Ward from "Pretty Woman." But when
8:24
he changes his name to kind of separate himself from his family and his family name, he takes his
8:32
first name and makes it his last name. And then comes up with a brand new first name to go by. So,
8:39
I thought that kind of history was interesting to incorporate into the character of Cole.
8:45
[Jeff:] How was it to play with all the "Pretty Woman" tropes and ideas but bring
8:52
that into the 21st century because it's been, as you just noted, like 30 plus
8:56
years since that movie hit. And so, there's so much, to evolve and bring up to date now.
9:02
[Steven:] It was really fun and mostly because I had an excuse to watch the movie and rewatch
9:09
it and it's always interesting to watch something with an eye for analysis. And not just like a I'm
9:19
going to sit down with some popcorn and just play something and enjoy it. But rather like,
9:25
okay, I can enjoy this, but I'm also going to look at it with a very critical eye,
9:29
and then kind of dissect the story structure along with it. And as I'm doing that thinking, okay,
9:38
what can I use here? And then what's outdated? What doesn't really work in this context?
9:46
Two of the most iconic scenes from "Pretty Woman," right, is when she's in the high-end boutique,
9:52
right? And the salesperson kind of looks at her and turns her away,
9:56
right? And she's like, big mistake. Huge. And she kind of comes back and
10:02
the salesperson eats her words. And then the other is when Richard Gere's
10:07
character gives her the necklace and snaps the necklace case shut and she's laughing.
10:13
And I was like, okay, well these two scenes don't totally work in this context because if
10:23
Teddy is the Vivian Ward character, and he doesn't have a lot of money and he's going
10:30
to a high-end store, he's not going to go to the store dressed like a hooker and get turned away,
10:38
right? So, I have to figure out how exactly I'm going to play that scene.
10:43
And so, for me it was like, okay, well it's going to be… well, I don't want to spoil anything,
10:48
but like Teddy runs into his ex-husband in that department store. And his ex-husband
10:54
has a new fiancé. So, you kind of get the drama of that scene a little bit
11:00
played out where Teddy feels like he's just kind of been tossed to the side.
11:05
So, picking from what's underneath all of that. Like why did Julia Roberts' character get tossed
11:13
out? Is it because how she was dressed and how might she have felt in that moment? And picked
11:19
that emotion up and kind of played with it using the characters that I created.
11:23
[Jeff:] And these characters are interesting too because on top of all the "Pretty Woman"
11:27
stuff that you've given them, they both have a lot of things going on with family. Cole,
11:33
as you mentioned, is kind of separated from his, and Teddy's been going through
11:37
a lot with his divorce and things that have happened with his now ex's family.
11:43
They both have interesting friends going on who are like trying to protect them,
11:47
but not always in exactly to their best interests. So, you've piled on a lot of interesting things
11:54
here too. What was your process to bring all of these elements together to create your characters?
12:03
[Steven:] Oof. That's a really good question, and it was really just like,
12:09
how do I... kind of like how I approach any story. Like how do I make these
12:14
characters rich, round, fulfilling characters for readers? And like,
12:20
okay, I got to build out not only their backstory, but who they have in their lives.
12:27
And like one of my favorite characters in the book is Teddy's best friend Kit. And if people
12:33
are familiar with "Pretty Woman," Vivian's best friend in "Pretty "Woman's" name is Kit. So,
12:39
I'm like, I'm going to take that. I'm just going to plop that name right into
12:43
the story. But in this story, she is a black lesbian who is in a triad,
12:53
and she's afraid of commitment, and moving in with her two girlfriends.
12:58
And so, like I wanted to kind of play with that, and what kind of dynamic that would create in the
13:06
narrative, and how can I bring this triad into the story in some ways? Like, obviously it's
13:11
not the spotlight. But I wanted to make the side characters as rich as I possibly could.
13:20
And one of my other favorite characters, Cole's sister Mallory. In the initial drafting process,
13:28
she came in very late in the story. Part of the reason why the fake dating trope comes in is Cole
13:37
needs a date so that he can keep his family at bay because he hasn't seen his family in like
13:41
10 years. And so, he thinks with a date it'll be a distraction, and nobody will bother him,
13:48
and nobody will like uncover his secrets. And so, it's a whole, like, convoluted thing.
