L Penelope : Blending Creativity & Logic in Writing and Awesome Con 2024

Rob Lee (00:00:10) - And welcome to the truth in this art. I am your host, Rob Lee, and this is your go to podcast for conversations at the intersection of arts, culture and community. Today I am super excited to continue this this arc of interviews for Awesome Con 2024., that's Washington, DC's Comic Con, and my next guest is an award winning author whose debut was hailed by time magazine as one of the 100 best fantasy books of all time. With a rich background in film production and a passion for storytelling that bridges fantasy and paranormal romance, her works, including The Monsters We Defy and Daughter of the Merciful Deep, have captivated audiences and critics alike. Please welcome Leslye. Penelope. Welcome to the podcast.

Leslye Penelope (00:00:58) - Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

Rob Lee (00:01:00) - Thank you for coming on and making the time. And as I always do, this is it's going to be a running bit on this podcast., because I've been using more of the video stuff. Usually it's audio.

Rob Lee (00:01:11) - Whenever I'm talking with someone who's wearing glasses, I must say, it's great to talk to a bespectacled individual.

Leslye Penelope (00:01:18) - That's a great word. Bespectacled, yes. I'm not a big contact lens individual, a bespectacled individual.

Rob Lee (00:01:25) - You get it, you get it., yeah. This is a person that I've been told I can't wear contacts. So whenever I'm like.

Leslye Penelope (00:01:31) - Do.

Rob Lee (00:01:32) - You look. Hi. It's right there.

Leslye Penelope (00:01:34) - Right?

Rob Lee (00:01:36) - So, you know, I gave the the sort of online cut and paste, you know, introduction. And I find often when I interview folks that how they may present themselves to an audience, especially in new audience or even in existing audience, it's a little bit better, a little bit more refined, or even goes deeper when it comes directly from them. So, if you will, could you introduce yourself in your own words? It goes beyond the bio and quote unquote the artist statement. So if you will, please.

Leslye Penelope (00:02:04) - Sure. I'm a lifelong writer., I know I my bio, my official bio says I've been writing since I could hold a pen, and it's absolutely true.

Leslye Penelope (00:02:13) - I've actually defined my life for such a long time as being a writer, even before I believed I could publish, before I thought about publishing, it was just a part of me. So whether I was just writing to myself in my journals or mostly in my journals, or trying to get published in magazines or, you know, and then eventually books, it's just always been part of who I am. It's how I make sense of the world. It's how I make sense of my feelings and emotions and all of the confusing things that happen when you grow up and as you become an adult and as you continue adulting., and then the fantasy and paranormal and romance are things that I also love dearly. So those end up in my books, you know, whether I try to put them in there or not. I didn't intend to write fantasy necessarily, but whatever. I wrote something magical, something speculative, made its way into my fiction, so I just embraced it.

Rob Lee (00:03:05) - Thank you. Saying it goes deeper.

Rob Lee (00:03:07) - See, I guess,, so, so two quick like follow ups in that as we, we think back,, a little bit,, what were you reading growing up, like, what were you into growing up like as a young person?

Leslye Penelope (00:03:21) - I read everything, I read stuff I shouldn't be reading. So I grew up reading the classics, like Jane Eyre. I loved Secret Garden, all that kind of stuff. And then I was reading Stephen King way Too Young. I read it in the sixth grade. I didn't sleep for days. I did a book report on beloved in the sixth grade. Also, like my, I was not,, my parents. As long as I was reading, they were happy. And, you know, they had all these bookshelves. And my dad was a huge reader. So there were just books around, and no one was monitoring what I was reading either, obviously. So I, I but yeah, across the board, anything I could get my hands on that was fiction.

Leslye Penelope (00:03:59) - , from a very young age.

Rob Lee (00:04:01) - I hear you, I dig it., you know, I think some of the things that we, we, we are exposed to or even just become, like, kind of interested in, even if it's sort of passing and we eventually return back to it., I know in doing this podcast, I kind of like, looked over an experience that I had, and that's why I kind of worked this question in,, as part of it,, the introductory piece, I talked to a person in theater, and they were the background. And, you know, I was just like, I don't know how I got to this whole podcast thing. And being a and she was like, so what were you doing when you were younger? And I was like, I do remember being a masters of ceremony of like for, you know, as a kid. And she was like, sounds like you were gravitating towards the stage really young. And I was like, oh, true.

Rob Lee (00:04:47) - So I, I'm curious about that when it comes to folks like, what are those sort of like earlier moments and then sort of passing that, what are some of those later moments. So, you know, obviously you're reading a bit of everything. You know, as a young person, you know, further down the line, what are some of those other moments that kind of informed, like the direction you ultimately wanted to go into? Whether it be in writing or whether it's in sort of fantasy and paranormal romance. But, you know, what were some of those other moments that come to mind as you were a bit older?

Leslye Penelope (00:05:19) - So I went to undergrad, I went to Howard University for film production, and I wanted to edit films originally and then, but I didn't want to move to Los Angeles, and I decided I didn't want to move to New York. So being in the actual film production industry was difficult. But I always wanted to create something. And in college I discovered Octavia Butler.

