Katie Duggan on Giving Marginalized Characters the Spicy Happily-Ever-Afters They Deserve

Who says that romance is only for able-bodied or thin characters? In this episode, Northern Virginia romance author Katie Duggan joins the microphone to look at how we can take regular contemporary romance tropes and subvert them to center fat, neurodivergent, disabled, and queer representation.

We discuss her journey from high school creative writing magazine editor to falling into the romance genre during lockdown, how she uses her day job at a massive chain bookstore to advocate for diverse shelf placement, and the intense process of moving past childhood religious shame to find your true identity.

Katie Duggan is a New England transplant currently living in Northern Virginia. She writes romances that give fat, neurodivergent, and queer characters spicy happily-ever-afters. When Katie is not writing or being kept up at night by her characters, she can be found drinking iced chai lattes, going to therapy, convincing people to read her favorite books, and doing whatever hobbies give her brain the most dopamine at the moment.

In this episode, we're discussing:

• How to build a romance plot around an autistic lead by addressing the sensory challenges of intimacy through an explicit sex curriculum.
• Why relying purely on factual research falls short when writing disabilities like Type 1 Diabetes, making sensitivity readers vital for capturing lived experiences.
• When navigating purity culture clouds your understanding of your sexuality, and how uncovering demisexuality in therapy helps reframe sex positivity.
• How to challenge the toxic expectations of bounce-back culture by writing mid-size mothers dealing realistically with postpartum depression.
• Why the traditional third-act breakup serves as a necessary mechanism for character growth, forcing partners to choose emotional maturity over comfort.

This conversation serves as an essential reminder that true happily-ever-afters are built on the gritty reality of being believed and accepted for exactly who you are.

CONNECT WITH KATIE DUGGAN:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katiedugganwrites/ 

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/katieduggan 

BOOKS/AUTHORS MENTIONED:

From the Start by Katie Duggan (Amazon | Bookshop)

Back to Me by Katie Duggan (Amazon | Bookshop)

On My Side by Katie Duggan (Amazon | Bookshop)

Beloved by Toni Morrison (Amazon | Bookshop)

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston (Amazon | Bookshop)

Scribbles Bookshop

Friends to Lovers 

Romancelandia

Amazon Kindle Unlimited

Running list of books mentioned (Doc)

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Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links in these show notes are affiliate links. If you make a purchase or borrow a book through these links, I may earn a small commission at zero extra cost to you.

Connect with Alesia:
Storygraph

Instagram

Running list of books mentioned (Doc)

This podcast was produced by Galati Media.
Proud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective.

Transcript

Intro: Meeting Katie Duggan and Her Lifelong Storytelling Journey

Alesia Galati 0:00

Who says that romance is only for the able-bodied or thin characters? I know we don't say that here. Today we're exploring the incredible inclusive love stories across body and ability, as well as neurodivergence, with Katie Duggan. This conversation was so much fun getting into the stories behind how Katie takes your regular tropes and asks the question, what if? But the most important thing from this conversation is that everyone is worthy of love and deserves to have a love that loves them for all of them. Listener discretion is advised. This podcast contains mature content intended for adult audiences only. Hi, Katie. I'm so excited to have you on. Yay! We did it.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

We're here. I know we did it. Multiple years in the making.

unknown 1:00

I know.

Alesia Galati 1:01

And as soon as I launched this podcast, I was like, I need to have Katie on. Uh and then life lifed as it does.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Life lifed. And then I was like, okay, let's go to keep lifing. I gotta just suck it up at this point because I really want to do it. It's never, it's not gonna slow down at this point.

Alesia Galati 1:15

Super excited to have you on. If you could start by telling everyone a bit about you and your reader and author journey.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Ooh, okay. I'm Katie Duggan. I write spicy romantic comedies. My books all have queer, neurodivergent, disabled, and fat representation. I have been reading and writing for forever. I have loved reading and writing for forever. My mom always tell the story of how I used to scribble on paper and be like, Mom, I wrote a story. And she'd be like, Okay, tell it to me. And I would. And she'd go, Okay, tell, go tell dad. And I'd tell these same stories. So she's like, you had your own way of writing stuff. Like you always, so I've been writing since before I could write, is the joke. And I was actually an English major, so truly just always writing. I was also the editor of the creative writing magazine in high school. So really just always storytelling in some capacity my entire life. It was during the lockdown. And I've I always wanted to write a book. I started probably countless books throughout my life, but never really finished

Deconstructing Intellectualism: Discovering Romance During Lockdown

SPEAKER_01 2:14

one. And then during the lockdown, I got on TikTok like everybody else and started seeing recommendations for romance books. And I was a very serious English major. I read poetry and literary fiction because that's what's serious and what's gonna help grow my brain and what an English major should read, right? But then I got like recommendations for beach read and red, white, and royal blue. And I was like, those sound fun. So I read them and everything changed because oh my gosh, wait, this also is like intellectual and like also totally reframed. What is intellectual? Is it just what white men have said it is, or is it a whole different ballpark? So that's when I decided I really want to write a romance book. I fell in love with the romance genre, was reading it so much, and I knew that was a story that I wanted to tell. So I started a book during lockdown and was slowly working on it when another story totally took over in my brain. And that story grew to be my debut from the start, which overtook everything. So it's been a long journey. I always knew I wanted to be a published author. So sometimes I like still like, I did that. Like I've done it, and now I get to reshape what that life goal looks like for me because I'm in it, I'm living it. So that's a little bit about that.