13:53
But in the first draft or the first, I think, two drafts, Mallory was not really a main side
14:01
character at all. In my revision process, I brought her into the very beginning. That was
14:08
like some of the feedback that both my agent and my editor gave. We need Cole
14:15
to be a little bit more empathetic because in my initial drafts he was very cold and kind of
14:24
hardened. He was very much like anti-love which is different than how Cole ends up in this. Like,
14:32
he's still very much like, I'm keeping myself emotionally distanced. I'm not getting involved.
14:37
I don't kiss. I don't want a boyfriend, I don't want love. But in my initial version,
14:42
he was very like vehemently anti-love, which I thought created an interesting juxtaposition
14:49
given the types of services he was providing on the app that he created that sort of like
14:56
hinged on intimacy. But I needed to soften him up and so Mallory was the way to do that.
15:04
[Jeff:] It's interesting with Mallory because she softens him and then Teddy kind of comes
15:08
in to finish the softening a little bit as it goes. I really felt that Mallory too kind of
15:14
grounded Cole a little bit from all the chaos of the business and what he's trying to do with that,
15:20
and what's going on with the family and everything. She was just that soothing kind
15:26
of influence that he could talk to periodically to be like, this is okay, and it will be okay.
15:31
[Steven:] Yeah. And I love that you used that word, soothing, because that was kind
15:35
of what it is exactly what I was going for. Like, I made her, and by proxy Cole,
15:41
like obsessed with crystals and healing. And, they're always holding crystals and it's just
15:48
like this quirky little thing that like, you know, wealthy white women love. And wealthy white gays
15:57
also love a crystal or two. And, not that I'm a wealthy by any means, but I love a crystal.
16:05
So like, I'm just going to make this part of their characterization and connect them
16:13
together because in a lot of ways I think they're different characters,
16:16
Mallory and Cole. But I think in a lot of ways, they do make sense as siblings. Just
16:21
their pathways diverge a little bit. But they ultimately both want to make their dad proud,
16:27
and they want to be a good child, which I think is a very relatable thing.
16:34
[Jeff:] How much research did you have to do to get the various aspects of Teddy and Cole's
16:40
world that they inhabit right? Because there's a lot of stuff going on there between them
16:45
that just isn't like, knowledge you could just maybe have in your head potentially.
16:50
[Steven:] Absolutely. I definitely did a lot of research on OnlyFans and, like,
16:57
gay OnlyFans sex workers and performers. And I definitely did a lot of work researching
17:07
plants because Teddy is a plant daddy. And he owns his, well, he owned, his own nursery,
17:15
and he was also an author where he wrote about plants and his experience. And so,
17:21
I cannot keep a fake succulent alive, so I had to do a lot of research on
17:30
just like how to take care of plants like baseline and then like building from there.
17:35
So that was fun. And it's not necessarily something that I can,
17:41
or have been able to put into practice, because I just keep killing plants. So, I'm hoping I
17:46
got my details correct. But yeah, I can't say that I put any of that into actual practice.
17:52
[Jeff:] And it's interesting how that comes into play too, especially for Teddy because his plant
17:57
knowledge sort of ingratiates him a little bit into Cole's family because he can talk
18:03
to Cole's parents and his sister about plants and maybe their gardens and things like that.
18:09
[Steven:] And I think that's kind of the interesting thing about human connection
18:16
is like if you find one window in, all of a sudden, like everything else kind of opens
18:21
up. So, like for Teddy, I think because of the nature of his divorce in the book
18:28
and like that whole backstory, aside from Kit, like he really does feel very alone.
18:36
And he is not from New York, but he is living in New York, so he has no family, except for Kit,
18:42
his best friend. And so, when he meets Cole's family and there is that kind of in, and they
18:50
immediately welcome him in, I think it echoes a lot of like real world kind of situations.
