Plus, see EW’s exclusive reveal of the cover for The Roughest Draft.
They say the couple that plays together stays together, but what about couples who write together?
Read more after the cover below.The Roughest Drafthits shelves Jan. 25, 2022.
Penguin
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: This is your first “adult” romance.
What made you want to make the jump from YA?
AUSTIN SIEGEMUND-BROKA:Part of it was this story.
Co-writers and real-life couple Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka.Sue Grubman
We actually came up with this basically on accident on our honeymoon.
And so, it only fit in adult.
What were the challenges and the joys of making that leap?
WIBBERLEY: We’re so excited to join this genre and market.
We love women’s fiction and romance.
We’ve been huge fans of the genre for as long as we’ve been writing.
It feels so exciting to have books next to the books that we’re such huge fans of.
It’s been a lot more personal.
That is a dual-edged sword.
We have to put up boundaries about certain things and make certain things very clear.
Like, just the other day, we were describing the clothing of a character.
And then he got very defensive about this and thought I did not like his clothing.
These kinds of things had come up constantly while writing.
And very difficult because this stuff is very personal.
That is both tense and sad at times.
Would you say this is your most personal book?
WIBBERLEY: And it made it both easy and difficult to write.
We really had to do very little research for this book, right?
We were just in our house writing a book about characters in a house writing a book.
Very, very easy to draw from, but then also very difficult to draw from.
SIEGEMUND-BROKA: Very intimate.
Did it bring up any interesting or challenging conversations between you both?
SIEGEMUND-BROKA: It has brought up conversations that we have since had.
They’re just the characters."
And the big lie of the book is that it’s not true.
They are speaking to each other through their characters.
So are Austin and I speaking to each other through our characters?
Probably, but we have to pretend we’re not.
SIEGEMUND-BROKA: Yes, very much so.
It’s the caveat we often come into discussions of this book with.
Nathan and Katrina, the main characters, they’re not us.
They come from different backgrounds, they have different priorities, they have different little preferences.
The big similarities are there and are what we’re talking about.
SIEGEMUND-BROKA: These are different people.
That being said, did you infuse these two characters with any of your own writing quirks or techniques?
SIEGEMUND-BROKA: We absolutely did.
WIBBERLEY: It was a little bit of fun warfare.
We have things we do not necessarily love about each other’s preferences.
And so, it was fun to put that into the book and rag on it a little bit.
SIEGEMUND-BROKA: There are good-natured jokes about word choice and philosophical preferences.
But lots of these issues are in fact drawn from our own discussions.
They’re these little bits of the trade that we finally got to sprinkle in as character details.
So looking at this cover, which one of you writes by hand and which prefers a laptop?
SIEGEMUND-BROKA: I’m much more of a by-hand outliner.
WIBBERLEY: I’m the laptop person.
What is the hardest or maybe the best part of being partners in both those senses?
WIBBERLEY: The hardest part is there’s a lot of conflict.
We are constantly trying to figure out better ways to resolve conflicts and debates between us.
SIEGEMUND-BROKA: It’s tough.
We need this texture."
And so we wrote that in there.
It’s tough every week; it’s tough every day.
WIBBERLEY: But we share so much.
We never feel alone.
SIEGEMUND-BROKA: It’s a shared interest.
It’s something that we are both fascinated by and can talk about together.
And it really does have a one plus one equals three model.
I couldn’t imagine a partnership that doesn’t work like that.
The cover why did you land on this pool what were maybe some notes or direction you gave?
WIBBERLEY: They gave us some fantastic options.
It was honestly incredibly difficult to choose.
SIEGEMUND-BROKA: That is so delightful.
We’ve spoken a lot about the mealy and fraught issues of word choice and interpersonal dynamics here.
It felt like being on vacation at a time when we really needed it.
WIBBERLEY: While also capturing the tension of the space between them, turning from each other.
Do you want to write more adult romance?
WIBBERLEY: Yes, we do have another book that we’re writing right now.
And we would love to continue in this as long as we can.
It’s almost therapeutic sometimes.
You get to work through stuff that you’re going through.
And you’re able to’t always put all that drama on a character.
SIEGEMUND-BROKA: They think about things differently.
Going back and forth has been has been cool.
And we absolutely would love to continue.
