Best Of: Record producer Peter Asher / Romance writer Kennedy Ryan

We were here to protest police brutality.

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Join me as I investigate the unsolved killing of 16-year-old Antonio May's junior. Listen to we keep us safe on the embedded podcast from NPR. From WHOI and Philadelphia, this is Fresh Air Weekend, I'm Tanya Mosley and Los Angeles. Today we hear from the man who's been described as the force gump of rock and roll, Peter Asher. He discovered James Taylor and launched Carol King's career.

Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote, "I want to hold your hand in his family's basement." The new documentary about Asher is everywhere, man. Also, romance novelist Kennedy Ryan talks about how she fell in love with the genre in middle school, even though her mother, a preacher, didn't approve. Ryan read them anyway and hit the evidence.

“Hundreds of romance novels like hidden at the back of my closet behind clothes,”

and it was like, "I'm literally in my thirties." When I was like, "You know when you told me to stop reading romance novels?" I didn't. And TV critic David B. and Kooley has a review of the little house on the prairie remake. That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend.

This week on Wayway Talk Tell me we talked to legendary musician Jason Nardusey about being in a punk band when he was just 11 years old. We broke up when I was 12. And yeah, I just felt like I needed to go through puberty without band drama. Don't miss our full conversation and the rest of our game.

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But with the NPR app, news, culture and podcasts are ready when you want them. In your pocket, download the NPR app today. This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tony Mosley. Terry has our first interview. One of the successful British invasion bands of the '60s was the duo Peter and Gordon. Peter is my guest, Peter Asher, who later became a famous record producer.

The first record Peter and Gordon released became a number one hit in England and the U.S. That song, a world without love, was written by Paul McCartney for the Beatles. But John Lennon didn't like it, so Paul put it away until Peter asked to record it. Paul had been living in the Asher family home where Peter, his sisters, and his parents lived. We'll hear a while little later. It's a great story.

So here's a world without love from 1964. And rain clouds high at the moon. I love him. Here I'll stay with my loneliness. I don't care what they say. I won't stay in a world without love. So I wait and in a while. I will see my true love's far and she may come.

Peter and Gordon went on to have other hits, including nobody I know. I don't want to see you again, and I go to pieces. After the duo split up, in 1968 Peter became the first ANR man at the Beatles' new Apple

record label. The first person he signed was James Taylor, who had never recorded before.

Peter didn't stay long at Apple, he moved to LA, produced and managed Taylor, and helped turn him into a star. He introduced Taylor to Carol King, and launched King's performing career. He produced and managed Linda Ronstatt. Other artists he produced over the years include Randy Newman, Cher, Neil Diamond, Marisi, Diana Ross, Elton John, Bonnie Rate, Barbara Streisand, Robin Williams, and Steve Martin, while that's really a phenomenal list.

where John first met Yoko while her work was on exhibit there. Peter was unintentionally

responsible for Mick Jagger meeting Mary and Faithful, which began their romance. In addition to the many Grammys, his artist won, he won three producing Grammys, and in 1977 was on the cover of Rolling Stone, a new documentary Chronicles Peter Asher's life. It's called Peter Asher, Everywhere Man. It's playing and select theaters around the country. Peter Asher, Welcome to Fresh Air. I really like this documentary. You've had such an interesting life.

“So let's start with world without love. Did Paul ever explain why John rejected it?”

I think it was the lyrics. First of all, I think it's quite true to say that Paul wrote it for the Beatles. I think he wrote it pre-B Beatles, actually. Oh, that's right. You say he wrote it right? He was like 16 or something like that, which is extraordinary. And I think what John didn't like about it was the lyrics that he thought that pleased locked me away was an absurd line to put into song. And so he would actually say

to Paul, "Okay, I will lock you away the songs over." So it's copyrighted to learn in McCartney. Everything was. Yes, I know. And Paul told me one of the times I interviewed him that he regrets having the Beatles songs that Paul or John wrote independently, credited to both of them, especially because even if Paul wrote a song himself, the credits started with Lenin, Lenin McCartney. I'm not sure I agree with Paul about that.