19:02
I don’t know. I think when I met the man that I'm dating right now,
19:07
my boyfriend's family… I think it's very strange to meet the family for the first time,
19:17
which is something that I hadn't done in ages because my ex-husband, I was with him for 12
19:24
years. And so, it seemed like so long ago from the last time I met somebody's family.
19:32
And just kind of like thinking about that process and then how it, in a way,
19:37
echoed Teddy's, just by like finding something, finding a window, and then being able to talk and
19:45
then all of a sudden everything kind of takes off from there. And you just have that like,
19:50
oh, I know these people and I like these people and I love these people already.
19:53
And it all happens very quickly, I think. And I think that also happens too, when like the
19:59
connection is genuine and like… Obviously Cole and Teddy's story happens in a matter of days. So,
20:07
yeah, they do fall for each other rather quickly considering, but that's why it's fiction. I do
20:15
think that it happened so organically in the book, like Teddy taking to Cole's family because Teddy
20:25
and Cole have a genuine connection. Even if neither one of them are like,
20:30
thinking about it in those terms at that time, because of the whole fake dating of it all.
20:36
[Jeff:] They were so not realizing how much feels that their fake dating had
20:41
created until so near the end. It was just amazing
20:44
to watch it. The light bulbs kind of go off for them, like, wait a minute.
20:49
[Steven:] Yeah. That was an interesting thing to think about too, because I do
20:56
think that gay relationships do tend to materialize and progress differently than
21:08
heterosexual or opposite sex relationships. From my experience alone, like you can meet
21:15
somebody and develop feels. It doesn't mean feelings but feels very quickly. And whether
21:23
or not that continues obviously depends on whether both people are in the same place and all of that.
21:29
But I do think that there is that recognition of feels rather quickly. That kind of creates
21:36
a little bit more of a separation between "Boyfriend Subscription" and "Pretty Woman,"
21:42
even though again, "Pretty Woman" only takes place across a matter of days. And
21:46
they fall from each other very quickly. So maybe, I don't know what I'm talking about.
21:50
[Jeff:] Well, rom-coms in particular, and I mean, a lot of romances have a very tight time clock.
21:57
Few days, couple weeks, maybe a month. But it does happen, I mean, fairly quickly, just
22:04
because otherwise you're going to write a really long book that goes on for a really long time.
22:09
[Steven:] Yes, exactly. Or if you're having a book that, you're just getting these vignettes
22:14
and it takes place over a matter of months or years and you're just getting little,
22:18
tiny windows into pieces of the relationship, which, I think definitely works in a much
22:26
more literary context than your typical kind of romance setting type of context.
22:35
[Jeff:] What's a favorite scene of yours from this book?
22:38
[Steven:] Oh, I really, there's so many. I know that sounds ridiculous because I'm the writer. I
22:51
should be able to pick something, or I should be like, no, I love everything equally. But
22:56
I do. I think some of my favorite scenes are definitely the sex scenes. I quite enjoyed...
23:03
[Jeff:] It’s very spicy and awesome, yes.
23:05
[Steven:] I definitely ramped it up a little bit and then had to cut back a little bit because
23:11
maybe I was a little too far. So I was like, I need to rein it in. But some of those scenes were
23:17
some of the most fun to write because it was like, I can let go and they're so into each other. And
23:26
once they acknowledge secretly that they are into each other, and they can kind of let go sexually.
23:37
I think the writing feels very fluid. Like every time I go back and reread it,
23:41
I'm like, these are some really fluid sex scenes. And in some ways like,
23:47
sure, graphic, steamy, spicy but also very beautifully written if I do so, so myself.
23:55
But I also love the scene where they kiss for the first time. And I also love their first meeting,
24:06
when they… towards the kind of middle or beginning-ish of the book. I'm trying to
24:12
remember what the hell I wrote when they are at the steps of The Met and Teddy realizes that
24:20
Cole is wearing a leather harness. And so that scene is one of my favorites. It's like one of
24:26
the ones that stuck out to me because I had that visual in my head when I first started writing it.
24:33
Like that's where things are really going to take off and there's going to be a harness involved.