Alesia Galati 3:26

Oh, that's so cool. And I love the idea of, and I feel like many of us have this where we maybe read a lot in college or we were reading more serious books, and then as adults, we're supposed to read adult y books, right? So mine was self-development and self-help and like that kind of thing. And I felt like pulling teeth every time I would try to make myself read these stupid books.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Oh my gosh. Yeah. And I read a couple because around this time was also when I started realizing that like hating my body wasn't changing anything. I've always been fat. I had lost weight at one point intentionally, gave it back, and I finally got to the point like just hating myself is not changing anything, but making me sad and making things worse. So I discovered things like intuitive eating, body neutrality. So this is all around the same time. So I immediately went into reading Virgie Tover and Lindy West and then into romance. So I feel like it was that journey of not hating myself, went into romance, and I was like, oh, I can enjoy life. I can be happy and things can be fun and okay. I don't have to say here hating myself and trying to just be an intellectual and feel like I'm using my degree to a point, if that makes sense. And I also realized we read one book that I can remember by a person of color, my entire four years as an English major, and it was Beloved by Tony Morrison, which is a fantastic book, as everybody should read. But again, four years of an English major, which is absolutely insane to think about because there's so much great literature out there. Like my partner was also an English major and her favorite author is James Baldwin. I'm literally reading my first James Baldwin book right now. And I'm like, considering I have an English degree, that feels very weird. And that kind of is a big eye-opener of, like I was saying, is intellectualism, is literature always gonna be defined by white men? Maybe things aren't the way I always thought.

Alesia Galati 5:19

Yeah. Oh my goodness. It sounds like there was a lot of deconstructing that

The Bookstore Reality: Fighting for Diverse Shelf Space on Mainstream Racks

Alesia Galati 5:24

happened. I'd love to say that, oh yeah, like reading's in a better place now. I don't I don't know that it is. I constantly feel like I'm fighting people to read diversely, whether that is uh race, body, ability, age, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Age is such a big one, too. Cause I feel like even for me, reading it's very rarely age diverse. And even like sometimes I'll be like, oh, I read diversity because I read so much queer and plus I'm like, Katie, no, that's literally your that's literally your identity. That does not count as it doesn't count when those are your identities. That's literally not diversity, that's centering yourself. So like I have to be more mindful of okay, yes, it's good I read this stuff, but also those are already my life experiences. So that does not count for me personally. Like it's so good to read those. It's not the same as reading stories about people with physical disabilities or people of color, like very different experience. But it is definitely still I feel harder. And not even today, I noticed they like Amazon announced their new short story collection. I didn't look super closely into it, but I'm 90% sure it's all white authors again. And I'm pretty sure again, didn't do digging, kind of just looked at the authors. Most authors I knew are white. I didn't see any queer authors, and it's just one of those things where I'm like, just as simple as that, these little stories they put out like every season, like the fact that it's all white when there's six authors and six stories is wild. Like again, that's it just goes to show that it is harder, it's still hard, it's not normalized to do this. And I work at a bookstore too. We'll say a big chain bookstore. And like the Kennedy Ryan book that came out last year, they sent us three when it released. Same with the legend board. Oh, I know. I was immediately like requesting more. Did I over-order? Did we still have 20? Yes. However, I was like, guys, this is also like I don't want that in my store. I want my store. I'm not even like man for level. I just got promoted to a senior, but I don't know. It's just really important to me to have, I know, yay. I don't know. I'm just like, it's just so important to me that when people of color or people with different abilities come on in, they see themselves and feel like it's not pulling teeth to find, especially Kennedy Ryan and Tracy D. Alley. Girl. So that's I feel like again, just showing like it's hard. It's not normalized that those are like best-selling authors that everybody's reading, and they're still sending like the most limited quantities, and then are shocked when it sells out and scrambling to find copies. Wow. Oh, that's a show, it's systemic again.

Alesia Galati 8:03

Yeah, it's such a problem. And I think that conversations like this, conversations that I'm having with other folks and other podcasts similar to this, that we're finally seeing some, maybe some shift. Hopefully, that's the goal, is to see some shift that is gonna happen. But even we see the conversation around queer stories, and there's a lot of discussion around the fetetization of MM romance versus lesbian or femme femme romance, and it is such an important topic, which is why I love that one of your books is a lesbian sapphic romance, which we'll get

From the Start: Autistic-Coded Characters and Structuring a Sex Curriculum

Alesia Galati 8:43

into. Let's just jump right into your first book from the start. Love this. Oh my goodness. Okay. The way this book starts is you have they're both on the train, right? And if I'm remembering correctly, it's been a few years since I read it. They're both on a train, and she's like, Oh yeah, I know you. Wait, somebody said you're good at sex. I need to talk to you because I want to try to get better at sex, which is so autistic coded that I'm just like, No, that was what kind of the whole so this whole book came from the was built from the question what if there was a romance about an autistic person who didn't like sex because of the sensory things?

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Because sex is so sensory. And I was thinking about it, and I'd already read quite a few romances with autistic main characters that were spicy, and I was like, I don't really remember any. Except for the quiz quotient, of course, but even that focus was that she wanted to be good at it more than in her enjoyment, which is a great book. Love that book. But I also was just like, what about their own issues with the vulnerability as a neurodivergent person? I'm like, there are parts that it came from what if that was like the main kind of we'll say thesis of it. And I loved the idea of her asking her childhood enemy because she's like, I hate him. Literally, no strings attached. I can tell him when he's doing bad. I can tell him I don't like things, and I don't worry about what he's thinking of because I hate him. Whatever. Perfect plan. And I just thought that was like so funny. And also, again, so autistic code in my brain. I don't want a neurotypical person, like it makes no sense. So I'm like neurotypical. Okay. Every herd I Persian person I know who's right has been like, oh my god. I'm like, I know. So, but that book was so much fun to write. I that's like forever book of my heart. Just that was the book that overtook everything. I wrote it in four months, knocked it out. But yeah, I loved just everything about it.