“I think it was something particularly charming and emphasized the closest to their relationship”

that they agreed to credit everything to the two of them. And I think that was actually a very fair division of credit and saved them in the arguments, because at the beginning, of course, they did actually write together the songs they wrote in our house in London as you point out, but as long as John came over, they sat down together at the piano or together with two guitars facing each other and wrote together. So I think that even if they just later did it in

commemoration of those moments of togetherness and creativity, I think it was kind of a cool thing to do. So since you were talking about them writing songs together, let's hear a clip from the documentary, and this is a part where Paul was talking about living with your family and what that was like

and it leads into writing with John Lennon at your home. And in the second part of this clip,

we'll hear you. It was such a family. Claire was a very nice younger sister, a lot of fun. And then there was Peter, an interesting bright guy. I could talk to him about anything and also a very interested in music, very musical. So there's a lot of connection there. They got a piano in my room and there was a piano in the basement as well. So when John came to visit, we could write there on the piano at the same time. There was a little music room in the basement,

and I do remember one particular occasion, shortly after Paul had moved in. John came over and he and Paul went down to this music room. They were down there for a couple of hours and then Paul called up the stairs to be in my bedroom, and I also wanted to come down and hear this song that it just finished writing. They sat side by side at the piano and hammered out the first version that he would have ever heard of this brand new song that it just finished,

called "I want to hold your hand." Peter Asher, your reaction was what when you heard the song. Amazement, I mean, I'm losing my mind, or is this one of the best songs I've ever heard of my life? Well, possibly both, but I was thrilled and amazed and they looked at me for some kind of reaction.

And I said, I think that's amazing. And perhaps the biggest giveaways, if I had that I immediately

asked them to take it play it again. And perhaps the second giveaways, the fact that they were delighted to play it again, I think they knew that they'd written something special. Whether they had in mind, the fact that it was going to break the whole attitude of the whole world, starting with America, that everyone was going to become a beetle fan when they had, I want to hold your hand that that was the magic track that set off the American beetle mania epidemic.

“I don't know, but that's what it turned out to be.”

So Paul was living with your family because your sister, Jane Asher, was a famous actress by then. Yes. Paul was her boyfriend. Yes. The beetles had a home in London for when they were there, but Paul found it too chaotic. He must have moved in very early in the beetles career because if he and John hadn't yet written, I want to hold our hand. That had to be pretty early. That's a good point. Yes, that's correct. I'm very bad at the dates. I told you, but

but yes, that would certainly be true. So watching Paul's fame, what did it teach you

It's a good question. I don't really know. I learned anything about becoming famous and certainly nobody was famous in a way that compared to the beetles in any sense. But certainly when we go to America, there's no question the template for the famous British invasion member had been sort of set by the beetles and that all the girls you chased you run around the streets and stuff which they did. We're following what they'd seen in the beetles movie and how they knew

everyone reacted to the beetles, the screaming which fever pitch and we were lucky to be sort of

part of that whole madness and it was a thrilling time. Did you always feel lucky that girls were

chasing after the band and that they were screaming probably so loud that couldn't actually hear the music that you were playing and you might not have been able to hear Gordon when you were singing with him on stage. So that was very annoying. That was true. I mean it was certainly one of the downsides of the technology of that era. Monitors hadn't been invented yet at all. Oh, you had no monitors. No monitors at all. Let alone the fancy inias that we all have today.

“So we couldn't hear ourselves at all. I mean Ringo, I remember I didn't interview explaining that”

he knew where he was on the song by watching the backs of Paul and John. He could tell from

their movements which bit of the song they were in but you couldn't hear anything between the

screaming and the technological setbacks. It was guesswork. It must have been strange for you from going to a guy who was playing small clubs to suddenly having a number one record, Touring America, getting on the console of intro, it's like an extreme jump. It was indeed. I mean often say that, you know, there was a comparison between one point, you know, I remember when I was before it even made the record. I was at university reading philosophy at London University and bicycling

home from school for and the afternoon in the dark and the rain very often. If it was a British winter

“and only less than a year later I think. I was instead driving down Sunset Boulevard in the broad sunshine”

in a rented Mustang being recognized by beautiful women and at that point I kind of went, this isn't a substantial improvement, you know. I think this is better. So I made the decision to quit university of course and take up this pop stuff full time. Did it change yourself image to have women chasing after you? No, but it's fun. That's for sure. I don't think, I don't change myself image because I suddenly feel swarve and grown up and and manly, I don't, don't think so.

