It feels right that the first XO Interview should be with debut author Lisa Lin, who happened to be one of the first people I met in Romancelandia. She’ll share the details of how we met, but I’ll say that it was around the time of my first book, approximately six hundred years ago. We’ve been friends ever since. I’m thrilled to welcome her here to talk about her journey from fangirl and fanfic writer to debut author with the publication (yesterday!) of The Year of Cecily, the first book in her Sunset Park series.
XO: How did you first discover the romance genre? Which book was The One for you?
LISA: I was thirteen and even back then I was a book lover and could spend hours browsing through Borders and local indie bookstores (remember those?). I remember walking past the romance section and wondering who this Nora Roberts chick was who was taking up half the shelf space? I picked up one of her MacGregor books out of curiosity, became intrigued by the idea of a match making grandfather and haven’t looked back since! I say hey if you’re looking for a gateway into a new to you genre, might as well start with one of the best, amirite?
As for my ONE it has to be Ian and Naomi from her MacGregor Grooms. A shy awkward bookstore owner who lands the Harvard Hunk who is completely head over heels for her? Who can resist that?? NO ONE. I also loved Alan and Shelby’s book All the Possibilities because I’m a politics junkie and Nora used the opposites attract trope SO well in that book. Nora sucked me in by showing the breadth and depth of the genre. She showed me romance novels could be funny, touching, angsty, swoony, heartbreaking and everything else in between. A Nora Roberts romance (and the genre in general) isn’t just about the main characters falling in love and having amazing sex (which is super important!). Her books also focus on family and friends where friendships, and sibling relationships and parent and child relationships are also shown to be just as important as the romantic relationship. You can definitely see those influences in my books. Romances make you feel all the feelings-they can make you laugh, cry, yearn, doubt, despair, and hope right alongside the characters as they navigate the whirlwind of falling in love.
How do romance novels bring you joy?
Romance brings me joy in so many ways. First, reading romance and being part of the romance community has been the vehicle for me to meet and connect with so many people and form long lasting friendships that I deeply treasure.
Second, I love the promise and hope romance novels provide. There is comfort in knowing even though the odds seem insurmountable, and you have no idea how the author is going to pull it off, by the end of the book, all will be well, and the main characters will get together, fall in love and there will be an optimistic and happy ending. Everything will be okay. The current state of the world can be so chaotic, unpredictable and unsettling. Oftentimes, things don’t have a happy satisfying ending. But you can always escape into a romance and you can believe, even if it's only for a little while, that good will prevail and love endures and conquers all.
Lastly, romance novels bring me joy because it’s a genre that allows for women’s stories to be centered, and where their sexuality is celebrated, not condemned, demonized, or weaponized. Her feelings, her wants, her thoughts MATTER. Maybe it’s because the majority of romance authors are women, but romance heroines never lack for agency or power. Or if she starts off lacking agency she discovers and wields it by the end. My favorite part about romance novels may be how empowering it is.
We met at a romance conference! Tell me about how you became involved in Romancelandia IRL.
I have you and Eloisa James to thank for that! I was a member of Eloisa and Julia Quinn’s Bulletin Board ages ago. I’m talking mid-late 2000s. I’m OLD y’all. Anyway I had joined because I’d recently discovered her Essex sisters and Desperate Duchesses series and JQ’s Bridgertons and quickly became a fan. In the fall of 2008, Eloisa was attending the NJ Romance Writers conference and was arranging a meet up with members of the BB. It wasn’t too far from me so I decided to go. A group of us met for dinner, including her husband, a real life Italian knight! That was such a great and surreal evening. Eloisa was incredibly kind and gracious. And that was the night you and I met, Maya! You also were so much fun to talk with and we hit it off right away. I will never forget how kind you were to me as well. I truly value your friendship and am so glad we’re still friends after all this time!
Luckily, we kept in touch and awhile after that, you started Lady Jane’s Salon with some other writer friends and I went up to attend when you were reading from A Groom of One’s Own from your fabulous Writing Girls series. Through LJS, I was also able to meet so many other romance authors including Sarah MacLean, Miranda Neville, Wendy LaCapra, Suleikha Snyder, Stacey Agdern, and so many others. A year or so after that, I joined RWA and began attending their annual conference and met other authors there. And the rest is history.
You have been so present in my Romance community—you know everyone! What has your experience been? What has it meant to you?