Alesia Galati 10:33

I still love everything about it. I do too. And he's a isn't he a like a professor or something, and he makes like a curriculum for her, which I like all the tropes that I'm like, yes, I want to eat them all up. Yeah. Come on, having an enemy, quote unquote enemy, who writes you a sex curriculum to make you more comfortable. So you have, especially as someone who is neurodivergent, to have an order of here's the order of the things that we're going to be covering. I cannot tell you how many times I have been like, honey, I just need to know what the plan is. That's all I need. Are we doing stuff now or are we doing stuff later? I don't care what it is that we're doing. I just need to mentally be prepared for when this is happening.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

No, literally, yesterday I had a day and I was like, I need to eat. And my party's like, oh, we're gonna eat. I'm like, girl, I'm still in the car. I don't know. And she's like, Do you want me to tell? I'm like, yes. So much. I would love for you to tell me what to do. Thank you so much. And then she did, and it made life so much easier. Well, sometimes you just need that mental wait till be gone. And I love the idea that like she knew exactly what was coming, the consent was already there, but also like so continuous because the consent can be revoked at any time. But it was just laid out there. And I love

Back to Me: Sapphic Second-Chance Romance and Lived Disability Representation

SPEAKER_01 11:54

that.

Alesia Galati 11:55

Yeah, consent is oh my gosh, it's such an important conversation. And I am a mom to two boys, and so we have a lot of discussions around consent. And even just the other day, I was like, all right, your brother said that you could play with it. He is allowed to say at any point that you are not allowed to play with it anymore. Just because he says yes once does not give you blanket permission to play with that toy every single day or all the time, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:22

And that's what the chance to start are with things like that, where that consent at that age, I have a nephew and he's eight months old. So but still I keep thinking, like, how am I called? And because that's the thing too, like, consent isn't just it's about everything. You have right to consent to anything going on in your life, and the most some things you can't control. And but especially playing, things like that. It's such a good thing to be learning at such a young age and teaching boys. I love that so much.

Alesia Galati 12:50

Yeah, constantly just how can I make you a better human being so that way when you're an adult, you're not a piece of trash. All right, so going into your next book, you have Back to Me, which is your sapphic romance. So give us a little rundown of what this one is about. I love this one too. I love that one. Yeah. I like I'm like, oh my god, I love all of them.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

I really do. They're all so special in different ways, too. Back to me is a fake dating second chance romance. And I love Joan Hunter. They met in high school over a summer and kind of explored their sexualities together, like secretly dated. And then Hunter, who came from a very conservative family, disappeared at the end of the summer and then re-enters her life 15 years later, all grown up, out of the closet, very much just like my favorite chaotic ADHD girly. And they end up moving in together, their roommates, and then Jo is just out of a toxic engagement and then is asked to plan her ex-fiance's wedding to their boss, and is offered like a buttload of money. So she's like, Yeah, money's cool. I like money. And then not knowing that her new roommate's also the photographer for this wedding, like mentions, like, oh yeah, I'm dating my my girlfriend just moved in. Her name's Hunter. We're dating. And then, like, when they meet with Hunter, she like realizes that Joe's playing the money. She's like, Oh my god, I love like Joe's green. I believe she's my roommate. And they're like, Oh, so you're dating. She's like, What? But also, she's absolutely still in love with Joe. So she's like, uh-huh, yeah, for sure. Like, she didn't stand for nothing. It's absolutely chaotic. I loved writing that. I love the characters. It was so much fun writing a sapphic romance for the first time. So that was really just I love that one. I also love that was my first ADHD rep, which was just so much fun to write about as an ADHD girly. And that's also my first depression rep, which was also great to write as somebody with depression. I also, this is my first physical disability that I think I wrote. It was where Joe has type 1 diabetes. And that was also the first like marginalized identity that I don't have personal experience with. So I had a couple sensitivity readers I was talking with. I talked about them, like what would they want a partner or potential partner to do that doesn't seem overbearing, but also is like, okay, they care. So that was a really fun experience learning both about type 1 diabetes, but also creating a supportive and not overbearing relationship for or someone who's fragilizing them, who's, yeah, you can take care of yourself. And also, by the way, I do know what your alarm sounds like. So I do have snacks in case it goes off and you don't wake up, just so you know. So that was like a really cool person experience. It was also very hard because again, it was the first time I wrote something with not my experience, and I really want to make sure it got it right. And that took a lot of work, but like I think it came out good. I was very happy with it. And I've also gotten very good feedback, but it was a really interesting experience to go into that so in depth. I also love to she was like I didn't like my sensitivity readers are saying like that. They love that she was plus size and like also had type one diabetes because you don't really ever see that, or that's really not what like a stereotype is. So that was a really, really fun thing to do too.

Alesia Galati 16:00

Interesting. So for anyone who's maybe not familiar with sensitivity readers, or why wouldn't you just pull together a story with this representation uh without going through them? Why was that important for you? And like how did that help? You mentioned like a little bit of how it shaped the story, but what are some like ways that it maybe made you rethink the characters as well?