I think my insecurities remained intact but it was suddenly amusing. So you loved American jazz, folk music, rock and roll and suddenly you go, I mean you go to America and everybody's really absorbed in the British invasion. Americans were in love with British bands. Was that in comprehensible to you? It was a surprise. I mean because that's the whole miracle of the British invasion. We loved all this music, you know. As you said, folk music and jazz and I was a big

jazz fan and it just was extraordinary. And then we learned all this music, R&B and the Evelie Brothers in our case and so on and decided to wish to emulate among the stars of American music. And then the miracle is that we sent my learned it all and tweaked it slightly and sold it all back to you. It was remarkable achievement from a business point of view I suppose. I want to mention another connection between your family and the Beatles, which is your mother was a professional oboe player.

She performed with symphonies and taught oboe at the Royal Academy of Music also taught private lessons and one of her private students was George Martin who later became the Beatles producer. I don't think he was producing them yet. Am I right about that? That's right, yeah. I don't think so.

“No, I think that's correct. Yeah, it was an extraordinary coincidence. So by the time my mother”

was introduced to George Martin as her daughter's boyfriend's record producer. She was like, "Oh, it's George, you know." She had given him private lessons to because he was concerned about

potting his exams at the Guildhall School of Music and he had to oboe his second instrument and he

required some further training evidently but presumably it was successful. In the '60s while you were performing and recording with Gordon your singing partner, you also became the co-owner of a bookstore and an art gallery that were part of London's underground culture of the time. So the gallery that you co-owned is where John and Yoko met during the period when the gallery was exhibiting her work.

actually the person who introduced them or anything but John came in his mini-cooper with a chauffeur and yeah I mean it was John Dunbao ran the art half of the Indica operation and he'd seen Yoko taught to Yoko or something and that's he suggested that Yoko would be a good person to be you know exhibited in our gallery which he was indeed. I certainly saw John that at one point

“but I don't think I was the person who actually physically introduced them. So the gallery?”

Even though sometimes I get blamed for it in the context. But that gallery was the place that the whole controversy started about whether Yoko broke up the Beatles. Well exactly I mean it's funny because I tell the story and it's part of my stage show which is a bit of a story's half amusing. When I tell that story it gets such wildly different reactions at different days because sometimes it's a ah you know what a sweet love story.

Other times it's gonna arrive I don't know and then finally one time the only this happened

as soon as I told the story somebody jumped up to the feet and said it was you you broke up the Beatles. I had to say no I didn't you know because I didn't. Not your fault you were wrong. Exactly exactly exactly so. We're listening to Terry's interview with record producer Peter Asher. The new documentary about him is called Everywhere Man. We'll hear more of their conversation after a break. I'm Tanya Mosley and this is Fresh Air Weekend.

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“you get your podcasts. This is Fresher Weekend. I'm Tonya Mosley. Let's get back to Terry's”

interview with record producer Peter Asher. Americans first knew him as half of the 60s British invasion band Peter and Gordon. Their hits included a world without love, nobody I know,

and I go to pieces. Asher went on to become a Grammy-winning record producer. His first two

enduring music relationships were with James Taylor and Linda Ronstatt. So in terms of your music life, you went through a transitional time in the late '60s. Gordon Waller, your singing partner, decided he wanted to go solo. And you knew that you wanted to produce recordings. I did. The minute I went to the recording studio and figured out what producers did, I thought this would be so cool. I love the idea of being able to

influence the arrangement and mix and sound and identity, musical identity, of a song. Before you had produced any record, you became the first ANR man for the Beatles' new Apple record label, ANR stands for Artisan Repetwar, describe what your job was. Well, Apple took this very bold step of actually soliciting tapes. It was normally that it was going to no solicited material was supposed to be sent in to most major record companies.