Leslye Penelope (00:05:40) - The first book I read from hers was Wild Seed, which is still my favorite book of hers, and that led me to discovering more speculative fiction authors, black ones specifically. And so I was reading Nalo Hopkinson and I Know What You Do, and then eventually NTK Jemisin. And so finding that grounding, you know, as a young person, I read Virginia Hamilton, who had this series called Justice and Her Brothers, which I think is long out of print, but it was very much, you know, like, I guess it would be a Ya fantasy with black people. And even though I didn't stay in that genre specifically, as I got older, I remembered that and I had these callbacks. So, you know, in high school and college, I was in literary magazines. I was working on them. I was editing or. Yeah, just on the staff. So like I said, it was always a part of my life. And I think that just being more grounded in black speculative fiction and wanting to explore that some more.

Leslye Penelope (00:06:34) - When I started writing more, I moved from Maryland, where I grew up, mostly to Virginia, and I was living in Norfolk, Virginia, and didn't know anybody. And I worked from home at the time. And so I started taking these writing workshops at the Muse Writers Center. And so it was being in workshop is where I, I eventually figured out that, hey, I think I might actually be able to write something longer than a short story. And like, all these things kind of connect over the, you know, this kind of, I guess, ten year time span of between college and when I started writing, what became my first novel. And,, because the writing was constant and then just different experiences of how do I how do I do that? Not just for myself? Well, if you're in a workshop, there's other people who are expecting pages from you every couple of weeks. So that just kept me pushing through. Even when I didn't want to write, I was like, oh, well, I've got 15 pages to do.

Leslye Penelope (00:07:26) - I got to, I got to do something. And that's the beginning of what became a discipline that I've honed, you know, as I became published.

Rob Lee (00:07:34) - Thank you, thank you. And I'm definitely got a little bit more about process as a good, good thing to touch on early on., so I read this and I thought it was really funny,, that your bio mentions you dream in HTML correctly., so talk a bit about blending some of the the logical with the creative. The because I asked that because outside of doing this and you know, I had experience in painting and all of this stuff, I'm a data analyst by day. So when I tell folks that they're like, oh, how do those things go together? So I want to hear about your intersection with that. And as a writer and having the that sort of you see HTML, I was like, all right. Or like I put SQL in mind, you know. Right.

Leslye Penelope (00:08:21) - Yeah. So my minor was computer science.

Leslye Penelope (00:08:24) - I went and got a master's in multimedia. So I was always combining. I always say I'm half. I'm equally left brain and right brain because there's always been the creative and the technical. I was always interested. I was the computer person of my family. I was, you know, learning dos as it was when I was a kid and whatever computer came into the house, I would, you know, take it apart, rebuild it and try to figure out how it worked and all of that stuff. And as I was always also doing the writing and I was dancing and they tried to make me do other like, acting and stuff, and I was like, no, that's not I'm firmly behind the scenes person. But, yeah. So just having that and then I got a career in website development, which is what I still do for my day job. I build websites,, and so yeah, in terms of the writing, does it connect? I think it does. I think there is some part of my mind which is organized and which treats writing problems specifically algorithmically.

Leslye Penelope (00:09:16) - So I come up with ways to,, you know, try to figure out, like diagnose the problem that I'm having, if I'm having a plot problem and really break it down into the component parts and almost treating, especially editing like QA, like I have an episode of my podcast, I think it's about how the QA process is similar to the editing process of writing a novel. You know, you're you're trying to find the whole you're you're testing it against a set of criteria that you have, like what is working character, plot,, you know, worldbuilding, setting. Like, you go through all of these parts of fiction and say, what's working, what's not, how do they connect? How can I test it? And I literally have had dreams in HTML, which is incredibly disturbing, actually.

Rob Lee (00:10:02) - That's that's great. I love I love the way you explained it because,, I, I apply a bit of that in going about my. My process and doing this, this podcast and, you know, and all of the other stuff that goes into it because it's not just, hey, get put on a mic and fling it into the universe.

Rob Lee (00:10:18) - That's not how that happens. It's intentionality that goes along with it. And,, you know, also having, you know, this background of like, you know, I was like business science. So it was in that sort of area. So it wasn't the sexy stuff, it was the analytical stuff. So always when I'm putting together a grant or something like that, some sort of application, it's like, oh, I know how to work with a spreadsheet. I know how to, you know, do this sort of system. And I think the cool thing about it is being able to replicate it. So taking some of the stuff that I do professionally and has done for a while, and sort of those ideas and applying that to something creative. So when I'm bringing on someone that I'm working with or even the process of onboarding someone for an interview, I'm like, all right, what do I need? So it's easier on me. And the last thing I'll say with it and revisiting it, I see how systematic it is.

Rob Lee (00:11:09) - And, I've been teaching,, over the last like six months, a group of high school students at an art school. I've been teaching in podcasting, and I remember I was talking with one of the students yesterday and she was like, how do you set this mic up? And I go through it very systematically. And she's like, I have confused. And I was like, oh, right, artists let me go back. But and, it was it was cool. It was cool. So I gotta ask, you know, sort of the writing process that's sort of the set, the elephant. Maybe it is the elephant in the room. How do you go about it? Like what is the the initial like, like step? Like when I look at this, the only thing I can really think of is sort of what my process is to try to compare itself. Definitely want to hear about how you go about yours., you know, I'm thinking of certain themes, and then I go through the booking process and all of that and very much working off of a schedule.