24:39
[Jeff:] I could just envision that like written on the outline somewhere. This
24:43
is where it takes off and there's a harness in this scene somewhere.
24:46
[Steven:] Someone wears a harness and maybe both of them end up wearing a harness. Who knows?
24:53
[Jeff:] I love The Met thing because it was such, I think, a traditional idea of what New
25:00
York glamor is. There's like the events that happened, but then there are some,
25:05
like The Met, that just feels very glamorous and important and for Teddy to get to go to
25:11
that with Cole. It was just like, aw, it was almost like a "Pretty Woman" moment,
25:17
but not pulled from that movie. They had other glamorous things that they did there.
25:22
[Steven:] Exactly. Yeah. That was something that I was really trying to look at like,
25:28
okay, what are some iconic New York City locations. And then what are the ones that
25:36
are really going to work for me in this book? And what feels maybe either too
25:45
contemporary or what feels outdated and just going back and forth and trying to figure out,
25:51
Okay the book doesn't only take place in New York City it does go a little bit outside the
25:59
city into Westchester. But I wanted it to feel very recognizable, but not necessarily something
26:09
like cheesy and touristy, I guess, even though obviously there are millions of tourists who
26:16
go to The Met. It just it really, like you said, it just felt more like classic New York for me.
26:23
[Jeff:] We were talking before I hit the record button on this interview about the book,
26:27
and you told me that there was a lot left on the cutting room floor. Something like
26:32
20,000 words got removed out of this book, which, you know,
26:37
that's not insignificant. What's something favorite from the cutting room floor?
26:43
[Steven:] So, the original backstory for Teddy's character, his ex-husband, there
26:56
was a lot of like, really beautiful backstory about him, and his relationship with his ex,
27:04
and how he met his ex, and how his ex encouraged his love of plants and, helped him to kind of
27:14
open up his nursery. And in the original draft, the ex-husband dies. And it was…
27:19
[Jeff:] That's a much different spin on things. [Steven:] Very different. Very different. And actually, in the original manuscript,
27:26
Teddy had two exs. He had one nice ex who was this, kind of like, supportive whatever. And
27:33
then he had kind of the dick ex. And the dick ex ended up staying in the book and
27:39
the nice dead ex ultimately got the chop. And I kind of took some of the characteristics and
27:47
some of the backstory to and blended it together as best I could. But there were
27:51
a lot of flashback chapters specifically around Teddy and there were a couple of
27:57
flashback chapters of Cole that ended up getting mostly chopped. There were some, a little bit of
28:05
like Cole and Teddy backstory that you get kind of interpolated into the present day narrative.
28:13
But yeah, that was… I hated losing all that backstory, but I do think that it
28:18
made much more sense story-wise for Teddy to have one main ex instead of two that readers
28:25
had to keep track of. Especially because one of them dies. So like,
28:29
where's that going to go? I don't know. It was one of those threads that could easily get cut,
28:37
but not so easily because it ended up being many words and many pages that I had to get rid of.
28:43
[Jeff:] Well, certainly if you were a Hallmark movie, I mean,
28:46
there's dead exs in those things all the time. Dead exs and dead families. So,
28:52
you certainly picked up a trope that is often used in rom-coms and romance movies.
28:57
[Steven:] I mean, yeah, sometimes it's like, all right, I got to pick my tropes.
29:01
I got to see which tropes are actually worth exploring. And this was something that like,
29:07
I was… I wanted to write a tropey romance because I think so much of what writers
29:19
write relies on tropes and things that are recognizable and it provides a sense
29:25
of comfort to readers because it relies on a lot of these Hallmark storytelling techniques.
29:32
But I don't think that I'd necessarily, like in any of the previous books that I wrote,
29:37
I don't think I set out going, I'm going to use this trope. But with this, I was like, I'm
29:42
going to use this trope. We are going to dive into fake dating and we're going to get into all of
29:47
that. And I think it was something where I had to figure out, okay what's going to work here? What
29:51
isn't going to work here? Some things obviously didn't end up panning out and some things did.
29:57
[Jeff:] We talked about, briefly there the Hallmark storytelling,
30:00
but it's also very much Harlequin storytelling.
