Dear Rach & Soph

We like to have a subject to speak about on this podcast, even when we have a guest. Rach raised the idea of ‘do you read your own reviews?’ and said she had one guest in mind: Sally Hepworth . Sally not only reads reviews of her books but is especially fond of the one-star reviews, as she talks about in this episode. Indeed, she is very fond of one-star reviews. And she and Rach both very much do...

BookTok is now an entrenched part of bookselling and publishing - it is not a temporary glitch, as it may have appeared to be during the pandemic when readers were looking for escapism. The genres that are at the core of BookTok - romance and romantasy - remain popular, and may have been said to have increased in popularity. Certainly TikTok isn’t going away and nor is #booktok. Rach and Soph want...

From Sophie: I met  Rachael Treasure  for the first time in the middle of this year on the Gold Coast, as we were both attending authors at Rachael Johns's Readers Retreat. I've read Rachael T's books, including her now-classic  Jillaroo , which can be said to be the first ever rural romance (even though she wouldn't necessarily classify it as that). To say that Rachael T is a delig...

Thanks to lovely reader Elaine in New Zealand, whom Rach and Soph both met at the RJ Book Club Readers Retreat on the Gold Coast this year, for this question that Rach and I answer in this week’s episode: ‘Which has been the book you've written that you've most enjoyed writing, and did reader feedback reflect your own feelings?’ There’s a bit in there about the one time Soph drew heavily on her ow...

Sometimes Rachael Johns and I wonder if we have any listeners/viewers (well, not really - I can see the stats so I know you're out there, and thank you for listening/watching!). Then a question or two comes in and, lo, we are reassured that there are, indeed, listeners/viewers. Such is the case with this week's episode, in which Rach answers a question from Nina Kenwood about community building an...

This week we talk about writing craft books. Rach loves them - indeed, she collects them, and if you watch this episode on video you’ll see the collection. She’s also read a lot of them. Soph have not read too many but likes what she's read thus far.  Possibly the most important information we could convey in this post is the list of books mentioned in the episode, and this is it in the order...

Dear Rach & Soph - podcast Hosted by bestselling Australian novelists Rachael Johns and Sophie Green Rach is currently writing a book about twins who are adopted. As can happen for an author, she needed to do some research. Which is where Soph comes in … she's adopted. It’s not something you’ll find in her author bio because for her it’s a mundane fact. She's always known. But it is out of the...

This week on the podcast Rachael Johns and Sophie Green talk about points of view in novels: first, third - and the little-seen second (and Sophie cites Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney as an example of this point of view). We also discuss use of past and present tense within these points of view, and whether the point of view (and tense) choose us or we choose them.  So this is a 'cr...

This week Rachael Johns and Sophie Green talk to author Christine Wells, and the theme is 'staying published' - that is, what it has taken for Christine to stay published over the course of her career. She's published 16 books with four different publishers in the United States and Australia, so she has quite a lot of experience to draw on!  There's more about Christine and her latest novel,...

Even if you don’t read spicy books, as they’ve come to be known, you’ve no doubt read spicy scenes in other books (and we're using the term ‘spicy’ instead of the other because we’d have to use an asterisk in that to avoid internet-consequences, plus we're sure you understand what we mean when we say ‘spicy’). If you are a writer of spicy books, you’ve definitely written them, and even if you don’...

In this episode we talk to Lainie Anderson , author of the new novel The Death of Dora Black: A Petticoat Police Mystery . We had a lovely time, as Lainie was warm and engaging and very, very interesting. If you'd like to see Sophie's review of the book, it's here .  If you'd like to read more about the book and Lainie, you're in luck! That information appears below.  ABOUT THE DEATH OF...

Ambition is a tricky subject for Australians - our Tall Poppy Syndrome is alive and well, and when you combine that with lingering Cultural Cringe, for an Australian writer to say they have ambitions/that they are ambitious can be seen as cringey in and of itself. Well, we decided that it’s too bad if anyone sees us as cringey - or, rather, we don’t care, because we do have ambition and we wanted...

