Dear Rach & Soph

Sophie Hamley
Dear Rach & Soph

Bestselling Australian authors Rachael Johns (The Other Bridget, The Patterson Girls) and Sophie Green (Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society, The Shelly Bay Ladies Swimming Circle) talk about writing and books and all sorts of things - and they welcome questions from other writers and readers! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. 5 DAYS AGO

    Dear Rach & Soph season 2, episode 10 - With special guest Rachael Treasure

    From Sophie: I met Rachael Treasure for the first time in the middle of this year on the Gold Coast, as we were both attending authors at Rachael Johns's Readers Retreat. I've read Rachael T's books, including her now-classic Jillaroo, which can be said to be the first ever rural romance (even though she wouldn't necessarily classify it as that). To say that Rachael T is a delightful human being is to seriously undersell her. She is whimsical, hilarious, astute, generous and hugely warm hearted, as well as being a (r)evolutionary in agriculture. We have some things in common - she practises yoga (indeed, she came to the yoga class I taught during the retreat) and she loves country music, and has even written some songs with fellow Tasmanians The Wolfe Brothers - but I don't like her because she's like me. I like her because she's a terrific person and a brilliant writer. Rachael J is also very fond of her, so it seemed like a very logical thing to have Rachael T on the podcast. About Rachael Treasure Rachael Treasure is a best-selling author, regenerative agriculturalist, and mother who grew up and still lives in Tasmania. A graduate of universities in Orange and Bathurst, Rachael uses story to empower women and change mindsets towards healthier food systems.   Drawing on her experience working on a Queensland cattle station, Rachael published her first novel Jillaroo, in 2002.   In the two decades since its release, Jillaroo has cemented itself as an iconic work of contemporary fiction, changing the face of Australian publishing and opening the floodgates to a plethora of novels in the ‘rural lit’ genre.   She is co-founder of Ripple Farm Landscape Healing Hub, a 100-acre regenerative farm in Southern Tasmania that showcases Natural Sequence Farming, soil health principles, ecological restoration, and holistic farming. The farm sells meat, eggs and other produce directly to conscious consumers via Open Food Networks – an online system offering an alternative to major supermarkets.   Rachael has travelled widely, writing wherever she goes. She has worked a number of jobs as a jillaroo, professional wool classer, veterinary nurse, rural journalist, stock camp cook, high country cattle drover, truffle sniffer dog handler and family farm manager.   Her eighth novel Milking Time was published this year. She is also the author of the memoir Down the Dirt Roads and some short story collections. *** For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com Rachael's latest book is Outback Reunion (2024) For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com Sophie's latest book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (2024) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 13m
  2. 2 NOV

    Dear Rach & Soph season 2, episode 9 - Our favourite books ... that we've written

    Thanks to lovely reader Elaine in New Zealand, whom Rach and Soph both met at the RJ Book Club Readers Retreat on the Gold Coast this year, for this question that Rach and I answer in this week’s episode: ‘Which has been the book you've written that you've most enjoyed writing, and did reader feedback reflect your own feelings?’ There’s a bit in there about the one time Soph drew heavily on her own near-death experience to for a chapter in THE SHELLY BAY LADIES SWIMMING CIRCLE and then subsequently forgets details about a character in that novel (hey, it happens!) so please enjoy her correcting herself … At the start of the episode Rach talks about attending the recent Festival of Fiction in Perth, organised by @tesswoods. As the Perth Writers Festival is not taking place next year, perhaps this festival can return! Do let us know if you went to it and, if so, what you thought - and if you agree with the attendee who thought there should be ‘more memoir’ in a fiction festival …! Writers - do you have a challenge or conundrum, or a question about process, how to get started, or anything at all to do with writing? We’d love to be your writing agony aunts. Readers - we would love to hear from you too! You can ask us questions about our books … and we’d also be happy to be YOUR agony aunts. We may not have professional qualifications but we sort out problems for our characters all the time, so if you’d like to get something off your chest/ask for some input/just see what we think about something, let us know. If you have a question for us, please email sophie@sophie-green-author.com and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line. And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email. For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com Rachael's latest book is Outback Reunion (2024) For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com Sophie's latest book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (2024) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 4m
  3. 26 OCT