30:02
"The Boyfriend Subscription" is part of Harlequin's new Afterglow line,
30:06
and they're certainly looking for tropey stories.
30:10
[Steven:] Yeah which, worked out in my favor because, you know, I didn't know,
30:14
when this manuscript sold to Harlequin, it sold under the intent of they're starting this new line
30:21
in January of 2024. But back then, like nobody knew about it. When "Boyfriend Subscription" sold,
30:29
nobody knew that there was going to be a new line. It wasn't public yet, didn't even have a name. And
30:35
so I didn't write the book with that in mind. I wrote it like, we're going to write it and we're
30:39
going to try to sell it. And my agent loved it, so she's like, all right, let's go. We're going
30:43
to try to sell this. And so, it just so happened that this new line was materializing and it ended
30:51
up being a perfect, beautiful match and I couldn't be happier because my editors absolutely fabulous.
30:57
[Jeff:] And this is your first adult romance after
31:00
three YA books. What made it time to go in the direction of the adult romance?
31:08
[Steven:] I think that, okay. Well, let… I'll give you more of an honest answer. My first three
31:17
YAs "Can't Take That Away, "And They Lived," and "No Perfect Places," I really wrote those
31:23
as a way to heal my younger self. And there's so much of me in the main characters of those
31:32
books. Things that I went through personally, experiences that I had and just okay, I need to
31:38
pat little Steven on the back and be like you're okay. You're going to be okay. Let's write,
31:45
a thousand pages worth of therapy between these three books and he'll be fine at the end of it.
31:51
And so, by the time "No Perfect Places" had sold, I'll say I was kind of getting to this place of,
32:00
I don't know that I have more young adult stories in me because ultimately what I set
32:09
out to do was… I'd always wanted to be a writer. I always wanted to be a storyteller. I always
32:13
wanted to publish books. But with writing YA, it was like, I'm writing these books for me
32:19
and I'm trying to heal my inner trauma. And so, I did that. Then it was like, all right,
32:25
well now I have a whole shit ton of adult trauma to go through. Let's get into that.
32:31
I started writing "The Boyfriend Subscription," really, as my marriage was winding down. And
32:41
there was a lot of strife with that, a lot of inner conflict. And so,
32:48
I took on the role of Teddy in that and was exploring who I was through Teddy,
32:56
but not even all that much. I kind of used "The Boyfriend Subscription" as an escape and be like,
33:03
all right, we're going to take this movie that I've always loved. We're going to make
33:07
it really tropey. We're going to try to make it as fun as possible, but still have some depth
33:12
in there and still explore some concepts that like are top of mind for me right now because
33:19
of whatever's going on with me personally. But make it gay, make it fun, make it spicy.
33:27
So, I think a lot of what I'll end up writing adult-wise after my Harlequin books might end up
33:37
being a little darker, a little more exploring some of the perils of being an adult gay.
33:45
[Jeff:] Do you see some of those, like darker romance or just darker like genres and sub genres?
33:52
[Steven:] I think so, I do. Right now I have one more contracted book for Harlequin that's
33:59
coming out in summer of 2025, I think. And that's going to be a romance straight up,
34:05
just like "Boyfriend Subscription." But I'm also working on what I'm calling
34:10
my divorce book and just kind of exploring the end of a marriage.
34:16
I guess like a reverse romance, like what happens when people are fighting, when maybe one person's
34:24
fighting to save a marriage and another person isn't, and kind of letting it fall apart. How do
34:30
you rectify that? So, I wouldn't say necessarily like straight up romance. But there's always,
34:36
I think there's always going to be something in everything that I write that does have that nod
34:41
to romance, if it's straight up romance or something a little bit more gen fic.
34:48
[Jeff:] Can you tease us anything about the 2025 Harlequin one and what it may be?
34:52
[Steven:] I don't know if I can give the title, even though it does have a title and it's very
34:59
reminiscent of "The Boyfriend Subscription." So, it's three words. It's falling in line. So like,
35:09
when you see it, you'll be like, oh, okay, that kind of makes sense. It kind of goes together.