But we actually took ads going, you know, send your tapes to Apple Records and God did they ever. We got giant mail bags for the tapes and the sad thing was they mostly were not any good. And not just that it'd be weird stuff like somebody sends in 100 pages of lyrics that they know John Lennon is anxiously awaiting to write music for and things like that. It suddenly relates as an awful lot of odd people out there who think they should need to be signed

Apple Records. But eventually of course we did find a few good people, but usually not sadly through the unsolicited tapes. They usually came through connections or friends or or coincidences like meeting James and things like that. Well, the first person you signed was James Taylor and you did not find him in the slush pile. How did you find him? Well, Wim Gordon and I played America.

something would find a band to back you up and usually we'd just find an outer work local group who would do it for cheap. And so the quality of those bands vary enormously. But one band that I actually liked that came to us in that manner was a band called the Kingbees. And one of the Kingbees was a guitar player called Danny Courtsman. And Danny and I became great friends. We remain great friends to the stage and bring a guitar player in a remarkable

man. And then subsequently Danny was in a band with his childhood friend James Taylor. That band was called the Flying Machine. And it suffered all the vicissitudes that living in New York could convey. And the drug problems and money problems and food problems and

all the stuff going on. So finally that band broke up. James decided to go to London

“and when Danny found this out he said to James, you should look at my friend Peter Asher. He's okay.”

So that's how I got my phone rang and this guy out said, you know, it's sort of cultured, slightly Southern accent that explained that he was friend of cooches. And I said great, you know, if you're in London, come over. I mean come and visit. So he came to dinner the following evening. And he'd already made a demo tape and the previous week. And he played me a couple of songs on the tape and I was completely blown away. And then he picked up my guitar and just leaning

in the corner of the room and played me something alive. And I couldn't believe it. I thought his guitar playing was exceptional. His singing was exceptional. The songs were brilliant.

One of my favorite James Taylor recordings is fire and rain from his second album, Sweet Baby

James, which of course he produced. And it's a song about a friend who died by suicide. Did he tell you the story behind the song? A little bit. I mean he's told it publicly.

“I mean Suzanne was a friend who killed herself and I think people didn't want to tell him”

was something. So there was some delay and they're actually getting the information. And of course there's a thing about flying machines and pieces on the ground and there's been much a misinterpreted and people think it relates to a plane crash and it doesn't at all the flying machine was the band as I explained before that he was in with coach that broke up. So that was the flying machine in pieces on the ground. So I want to play fire and rain

which was recorded in 1970. And I want our listeners to know that it's Carol King on piano. And after we hear this you can explain why and how you got her to play. Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone Suzanne the plans they made put an end

“to you. I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song I just can't remember who to send it to”

me. I've seen fire and I've seen rain. I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end.

I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend. But I always thought that I'd see you again. Okay, so how how did you get Carol King to play piano on that and why? Well that's a Danny Courchmars the is a key figure yet again in this story because when I came out to LA I wanted to put together a little band to play on the whole track and out because I wanted to keep it much simpler than the previous CD album had been and to make sure that every song was

based entirely around the arrangement that was sort of self-contained in his guitar playing and his singing and I found a drama called Ross Conkel and Danny Courchmars himself was going to play guitar obviously and then I was trying to choose the piano player and by this time I'd heard some of Carol King's demos. I already was a huge fan of hers got in the King wrote so many of my favorite songs of course you know with you said let me tomorrow being the first one when she was 18

that was number one all over the place and that went on to do you know natural woman and I'm into something good and up on the roof and I loved Carol King's piano playing specifically because it was very much an accompanist's kind of piano playing not flashy not not complicated but just right sort of sing a songwriter piano so I got to meet Carol through Danny Courchmars. I then asked Carol if she would consider playing on this James Taylor album that we were about to make. I said

and she said maybe and she didn't know James was so I invited over to my house where James was staying

at this point and she sat down next to James the piano bench James played his guitar and she started playing piano I suggested they just sit and start playing and it worked perfectly I thought her piano playing was exactly exactly what I had in mind and James loved her too and of course he was a Carol fan already and so we sort of booked Carol's it were as a studio musician for the next five days and that was when we recorded every track on sweet baby

James and if you if you look you'll see the Carol King's credited on piano and every one of them

“and that's how Carol King and James Taylor became friends and collaborator yes exactly so”