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Yeah, so it was really important for me because I didn't want just it to be like what I know about type 1 diabetes, right? Which is not a lot. It's basically the representation I've read in books, and then Nick Jonas. And then again, one of my senses-to-be readers was a friend from high school. So I knew that she had an insulin pump. She always joked about having a broken pancreas, but again, that's not very detailed. So like I did research, but like factual research, while of course important to understand how disease works, it doesn't give lived experience. Like you can look up like what anxiety or autism, and it's still gonna be a different experience. Like the person who has it is gonna explain it very differently. It was just really important to me because I always imagined that somebody maybe with the identity is reading my book. So, like, even when in my first book, Josh's grandma is dying in it, and he has a lot of grief, and that was something I hadn't really had experience with at the time. I hadn't had a close loss in probably almost two, 20 years at that point. It felt very distant. So, one of the things that kind of I had the mindset of was that like I was a visitor in this kind of feeling. Same thing I felt about with the type of diabetes. Like I was a visitor, I was observing, I did not know what it was like. So I wanted to be very sensitive. And obviously, no one has the same exact experience. So even having two sensitivity readers, sometimes it was kind of like, ooh, they have different experiences completely. Like it was very different now to be like, okay, well, it's Joe's experience because it's different. So just learning and observing and feeling like I was a visitor in this identity. So I wanted to just be very sensitive and I wanted people to feel seen and not be like, oh my god, this is somebody who doesn't know what the hell they're hockey about. And they're just doing it for the representation points, right? Like she has a CGM, which is like the glue or GCM. It's a glucose monitor. Like she has it on the arm in the cupboard. That's the same thing even with fatness. I'm like, I don't want to show a fat character and then have it be very just like they're fat. And it doesn't impact their lives at all. Anyway, but for me, I'm like, it's important to show the realities of whatever it is, right? So like Joe, she has reality of like, hey, I have to tell you like what to do if I don't wake up one night if my alarm goes off, because that has happened, can happen. Like I don't need you to live in fear of it, but like just be aware. Like, yeah, I'm a caretaker, but also like I was someone who lives with me, so like if I have an allergy, like like I remember actually I lived with someone with a peanut allergy and they had to teach me how to use an EpiPen, just because you never know if there's an accident or an emergency. So it's just interesting, like getting to go into that and making sure it was something that was so sensitive, realistic. That's the thing. I was like, I want to show the greatest. It doesn't make life easy, it is inconvenient, it is annoying, and you can still live a happy and fulfilled life, kind of thing. That was something really important. That's always important to be like no matter what the identity is. That yes, it sucks sometimes. Like sometimes being fat is really hard because you live in a world that is not made for your body, and your body sometimes isn't exactly what you want it to do all the time. And you can still really be healthy, you can still be fulfilled and happy and find love. And that's something that's just really important to be like show all that whole spectrum of yes, it's really hard. Being marginalized is hard, being disabled is hard, and you're still worthy and able to find love and happiness. Yes.

Alesia Galati 19:37

That's what I love about romance, is that we can see this portrayal of characters with so many different lived experiences, finding love, finding happiness, finding their perfect or perfectly imperfect person, right? Who loves them no matter and despite, right? Or I guess, um, along with their disability or their size or whatever experiences that they're going through.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

No, I think one of the things I love it because it's part of you and I love you. So I love your fatness because it's part of you. I love your disability because it's a part of you and I love you. That's how it works. It's not in spite of, it's not despite this horrible thing you have. It's I love you and I love everything you are. And that's this too. And I think that's such a beautiful way to kind of think of it. That that means also as things change, things can change. Anybody can get disabled at any time. Bodies change at any time. It has that mindset of as things change, because I love you, I'm gonna love those changes too as they go. It's not like a sometimes I have a fat woman, I've had the experience of being fetishized. It's not the like, I love you because you're fat. It's I love you, I love your fat is because you're you, you're fat. And as if your body is to change, if you're supposed to, if you're gaining weight, if you're losing weight, you're still you. And that's just a part of you. Your body is a part of who you are. I just really love that mindset because people don't stay the same. We grow, our personalities grow, our lives change. We're not gonna stay the same. I'm not the same person I was when I wrote my first book. And finding someone who is going to love me and love the character as things happen, as life happens. I think just such an important mindset.

Alesia Galati 21:11

I yeah, I've been with my husband, oh man, 13 years now, but we'll be married 10 years next month, which is crazy banana pants. Congratulations. That's exciting. It's wild. Although I am considering leaving him. He was watching The Road to El Dorado without me the other night.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

So you know that's definitely how first of all, how dare he? How dare he? Wow. I was like, I can I forget that we exist, and then I remember, I'm like, wow, why haven't I washed this every day? I know that's like one of my favorites as a kid. Guy the Prince of Egypt. I feel like that was the same era. Slapped. Slapped. But yes, I understand. I'm gonna know if you need a lawyer, I don't know one, but I can help you research, but exactly.

Alesia Galati 21:58

Um but yeah. Thinking about the people we were then and the things that we cared about or the things that mattered to us are completely different than they are now. And I think that loving someone and choosing them as a life partner for however long that may be, right? Because obviously things happen, people grow out of love and all of that. But when you choose someone to be your life partner for that time, you do love the changes in them, watching them grow even, right? Also, when we first got together, our brains weren't even fully developed.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Right. No, yeah. That's actually like in back to me, you know it's a second chance romance. There are flashbacks to when they're teenagers. And they're not the same people. You're not the same person you were as a teenager. No one is. There's absolutely no way. I was a super religious, like girly pop. I was very Catholic. I am not that person anymore. In the same way, like you see who they were as teenagers. And yes, of course they're similar. Of course, you could still see it's like the same person, but you also see how much they're not, because they're not 15, 16 anymore. You're not the person you were when you're 30. You were your teenager. So seeing that, like you get to see how they're because that's the thing. Like, she's been in love with her since she was 15, and she meets her and she's, oh my God, she's still amazing. She's still like she's better than I remember because now I'm different. So now she's this person who I'm compatible with and want to be with as an adult, not just the fantasy and a remember, like remembrance and like the idealization of I had as my first love from when I was 16. Like she's now this actual real person, and she's amazing. So I think that again, it shows like she got to see her and then see the changes, and she's still like, yep. They're both still like, yep.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

I love you. You aren't now too. I loved you then, love you now. Can't wait to see you're gonna bathe, kind of thing.

Alesia Galati 23:48

You have a picture, and I'll link it in the show notes of the characters that I absolutely love character art, where you have them, they're standing in front of a mirror, and it's them as adults standing in front of the mirror, but what's reflected back is them as teenagers. And I think that's just the sweetest.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

No, I remember I was like when I was trying to come up with character ideas, I was like, I don't know what scene I want to use. And I was like, what if I use a concept instead? I just love the idea because even like that's the title, right? Back to me. It gives so much. Not only does this person come back to them, but it's also like flashbacks, just the whole just encompassing of present and past. And so I loved the idea of them seeing the girl they loved, and then also the woman they are being there. Yeah, Paige did incredible with that. Paige is my cover artist, has done most of my artwork. She did incredible at that. I love that one.