35:13
[Jeff:] I feel like we should play charades now.
35:16
[Steven:] I know, right? All right. First word is "the" and I think what I can say is it is about
35:29
a side character in "The Boyfriend Subscription" who becomes main character in this next book. So,
35:35
for anybody out there who has read or wants to read "The Boyfriend Subscription," or is reading,
35:41
you'll meet Cole's ex Nico right towards the beginning of "The Boyfriend Subscription." And
35:47
so we're going to get his story in the next book. It's going to be like a reality show,
35:59
dating slash marriage competition type of a thing.
36:05
So that is… I don't even know if I can say that, but that's what I'm saying.
36:08
[Jeff:] I'll tell Harlequin I forced it out of you.
36:13
[Steven:] Maybe my editor will be listening, and they'll email me being like, oh my God.
36:19
[Jeff:] I love that it's connected because like any good romance,
36:23
that means we're going to get a little bit of how Teddy and Cole are doing in
36:26
there too because I really envision them as turning into this really cool power couple.
36:30
[Steven:] I kind of do too. And you'll know, the way I have it, the way it's planned out
36:37
is you'll know pretty soon into the next book what ends up happening with Cole and Teddy.
36:44
[Jeff:] Nice. So, in addition to all the writing that you do, you also run Queerative Writers
36:51
and here's where you're working with queer writers. You offer courses and
36:55
editorial services. Tell us a little more about that and how you started that up.
37:00
[Steven:] So, it's something that I've wanted to do for a while. And I am I teach college writing.
37:07
I've taught college writing since 2012. And it's something that I went to school for. It's been
37:14
my career. I know how to teach writing. I ran a writing department. But I also am feeling like
37:23
maybe, perhaps my career in higher education is winding down. Mostly because it's just… there's
37:32
a lot of… it's just a lot of bureaucratic shit. And I'm finding that I'm teaching
37:42
creative writing less and less. And I don't know if it's just not getting offered as much.
37:48
But my heart lies with creative writing. So, I decided to create my own business,
37:55
Queerative Writers, where I run online virtual creative writing workshops. It's geared toward
38:03
queer writers, aspiring writers. But anybody can take a course. There was nothing out there that
38:11
was specifically geared toward queer ,LGBTQ+ aspiring writers. And I do think that from my
38:22
experience in writing courses as a student in grad school, there's a real difference in how
38:32
writing is perceived by straight het teachers and other straight cis het students in the class when
38:45
you're being workshopped, and your work is being read by everybody, because the queer experience
38:50
is a hell of a lot different. Sure, there's a lot of crossover. There's a lot of similarities,
38:55
like the world for me is the world for you and you. But we experience an additional layer of
39:01
shit. And we see things through a different lens. And a lot of that does come out in the writing.
39:11
Like it's no secret that I don't write my books for straight cis het people,
39:20
I write them with gay readers in mind. I hope that everybody reads my stuff but I'm writing
39:26
it for queer readers. And so, I wanted to create a safe space for writers to explore themselves,
39:37
explore their work in a space where they're not going to be judged through a cis het lens.
39:43
[Jeff:] Hopefully some of the writers and aspiring writers that we have
39:46
in our audience will go check out the offerings that you have going on there.
39:51
[Steven:] That'd be wonderful. I took a little bit of a break but I'm looking to
39:55
get some courses up and running in the next couple of months because I'm on deadline for
40:03
lots of stuff right now, and I'm teaching a full-time course load, so I'm like, oh my God,
40:10
I have no time to also teach virtually. And so, I'm trying to do a little bit of a balance. So,
40:16
I'm hoping that I can eventually step away from higher ed and focus more on Queerative Writers.
40:23
[Jeff:] That'd be awesome. Yeah, it definitely fills a niche that I don't think anybody else
40:29
is in, or if they are they're keeping it hidden to themselves at the moment.