Rob Lee (00:12:03) - So, you know, and I've talked to authors, I've talked to a lot of different people who have a set process. So I want to hear your unique process. How do you go about it? Where do you start? What's in the middle, and when do you know? Like, all right, I'm getting close. Getting close. I think I might be done. Maybe it's another edit here.

Leslye Penelope (00:12:19) - So at the beginning, you know, I try to take the inspiration, the spark. That's what I call the story seed. What is this thing, this idea that I have. And usually it's just like this little thing, this little sea that you're going to plant and water and take care of and focus on that. I have come up with a process and then try to start teaching it to people just because, yeah, it's always the question like, how do you people have this question all the time? How do you do this? Where do your ideas come from? Well, they come from everywhere.

Leslye Penelope (00:12:47) - And so once I have an idea like my recent novel, The Monsters, we Defy, the idea at its core at the beginning was I want to do a Harlem Renaissance era fantasy heist. That was,, I think I saw a tweet about that. I was like, oh, I would want to read that. I've never read anything like that. But I that's all I had. I didn't have characters, I didn't know what they were stealing. And so I started building from there and it was like, well, I don't want to do Harlem. A it was the beginning of the pandemic and I couldn't travel to New York. I'm in Maryland, but my family's from DC. I lived in DC, DC for a while. I haven't read enough books that take place in DC, and I started researching this Harlem Renaissance era and discovering all this fascinating stuff that was happening in DC at the time that I didn't know about. So I figured a lot of other people probably didn't know about. And then it's like, okay, who are these characters? What are the characters that I want to see? So on that idea, not having any characters, it was like, well, it's 1920s, 1930s.

Leslye Penelope (00:13:42) - Here are the kind of archetypes of black people I want to see. I want a Pullman porter. I want a World War One veteran. I want maybe someone who's passing for white. I want like a jazz musician. I want, you know, all these things and just made this big list. And as a part of the research process and brainstorming all the different ideas, I like everything out. That was one of the things I learned in screenwriting. It was just I had a professor, Haley Grima, who's a filmmaker who's extremely good. He was my screenwriting professor, and he taught us to vomit out the first draft, essentially, like just everything on the table. No bad ideas, right? Then you the metaphor falls apart when you have to clean up the vomit. But, you know, it's taking all of that and then bringing it back to that original idea. And like, what is fascinating about the core of the idea, because at the beginning stage of a novel, anything is possible, you know, we're the gods of our own worlds, and that can be really overwhelming.

Leslye Penelope (00:14:33) - So there's a way to ground yourself and be like, okay, I'm really excited about this idea of a heist. I've never done a heist story before. I need a crew. So let me find five characters that I can that are all different from each other, that are going to butt heads and have conflict, and then also have a found family and have all the lovely things we love about heists. And then I needed a main character, and I did more research and I found her. So it starts coming together. As long as you have these kind of pillars to come back to. So when you're like, okay, these ten things can happen while only one of them, you know, can actually happen in the novel. So how do I make that decision? That comes back to the thing that excites me to back to my spark or my story seed. And then I eventually come up with a plot. So I've been plotting now, as we speak for the past six weeks on a new novel, I finally had to knock on wood.

Leslye Penelope (00:15:25) - I think I finally cracked it, but,, it's really the painstaking process. But I'm a plotter. I love to plot, and not every author does, but I do. I brainstorm, I look at story structure, I fit all of these ideas into a structure and whittle it down and sort of shape the clay and tell it's a structure that I can then write a first draft of. And then the first draft process teaches me so much more about it that I didn't know. And then the subsequent drafts, I'm learning more. I'm asking more questions. I'm willing it down. I'm making more decisions. And how do you know when you're done? A deadline always helps. You know, when I'm writing to deadline, it's like I'm going to be done on, you know, June 1st because that's what it's do. But,, you know, you feel it. You kind of have to have this intuition as, as a creative. I think you feel when things are wrong, you feel when things are going right, and you get as far as you can, and then you have someone else tell you what's going on.

Leslye Penelope (00:16:21) - So I really I push it as far as I can until I feel like I'm not able to make it any better without someone else's feedback. And then as soon as you get that feedback, you're like, oh, of course there's all these things that I should have realized that I just couldn't see because I'd been in it. So long. And so it's kind of a back and forth between doing as much as you can, getting some trusted person who can give you good constructive criticism, that's not going to derail you, and it's not going to make you want to quit or throw up your hands and feel like a terrible, you know, artist., and then going back again, doing another iteration, taking it as far as you can and then having that feedback loop.

Rob Lee (00:16:56) - Thank you. That that is that is great., and it's funny because some of the recent questions that I've been going through, I keep like a spreadsheet of questions, which sounds really nerdy, but I keep a spreadsheet of questions and I'm going through and I'm editing and tweaking them and taking from,, there's no one thing was sort of the I believe it was George Carlin back in the day.

Rob Lee (00:17:18) - He would get rid of his old jokes at a certain point. It's like, I want to recycle these. It's like, I've done these now moving to the next one. And I would do that. I would go through and it's like, well, I asked these questions before and this sort of six month period. So these are gone. Let's, you know, restart. But I'll say this, the process of writing questions is the hardest part of this whole sort of workflow of going from, oh, I'm interested in talking to these folks to doing the research. Research is exciting because it's like, oh, this is what this oh HTML. Yeah. Got it. And then sort of getting to this part of actually doing the interview and I call it this, and you might like this, you might not. But sometimes I like that the questions I'm like, I'm free Janet right now. She's improv right now. But there are parts in there that are more challenging, sort of,, you know, everybody has their challenges challenging parts within their process of, you know, idea that that seed that you're nurturing to the like final.