Navigating Religious Purity Rhetoric and Uncovering Demisexuality in Therapy

Alesia Galati 24:40

So good. Oh, it's so pretty, and I love it. Okay, you mentioned religious trauma, and I feel like we need to go there for a second when it comes especially to queer stories. And I don't know if it's my algorithm algorithming lately, but I keep getting these reaction videos to people being like, I struggle with homosexuality, but I'm gonna use God and get over it, and I'm gonna start dating women. And I'm like, bro, you're gay. That's okay. It's okay to be gay. What is this?

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Yeah, so I'm bi. I have a very like as a somebody who knew she was attracted to a woman in high school, but also was like very Catholic. That wasn't really talked about the fact that you could be attracted to both genders. It was like same sex attraction, that's what it was called. It was something you struggled with. You were not gay, it was not your identity. It was something you struggled with, same sex attraction, as I say. And this is all rhetoric that I used too, because I was very involved with the church, I was very involved with all of this. So this is rhetoric that I used about myself, about others, that it was a choice, right? Like that. Not that the feelings were not a sin. Acting on them, making the choice to act on them is a sin. So this is all rhetoric that I used to myself that I used to shame myself to not want to be gay. I have a vivid memory, I think maybe in high school, telling a friend who was a man who was very, very conservative and now is very liberal, very leftist, which is really funny for me because I'm like, hey, we both made it. I literally told him, I was like, I like women, but I'm not gonna be with one, obviously, because I can't. I'm going to marry a man and have children as I should. Now I'm like, sorry, my bad. But I remember telling a friend who was a lesbian in college. I was like, I used to be a lesbian. I don't, I'm like, I feel like I need to go to apologize because I was never a lesbian. I was just biased shit. And like really had a lot of shame about it. A lot of that was religious based because again, the church never talked about the fact that people could be attracted to both. So I thought something was really fucking wrong with me, or it was just a sinful urge because it wasn't that I just wanted to be with women. Men were great too. I was attracted to men. And now that I've done more explorer, I'm like, oh, I'm demisexual. Like I'm demisexual and bi. No wonder I was confused as hell in like college and high school. And I was never talked about the fact that like you'd be attracted to both genders and also not really be attracted to anyone until you had that emotional connection. Of course, I was like, I will just wait until the man comes. Like, I can do that because sexual attraction was confusing and not all the way that the church ever talked about it. No, so it's so interesting to see just even that simply. Like when I started deconstructioning, I got into a relationship and it was the first time I was sexually active. And after we broke up, it was he was very emotionally abusive. So I was like, the idea that the only time that like I had intimacy with someone was with someone who ended up abusing me was a really horrible feeling. So I decided I'm like, I'm going to go hook up with everybody and anybody I can. And I wasn't out at this time. I didn't realize I was biased. So I was like, basically taking up with all these terrible people. I have terrible taste, to be completely honest. I was just doing like anybody who would at that point. Cause I was just like, I need to wash him off, it felt like and I had no regrets about that, but I also was absolutely miserable doing it. And it took like, I think about six months for me to find like, no, I'd rather just be celibate. Like, I'd rather wait for the right person than doing all this. Because this I would be crying afterward, I'd be feeling miserable, but I was like, but I need to do this. And like I understand why I thought about this too, but I'm also like, I had no understanding of my sexuality and my needs. And I knew that I was sex positive, so I was like, there's nothing morally wrong with hooking up. But then I felt all this just icky feelings, and I then was like, I can't feel that way because I'm sex positive. But it really was just like you weren't actually attracted to them. You were forcing yourself to be physically intimate with people that you really didn't actually want to because you're trying to do a thing and like eventually it could work, but now it's it took me a while to finally, and I was celibate for five years because I just never met a person I want to do that with. And that took actually until my current partner, but it felt weird and wrong because like I was reading SMUT, I ended up writing SMUT. I was like, So what's actually wrong with me? And no, just demisexual. And it was just again, I felt sealed so much just from being like so religious. And Catholics talk about sex all the time. Like all the time. So like we talk about it all the time for like what a like temptation sex is, but I also was kind of like, sure, like I get it, but I'm like so holy because I'm not doing it really. I just didn't actually want to do it. Right. I was not actually holy because I got the thing too. I was like looking at porn and masturbating as I was a normal human being about the idea of doing it with somebody else because I was like, wow, I'm so much holier. I'm doing perfect, except for the fact I was in confession every week and about the other stuff. But also, nope, my brain just was experienced attraction in a very different way than anybody else. And people do struggle not to have sex if that's what they want to do. I just was like, wow, I have so much self-control. No, stuff.

Alesia Galati 29:48

But oh, that's so funny. Yeah, we have an episode for anyone who's like, I want to know more about demisexuality and what that is like. Margarita Schala was on the podcast in season one, and we talked about the spectrum of romantic, like aromantic to whatever the opposite of that is. I don't, it's not hyper-romantic, but y'all get the point. And then sexuality and asexual, demisexual, all of the things around that, and getting a basic understanding of what those things mean and what they are. And that was a really eye-opening episode. So definitely go check that out. We'll have it linked in the show notes. So learn more about that because I think that once you understand that about yourself, or even reading romance that includes that, it's like, oh, wait, no, I get it. I think I understand myself better, which I think is beautiful about it.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Oh, absolutely. It's it was actually a book for the first time that I read that I was like, uh oh, maybe. And then I remember I was gonna therapy. I'm like, okay, but is it religious trauma, like sexual trauma, or am I demisexual? Or is it all of it? I was like, oh, it's a little bit of all of it. Nice. Okay, we have a whole like salad here of why. Because that's the thing too, I was like, I just don't want to have sex, I didn't want to have sex, but I also was like, I don't want to have sex with just anybody. I'd rather just be some of it, honestly. Like, so it's really interesting being like, yes, I I'm hypersexual, and then I'm also demisexual. And that's actually a thing. Because I remember Googling, I'm like, can I be too thick? Oh, it can? Oh, okay. I was like, oh, I can be like ace or like demicause like I'm I have hypersexuality. Like it's definitely a thing. Like I think about sex all the time, I write about it all the time, I read about it all the time. And I was like, oh, fascinating. So it's so interesting, just all of it. Everything's connected and nothing makes sense sometimes.