40:35
Of course, we love to get recommendations on the
40:37
show. What are you reading or watching that our listeners should check out? If
40:41
you've actually got time to do any of that between everything else you just mentioned
40:45
[Steven:] I mean, my reading has gone downhill because I've haven't had much time. But I will
40:55
say there are a couple of books that are coming out this year that I'm obsessed with. So,
41:02
in the YA space Matthew Hubbard, he's a debut author, and his book "The Last Boyfriend's
41:09
Rules for Revenge." It feels very like "Mean Girls" but gay and without the bitchy main
41:18
characters. The main characters are so lovable. That book comes out I'm pretty sure it's end of
41:25
April. But that book is so, so, so good, and I can't wait for people to get their hands on it.
41:31
And in the adult space Nicolas DiDomizio his third book is coming out from SourceBooks Casablanca
41:41
"Nearlywed," which is about a gay engaged couple who takes an early-moon before the wedding. And
41:47
the main character is like a chaotic millennial who writes for a Buzzfeed type of publication.
41:55
And his fiancé is a gen X doctor. So, there's a little bit of an age difference there. And the way
42:05
they live their lives, like the main character is very, very visible online and his fiancé
42:11
is not at all. And so, a lot of relationship testing stuff happens while they're on their
42:20
early moon and it's like, are they right for each other? Will they make it to their wedding?
42:27
It was a beautiful book and there's so much exploration of, I think,
42:32
what a lot of like gay relationships are, or have experienced, and a lot of, like,
42:38
the tests of that. So, I can't recommend that book enough. I just read it. I mean,
42:42
Nick is one of my closest friends. I've known him for closing it on 11 years now. But I hadn't
42:50
gotten a chance to read "Nearlywed" until over New Year's when I was away visiting family. And
42:56
I finally got to sit down with it, and I was just blown away by it. It's so freaking good.
43:00
[Jeff:] It's always amazing to see your friends just do amazing work.
43:05
[Steven:] Yes, yes. It's incredible. It's, it really is a wonderful thing.
43:10
[Jeff:] And we talked a little bit about your new Harlequin coming in 2025. What
43:16
else is coming up for you? You said you were working on two books. What else have you got?
43:20
[Steven:] Yeah. So also coming out in 2025, I don't know exactly when just yet,
43:26
I want to say like also summer of 2025. So, I might have two books out summer 2025,
43:32
like within a very close proximity which gives me a lot of anxiety because that means I'm going to
43:39
be very tired. But my next YA, "Lemon at First Sight," is coming out and it's very loosely
43:52
inspired by "My Best Friend's Wedding." Continuing the theme of my love of Julia Roberts where the
44:00
main character, Fielder Lemon, is going to his older cousin's destination wedding in Amalfi,
44:08
Italy. And he finds out that his cousin is marrying his ex-boyfriend's older sister.
44:18
So, his ex-boyfriend, who he considered the love of his life is going to be there. And so,
44:25
he kind of plots to, or schemes to, try to win back his ex. But then his ex shows up
44:32
with a new boyfriend. So, we're trying to win back love in, in a beautiful Italian
44:42
setting in a lemon grove in, in the Amalfi coast. I'm currently drafting it right now,
44:48
and I am obsessed with it. It's fun and I think it's going to piss people off and it's going to,
44:55
other people are going to love it, but I love it. So that's all I can ask.
44:59
[Jeff:] I'm looking forward to seeing how you translate "My Best Friend's Wedding" into a YA setting.
45:06
[Steven:] Yes, there is no, obviously, marriage pact of like, if we're both 28, we'll get and not
45:13
married, we'll get married. Obviously, that's one of those things that had to that had to fall by
45:17
the wayside. So that's where the loosely inspired by "My Best Friend's Wedding" comes into play.
45:23
[Jeff:] What else are you eyeing in the Julia Roberts library to
45:26
translate and to adapt later? Anything else on your radar?
45:31
[Steven:] I mean, I did have a little bit of a brief romance with "Runaway Bride." So that
45:38
could be interesting. Obviously, that would be very much adult. There's no way you could do
45:44
that in the YA space. But there, I mean, I could do… there's so much. There's so much, honestly.