Rob Lee (00:18:15) - It's out there. What is that for you? What is the part of that overall process for you that is the most challenging part, or even the part that you've maybe changed the most, you know, from one novel to the next?

Leslye Penelope (00:18:30) - Yeah, the most challenging part is that feeling of overwhelm when you're at the beginning of the journey and you kind of know where you want to go, but there's just so many different paths to get there. You know, if you don't have a clear idea, like some books come to me as a character and that can be helpful. But then it's like, well, what is this character doing? Some books come as a scenario or a situation, and I don't have the character, so I have to find them and there's just anything can happen. So decision fatigue is such a real thing. You know, I'll spend 2 or 3 hours in the morning writing and feel like I just worked out at the gym, like I will be completely exhausted, mentally exhausted, and then I have to move into other things, you know, other work for the day and that decision fatigue can get to you.

Leslye Penelope (00:19:13) - So I think that's a big thing that that's changed over the years as I've been writing more and more books and honing the process, I've tried to make it as efficient as possible. Yeah, as efficient as possible., and that just means trying to get the decisions made faster and,, so that I don't have to change them as much later and realizing that there's always going to be, you know, it's never going to be like coding. You can have some kind of metaphors there, but it's still and coding is creative. I totally believe that. But, you know, in this I can't make it a straight A to B or A to Z situation. There's going to be pathways. And this pathways are actually beneficial and helpful because they teach me something that I have to learn. And if I didn't go down them then the story wouldn't be as rich or as full. So I'm trying to be efficient and not waste time, but at the same time allow myself freedom and flexibility and lack of judgment in the early stages so that I'm not cutting off things that could be great ideas for the story because they're taking a long time.

Leslye Penelope (00:20:21) - You know, right now I'm a little frustrated that it's taken me so long to come up with the plot, but at the same time, you know, it's going to be such a much better story. And I have every confidence in the world. At the end of this process, I'm going to have a book that I'm super proud of that I hope readers will love as well.

Rob Lee (00:20:36) - That's fantastic., I talk about, you know, outside of even before it gets to the spreadsheet, right? That that glorious spreadsheet that I'm always deleting., I keep a notepad or something with me, and it's the Austin Kleon thing you talk about, like, keep your mistakes in there. You know, like all of the marks that I etched out or even, you know, in doing, doing these interviews, like I don't have, like a set of questions and, but I prefer to really go with the flow of the conversation as an art to, to conversation. Right. So sometimes you might ask some something very rigid and it's very to the point and then it's just like, all right, cool.

Rob Lee (00:21:13) - I could go deeper and get a much more fleshed out answer or more interesting answer, but it's kind of like figuring it out. And you don't know that unless you just as they say, shoot your shot or f around to find out. As I like to say, that's how I'm saying public. So in going back a bit,, what was the experience having your debut novel,, A Song of Blood and Stone, recognized by time magazine, is one of the best fantasy books of all time. Like, like, let's let's clap it up for that for one. But also, what was that experience like? How has that been?

Leslye Penelope (00:21:50) - Yeah. So the way that I found out about that, I was I used to subscribe to this service where they would, you know, tell you when someone was talking about you online because I was trying to track all my mentions and I saw this random website, because when things happen, there's other like weird websites that take the feed and republish it. So I saw this and I'm like, that's not a real website.

Leslye Penelope (00:22:10) - Time magazine talking about me. Oh, this is fake. Something is just like a scam or whatever. So I didn't pay attention to it. And then finally someone else was like, Leslye, did you see this? And then I looked and I was like, time magazine, like the real time magazine. And it was just mind blowing. Yeah, 100 best fantasy novels of all time. It's crazy like. And it was, it was mind blowing., they had chosen it in 2018 as one of the top ten fantasy books of 2018, which had already been, you know, pretty crazy. And then I guess they took from that list and moved it up. But it's been I mean, it's an incredible honor. Like I put it was my first novel, and I don't even know which version it was because they're actually three versions of Song of Blood and Stone. I self-published the first one, then I sold that to a traditional publisher, and they put it out in hardcover. And then they asked me to do a special edition, which is 40,000 words longer, which is the trade paperback version that's out now.

Leslye Penelope (00:23:01) - Yes. I added 40,000 words to a book that was on the shelf in like four months. And,, it was just such a it was such a roller coaster ride, that publishing journey that's, you know, pretty unusual to have books that were on the shelf as self-published be taken by a press like Saint Martin's Press and republished. And I was grateful for that experience and that any kind of recognition as an author, it just I mean, it feels really good. And it's it's a way to. Hopefully get the book in front of more people. You're always fighting the discoverability battle because there's so much, not only there's so many books out, there's so much other things for people to do. There's TV shows and video games, and people don't read as much as they used to. So any anything helps. And sort of this pure recognition, because it was a panel of it included other authors who made those decisions. It was just fantastic.

