Dear Rach & Soph
Sophie Hamley
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Top 10 Dear Rach & Soph Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Dear Rach & Soph episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Dear Rach & Soph for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Dear Rach & Soph episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
Season 2, episode 3 - Writing spicy scenes
Dear Rach & Soph
09/21/24 • 54 min
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’t write spicy books you may have written spicy scenes anyway.
Soph reads spicy books. Both Rach and Soph have both written spicy books - although Soph's are no longer available and were under a completely different name - and Rach writes spicy scenes in other books. So when Rach suggested we talk about writing spicy scenes, of course Soph agreed.
What follows in this podcast episode is Soph doing a lot of laughing and Rach essentially giving a masterclass in how to write spicy scenes. [Note from Soph: writers, I thoroughly suggest you take notes because she has so many good tips!]
Writers - do you have a challenge or conundrum, or a question about process, how to get started, or anything at all to do with writing? We’d love to be your writing agony aunts.
Readers - we would love to hear from you too! You can ask us questions about our books ... and we’d also be happy to be YOUR agony aunts. We may not have professional qualifications but we sort out problems for our characters all the time, so if you’d like to get something off your chest/ask for some input/just see what we think about something, let us know.
If you have a question for us, please email [email protected] and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line.
And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email.
For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com
Rachael's latest book is The Other Bridget
Her next book is The Work Wife (to be published in January 2025)
For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com
Sophie's latest book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (published in August 2024)
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dear Rach & Soph season 2, episode 8 - Listener questions
Dear Rach & Soph
10/26/24 • 56 min
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 and we both answer a question from a listener who wished to remain anonymous. That question is about lack of support from a spouse for writing, and we are blunt in our answers but hopeful that, with that, the writer who contacted us can find something helpful in it. Rach and I are probably both too long in the tooth to not be blunt these days, and I've personally found that addressing hard things head-on is better than trying to dance around them.
***
Writers - do you have a challenge or conundrum, or a question about process, how to get started, or anything at all to do with writing? We’d love to be your writing agony aunts.
Readers - we would love to hear from you too! You can ask us questions about our books ... and we’d also be happy to be YOUR agony aunts. We may not have professional qualifications but we sort out problems for our characters all the time, so if you’d like to get something off your chest/ask for some input/just see what we think about something, let us know.
If you have a question for us, please email [email protected] and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line.
And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email.
For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com
Rachael's latest book is The Other Bridget (2024)
For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com
Sophie's latest book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (2024)
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
11/23/24 • 56 min
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 not like three-star reviews. You’ll have to listen to find out whether or not Soph pays attention to reviews.
This was the first time Soph had met Sally, although of course she was very much aware of her as the author of international bestsellers such as THE SOULMATE and THE YOUNGER WIFE. Sally is delightful - so interesting and funny - so we loved having this chat with her. Sally’s latest book is THE DARLING GIRLS.
***
Writers - do you have a challenge or conundrum, or a question about process, how to get started, or anything at all to do with writing? We’d love to be your writing agony aunts.
Readers - we would love to hear from you too! You can ask us questions about our books ... and we’d also be happy to be YOUR agony aunts. We may not have professional qualifications but we sort out problems for our characters all the time, so if you’d like to get something off your chest/ask for some input/just see what we think about something, let us know.
If you have a question for us, please email [email protected] and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line.
And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email.
For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com
Rachael's latest book is Outback Reunion (2024)
For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com
Sophie's latest book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (2024)
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
11/02/24 • 63 min
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 own near-death experience to for a chapter in THE SHELLY BAY LADIES SWIMMING CIRCLE and then subsequently forgets details about a character in that novel (hey, it happens!) so please enjoy her correcting herself ...
At the start of the episode Rach talks about attending the recent Festival of Fiction in Perth, organised by @tesswoods. As the Perth Writers Festival is not taking place next year, perhaps this festival can return! Do let us know if you went to it and, if so, what you thought - and if you agree with the attendee who thought there should be ‘more memoir’ in a fiction festival ...!
Writers - do you have a challenge or conundrum, or a question about process, how to get started, or anything at all to do with writing? We’d love to be your writing agony aunts.
Readers - we would love to hear from you too! You can ask us questions about our books ... and we’d also be happy to be YOUR agony aunts. We may not have professional qualifications but we sort out problems for our characters all the time, so if you’d like to get something off your chest/ask for some input/just see what we think about something, let us know.
If you have a question for us, please email [email protected] and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line.
And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email.
For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com
Rachael's latest book is Outback Reunion (2024)
For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com
Sophie's latest book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (2024)
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episode 11 - All about agents (with special guest Renae Black)
Dear Rach & Soph
05/04/24 • 61 min
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 tattoo - and she wants to know if any of you have a literary-themed tattoo ...