45:51
Okay. My fav… one of my favorite Julia Roberts movies, which I feel like doesn't get as much
45:58
attention is "Stepmom." Do you remember "Stepmom" with Susan Sarandon? That movie
46:07
makes me ugly cry. Obviously that would not be in the romance space at all. But taking on
46:16
themes like that. Parental relationships, and I don't know. It hit me at a very young age,
46:22
that movie and maybe because I had a stepmom. So, maybe something there. But I don't know anything.
46:30
There's so much. So I could write with Julia Roberts in mind. If she wants to hire me to
46:36
write a script for her, an original. I'm all on board, so in case she's listening, hi, I'm here.
46:44
[Jeff:] And if she's listening, I'd like to know that because that'd be pretty cool too.
46:49
[Steven:] I'll write something on spec,
46:52
just like hit me up. Someone get Julia Roberts's agent on the phone.
46:57
[Jeff:] There you go. Somewhere out there in our listenership, let's hook these two together.
47:01
[Steven:] She could have a gay son. It could be like a… she could,
47:06
I don't know. She could play like the scheming mom trying to break up her gay son's toxic
47:12
wedding relationship. I don't know. I'm just spit-balling here in case she's listening, but.
47:19
[Jeff:] All ideas here are Steven's property.
47:26
What is the best way for people to keep up with you online,
47:29
so they know when all this stuff is coming out?
47:31
[Steven:] I would say definitely Instagram at StevenSalvatoreBooks. I am technically,
47:38
I guess, on Twitter slash X, but I have not been on it since late or
47:46
probably middle of last year. Probably around the time that it switched to X,
47:51
I was like, I'm outta here. I am on TikTok. It's, I think my handle
47:56
is StevenSalvatoreBooks. I should probably know that. But it's linked on my Instagrams.
48:02
So, Instagram. I'm very active on TikTok, I just scroll late at night. I'm not one of those authors
48:09
who is posting themselves on TikTok because I don't know how to do that. And I feel like
48:15
I would look very bad if I did try. But you could still follow me there. That'd be nice.
48:23
You could get onto my newsletter, which I've only promised to blast
48:27
out when I have a book coming out so people can buy my books.
48:30
[Jeff:] Cool. We will link up to all of that in the show notes along with all the books and other
48:34
stuff that we talked about. Steven, thank you so much for being here and talking to us about "The
48:39
Boyfriend Subscription." I can't wait for people to get that in their hands and start reading it.
48:43
[Steven:] Thank you so much for having me, Jeff. I appreciate it. Love the pod, love... this was
48:48
an amazing conversation. I'm so happy and I'm so glad you liked "The Boyfriend Subscription."
48:53
[Will:] This episode's transcript has been brought to you by our community on
48:58
Patreon. If you'd like to read the conversation for yourself,
49:00
head on over to the show notes page for this episode at BigGayFictionPodcast.com.
49:04
We've got links to everything that we've talked about in this episode.
49:08
[Jeff:] Thanks so much to Steven for coming to talk to us about "The Boyfriend Subscription."
49:12
I already loved his YA books and now I am a big fan of his adult romances too. I'm super
49:18
excited for everything he's got coming up and if you're in the mood for some fake dating "Pretty
49:22
Woman" style, I hope you'll pick up "The Boyfriend Subscription" and give it a try.
49:25
[Will:] Okay, I think that'll do it for now. Coming up next, on Monday, April 8th,
49:30
we're going to find out about a new romantic suspense series called "Accidentally Undercover."
49:35
[Jeff:] That's right. "Accidentally Undercover" is a multi-author series
49:39
that focuses on ordinary people who get caught up with spies, assassin, and other
49:43
undercover types. We're going to be joined by the series creators, Layla Reyne and Alison Temple,
49:49
along with Cari Z, who has a book in this series, and they're going to tell us everything about it.
49:53
[Will:] Jeff and I, we want to thank you so much for listening, and we hope that you'll
49:56
join us again soon for more discussions about the kinds of stories we all love,
50:00
the big gay fiction kind. Until then, keep turning those pages and keep reading.
50:07
Big Gay Fiction Podcast is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. Find more shows
50:11
you’ll love at frolic.media/podcasts. Original theme music by Daryl Banner.
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