Cultural Catholicism, Church History Memories, and Setting Mass Boundaries

Alesia Galati 31:36

Oh, I feel it in my soul. Yeah. I mentioned on the podcast a couple of times. I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian cult, like a full facility on land. We were there, yes. Wasn't it Zuckery? No, I mean so like it was it was a women's program to help women get clean from drugs and addiction. My mom was an addict for the majority of her life, and it was supposed to be an 18-month program, and we were there for 10 years. Oh. Yeah, good times. And so while there, and I think this is where it gets a little different from Catholicism, because my husband grew up Catholic, and then me growing up fundamentalist Christian. Interesting when I hear him say certain things, and I'm like, no, that's not what I learned growing up at all. This is how we viewed it. And even when I had a podcast with my sister where we talked about cults from the point of growing up in one, we would have people send us DMs like, you guys say Catholics and Christians. Catholics are Christians, and I was like, not to fundamentalist Christians, they're not right.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

So it's like completely different. But you're 100% right, because that would be a thing. Like I remember being like, we consider ourselves Christian, and most like Mormons and fundamentalists do not, the same way that like Mormons consider themselves Christians, and so many other sects do not. That's so interesting. You're right. That is exactly what I was talking about. That yeah, no, that's so true. That's funny. Like Hartner was raised without religion but Christian. But like I'll get texts from her, be like, Can you explain? Like, yes, I got a text from her, truly. Can you explain to me like I'm five, why people choose saints for their confirmation? And so I did a whole thing with you want to get close to the CEO. And you notice this coworker is really good at doing that. And this is always funny to me because I have a minor in theology that I use once in a while, like yesterday, or whatever I talk about religious trauma in my books, or when there was the conclave last year and I was like, I feel like a sleeper agent being woken up and I get to explain all this stuff of what's going on and why like the Pope matters and why the conclave matters and cultural Catholicism. Cause at this point, I feel like I'm culturally Catholic because I still feel like I connected to the cultural aspects of it more than like the morality aspects. So also like I feel like it gave me a very sound foundation for where my morality is now, but it's not with where American Catholicism is at all.

SPEAKER_02 33:58

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

But it's just so interesting. So I'm like, did you say Catholicism? Or one time a customer was asking about a saint and I was I overheard it. And I literally was like, Did you say Saint Max Colby? Oh my god. That's right. Exactly. I'm like truly like a Crestell agent, just like all of a sudden being like Saint, like the Saints, or did you say Eucharist? Like truly, like just absolutely annoying about it. But oh my god. That's all that's like a huge part of my life for most of my life. And my sister and brother-in-law are still very religious and it had a baby, so I'm going to his baptism. I went to his baptism, they were married in the church. And I actually was going, I literally did like exposure therapy to be prepared for the wedding because I hadn't gone to mass in so long. And it was very like triggering at first. So I went to mass with them to prepare for the wedding. And like now I went to the baptism, it was fine. Went to my grandma's funeral, it was fine. But like for a long time, it was really like triggering for a lot of trauma going to mass. And now I'm at a point of like my healing where I can go. I don't feel shame. I go to support or celebrate whatever's being celebrated or supporting, and like it's not for me. And then also I can recognize that I can leave. I will leave at the end of this, and I will go back when I choose to. I do not have to go to this. I choose to go because it's a way I can support my family. And I will leave. I will be okay. But there's no forcing, which is really nice and a great place to be at. But it was not like that at first. It was very hard to go to mass.

Alesia Galati 35:23

Like very, I can imagine. Yeah, it's always very interesting to me. I felt like so much of the religious upbringing and religious trauma was what someone else says is right or wrong. And then becoming an adult and being like, what do I know is right or wrong? And then having to ask myself a lot, is this me? Is this actually what I think? Or is this just something that I was taught? And so much of that unlearning. So I loved that you had that aspect in Back to Me because it felt like, yes, that unlearning you have to do as an adult, especially growing up with so much religious trauma, absolutely, I don't think enough people talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

No, it's and also I feel like I don't have any experience, but it was painful. It was like I had I was explaining this to my brother in law because they're both, they're still very religious, and I love that for them. They're very happy. And I had to explain like leaving was not like a fun, giggly choice. Like I had to choose like almost my life and my sanity over this church that I had loved for so long. And I also like coming out, leaving, I knew I was really skipping relationships because how many of my friendships from college and high school were people from youth group who I knew from campus ministry in college, who are still very religious. So I had this horrible fear when I was coming out of people I would lose. Coming out and leaving the church was not like this like big relief. It was painful, it was hard. And it was really hard to explain like how painful it was and how sometimes I still feel that pain. It was really like a necessary surgery where the healing is hard, but you need to get the surgery to save your life, right? Like I needed out. I could not be somebody who was mentally healthy and still be in a practicing Catholic. And it was hard. It's still hard. I miss so many aspects of it. And it's funny because my partner's like, you just go to mass when you want to. I'm like, because in my brain, so constantly I was like, I really miss the Easter Vigil Mass. It's absolutely beautiful. There are candles, it's a really ritualistic, beautiful thing. And I was like, I really miss that. I just like why don't you just go? And I was like, Because in my brain, that's something. If you only go to Mass at Christmas and Easter, we would call you CEOs or creased or Catholics. You always got the nice seats because you would get there earlier. This was not somebody in my brain, that's still something that's not positive. And if I believe only certain parts of church teaching, that's something called a cafeteria Catholic. That's not a good thing. My therapist being like, Why don't you take what works for you? I'm like, I in my brain, I can't still. That's not a good thing. I'm trying to learn and to be able to do that. But because of that, spirituality has been really hard for me actually. I did mindfulness sometimes because of the therapy stuff. There's no other, I've just never been able to find something to fill that hope. It's so hard for me to still again. I've been like deconstructing it for probably around at this point, probably around 10 years. And it's still so hard for me to be like, no, I can take what works from me, and that's okay. That does not make me a bad person. That does not make me a fraud or fake. I can just do that and be okay. I'm not hurting anybody. I am not hurting whatever this higher power is. It's still so hard for me. It's truly in my brain, it still goes to I can't do that. I have to believe everything. Like and part of that probably also comes from the neurodivergent all or nothing thinking, too. There's that Catholic all-nothing thinking, and then the neurodivergent all- or nothing thinking. Sometimes it's truly just always going against what my intuition says, which is hard, but also recognizing that it's because of upbringing, because of how my brain works. And that doesn't always mean it's right.