We recorded this one before last week’s episode, so you’ll hear Rach saying it’s her first time introducing the episode ... even though she introduced last week’s. This is our prerogative, to change order!
Visit Renae Black's website: https://renaeblack.com/
Writers - do you have a challenge or conundrum, or a question about process, how to get started, or anything at all to do with writing? We’d love to be your writing agony aunts.
Readers - we would love to hear from you too! You can ask us questions about our books ... and we’d also be happy to be YOUR agony aunts. We may not have professional qualifications but we sort out problems for our characters all the time, so if you’d like to get something off your chest/ask for some input/just see what we think about something, let us know.
If you have a question for us, please email [email protected] and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line.
And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email.
For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com
Rachael's latest book is The Other Bridget
Her next book is The Work Wife (to be published in January 2025)
For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com
Sophie's latest book is Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
Her next book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (to be published in August 2024)
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episode 1: The Other Bridget
Dear Rach & Soph
02/25/24 • 56 min
For this first episode Rach and Soph talk about The Other Bridget, Rach's latest novel, published in 2024. And they talk about a few other things too, including how they first met, the novels of Curtis Sittenfeld and eating disorders.
But it’s called ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ for a reason - YOU! We would love to answer your questions.
Writers - do you have a challenge or conundrum, or a question about process, how to get started, or anything at all to do with writing? We’d love to be your writing agony aunts.
Readers - we would love to hear from you too! You can ask us questions about our books ... and we’d also be happy to be YOUR agony aunts. We may not have professional qualifications but we sort out problems for our characters all the time, so if you’d like to get something off your chest/ask for some input/just see what we think about something, let us know.
If you have a question for us, please email [email protected] and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line.
And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email.
For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com
For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dear Rach & Soph season 2, episode 4 - Staying published, with guest Christine Wells
Dear Rach & Soph
09/28/24 • 64 min
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, THE PARIS GOWN, below.
***
Christine Wells writes historical fiction featuring strong, fascinating women.
After graduating from university with a law degree, Christine worked in a large city firm, specialising in corporate mergers and acquisitions. She might still be a lawyer if she hadn’t accepted a challenge from her friend to try her hand at a novel.
Christine has gone on to publish sixteen novels set in periods ranging from Georgian England to post World War II France. Her next novel is The Paris Gown and it will be published in August this year.
Passionate about helping other writers learn the craft and business of writing fiction, Christine enjoys mentoring and teaching workshops whenever her schedule permits.
About THE PARIS GOWN
Paris, 1956
Three friends—Claire, Gina, and Margot—who parted as very young women with their whole lives ahead of them, reunite in Paris years later, determined to start life anew.
Parisian Claire has been working hard to become a Michelin-starred chef one day, but ever since the heady time she spent in the company of socialites Gina and Margot, her dream has been to own a Dior gown. This seemed like a far-off fantasy, until the eccentric and wealthy Madame Vaughn, who lives above Claire’s family brasserie, abruptly leaves Paris, asking Claire to mind her apartment. More bafflingly, Madame Vaughn also makes Claire a very special gift: a stunning Dior gown.
Meanwhile Gina, a cool American blue blood, lands on Claire’s doorstep nursing a broken heart and a broken engagement after her father lost all of the family money in a risky business venture. A journalist aspiring to be a novelist, Gina has returned to Paris in the hopes of pursuing her dream. But when her father begs her to attend the United States Embassy ball in the hopes of persuading Hal Sanders, her former fiancé, to invest in her father’s new business venture, she is torn. She wants to help her father, but seeing Hal again will be exquisitely painful. And what on earth is she going to wear?
Warm-hearted Claire insists Gina wear the Dior gown to the ball, and after some hesitation, Gina accepts. At Dior for Gina’s fitting, who should assist them but Margot, the friend they thought had gone back to Australia to be married. But Margot is living in Paris and working at Dior under an assumed name, and clearly, she is not happy to have been found.
Is their close friendship at an end? Or will the wonder and delight of the Dior gown bring these young women back together?
Gorgeous, perfectly fitted, lustrous and luxurious, the Dior gown has the power to change lives—as these three remarkable women are about to discover...
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
11/30/24 • 72 min
From time to time on this pod and elsewhere Rachael Johns mentions her virtual assistant, Annie Bucknall. Through her business Well Creative Annie helps Rach with her social media, website and newsletter, and recently moved that newsletter to Substack.