    Dear Rach & Soph season 2, episode 8 - Listener questions

    Sometimes Rachael Johns and I wonder if we have any listeners/viewers (well, not really - I can see the stats so I know you're out there, and thank you for listening/watching!). Then a question or two comes in and, lo, we are reassured that there are, indeed, listeners/viewers. Such is the case with this week's episode, in which Rach answers a question from Nina Kenwood about community building and we both answer a question from a listener who wished to remain anonymous. That question is about lack of support from a spouse for writing, and we are blunt in our answers but hopeful that, with that, the writer who contacted us can find something helpful in it. Rach and I are probably both too long in the tooth to not be blunt these days, and I've personally found that addressing hard things head-on is better than trying to dance around them. *** Writers - do you have a challenge or conundrum, or a question about process, how to get started, or anything at all to do with writing? We’d love to be your writing agony aunts. Readers - we would love to hear from you too! You can ask us questions about our books … and we’d also be happy to be YOUR agony aunts. We may not have professional qualifications but we sort out problems for our characters all the time, so if you’d like to get something off your chest/ask for some input/just see what we think about something, let us know. If you have a question for us, please email sophie@sophie-green-author.com and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line. And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email. For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com Rachael's latest book is The Other Bridget (2024) For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com Sophie's latest book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (2024) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    56 min
  4. 19 OCT

    Season 2, episode 7 - Craft books

    This week we talk about writing craft books. Rach loves them - indeed, she collects them, and if you watch this episode on video you’ll see the collection. She’s also read a lot of them. Soph have not read too many but likes what she's read thus far.  Possibly the most important information we could convey in this post is the list of books mentioned in the episode, and this is it in the order of mentioning: Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody Pride and Prejudice: The Story Grid Edition by Jane Austen, Shawn Coyne Into the Woods by John Yorke Romancing the Beat: Story Structure for Romance Novels by Gwen Hayes The Complete Writers Guide to Heroes and Heroines: 16 Master Archetypes by Tami D Cowden, Carolyn LaFever, Sue Viders Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert 45 Master Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt Ten Things About Writing by Joanne Harris Bestseller by Celia Bradfield Story Trumps Structure by Steven James The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi Writing into the Dark by Dean Wesley Smith The Pocket Guide to Pantsing by M.L. Ronn The Bestseller Code by Jodie Archer and Matthew L Jockers   Should we start a ‘craft book’ club? Rach already has her online book club which is for reading fiction, mainly, but if you’re a writer and you’d be interested in a craft book club, let one of us know in the comments or by DM or whatever means works for you.  *** Writers - do you have a challenge or conundrum, or a question about process, how to get started, or anything at all to do with writing? We’d love to be your writing agony aunts. Readers - we would love to hear from you too! You can ask us questions about our books … and we’d also be happy to be YOUR agony aunts. We may not have professional qualifications but we sort out problems for our characters all the time, so if you’d like to get something off your chest/ask for some input/just see what we think about something, let us know. If you have a question for us, please email sophie@sophie-green-author.com and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line. And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email. For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com Rachael's latest book is The Other Bridget Her next book is The Work Wife (to be published in January 2025) For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com Sophie's latest book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (published in August 2024) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 3m
  5. 12 OCT

    Season 2, episode 6 - In which Soph is Rach's research subject

    Dear Rach & Soph - podcast Hosted by bestselling Australian novelists Rachael Johns and Sophie Green Rach is currently writing a book about twins who are adopted. As can happen for an author, she needed to do some research. Which is where Soph comes in … she's adopted. It’s not something you’ll find in her author bio because for her it’s a mundane fact. She's always known. But it is out of the ordinary, and it is complex, and there is often heartbreak on at least one side of it, and there can be confusion and problems on the other.  So here’s almost an hour of Rach asking Soph questions about adoption, and what makes this an episode that is still about writing is that you’re watching Rach at work, essentially. This is her work as a writer doing research. This is Soph not being a writer but, rather, an adoptee. She doesn't get the chance to talk about it often because the people who know she's adopted are past the point of asking me questions about it!  And in this episode we refer to the fact that we are both the products of affairs - something we covered in our second episode of season 1, in case you’re inclined to go back and listen. For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com Rachael's latest book is The Other Bridget Her next book is The Work Wife (to be published in January 2025) For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com Sophie's latest book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (published in August 2024) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    56 min
  6. 28 SEPT

    Dear Rach & Soph season 2, episode 4 - Staying published, with guest Christine Wells

