Penny Reid interview

Penny Reid is the USA Today Best Selling Author of the Winston Brothers and Knitting in the City series. When she's not immersed in penning smart romances, Penny works in the biotech industry as a researcher. She's also a full time mom to three diminutive adults, wife, daughter, knitter, crocheter, sewer, general crafter, and thought ninja.

As an author of smart, sexy romance, in your opinion, what are some of the biggest misconceptions about the romance genre as a whole?
Romance doesn’t have literary value: This is a common misconception and it’s complete nonsense.

Romance can’t/shouldn’t involve technical concepts or current events because “romance readers” don’t want to read books that make them think: This is a criticism I received time and time again from big publishing houses. I’ve been encouraged to choose between writing either literary fiction (remove the intimacy) or romance (remove the challenging concepts), because a book can’t be both. Again, complete nonsense.

What’s the best line from a book, movie or TV show that you wish you wrote?
“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” – Dr. Seuss

Or

“If you're looking for sympathy you'll find it between shit and syphilis in the dictionary.” ― David Sedaris

Neanderthal Seeks Human is a favorite of ours here at Romance Rehab. If it were to be made into a movie, who would you want to play Janie and Quinn (aka: Sir McHotpants)?
For Janie, I guess Christina Hendricks. She’s not at tall as Janie, but she’s a phenomenal actress and possesses the same effortless (seemingly accidental) charm that Janie has.

Quinn is a bit more difficult. In my mind’s eye, he looks like David Gandy, but he’s not an actor. It would have to be someone who is gifted at playing both good guys and bad guys. Maybe a moody, stern version of Bradly Cooper?

​If you could co-author a book with anyone you haven’t worked with before, who would it be and why? (feel free to time-travel on this one—it can be any author, living or dead)
So, so, so many. Therefore, I’ll limit my answer to the living.

Amy Harmon is exceptional, everything she writes is outstanding, but I think I’d be paralyzed by the enormity of her talent. She’d never receive any chapters back from me.

Samantha Young’s books are frequent re-reads because . . . they’re magic. She makes me laugh and cry and then laugh again. I’d love to understand her writing process and try to bottle some of that magic.

Kylie Scott’s books are brimming with wry humor and additively engaging dialogue. Working with her, forcing one of her characters to fall in love with one of mine, seems like it would be a hella lot of fun.

I’d also love to write with Ruthie Knox. I love her books. They’re surprising, smart, and heartfelt; heavy in substance and light in cliché.

If you could borrow any character from a book, movie or TV show and put him/her in one of your stories, who would it be and why?
Gah! Such a great question. The Mule from Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy. The Mule is, by far, the most enigmatic and intelligent character I’ve ever read about. When he/she was revealed, I was completely shocked, and I’m never shocked. I wish Asimov would’ve written more books (or even short stories) about the character.

The zombie apocalypse has hit (as we all knew it would one day). Which TV or movie characters do you want as part of your crew? (no superheroes…that’s cheating)
Characters from the Harry Potter universe. You said no super heroes, but you didn’t say no magicians.

---