✏️🛠️ Sweet Talk: How to Write (and Read) Romance Novels, With Author Nichole Perkins

Nichole talks to us about her deep-seated love of romance novels, why they unfairly get a bad rap and overcoming her fear of writing one herself (which we can’t wait to read!).

Photo by Sylvie Rosokoff; collage by Yunuen Bonaparte

This is not the first Valentine’s Day, nor presumably the last, in which someone has thought that author Nichole Perkins would make the perfect interviewee. Most well-known for her nonfiction and poetry collections and the wonderful podcasts she’s hosted and written — like The Godmother, about the Black female prosecutor who took down notorious mobster “Lucky” Luciano, and The Prince Mixtape — she also loves romance novels. She wrote all about them in her Kindle Single, “Romance Novels Ruined Me,” talks about them a bunch in her memoir, Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could Be and is now, indeed, writing her own (she opens up about her fear of messing it up in this lovely essay). 

The book she’s writing is a second-chance novel about two individuals who meet at a resort while both in town for a destination wedding. They get together, inevitably split up, then meet again five years later and see if they can give it a real shot. Nichole first came across my radar when I heard a wonderful interview with her on the beloved podcast Call Your Girlfriend (R.I.P.). From there, I read and fell in love with her thoughtful work, assured voice and always refreshing perspective. Besides working on her novel right now, Nichole has been writing for another podcast, which will come out later this year. “I don’t want to give too much away about that,” she shares, “but it is romance related, I’ll say that.” (She’s also open to writing or hosting podcasts, btw, if anyone is looking… 😉) Ahead of Valentine’s Day, I sat down to chat with Nichole about the advice that’s been most helpful in writing her new book, how to face (some of) your writing fears and where to start if you’re a romance newbie.