Rob Lee (00:23:55) - That's great. And again, you know, like when I read it, I was like, am I even qualified to talk to her? Like, what are we doing?, and, and I and I think about it in this way, and I, and I think I have an answer because judging you got your head on, right? As some people, some people don't.

Rob Lee (00:24:12) - Some people, just like I never lost. First thing was successful. No losses, all wins., I, I had,, I've been doing podcasting for about 15 years, and,, when I got around to. And not anyone can tell I've been doing it as long when I got around to doing it for probably about 12, maybe 13, I got recognized as one of the best podcasts in Baltimore, which was really cool. And I remember I had a buddy who I trust, and I kind of look like he was like, congratulations, bro. Don't let it go to your head. Keep, keep moving. Keep moving in the right direction. So when you have sort of those those early wins and sometimes those, those challenges that one encounters like, you know, I spend probably 20 minutes doing my intro before we got started trying to get it right. And that's sometimes a win. It's like, I've been doing this for a long time. Why is this such a challenge for me? Do you do that sort of inventory? Because you're right.

Rob Lee (00:25:07) - When it when it comes to the, I guess, the attention real estate like putting a podcast out there, there are hundreds of thousands of podcasts and having someone get it. There's hundreds of thousands of books having someone get it, talk about like sort of that piece of it, of having those really high highs, those big wins. But then some of those other moments that, all right, this isn't ideal. Talk about that a little bit.

Leslye Penelope (00:25:32) - Yeah I mean the publishing industry can be really difficult. And I've definitely had some highs and some lows. And you know, there's rejections even after you have sold books. If you've sold well, you could have won awards. That doesn't mean that your next book is going to sell. Well, it doesn't mean that your publisher is going to support it. It doesn't mean the bookstores are going to shelve it. And, you know a good place where people can see it. So there's so many variables and so many things that are out of your control in publishing that for me, it's there's no way that I can get a big head anytime soon because you're always it's like you're only as good as your last book.

Leslye Penelope (00:26:11) - And I don't think that way in myself, but I know the industry thinks that way. For me. I'm trying to push myself with every book. I'm trying to do something. You know, the next story is should be one that scares me, that I'm afraid to tell, that I'm not quite sure I can manage. I always want to bite off a little bit more than I can chew to keep myself growing. And that's another way, you know, I don't think I could I wouldn't be interested in doing the same thing over and over again. I would just get bored. And so the art itself is motivating, and that's kind of what I do it for. I think that because the publishing industry is so difficult, if you weren't writing anyway, like if you wouldn't write for yourself, I don't know that you were going to make it long term in this business. You have to kind of be doing it from this engine that's inside of you, that loves the work, that loves writing, and separate it from the outcomes which you literally have no control over.

Leslye Penelope (00:27:03) - The only thing I control is, is my book, how good I can make it or how much I like it, you know? And no matter how good it is, there's always going to be people who don't like it. You can't please everyone, and that is also a thing that makes you humble. You can look at, you know, all of the best books of all time that are on every list and go to Amazon and look at the one star reviews. And it would just be like, somebody doesn't like any book you can think of. It's definitely mine. So that's another way to sort of help ground yourself. And it's like, yeah, I'm writing for people who get it. There are people out there who want the stories that I have to tell, and there are plenty of people out there who don't. And the industry publishing, whether it's, you know, I do indie publishing and as well as traditional publishing, they're both very difficult. They both have their challenges., even the even something like the challenge of the deadline and,, I'm regularly given something like here, can you make this revision in seven days? Can I revise 30,000 words of this book in seven days?, why does that have to happen so fast? And then they give you reasons and you're like, all right, I guess I'm not sleeping.

Leslye Penelope (00:28:07) - So there's this there's so much that happens in it that,, yeah, for me, it's easy just to stay grounded and just be like, I gotta put my head down and just tell the best stories I can.

Rob Lee (00:28:18) - I love that it's it's this, this question I ask of, like, who are you trying to impress? And it always comes back to trying to impress myself. And, and you mentioned like sort of, you know, sometimes the, the. Getting in the process feels like if you've worked out physically and I. One of the things they talk about in the gym I've been doing like weight training for like last year and change, and I always try to stress to me, progressive overload, and it's like, you got to push yourself. And that's what I'm hearing creatively. You got to keep pushing yourself. Do those things that that scare you or even me. I'm confident in myself, but also I have some sort of this thing of I'm an outsider. I don't know if I'm qualified to talk to some of these these folks, but also I'm pushing for those interviews to more challenging interviews, the interviews with folks that it's like, oh, wow, I'm curious.

Rob Lee (00:29:05) - I'm interested. I don't know a lot about this area, but I want to get a good conversation going. And,, so yeah, I think it's always sort of pushing the boundaries. And, you know, when I look at and when you mentioned tens of thousands of words that you've added to books that have been published and or having to do a revision on tens of thousands of words, it makes my year of doing 300 plus episodes feel like light work. But, you know, but I but I think it is you get that reference point of I've been able to do this. Like granted if I have to come back to do something else that feels maybe, maybe like a challenge or a bit daunting. I already have this bank, this experience bank that it's like not it's like work. I got that it's that confidence that comes in. Yeah., now this question comes directly from a movie I saw recently, and I feel like you may have seen it., it's American fiction.

Leslye Penelope (00:30:05) - Oh, yes.

Leslye Penelope (00:30:06) - American fiction., that's such a wonderful movie.