I want to thank you so much for talking with us the film is fascinating the documentary about you called everywhere man and I wish you good health and continued performances and producing thank you very much indeed Peter Asher speaking with Terry Gross Netflix is presenting a new version of Little House on the Prairie based on the popular series of books by Laura Engels Wilder all eight episodes of season one are available to string and Netflix

is already ordered a season two our TV critic David being coolly has some thoughts about this new remake and about the original NBC series from 1974 as well here is his review

“when Laura Engels Wilder started writing her little house on the Prairie book series in the early”

1930s it was as a fun salute to her own childhood memories Laura was born shortly after the

Civil War in 1867 in the very long cabin she describes in her first book Little House in the

Big Woods that book and her later ones detailed the joys the difficulties and the hard work involved in pioneer life as seen and told from the perspective of a precocious young girl Laura loved her mom and pa and her siblings but she observed them all carefully and perceptively she was the little house on the Prairie what John Boy was to the Walton's another nostalgic family TV series set during an earlier time in that case the depression the characters of

“both John Boy and Laura displayed a gift for writing early on and narrated their family stories”

when Michael Landon after spending years as Little Joe and Benanza brought Little House on the Prairie to NBC in the 1970s he cast himself as the patriarch pa Engels but the storytelling as in the books belonged to Little Laura played in that series by a young Melissa Gilbert if I had a remembrance book I would mark down how it was when we left our little house in the Big Woods to go west to a main territory that little house series was very popular and ran from 1974 to 1983

especially in the early episodes it was faithful to the original books and characters when an o-sage Indian chief came by the Engels cabin pa invited him in for a sit and a smoke ma was frightened as was Laura's elder sister and was relieved when he left but Laura was charmed and sympathetic to his tribe's plight what Laura says in that 1974 premiere may sound like liberal Hollywood rewriting but the empathic dialogue like much of the TV series came straight

from the original books why that was kind of nice what did we upset about it he much from now they won't be in any left in a territory why not pop come it's gonna make a move have fine move where

west I guess I'm glad I'm not this about to shade have to go to even always achieve

down afraid so it's not fair they were here first the new incarnation of little house on the prairie is created for TV by Rebecca Sun and Shine her writing credits include house made and episodes of the TV series the boys and the vampire diaries she and the shows other writers as well as the directors take some liberties with their new version they introduce an entire family of Osage characters for example to present another set of family dynamics one thing they don't

mess with though is Laura as the central voice she's played here by Alice Halsey whom you may

best a show that starts as before with Laura's opening marriage once upon a time

“pa and mom and Mary and Laura left their house in the big woods of this concept”

mom was sad to leave her life behind but pa said it was getting too crowded and we needed a fresh start in the west every day the horses traveled as far as they could and pa and mom made camp at a new place Warren Christie is another standout he plays John Edwards a civil war veteran and sometimes drunken loner who agrees to help the ingles build their log cabin before winter sets in Charles that's pa to Laura likes him but Caroline that's ma fears him as much as she does the

Osage and sends him away look bracy plays pa and cross be fits Gerald plays Caroline he's not coming back he was drinking here at our home he said he didn't do it while you work but I didn't believe I told him not to come back until he didn't need something to chase the shit doesn't work like that

“you don't just snap your fingers make a go away his wife is gone his girls are gone he got chewed”

up and spit out by the god for sake and more you know you knew and you didn't say anything Caroline we are alone at sea we don't have to move this obsession with virtue it's not virtue I don't want to lose my family can finish this house without there argument is intense but as filmed there's something off about it like many other scenes in this new little house on the prairie it's shot by handheld cameras in extreme close up and calls too much attention to itself

also some of the dramatic plot points that worked so well in the books then in the NBC series are less effective here because they're not established or presented as well the familiar title of little house on the prairie may bring lots of viewers to this new version but I can't say it really resonates except for the performances of Alice Halsey's Laura and Warren Christie is Mr. Edwards but I will say that the entire original series of little house on

the prairie is available to stream on peacock and when I dove back in there to refresh my memory that series really did resonate David B. and Kooley is fresh air's TV critic coming up we hear from romance novelist Kennedy Ryan her characters are the people romance has often left at the margins black and indigenous queer women people living with disabilities this is fresh air weekend you know every day and up first NPR's golden globe nominated

morning news podcast we bring you three essential stories at the heart of each story are questions

what really happened what really mattered what happens next at NPR we stand for your right to be curious and to follow the facts follow a first wherever you get your podcasts and start