    This week Rachael Johns and Sophie Green talk to author Christine Wells, and the theme is 'staying published' - that is, what it has taken for Christine to stay published over the course of her career. She's published 16 books with four different publishers in the United States and Australia, so she has quite a lot of experience to draw on!  There's more about Christine and her latest novel, THE PARIS GOWN, below.  ***  Christine Wells writes historical fiction featuring strong, fascinating women.    After graduating from university with a law degree, Christine worked in a large city firm, specialising in corporate mergers and acquisitions. She might still be a lawyer if she hadn’t accepted a challenge from her friend to try her hand at a novel.   Christine has gone on to publish sixteen novels set in periods ranging from Georgian England to post World War II France. Her next novel is The Paris Gown and it will be published in August this year.   Passionate about helping other writers learn the craft and business of writing fiction, Christine enjoys mentoring and teaching workshops whenever her schedule permits. https://christine-wells.com  About THE PARIS GOWN  Paris, 1956 Three friends—Claire, Gina, and Margot—who parted as very young women with their whole lives ahead of them, reunite in Paris years later, determined to start life anew. Parisian Claire has been working hard to become a Michelin-starred chef one day, but ever since the heady time she spent in the company of socialites Gina and Margot, her dream has been to own a Dior gown. This seemed like a far-off fantasy, until the eccentric and wealthy Madame Vaughn, who lives above Claire’s family brasserie, abruptly leaves Paris, asking Claire to mind her apartment. More bafflingly, Madame Vaughn also makes Claire a very special gift: a stunning Dior gown. Meanwhile Gina, a cool American blue blood, lands on Claire’s doorstep nursing a broken heart and a broken engagement after her father lost all of the family money in a risky business venture. A journalist aspiring to be a novelist, Gina has returned to Paris in the hopes of pursuing her dream. But when her father begs her to attend the United States Embassy ball in the hopes of persuading Hal Sanders, her former fiancé, to invest in her father’s new business venture, she is torn. She wants to help her father, but seeing Hal again will be exquisitely painful. And what on earth is she going to wear? Warm-hearted Claire insists Gina wear the Dior gown to the ball, and after some hesitation, Gina accepts. At Dior for Gina’s fitting, who should assist them but Margot, the friend they thought had gone back to Australia to be married. But Margot is living in Paris and working at Dior under an assumed name, and clearly, she is not happy to have been found. Is their close friendship at an end? Or will the wonder and delight of the Dior gown bring these young women back together? Gorgeous, perfectly fitted, lustrous and luxurious, the Dior gown has the power to change lives—as these three remarkable women are about to discover… Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 5m
  7. 21 SEPT

    Season 2, episode 3 - Writing spicy scenes

    Even if you don’t read spicy books, as they’ve come to be known, you’ve no doubt read spicy scenes in other books (and we're using the term ‘spicy’ instead of the other because we’d have to use an asterisk in that to avoid internet-consequences, plus we're sure you understand what we mean when we say ‘spicy’). If you are a writer of spicy books, you’ve definitely written them, and even if you don’t write spicy books you may have written spicy scenes anyway. Soph reads spicy books. Both Rach and Soph have both written spicy books - although Soph's are no longer available and were under a completely different name - and Rach writes spicy scenes in other books. So when Rach suggested we talk about writing spicy scenes, of course Soph agreed. What follows in this podcast episode is Soph doing a lot of laughing and Rach essentially giving a masterclass in how to write spicy scenes. [Note from Soph: writers, I thoroughly suggest you take notes because she has so many good tips!] Writers - do you have a challenge or conundrum, or a question about process, how to get started, or anything at all to do with writing? We’d love to be your writing agony aunts. Readers - we would love to hear from you too! You can ask us questions about our books … and we’d also be happy to be YOUR agony aunts. We may not have professional qualifications but we sort out problems for our characters all the time, so if you’d like to get something off your chest/ask for some input/just see what we think about something, let us know. If you have a question for us, please email sophie@sophie-green-author.com and put ‘Dear Rach & Soph’ in the subject line. And if you’d like to actually be in the podcast with us while we answer your question, please let us know in the email. For more about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com Rachael's latest book is The Other Bridget Her next book is The Work Wife (to be published in January 2025) For more about Sophie Green: https://sophie-green-author.com Sophie's latest book is Art Hour at the Duchess Hotel (published in August 2024) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    55 min

About

Bestselling Australian authors Rachael Johns (The Other Bridget, The Patterson Girls) and Sophie Green (Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society, The Shelly Bay Ladies Swimming Circle) talk about writing and books and all sorts of things - and they welcome questions from other writers and readers! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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