Rob Lee (00:30:09) - I was with was with my partner, and she was like, do you see yourself in this movie in any way, shape or form? And I was like, I do, I'm not going to say who. oh. She's like, you're absolutely wrong. And I was like, fair enough, thank you., so one of the things that really stuck with me, and I want to get your take on it as an author, is that that scene when sort of the the he's I think he's in either I think he's in a bookstore and that categorization of his work. And he was like, this isn't quite categorized. Right. And I've encountered that doing this. I talked to a variety of people and I hear this, oh, well, this is the Blankety Blank podcast. I was like, it is because I am in my sensibilities. And,, but let's not pigeonhole me. Let's not do this. What are your your your thoughts on that as an author? As a as a as a black woman, you know, what are your thoughts in that area?

Leslye Penelope (00:31:05) - So yeah, there has been for a long time this tension about where should we be shelved? Is having a black bookshelf when you walk into the bookstore, is that somehow wrong? And like, for me, I mean, I definitely see both sides of it.

Leslye Penelope (00:31:19) - But also when I'm looking for a book like a black book, it's helpful to have a place to go where they are. So I never felt segregated like that. Like I know some people do, and it's a very valid point. Like, okay, yes, if you are just a black person writing a book, you know, it doesn't have to end your characters or whatever. I mean, my characters are generally always black unless I tell you otherwise., so but, you know, there's plenty of black authors who are just writing across the board and don't want to be pigeonholed. I find it as a helpful categorization for when I'm looking for something specific., but it could be much more nuanced. You know, there is a lack of nuance there where if everyone is being painted with this brush, it happens in other areas too, like Afrofuturism, where for a while, any speculative fiction by a black person was one was painted with the afrofuturist brush, regardless of whether it actually fit there or not.

Leslye Penelope (00:32:12) - And so you could be writing about the past in the future and they're like, oh, would it includes everything? Well, maybe it does, but every single speculative fiction story by black people can't possibly be Afrofuturism, because that's not actually what it means. And sometimes these things are just marketing vehicles, these genre terms, these shelves. And marketing is important for telling people how to find things. I don't know that we can trust corporations to know, especially for black audiences, how to sell to them. I think they've proven that they're not always the best. You know, a lot of things succeed in spite of the marketing or in spite of the lack of marketing, especially because black people tend to find things that they are interested in. We we have ground, you know, ground support for, for things. But yeah, I, I definitely see the point and, and especially within the movie, what monk was doing because his books were not about black people at all. It didn't seem like.

Leslye Penelope (00:33:06) - So it was especially strange for them to be shelved that way. But it doesn't personally bother me because I know that the people are looking there and can easily find stuff they want.

Rob Lee (00:33:16) - Thank you, thank you and I like your piece around the marketing thing. My like I said earlier, I was in marketing for a while and every now and again I go to cons and folks who try to pitch me on something, they're like, oh, you look like that. You must be into this. You like Lovecraft Country, you're probably gonna like this. I was like, I read your book. It's not like Lovecraft Country at all. I have the book and I did a review series on the show I go watch a lot. I was like, I was very invested early. It's not that, bro. It's all right. Speaking of cons, right. This is this is this is an attempt at a Segway. I think I've done a thing. I've done a podcast before., so we want to talk about Awesome Con a little bit.

Rob Lee (00:33:53) - We're, we're on the cusp of that. We're, you know, it's coming up very, very soon., and it's significant I think for, you know, fans, for creatives, for just I will say for lack of a better term, our people, the, the people of the fans. How important is it for like creators such as yourself to have like, that sense of community being around people? It's like, hey, I got your book, I love it, or I've read all 900,000 words that you wrote in this version of it., how important is being around folks like your peers and, and, you know, fans and just other creative folks in this space? How important is community in that way for you.

Leslye Penelope (00:34:33) - As a writer who works in this room alone all the time, having the community is essential. Having a good writer community of whether it's critique partners, I have a mastermind. So on that end, it's extremely important because otherwise I would, you know, we're social beings, humans are social beings.

Leslye Penelope (00:34:51) - And also meeting readers and getting a chance to talk to people who actually either like my books or like the genre in general, or just like books. And we can talk about other people's books all day long, which I love to do, too. It's it's fantastic. You know, I'm an introvert. I'm a violent introvert. So it is it takes a lot of energy out of me to go to events like that. But I do love Awesome Con and other events because they, I, I get a little bit of energy there and then have to go rest for a week afterwards. But like if I do a signing or just any time I get to meet readers and feed off of their energy, it does. I take that into the work and I'm like, okay, you're thinking about to a certain degree, I think about the reader and like, oh, if I as a reader would love this, I'm thinking about the readers are really going to feel this, like, are they going to cry? Can I make them cry? Can I make them laugh? All of these emotions that I want to strike in them is something that keeps me going.

Leslye Penelope (00:35:43) - When the writing is hard, when I'm stuck, if I have what you might want to call writer's block or whatever it is, there's different things that feed you during that time. And as a person who is lucky enough to have books on the shelf and have readers reading them, giving them the next book,, especially when you hear from people, they're like, oh, what are you doing next? And they were excited about it. It's the best feeling in the world is it's one of the reasons. Like you write for yourself, but when you're publishing, you know you're writing, you're publishing for other people, and you have to give the work to them when you're done, and then it belongs to them because you're done with it. You know, I try not to read reviews because that can be very difficult, but you hope that they get something out of it, and it's always nice to hear when they do.

