Get an exclusive first look at the cover of No Words.
But authors can still attend in their imaginations, and bring readers along in the pages of their books.
ForMeg Cabot, that was the impetus behind her new novelNo Words.
HarperCollins
“Everything was canceled, and it was so sad,” Cabot tells EW.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Your heroine Jo is a children’s book author, and Will is a novelist.
Jo and Will don’t like each other at first.
And one of the things we love, obviously, are romance novels.
Or at least I refer to it as trauma porn.
Jo writes middle-grade children’s fiction about a talking cat.
When it starts out, he’s dismissive of women’s fiction.
There’s a lot of that going on in the book as well.
There’s always an assortment of different authors at a book festival.
We have all genres represented we have horror, we have YA, and there’s a mystery writer.
There’s a lot of discussions about that.
We have so many great writers coming out now who are being really extremely vocal about what romance represents.
Were their particular authors who inspired either of them?
No, and I’m really worried people are going to ask me that.
They’re going to be like, “Who’s the guy that you hate so much?”
I was really careful because there is no guy that I hate so much.
Because that would not be romantic in my opinion.
You’ve written in so many different worlds, from Genovia to more supernatural configs.
Between the Florida island and the literary festival, this is two things very familiar to you.
Is that easier or harder?
It was really fun because I was writing this during the pandemic.
So instead of getting to go, I got to write about it.
We meet every month and have our Zoom meeting about the canceled book festival.
Was the festival in the book specifically inspired by the Key West festival, or a mix?
I was thinking about all of the book festivals that I’ve been to that I love.
There’s one in Decatur, Ga., that is an author favorite.
Everybody that I know who’s been loves that one.
I was polling different people, like which one do you love?
Everybody said Decatur because it’s very walkable.
Everyone loves the Brooklyn Book Festival, and everybody loves theL.A.
When I went to theL.A.
His fans were so rude to these little girls wearing their little pink tiaras.
I wanted to check that [interactions like that] got in there.
All that snobbery that can happen at these kinds of things.
It has to be worked through.
So that everyone agrees that all reading is important, no matter what kind of reading it is.
YourNo Offensecover was based on a drawingyou did.
Was that also the case here?
I did not sketch this one.
It was her idea to actually set it on a tropical island for a change.
That’s what we came up with.
Bridgertonhas proven so popular, and you started your career writing historical romance.
Would you ever want to go back?
I love what they’re all doing.
I don’t think my voice is really needed.
Not that it ever was.
But I really like doing contemporaries.
Any updates on theMediatormovie?
It’s going along.
They paid me for another option.
They could have just been like, “No, forget it, we’re not doing it.”
They are very serious about it.
We’re going into the next revision for the screenplay.
Screenwriters are used to writing about real people, and there’s ghosts.
He doesn’t have to ride in the car; he materializes wherever."
That’s like my main job now.
Continuously reminding screenwriters that the character is a ghost.
Are you helping write the script?
I’m the consultant; I’m the ghost consultant.
You could say I’m ghostwriting…
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