“your day knowing what matters and why the last phase of the world cup is underway and the”

NPR network has been there since the first whistle okay bird is a small African island nation that's priced everyone by making it to the world not to do something no man or woman has done before he scored goals in six different world cups for a tour as we enter the final matches of the tournament head to the NPR app for all things world cup from the NPR network on NPR's wildcard podcast writer Terry Tempest Williams on what it means to be a woman

with a big voice and big ideas in our culture I don't know if we have to prove or not crazy

but we're always being asked if we are watch or listen to that wildcard conversation on the NPR app

or on YouTube at NPR wildcard this is fresh air weekend I'm Tanya Mosley say the words romance novel and watch what happens some people light up others roll their eyes almost nobody is neutral it's the best selling fiction in the world outselling mysteries and thrillers and yet it's still the genre people feel they have to defend or apologize for I've always wanted to know what makes a writer choose a genre that has historically been shunned by critics and mainstream publishing

I guess today Kennedy Ryan is one of those writers and in some ways her path is typical of the field for one Kennedy Ryan isn't her real name many romance writers use pinnames she didn't get her

first publishing deal until 40 which is also common 45 is the average age of the genre's most

books past her mom who was a preacher she came back to it after building a career in journalism and autism advocacy her characters are the people romance often leaves at the margins black and indigenous queer women people living with disabilities navigating ambition caregiving and

grief Ryan builds them the way she wants built new stories by going out and interviewing real people first

Ryan is the first black writer to win romances highest honor the romance writers of America award known as the Rita her best selling novel before I let go is being adapted for peacock and her latest book score follows two former college sweetheart's reunited while making a film about the Harlem Renaissance Kennedy Ryan welcome to fresh air thank you for having me I'm glad to be here the paradox is really interesting to me because millions of people read fiction but people are

so drawn to romance romance outsells every other kind of fiction but critics have been kind of condescending about it for hundreds of years you looked at romance and decided this is where you want

“to go this you want to go all in what was it about romance for you yeah I think I like you said I was”

young when I first discovered romance I think it was one of my first introductions to seeing

what relationships looked like besides obviously the the one that was in my in my house which was very healthy fortunately with my my mom and my dad but I liked I think the escape of it too I mean I was only in the eighth grade but I liked being transport it kind of to another world and there was a glamour to it especially then so this is like the heyday of the bodice rivers and Harlem when presents and so it was usually very glamorous kind of setting and I was living in

rural North Carolina with like deer deer on my front porch you know so the glamour of it I think really drew me and I'm just this idea that you could be in another world and also that just kind of seeing women especially loved and esteemed and at the center of something I was a voracious readers I was reading a lot of things but romance quickly became my favorite and so and you know I left it a little bit after high school but in my 30s I came back because it was it was it was an

escape and I think it was a reflection of a lot of hopes and dreams and desires and needs and I

“think that's what draws a lot of people to it. Your latest novel score it follows two former college”

sweetheart's who broke up badly a decade before and they're kind of thrown back together making a film about the Harlem Renaissance and Verity is the the main woman character and she's a screenwriter she also has bipolar disorder and I don't think I've ever read a book about love and desire from the point of view of a person with a mental illness how did you come to decide to give your character this type of backstory? I am interested in writing the stories of people who don't

typically see themselves at the center of culture narrative and you know what I mean by that is usually it's not the you know usually the it has been the black girl the fat girl the sick girl the disabled girl she was the sidekick she was a secondary or a tertiary character but she certainly wasn't at the very center and she wasn't the one who was getting the happily ever after and I want to take those identities and those experiences and those communities that have been on the periphery

of cultural narrative and set them firmly at the center this is the second book in the series the

first book was a heroine who has loop is you're not reading a lot of that I mean that that it doesn't happen at all but there are a lot of romance novels that are focused on women who are navigating loop is you know and now yes there are a lot of women who yes particularly black women who suffer from loop is it's one which is yes autoimmune diseases so you've done a lot of research here and really trying to figure out not only your audience but the realities of your audience