Rach and Soph have been talking about Substack, especially about the fact that there’s a lot of book coverage on there at a time when book coverage is disappearing from mainstream media. We have read some opinion pieces (on Substack) about how traditional media should no longer be the focus for book promotion. As authors who have books recently released and due for release next year, we have to think about these things, as our publishers will do some promotion but can’t do it all, and while some authors will say that they ‘just want to write’, it has never been the case, really, that authors can just write. If we believe in our books we want them to reach readers and we need to give them the best chance of doing so.
However, there’s plenty authors don’t know about book promotion and don’t have time to do or learn. That’s where someone like Annie comes in. Rach has always raved about Annie, so we thought we’d talk to her about what she does for her author clients, why social media is important for authors, and also whether Substack is the right platform for newsletters.
While we’re talking about Annie’s business, this is not sponsored content - we are talking about it because we want to. And thanks to this chat Soph became a client of Annie’s because there are some things she just doesn’t have time for either!
For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com
Rachael's latest book is Outback Reunion (2024)
For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com
Sophie's latest book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (2024)
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Sophie's latest book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (2024)
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episode 4: We have listener questions!
Dear Rach & Soph
03/16/24 • 45 min
In the fourth episode of Dear Rach & Soph, Rachael Johns and Sophie Green answer some listener questions about motivation and getting unstuck. And in the course of doing so Sophie talks about the importance of dancing and there is mention of possibly-maybe posting a playlist. That playlist can be found on Spotify and YouTube.
The track listing is:
‘Nataraja’- The Dum Dum Project
‘Im Ninalou’ - Cheb i Sabbah
‘Into the Groove’ - Madonna
‘Dig’ - Fanny Lumsden
‘Abalele’ - Kabza De Small, DJ Maphorisa ft Ami Faku
The book mentioned in this podcast is DANCING IN THE STREETS by Barbara Ehrenreich.
Writers - do you have a challenge or conundrum, or a question about process, how to get started, or anything at all to do with writing? We’d love to be your writing agony aunts.
Readers - we would love to hear from you too! You can ask us questions about our books ... and we’d also be happy to be YOUR agony aunts. We may not have professional qualifications but we sort out problems for our characters all the time, so if you’d like to get something off your chest/ask for some input/just see what we think about something, let us know.
If you have a question for us, please email [email protected] and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line.
And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email.
For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com
For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Season 2, episode 7 - Craft books
Dear Rach & Soph
10/19/24 • 62 min
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 of mentioning:
Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder
Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody
Pride and Prejudice: The Story Grid Edition by Jane Austen, Shawn Coyne
Into the Woods by John Yorke
Romancing the Beat: Story Structure for Romance Novels by Gwen Hayes
The Complete Writers Guide to Heroes and Heroines: 16 Master Archetypes by Tami D Cowden, Carolyn LaFever, Sue Viders
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
45 Master Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt
Ten Things About Writing by Joanne Harris
Bestseller by Celia Bradfield
Story Trumps Structure by Steven James
The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi
Writing into the Dark by Dean Wesley Smith
The Pocket Guide to Pantsing by M.L. Ronn
The Bestseller Code by Jodie Archer and Matthew L Jockers
Should we start a ‘craft book’ club? Rach already has her online book club which is for reading fiction, mainly, but if you’re a writer and you’d be interested in a craft book club, let one of us know in the comments or by DM or whatever means works for you.
***
Writers - do you have a challenge or conundrum, or a question about process, how to get started, or anything at all to do with writing? We’d love to be your writing agony aunts.
Readers - we would love to hear from you too! You can ask us questions about our books ... and we’d also be happy to be YOUR agony aunts. We may not have professional qualifications but we sort out problems for our characters all the time, so if you’d like to get something off your chest/ask for some input/just see what we think about something, let us know.
If you have a question for us, please email [email protected] and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line.
And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email.
For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com
Rachael's latest book is The Other Bridget
Her next book is The Work Wife (to be published in January 2025)
For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com
Sophie's latest book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (published in August 2024)
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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FAQ
How many episodes does Dear Rach & Soph have?
Dear Rach & Soph currently has 31 episodes available.
What topics does Dear Rach & Soph cover?
The podcast is about Fiction, Novels, Writing, Podcasts, Books, Australian and Arts.
What is the most popular episode on Dear Rach & Soph?
The episode title 'Episode 16 - Entering competitions and publishing first novels' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Dear Rach & Soph?
The average episode length on Dear Rach & Soph is 60 minutes.
How often are episodes of Dear Rach & Soph released?
Episodes of Dear Rach & Soph are typically released every 7 days.
When was the first episode of Dear Rach & Soph?
The first episode of Dear Rach & Soph was released on Feb 25, 2024.
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