The XO Interview: Maya Rodale

On current obsessions and new directions

I launched this Substack almost a year ago and first things first, I would like to say a hearty THANK YOU to all y’all subscribers who have been with me since the beginning and joined along the way. I have had such a fun year. So much fun that I’m going to keep going with this newsletter, but there will be a plot twist….and I’m going to reveal it in this XO Interview of myself. 

How did you first discover the romance genre? Which book was The One for you? 

The first romance that hooked me was The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen Woodiwiss, which I picked up because it was on Mama Rodale’s romance novel 101 syllabus. However, it was not the first book I read from the list. I started with Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor and when I finished, I made an outraged phone call to my mother, who calmly said, “Read Kathleen Woodiwiss and call me in the morning.” So I did. After the first few chapters I thought, “how in the world is this going to end happily?” I kept turning the pages until it did. 

From there, I read Julia Quinn, Eloisa James and Loretta Chase and they will forever be my favorites and first loves. It was literally years later that I discovered other subgenres of romance like contemporary or paranormal. To me historical romance is romance. 

You’ve written the non-fiction book about romance novels, Dangerous Books for Girls, plus scores of articles about it. Why do you write so much about the romance genre? 

I’m endlessly fascinated by women and women’s stories and there is nothing better than the romance genre for that. And I’m endlessly fascinated by how our culture deals with women’s stories (or can’t even tbh). Also, I was an English major (My area of focus was…women and fiction!) so I have been trained to read into things, maybe too much. But lately, I’m finding that I want to write about romance less and read it more. However, I still very much want to explore women’s stories in a different way (probably with fewer dukes, sorry). 

Tell us about the books you are working on now! 

I am currently working on historical fiction set in late 19^th America and featuring the most audacious, snarky, radical, brilliant, and courageous REAL women. Kinda like my novel about Nellie Bly, The Mad Girls of New York. 

One project in the works is a novel based on the true story of how American women fought for the right to vote—from the start in Seneca Falls in 1848 to the final dramatic showdown in Tennessee in 1920. This story has everything: female friendship, love stories, feuds, triumph and heartache, motherhood, big personalities and politics, how we think about women and how women think about themselves...It is said that the fight for women to get the vote is the largest, non-violent revolution the world has ever witnessed. And it was led by a bunch of housewives, spinsters, lesbians, and daredevil single ladies. I am OBSESSED and I hope you all will soon join me in this obsession. 

Another project is based on this true story.

Maya, it sounds like you are really obsessed with women’s history. 

In my high school world history class, I once stayed after to ask my (male) professor “where are the women?” Mama Rodale would often drag me to what I call “women finding themselves movies” and more often than not, they were also period films, so I knew that women existed in yore times. Yet they were not taught in my classes. My professor, Mr. Spahn*, gave me one name: Germaine de Staël and that was all! I promptly read all about her and so began my quest to find more brilliant, unapologetic and audacious historical women. The more I seek, the more I find, and the more I want everyone to know their stories. 

*I should also note Mr. Spahn always delivered his lectures sitting down at the tables with us. Literally the one time he stood to write on the chalk board it was the order of precedence in the British aristocracy. Duke, Marquis, Earl, etc. I thought it must be important so I wrote it down. Little did I know…

What’s next for XO Romance? 

I will still be writing this newsletter. But I’m going to be writing less about the romance genre and more about historical women, particularly the Suffragists in America, and their fight for equality. Like many romance heroines, a lot of historical women—particularly The Suffs, those who fought for the right for women to vote—defy expectations of what a woman was supposed to be like and how she ought to live her life. To write about women in this time period is to look at history with a feminist lens and to consider fashion, politics, romance, law, marriage, motherhood, intersectionality, female friendship and more. It’s such a rich, hidden history and I am so excited to write about it and share it with you. 

If you enjoyed the author’s notes I wrote at the end of my Gilded Age series you are going to love this. 

I will also be changing the name of this newsletter to reflect the new content, so while you won’t see XO Romance in your inbox anymore, you will still see my name. All these archives will continue to be available. If this is not your truth, you can unsubscribe and while I will be bummed to see you go, I won’t be mad and we can still be friends. I will be taking a short break from posting for the holidays and will resume in January 2024. 

How do romance novels give you joy? 

I love that love always wins in romance novels. I love that heroines always get to triumph. I love how easy it is to get swept up in a romance novel and stay in this delightful space until the last page. I love that I can let my guard down and feel all the feels as I read because I know it will always end well. 

And I really love the romance community. I love that many of my friends have two or more names (author name, IRL name). I love that anywhere I go, I can and do find the romance folks. 

But I’ll be honest with you: after years of writing romance novels, writing about romance novels and reviewing romance novels for work, it’s lost a little of it’s fun for me and I would like to get back to just being a reader of romance for a little while. 

As I write in signed copies of Dangerous Books for Girls:  VIVA LA ROMANCE!