“yeah for sure and I think a big part of this series and a kind of a lot of what I write is”

there's someone for whom you're not too much and what I mean by that is we all hope that there is someone who's going to love us through hard times through bad times through difficult situations you know um in real the book before this book one of the series where the heroine has loop is she's going through a flare you know and she's self-conscious because she has lesions and she has ball spots and her body she is in a battle and yet this romantic partner he's impervious of all of that like

emails and messages and deems that I get from women who are living with chronic illnesses who are incredibly moved um by that because that is their hope you know their hope is that there is someone in real life who will love them that way you know even given difficult circumstances that they're navigating in real life and I want that you ask you know about romance romance to me is the genre of hope and is the genre of joy and people sometimes talk about the happily ever after being

quote unquote predictable but every genre has it's you know these are the boundaries of the genre these are the things that you can expect from the genre and it's just that with you know romance it's a happily ever after me especially writing black and brown and queer and chronically ill and fat people like when I am writing those um identities that in the real world a lot of times our outcomes are compromised a lot of times our outcomes are not as good as other groups I can create a world where

we are guaranteed joy I want to go back to your childhood uh for a moment you're growing up in a small town in North Carolina when you say small house how small are we talking it is so it was so small that like it would have had a phone number for one town uh we had a PO box no a route we had a route um for a mailing address um and I went to school for another town like it was in between

small towns basically this is a strip of land that my grandfather owned and like as far as the

I could see it was just farm land that he owned and he sold off all of these plots of land to put uh

“his kids I think it's 12 of them my dad don't kill me because I get it wrong but uh put all of his”

kids through college and he only kept you kept a plot of land for each of them and that was our community so you're talking about basically a community of my family it's my uncle living to the left and it's my uncle living to the right and it's my uncle you know living in front of me who's raising hogs and on a Christmas morning brings us a little white cheese cloth bag with slaughtered you know sausage it's pear and peach trees in my backyard it's you know a grapevine it's cherry trees it's

a garden my dad coming straight home from work going straight to like pull collar greens and string beans I am a country girl you know through it's so like through yes you're dead your dad was also a college administrator yeah for for several um HBCUs historically black colleges it's interesting because uh they feature prominently in many of your books they're often HBCUs are there um he was an academic and your mother a preacher yes yes well I mean my mom had a full-time job

“she was a dental hygienist but she also was a preacher and then later on that's what she did full-time”

and now they're both preachers now they have a church together but yeah so I mean I grew up my dad is such a huge part of why I love language you know he has two masters degrees and a doctorate but my mom is the one who really fostered my love of reading um because she's a big reader and I I'm the classic you know before before we had screens you know with the flashlight

under the under the covers reading well into the night so um I had they're they're amazing they you

know they they're they're saying they're saying force that fame a story that you tell all the time as about your mother saying oh no you cannot read these types of novels but do you remember what you were reading and what she caught you reading you know and it wasn't even a caught because I didn't know that she would object I was read I don't remember the specific title but it was a historical romance you know and it's got like a woman on the cover with her breast spilling over the

bodice and you know I have naked man and I'm like look mom you know I just I didn't it didn't I was just like I love this and my mother was in the day they used to have them along the grocery store check out yes yes absolutely and I would I was at the the library was like one of my favorite places in the world and um it's not like was this expansive library and it was this huge selection

but I loved it you know it's where I first read Jane Eyre it's where I first read you know all

of the classics and Tony Morrison and you know like that's where I found that's where I kind of

“discovered my love for language and for reading and then one day I was like I think I was in the”

eighth grade and one of my classmates handed me uh one of the like historical romance is that's how

reading them and I didn't even think to like hide it from my mom um it's just I she I told her

about it or she saw me with it and she was horrified you know um and then I was she was like you you are not allowed to read them you know with distance from it I understand why she was monitoring what I um and you know what I ingested I completely understand that because we now have parental controls and all of those things but as an eighth grade you just like I'm gonna do what I want to do I'm gonna sneak around and do it if you tell me that I can't do it so um yeah but it's a funny

story for us now because I did not tell her until I was in my 30s that I had hidden all those

romance novels from her she thought I had stopped reading them so because after she told you to stop

you continued and then you just collected them so many that you kind of had a little stockpile in the closet oh yeah hundreds and hundreds of romance novels like hidden at the back of my closet behind clothes and it was like in literally in my 30s when I was like you know when you told me to stop reading romance novels I didn't you know I want to go to a very very important pivotal moment in your life that really changed things for you it was before you started writing fiction

your son you have one son he was diagnosed with autism two years old and the very next day your husband loses his job yeah take me take me to that week oh one of the toughest weeks of my life