Alesia Galati 38:52

Yeah. Oh my goodness, so much. I'm like, yeah. I'm thinking about my own experiences.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

And there's just so much that still goes into it that's still that people recommend that people and I'm just like, it's hard. You don't get it. You don't meet a lot of people who had the same all-encompassing experience as a Catholic.

On My Side: Audio Erotica Creators and Dismantling Postpartum Bounce-Back Culture

Alesia Galati 39:11

Yeah, the religious trauma definitely has such a huge impact in how we operate in the world and how we view the world and make decisions. And it does take unlearning to get past that. I do want to get into your last book that you have for us at this time, which is on my side. We have a single mom. And that is as far as I know, because I have not read this one yet. So go ahead and tell us all about this one.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

This is actually a book I think I'm most proud of. I think this book also shows my growth as a writer the most. It's silly, like when I'm creating content for social media, I'm going back in my books. Sometimes reading my earlier books is the same thing as listening to your voice on recording. You know how you're like, oh, uh. Sometimes it's like that. Okay, so it's about the oldest Quinn son. So it's Nick and Joe's younger brother, Ren, and he's like the quintessential, like Italian good boy. He's mom's favorite. He's a music teacher. He's like golden boy always happy. And actually, no, he's not, kind of thing. He really feels the pressure to basically be the person everybody can rely on. He sees that he has an older sister type 1 diabetes, he has an older sister in abuse of marriage, he has an older sister who's autistic and does grumpy all the time. So he's like, I can't be a problem. I see basically I can be the one that is good. Not that they're bad, but I can be the one that does not have my parents worrying, right? If I'm just perfect, everything's good, I can be the one. If I check in on them, I'm doing everything right, then they don't have to worry about me. But he also has radiodepressive disorder and also secretly is an audio erotica creator and uses a fake name. And Audrey is actually his oldest sister's ex-best friend. And she's a single mom who was ostracized by the community and his family when she got pregnant as a teenager. Accidentally was Gilmore Girls Coda. I kind of joke and mark it up. I'm like, it's like they have like the relationship of Rory and Lorelite if they went to therapy and have like better boundaries. But Audrey's daughter, Piper, is autistic. She's, I think, 15 or 16 in high school. Her special interest is playing piano. So her normal music teacher asks Ren if he would teach her because she's gonna be on maternity leave, and he had just decided he's not doing private lessons this summer, and he gets asked to, and he's being the people pleaser that he is. He's like, okay, yeah, great. I love it. Yeah, absolutely. And then also later, then like basically Audrey, when Audrey meets him, she like he realizes who she is first, and when she realizes that he's the annoying younger brother of her ex-best friend, she's like, Absolutely not, nope, bye, nope, we can't do this. And then Piper's pretty much just like, Mom, you're so embarrassing. Oh my god, mom, oh my god, what was that? Well, I had the best time we're like a teenager too. Way too much fun. But basically, they decide like she goes to apologize, and then he like mentions his rates and she's like, Oh, can't afford that. But he's also again people pleased, but also just very curious about because he kind of he was younger, he's younger than her, six-year age gap. She's like in her early 30s, he's in his mid-20s. So, as far as he knows, she pretty much just disappeared because he used to be over all the time with his like best friends with his sister. She was really close to the family because she didn't know I had a great home life, and then she just disappeared. So he's very curious, and like, what the fuck happened here? So he's I'll just do it for free. Because he also's like, I have another secretly that she's like, I make enough, I don't need the money. Piper's really cool, I like teaching her, and also I'm a nosy bitch, pretty much. But yeah, so then basically, her daughter's pain-up teacher is secretly her favorite auto erotica creator. She listens to him every night. She's on like the Reddit, throw yapping about him all the time. And I also love the idea. I'm like, that was one of the like, what if because I knew I wanted him to be an audio erotica creator, and it's kind of fun if you'd had this person in your life and you love their content and you did not know it was them. You had no idea. And you figured it out. And it's somebody who you don't expect to be doing sex work, right? Like he's still like the golden boy, and he's doing what is essentially sex work. So I really loved the idea of exploring that. But that was a really fun one to write. I had such a good time. She was writing Piper, and I love their views. They're always like, she put like a third main character because she really did for me too. She's so fleshed out. She's one of my favorite characters I've ever written. And I love Audrey and Ren both so much. They both just have, I feel like this is the coziest romance I've written. It's still spicy as hell. Like it's what I love about this one, and from the start is that sex is literally part of the plot and a part of the character development, the sex lessons, and then the fact that he does sex work and their relationship is unknowingly has Audio Erotica woven in. But still somehow became my coziest read. It's definitely nice. It's just soft and gentle, and just I love them. It was really fun to write because Audrey also is probably a small fountain, I'd say, and has a lot of issues with her body postpartum. How her body. Body change, never got positive reinforcement from it after, and always got some messaging that most moms get postpartum about bouncing back and not have a body that bounced back. And also struggled with postpartum depression very severely. Basically was reading this child completely on her own, except for great aunt who was in her life, and judges herself for not having a body that bounced out despite all that. So it's also her learning to be okay with her body. And I really enjoyed, I really liked writing that because while I love reading fat, confident characters, the reality is that sometimes you don't like your body. Sometimes it's really hard to like your body, even if you know you should. And that's something too that I really like with Audrey is that she feels a lot of shame for like the shame she feels about her body because she's I have a teenage daughter. I know how I treat myself and my body is what she's going to pick up. And I don't want her to pick up how I feel about my body. I don't want that. So she deals with the shame about the shame. And it was just a really interesting and fun. It sounds like you're being fun, but I really liked kind of digging into that of like, sometimes you don't fucking like your body. Sometimes the messaging from the world is loud as shit. And that affects you. And sometimes people say about you and your body impacts you. And that's okay. You can still be fat positive, and all that can be true too, right? Because she's probably like the smallest fat I've written. Like Josh and Joe are both bigger. But I also was thinking, I was like, how do you write fat positive romance when maybe like because she's really more mid-sized, but I was like, I really want to write still fat positive. How do you do that when the main characters aren't fat when you have a traditionally left off male main character? And I really think I was able to do that, which is something I was really proud of. Because I think a lot of it has to just do with how bodies are talked about. That Ren does not think his body's better because he's muscular. He's like, I'm in the gym every day because it helps my brain. And this is why my body looks the way it does. I run every day. I'm in the gym. If I didn't, my body is not better than yours or my sister's or anybody else's because it looks that way. Your body is not less than mine because of how it looks. So a lot of people say, Oh, she doesn't look fat at all. I'm like, I think also in today's society, she would be considered fat. She is considered fat. And maybe she's not as fat as the other fat characters I've written, but you still hear messaging. You still get that, you still get to put in your brain. I really loved getting to write about that and that experience, especially also motherhood and body image, postpartum. Like that was something I thought was really important because you see that so much. I'm not a mom. I do not plan on being a mom, but I think that the pressure put on birthing people, the bounce back culture is so fucking toxic. It's also fucking impossible for the most part. It also is able to st and privileged in everything else. If you're able to bounce back, the things that you are have to be able to do for whatever reason are not things that a lot of people can do. And then also the shame that she feels about the postpartum depression and just also being a teenager and not like her body was changing that much. And that's not an experience I have, but it was like it was an experience I really enjoyed visiting to use the language I did before. And I've seen friends who have gained weight after having kids and who have gained weight substantially and noticeably. And like, how do they feel about that when they were all as saying what they're doing is wrong, that this is wrong. And so I did actually reach out to an old friend who, and I was like, would you because she's mentioned before body image issues after when you talk to me? So we had like a little discussion just about basically how she felt the expectations were how she felt like a failure after like why, what the messaging is, what she was being told. So that's what I borrowed into this because I was like, I'm not a mom, and even like when I gained weight and my body changed, it was still like this thing. I I did not have a body that made a whole ass person. It was just a really I don't know, I really liked getting to do that. That was something like really special in a lot of ways.

