I’ve talked about my love of podcasts here before – at last count I’m up to 43 (seriously!) that I subscribe to and I am caught up on every one of them. One True Pairing is one of the most recent ones I listen to, the two hosts discuss their favorite couples throughout pop culture. This includes movies, TV, and books. They’re gearing up right now to celebrate August as Romance Awareness Month which is SO my thing! They kicked it off last week with an interview with the now RITA-Award winning Alexis Daria.
The hosts are Erica Martirano and Marissa Sangiacamo and I just loved this episode – Alexis is the author of Take the Lead, which was highly praised in 2017 on many Best of the Year lists. The group look at their faves in all the RITA categories and talk a little bit about what the RITAs mean for the romance community as a whole. What’s a RITA? Think Oscars, but make it Romance Novels. The podcast episode talks about books, so really what’s not to love?
Below is a brief Q&A with the two hosts about what to expect with the podcast & Romance Awareness Month – which let’s be honest, is what I care about the most lol!
https://art19.com/shows/beabce22-cedf-4a28-a325-8daea9cad6b4/episodes/128779d2-83ca-4fe6-80f0-fa38729eee5a/embed” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Listen Here!
They also have an awesome sweepstakes going on ending on 7/31 at 11:59PM. Check out the picture below to see which romances you could win. Enter for your chance to win the amazing romance book bundle from One True Pairing HERE!
Check out the Q&A with the two hosts below and then definitely tune in to the podcast regularly. I’m enjoying it! I always need more OTP & HEAs in my life!
So, I’m interested to hear more about what you are doing for Romance Awareness Month on the show and why?
Marissa: We’ve always been big fans of romance and August is Romance Awareness Month. As a podcast that covers couples of all kinds, what better couples to cover than the ones that started our obsession with love? We want to help our listeners explore the genre if they never have. Our listeners tend to skew more pop culture but we think there’s such an overlap between what we talk about and what they can find in romance.
Erica: And if they have tried reading romance before, we want to help them dig a little deeper and find something they haven’t read before. Step out of their comfort zone and celebrate the variety of stories you can read.
Marissa: So every week in August we are talking with people in every part of the romance community. We have editors and a writer and a publisher and reviewers all coming on the show. We’re asking them questions about their work and they will all be telling us their favorite couple from a romance novel. So definitely stay tuned!
There have obviously been romance book communities longer than there have been online shipping communities. So do you think these online communities (including podcasts like yours) have changed the overall romance industry?
Erica: I think it’s interesting–you would think that with the more fantasy and sci-fi communities popping up online, that those kind of romances would become more popular. But, actually, in my experience, it’s the other way around. You had paranormals that were so popular in the early 2000s and now they’re not as popular anymore. Everybody’s writing about rich billionaires with a dirty, tawdry side who want to rescue you from the world.
Marissa: Really, romantic comedy is now the big thing.
Erica: Yeah! And that’s nice because now people really crave escapism. The world is such a dumpster fire right now, why wouldn’t you want to read a romantic comedy?
What’s coming up for the podcast during Romance Awareness Month? What do we have to look forward to and where can we find you?
Both: We have so much coming up. Like we said earlier, we have an episode dropping every Wednesday in August. You can listen to those on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, or whatever podcast platform your prefer. You can follow us on Twitter @OTP_Pod. We love interacting with our listeners so please do tweet at us!
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