“I think because my son is now 25 and um 23 years ago like the landscape for autism was very”

different than it is now like we didn't have um a lot of the solutions we didn't have a lot of the supports the waivers the you know the financial support um insurance everything was considered experimental so you're paying out of pocket for everything and then I think there was just a lot we didn't know like literally when the doctor diagnosed my son he told me that um I should that my husband to give me time to grieve that's that's the the word he used and he said you know

mother who is going to be just so different than what she thought it would be and it it has been very different than I thought it would be I think you know autism is a spectrum and it looks different for different people and my son is very impacted even at 25 he's still only partially verbal and you know he kind of works at his own his own time you know there are certain benchmarks that I thought he would reach when he was 10 that he still hasn't reached or that he reached much later

“one of the things that I think this journey has taught me is not to compare myself my son or life”

to anyone else's things got really dark you you're in this moment the health care system has not really caught up to what it needs to for you as a mother and the financial impact was just it was a lot for you yeah in that time yeah instead of only surviving it though you built this

advocacy group then a therapy group for couples going through it and I a Kennedy I just always

marvel at people who build the thing they need when they have the least amount of resources or power and um when did you realize you you'd you'd have to build the thing that didn't exist in order for you to actually survive yeah I think it kind of a lot of times came down to am I going to pay for therapy or am I going to pay my light bill and I was like we shouldn't have to make these decisions my husband and my both of our cars will repossess we woke up one morning the cars were

gone we had to do a short cell on our house we didn't have food sometimes and my it taught me a lot about community too you know people just kind of rallying around us and making sure that our family had what we needed and I just kind of said to the Lord one day like when I'm I'm praying I'm meditating and I'm like I just don't want anybody else to go through this like I don't want anybody else to have to make these decisions these are impossible decisions and I decided to start a foundation

“I did not have a lot of money like I was not in a place where people would think oh you should”

start a foundation I was like I need help too but I examined the gaps people are only getting speech and OT in school and when some and when it's summer a lot of those kids weren't getting those services anymore so I raised money so that we could supplement and that we could pay for that and then we had a lot of couples were experiencing marital strain whether it's at the very beginning

treats we also started paying for couples therapy and then I thought about gosh if it's this

“hard for me and I have a partner how hard is it for people who are single parents and then we”

started programming that was specifically targeting single parents and their entire family like all of their children so for me it was just kind of like a reflection of the gaps that I was seeing so you're going through all of that and like what was it like at night then you're sitting you're sitting at a computer and then writing romance is that how it worked or how you're like how did we get here you know my husband found a job and it took him away a lot at night and so it

“was just me and my son and this is when he was younger and a lot of kids who were on this”

spectrum are fascinated with water and my son was so fixated on water he and I would go to this river and because we lived in Atlanta at the time we lived in Atlanta for 20 years you know that's kind of home to us for the most part I would take him to this river in Atlanta every evening and he would frolic you know and I as I was sitting there this this community built around a river

called Rivermont just started kind of in my imagination and it became the centerpiece for the first

“series that I ever wrote called the Bennett series that just sitting on the riverbank every night”

watching my son play in the water I just started dreaming about this imaginary place called Rivermont and this family and you know all of and it became four books you know Kennedy Ryan thank you so much for this conversation oh thank you thank you for having me

romance novelist Kennedy Ryan she's the first black author to win the read-a

romance is highest honor and she's published more than 20 novels and just over a decade her latest novel is called "Score" fresh air weekend is produced by Teresa Madden freshers executive producer is Sam Bringer a technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham our engineer this week is Adam Stanishewski our digital media producer is Molly C. B. Nespar with Terry Gross I'm Tanya Mosley

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