That is very kind of you to say! I don’t know if I know everyone, but I have been fortunate enough to meet so many members of the romance writing community. Mostly through in person events and following up with them on Twitter/FB, etc. Twitter truly has made all the difference in the trajectory of my writing career. Through Twitter I was able to connect with so many amazing and wonderful fellow romance writers. I would never have gotten my agent without it! But being part of the romance community has been a huge blessing in my life. Through Romancelandia, I have been able to find the smarter, kindest, toughest, most generous group of people I’ve ever met and form lifelong friendships. Romancelandia has gotten me through the toughest times in my life, including when my dad got sick and passed away. Reading romance, and the support of my writing friends helped me get through the worst 18 months-2 years of my life. To quote Sherry Thomas’s 2016 keynote, “Romance doesn’t own me anything. I owe it everything.”
When did you know you wanted to write a romance novel? When did you start writing it?
This…..is a complicated question. I don’t know when I wanted to write a romance. But I’ve always had story ideas in my head and thought that was normal. Turns out, not so much. I still remember watching this TV movie Princess of Thieves and was incensed when it didn’t end up with Gwyn and the Prince getting together. In my head I rewrote the ending so that they got their HEA. I began writing in high school. Like many other authors, I got my start in fanfic world. I wrote West Wing fanfic. (Please don’t ask to read them. They’ve disappeared into the Internet ethers and they were bad. SO BAD. So much head hopping and exclamation points). Looking back, it should have been a huge clue because I wrote Josh/Donna fic, who were my absolute favorite couple and I waited seven seasons for those two to get together. I was always meant to write romance!
But I officially pursued writing seriously in 2011 after attending the RWA Literacy Signing in NYC. I met Tessa Dare and tried to keep my fangirling to a minimum. We got to chatting, and she asked if I was there attending the conference and if I was writing. I told her I wasn’t but I’d always thought about it. She encouraged me to go for it, and it was the push I needed to gather up the courage and start writing my first romance. So I have her to thank for all this! I will always be so grateful to her for being the first person to tell me I could do it.
Tell us about your first novel!
Fun fact: The Year of Cecily originally started out as a Lunar New Years novella for a non-Christmas own voices holiday anthology. Unfortunately, that anthology didn’t come to fruition, but in 2019, my brilliant agent and I met up at the NYC RWA conference and she suggested I take that novella, rip it apart and turn it into a full length novel.
The Year of Cecily is about a mid-30s high powered San Francisco attorney who decides her life’s been in a rut and she needs to shake things up. So on New Year’s Eve, she makes a list of resolutions to make the new year HER year, The Year of Cecily. They include things like Find a better work life balance, avoid drama, don’t let your family get under your skin, get out there more because it’s been too long since you’ve had sex. You know, as one does.
But all that goes out the window when she heads home to her family in Brooklyn to celebrate Lunar New Year and runs into him. Literally. At JFK. The boy next door, her childhood sweetheart. The man who did her super wrong and super dirty ten years ago.
Jeffrey hates what happened ten years ago but he was being a stupid guy and had his reasons for doing what he did-or so he thought. Seeing Cecily again makes him determined to fix things and win her back. So now, he’s on a mission to convince Cecily her list of resolutions isn’t complete without him and love, and to give their story a Hollywood ending worthy of one of his screenplays.
What do you want to see/hear/read more of from the romance genre in the future?
Obviously, I would love to see more diverse representation in the genre. While strides have been made, the majority of the genre is still quite straight, white, cis, and Christian. I want more romances with Asian protagonists written by Asian authors because there are nowhere near enough of us out there! I write my stories from my perspective and experience, and that is going to be different from a Jayci Lee book, a Courtney Milan book, a Jeannie Lin book, a Alisha Rai book, or a Jackie Lau book, etc. The Asian American (or Asian-Canadian in Jackie’s case!) experience is not a monolith and one book or author can’t possibly be expected to speak for or represent the community at large. All of us need a seat at the table so the full story can be told!
We say representation matters, and it’s so true. The media we consume has a huge influence, and seeing someone like you on screen or on the page is vitally important. It is a signal that you are seen, you belong, you matter. In romance, it means that someone like you is just as deserving of a swoon worthy story, hot sex, and happily ever after as anyone else.
I would also love to see more diverse settings in historicals. The vast vast majority seem to take place in England or Scotland. I am so excited for my friend Liana de la Rosa’s upcoming Ana Maria and the Fox, the first book in her Luna sisters series. While it takes place in London, the Luna sisters are from Mexico and Mexican history and culture take center stage. More of that please!!
On a less serious note, I am all for romances featuring shorter heroines. Being vertically challenged myself, it makes me happy when the heroine is only five foot or even shorter!
Lisa! Congratulations on your debut!!! It's delightful!
Also: couldn't agree more on the short heroines! ;-)