Alesia Galati 47:32

Yeah, even thinking about my own experience after my first, so that would have been 2014. I had postpartum depression really bad. And this is before anybody was talking about it, like before Chrissy Teagan even was like, Hey, I have postpartum depression. Like, nobody was talking.

SPEAKER_01 47:50

Yeah, but my mom had it with my sister, and it was really bad. And my dad lost his job right after. And I know, I'm like, I can't imagine. Like, should and then I was a toddler at the time, like, girl, like I can't imagine. Like, I I can't imagine that happening and then not being a mom. Like that that's so stressful. I think it was a very culturally important thing to write about. It's also something I personally have not seen it in romance. I'm sure it also exists, but it was something like again, I really wanted to see if it was possible to write a fat, positive romance about fat characters. Because that was something I think again, this is the first one where like my main characters weren't like obviously fat. And I was like, I still want to make it clear that these characters are not sexier because they're not fat, they're not better because they are not as fat. They're just people, they're people with bodies, and their bodies are different. Like that's all, not better. It was a really fun challenge, honestly, and like also very not like very easy, but so doable. I'm like, you could just literally do this. Like anybody can do this, like just not uphold the perfect body. Because that's what I'm like, I kind of think by the end of the book, it's like if Gren gains weight, if Audrey loses weight or gains weight, that's not gonna impact their relationship. While they love their bodies, there's also a very much understanding that it is just a body. They love the body because they love them, kind of thing again.

What's Next: PCOS, Plan B Realities, and Subverting the Unexpected Pregnancy Trope

Alesia Galati 49:08

Exactly. What are you working on next? Where can people buy your books, hang out with you, all that fun stuff?

SPEAKER_01 49:15

You can buy my books pretty much everywhere. A lot of small romance bookstores have it. You can order them from Scribbles Bookshop. I know Friends to Lovers has them. A couple others have them too. Romance Landia has them. Um, you can also buy them on Amazon. They're all available on Kindle Unlimited. I am currently working on the fourth book in the series, which I'm really excited about. I know who the couple is, and it's a unexpected pregnancy trope, which I'm super excited about. I always feel like I kind of I always like what ifing a trope. So what if it's an unexpected pregnancy for someone who has PCOS but also took plan B but is fat, so it doesn't work over a certain way, but that's not marketed. Just very much that's the thing too. I'm like, that's so realistic. But also I love pulling in these more complex threads into those tropes. She's fat. And that's the thing too. I don't want to go too much into it. It's a couple other surprises, but I love the story. I am struggling because writer's block and just human block, brain, just brain block, honestly. When writer's block, just brain block, but not sure when it'll be out yet, but it will be out at some point, hopefully, somewhat soon. And I'm really excited about it. I love the characters so much, they're just both absolute babies, like just absolutely cutie pies. Most of the time, you can find me on Instagram or email me.

Outro: Where to Buy Katie's Books and Connect Online

SPEAKER_01 50:31

I love talking about my books and people read them.

Alesia Galati 50:35

Awesome. We'll have links for all that in the show notes and the YouTube description for anyone doing other things as they're listening or watching us. Katie, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much. Thank God.

SPEAKER_02 50:48

Yes.