Rob Lee (00:36:24) - Thank you. That is a great, great answer., and this is sort of the, the part B two.

Rob Lee (00:36:30) - And I got one more real question after that. And I've been adding feverishly rapid fire questions as we've been talking because that's what I do. So from the sort of like and I think that that first I guess part of the question is from the, the guest perspective. So as a, from a fan perspective, now this is where the fandom component comes in. What are what are you or what are you looking forward to. Like what parts of, you know, awesome con are you looking forward to? It can be something that's very specific for 2024 or just in general, what have you. Because, you know, like I have a few people in mind that I'm looking forward to seeing, but also it's like I'm looking forward to going into debt because I'm going to buy all the books possible. So tell me about what you're looking forward to from the fan perspective.

Leslye Penelope (00:37:15) - I love going through the artist alley and just seeing all of the artwork and discovering new people doing things, people who I'm not, who aren't on my radar necessarily.

Leslye Penelope (00:37:23) - I think that and then of course, seeing costumes and seeing people dress up. I'm not a cosplayer, but I have great respect for the people whose creativity goes in that direction., but yeah, I just I'm soaking in all that creativity, discovering new art, new books., I'm not really a comics reader, but I sometimes I'll buy comics because I like to look at them and just like to vibe off the art., yeah, that's that's where my favorite parts.

Rob Lee (00:37:47) - Thank you. Thank you. Same, same., and also doing doing this., you know, I didn't mention this earlier, but I have mentioned this to, you know, folks that are comic people, writers, anchors and so on, that that was actually the creative area I wanted to go into. And that was a kid. I wanted to be a comic book artist. And I was trying to do all of the things. And just like, you know, several people do these, right? It's a specialized right.

Rob Lee (00:38:13) - You can't be the writer anchor, you know, the whole thing. So it's like revisiting that. And, you know, one of the things, again, in sort of this revisiting stuff,, from,, creative goals past was,, you know, in doing this and then having these conversations with great folks such as yourself, super creative folks such as yourself, being able to revisit some of those things and not just letting that fall off like, oh, I'm not that anymore. It's like, no, no, you always were that maybe you're doing it in a different way. So I was able to revisit it. And I saw in your background,, maybe the subject matter that I'm talking about in the comic that I'm writing. I'm writing a comic about cats. It's about cat lawyers. And,, I did a group of those and the, I guess the sort of creative energy spread in a way where,, my partner, she has a background and I'll share, you know, a detail about her after we wrap on this,, conversation.

Rob Lee (00:39:10) - But she was able to, you know, dive back into comics. She's actually had one published, and she was like, kind of gave it up. English major, all of that stuff. And both of us in the IT field and, you know, sort of this. And she was like, I don't know if I should do comics. I was like, do you enjoy comics? And she went back in and she did comics again based on cats, but they're cat podcasters, and one of them might be based on me. And it's he has a lot more hair than I do, and he's a tiger. It's great. So it's just something about sort of that spirit of creativity. And a lot of it comes from conventions like Awesome Con. That's really sort of the root of it.

Leslye Penelope (00:39:47) - Oh wow, that sounds amazing. I love cat lawyers and cat podcasters.

Rob Lee (00:39:51) - I'll make sure you get an advance copy., yeah.

Leslye Penelope (00:39:53) - Thank you.

Rob Lee (00:39:54) - Yeah, totally., so this is the sort of last piece I always like to close on, sort of the real questions with,, just something that folks can that if they're, like, super curious and they want to dive into this, this, this field, they want to be a writer and they want to do it.

Rob Lee (00:40:09) - They want to basically, I want to do what you do. What would be the piece of advice you would share to someone who is interested in breaking into fantasy, paranormal, romance and writing their 100,000 words and then adding another 50,000? To what advice would you give for someone who's interested?

Leslye Penelope (00:40:27) - You have to read, and I think if you're interested in it, you probably do read a lot, but keep reading and know what's out there.. Know what? It's not your competition. These are the this is just the milieu that you're existing in. Because if you think about it, readers love to read. So I don't think of other authors as my competition, but I'm always interested in in their stories and what they're doing. And then it gives me ideas. You know, you mentioned Austin Kleon, who talked about artists steel, you know, like steel, like an artist. It's not plagiarism. It's like being inspired by someone's story and then taking it in a whole different direction and find the community.

Leslye Penelope (00:41:01) - The other part of it is however you can, whether it's online or in person, find some kind of community to support you, because writing specifically is a very lonely endeavor. So there are writing organizations, whether it's genre or just in your local area. There's plenty of online groups, Facebook groups, and other kinds of groups where you can find people to just commiserate with and. Ideas off of, share the journey, talk about business, all that stuff. Community is one of the reasons why I'm here. Like there's talent and there's, you know, stick to this and all of that stuff. But if I didn't have my community, I don't know that I would that I would be where I am.

Rob Lee (00:41:40) - So it's a great answer and a good spot for us to close on the real questions. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. All right. So now this is the part where I have all of my fun. I can take off and loosen the tie that I'm not wearing currently.