When we recorded our first episode of our podcast, Dear Rach & Soph , earlier this year, we talked about her then-new novel The Other Bridget . So even though we've wrapped the first season, Rachael suggested we do an episode devoted to Sophie's new novel, Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel . So this is a bonus episode of the podcast - or a bridging episode, if you will, since we have already start...

When we started this podcast we don’t think either of us had a single thought about how long it might go for - probably not this long! It's hard to believe we’ve released an episode a week for the past 17 Sundays, but we haven’t run out of things to talk about and we still have a long list of subjects we’d like to discuss. However, we’re going to take a little break as we both have books to write....

This is the penultimate episode of the first season of Dear Rach & Soph - Rachael and Sophie both have books to write, so we need to focus on those - but we have a long list of subjects we’d like to cover in future episodes so we will be back!  In this episode we were very happy to chat to Susannah Begbie , author of The Deed , which won the Richell Prize in 2022. The Richell is a joint p...

**NB This episode was recorded in April so our intro chat will be out of sync with recent episodes.** This week we have a wonderful guest: children’s author Ashleigh Barton, who has written several CBCA Notable and Shortlist titles including What Do You Call Your Grandpa? and What Do You Call Your Grandma? (more information below).  Ashleigh’s latest book is the picture book Dinosaur in My Po...

Rejections are par for the course for all writers, whether they’ve been published or not. Even once you have a publisher they may reject your next idea - or readers may reject your book by not reading it! Both Rachael Johns and Sophie Green have been rejected - multiple times (and both of us by Mills & Boon, which we talk about in this episode). As a publisher, and when she was an agent, Sophi...

A little while ago Rachael Johns suggested we do an episode on ‘retirement energy’ after one of her favourites, Elin Hildebrand, announced she was stepping back from her regular writing pace. Writers obviously don’t have the same working structures as those in other careers and the decision to step back or retire can happen for a variety of reasons. Rach also suggested that we chat to fellow Weste...

In this episode Rachael Johns and Sophie Green talk about the parts of writing that we may or may not find tricky: no, not the existential stuff like 'I feel like I'm ripping my soul out of my body' (NB: we don't) but the technical stuff ... showing vs telling, action tags and dialogue tags, keeping track of timelines, whether or not we describe our characters' appearances, and other subjects of t...

In this episode Rach and Soph talk about their Farmer Wants a Wife viewing, Rach asks Soph if she'd ever write a country music novel and we have a special guest: rural fiction author Renae Black. Renae had some questions about literary agents and Sophie used to be one, so we talk about the reasons for having one or not and, if you want one, how you’d choose one. Rach also asks Soph if she has a ta...

This week bestselling authors Rachael Johns and Sophie Green answer a couple of listener questions - one from a writer we’ll call Mindy, as she wishes to remain anonymous, and another from Ike Levick. In the course of answering their questions Rach and Soph talk about why they write, how they define success, and how they move past blocks in their writing and get out of their own way. If you have a...

Rachael Johns decided to scale back her presence on social media for a little while - not leaving it entirely but restricting how much time she spent on it. With two books to write this year, it's no surprise she needed the time. The surprise came when around the same time as she made that decision she discovered that fellow Western Australian and international bestselling author Natasha Lester ma...

The editorial process is something every published author goes through but which time and repetition tends not to ameliorate … alas!  In this episode bestselling novelists Rachael Johns and Sophie Green talk about the different stages of the editorial process, both the ones we go through before turning in a manuscript and what happens as a manuscript is turned into a book. Hopefully it’s inte...

When Soph met author Amanda Knight at an event in Sydney for Rach's THE OTHER BRIDGET they chatted about the podcast that Rach and Soph had already started recording, and Soph mentioned that we would love to have questions from listeners. Amanda said that there was a subject she’d be interested in talking about: imposter syndrome.  So the three of us did talk about it, at length, on episode 7...

We're up to episode 6! How did that happen? In this episode Rach and Soph talk about their writing processes; whether they follow rules when they write; what happens in head hopping, Rach's panic about her new manuscript and how Soph has inadvertently become her writing therapist.  During the episode Soph mentions Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies quiz and you can find that here . Writers - do...