Rob Lee (00:41:52) - , to ask you, I got four I got four rapid fire questions. And as I told people all the time, you know, it's like I said what I said. Don't overthink these. Don't overthink these, okay. All right, so here's the first one because I'm always curious about,, sort of the, the thinking, you know, that folks have going on and who the person is behind the creative work. So this first one is very deep. It's very heady, thin crust. So stuffed crust.

Leslye Penelope (00:42:18) - Oh, wow. Thin crust. If those are my options okay.

Rob Lee (00:42:24) - See there's no crust. Just say hey. Fair enough.

Leslye Penelope (00:42:26) - No, just a lot of crust, but not stuffed with anything.

Rob Lee (00:42:30) - Okay. No, no, no. So you like the carbs I get it, you know.

Leslye Penelope (00:42:32) - Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Rob Lee (00:42:34) - , now this this one is this one actually has to do this, this question came to me, and I remember when the question came to me, I was,, walking through Austin,, Texas for some interviews I did a couple of years ago and thought I was going to see Austin Kleon, by the way.

Rob Lee (00:42:49) - , because I was, I was following him online. I was like, where are you at, bro? And,, so this this question came to me because I was,, you know, doing some work at a, at a place. And I was I always frequent either coffee shops or bars. So for you, where would you more, more likely get an idea to hit you at a coffee shop? At a bar? Or where will you get that initial spark? What's more likely between those two?

Leslye Penelope (00:43:11) - I think a bar, just because people are a little looser, they're interacting more than at a coffee shop. So there's an I'm a people watcher, so you're always going to observe whether they're drunk or not. Something's going down and they're a little looser and there's inspiring things happening.

Rob Lee (00:43:28) - That's a great answer., I interviewed someone recently and they were like, well, you know, depends on what work I'm doing, right? It's like I got the laptop at the coffee shop. I do not have a laptop at a bar.

Rob Lee (00:43:40) - I'm wiling if I have a laptop at a bar. And I was like.

Leslye Penelope (00:43:44) - All right. Sure.

Rob Lee (00:43:45) - , I'm curious about fandom. I have a I used to do blogs and stuff about fandom, and actually the first one that I did,, came after the first time I went to Awesome Con. So I was just in this spirit. Right? And I'm curious about fandom. I, I view it very, very weirdly. Maybe it's being an Orioles fan for as long as I was and had to suffer through these bad years and terribleness. I worked there for a while too, so I was like, oh, but what would you say is a common trait of your people from from the lens of like, fandom, like, you know, who like what? Like what's a fan base that you're like, you know what, they get it.

Leslye Penelope (00:44:22) - Oh, that's interesting because they kind of cross across the board., I get love from a lot of people. I'm very fortunate, I think.

Leslye Penelope (00:44:32) - I mean, at the very least, I hear mostly from women who are probably in a little like in their 30s ish. But that is. Yeah, that's a good question. I don't I can't get any more specific than that because I do hear from a lot of different people.

Rob Lee (00:44:49) - No, I mean, sometimes I think we get too specific, like, yeah, you got a niche it down. It's like, no, no, my people, the people are supposed to find it. They found it. They get it.

Leslye Penelope (00:44:57) - Yeah.

Rob Lee (00:44:58) - So this is this is the last one,, because we all have our things. Like, I know that I just finished True Detective. My country., what are you currently watching?

Leslye Penelope (00:45:11) - I am currently bingeing Peaky Blinders at the insistence of one of my best friends who was like, watch it, but stop at a certain point. So I haven't gotten to the point where I'm where I'm stopping stopping yet., yeah. Like random. I thought about watching it for a while, and I don't.

Leslye Penelope (00:45:27) - I'm actually watching some other stuff for research. So this is purely on because my best friend was like, you have to watch Peaky Blinders here.

Rob Lee (00:45:35) - That's great. I like the recommendations. Is like, you know, sometimes I'll stumble across something because I've just been diving into and I might do I do a movie review podcast outside of this and,, I'm very tempted to get on, like, what is it like to be or something and just look for there to be originals and just review them just for, for the culture? Because I was like, these are bad movies, objectively. So I want to dive into why they're bad.

Leslye Penelope (00:45:59) - Hey, if you can stomach it, go for it. Good luck with that.

Rob Lee (00:46:04) - I think it'll be fun. It's going to be three episodes and then I'm punting.

Leslye Penelope (00:46:07) - I feel like I haven't. Okay.

Rob Lee (00:46:10) - So that's pretty much it for the pod., so one, I want to thank you so, so much for coming on. This has been a treat.

Rob Lee (00:46:17) - Highlight of the week so far for me. And, I want to invite and encourage you to share with the listeners just all of the stuff. This is the shameless plug portion, social media, website, all that good stuff. Where can folks check you out?

Leslye Penelope (00:46:30) - So my author website is L, penelope.com, and all of my social medias that are mostly only on Instagram and Facebook. And if you're a writer, you can check out My Imaginary Friends Net, which is where my podcast is. I also have a weekly newsletter for writers, and that's how I spend my time. My courses are there to. I teach worldbuilding and other writing craft topics. So those are the places.

Rob Lee (00:46:53) - And there you have it folks. I want to again, thank Awesome Con and most importantly, my guest Leslye Penelope for coming on to the podcast and sharing a bit of her story with us. And I'm Rob Lee saying that there's art, culture, and community in and around your neck of the woods. You've just got to look for it.