Episode 462 – In the Art Studio with Merry Farmer

Sep 9, 2024

Jeff & Will recommend the BL drama Love Sea, which streams on iQIYI.

Merry Farmer talks about Thrown, the first book in The Art of Love series. Merry discusses the real-life inspirations behind the series, and about her shift to writing contemporary romance. She also shares what’s coming up in her Omegaverse stories, and she’s got book recommendations.

Look for the next episode of Big Gay Fiction Podcast on Monday, September 23.

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Big Gay Fiction Podcast is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. Find many more outstanding podcasts at frolic.media/podcasts!

Show Notes

Here are the things we talk about in this episode. Please note, these links include affiliate links for which we may make a small commission at no extra cost to you should you make a purchase. These links are current at the time the episode premieres, however links are subject to change.

Transcript 

This transcript was made possible by our community on Patreon. You can get information on how to join them at patreon.com/biggayfictionpodcast.

Intro

Jeff: Coming up on this episode, we’re off to pottery class as Merry Farmer joins us to talk about her latest “Thrown.”

Will: Welcome to episode 462 of the Big Gay Fiction Podcast, the show for avid readers and fans of queer romance fiction. I’m Will and with me as always is, of course, my co-host and husband, Jeff.

Jeff: Hello, Rainbow Romance Reader. It’s great to have you here for another episode.

As always, the podcast is brought to you in part by our remarkable community on Patreon. Thanks to Matters of the Heart for recently joining the community. If you’d like more information about what we offer to patrons, including the opportunity to ask questions to our guests, just like Rhonda does in this very episode, go to patreon.com/biggayfictionpodcast.

Recommendation: Love Sea

Will: So before we get to this week’s author interview we wanted to quickly talk about our continued deep dive into the world of BL with the Thai drama “Love Sea.” And by sea I mean ocean, S-E-A. In this show, Rak, a popular BL author, is sent to a beach resort to finish his latest manuscript. And Mut, a local, is paid to keep him company and on task.

I wouldn’t necessarily categorize this as a true enemies to lovers scenario. But their initial dislike is pretty funny and there’s some wonderful snarky banter that hides their very deep physical attraction for one another. When the work retreat is over, they return to Bangkok together to see if there’s more to their connection than just a vacation fling. And it’s there, back at home, that they must cope with, frankly, villainous family members who are jealous of Rak’s success and they try their best to ruin our hero’s budding love story.

There’s some really terrific chemistry between our two main leads, and there’s even a secondary GL plot involving Rak’s frazzled secretary and his actress best friend.

Jeff: I enjoyed this on so many counts. I’m glad you brought up the banter cause their banter between Rak and Mut at all times was so good. Even as they’re antagonizing each other, there’s this undercurrent of, I really like you and I really want to expand this. But at the same time I need to be, you know, giving as good as you’re giving me.

Will: Well, it’s really funny because at the beginning, Rak is frankly a little too big for his britches and Mut finds that very amusing and takes every opportunity to bring him down to earth.

Jeff: I wondered too, cause sometimes I wonder how accurate the translations are that we’re getting in the captions and just how much better I bet that banter is when you’re getting it in the native language. Just, the looks they’re giving each other were just excellent. The GL subplot was awesome. I loved everything about this show. And I don’t know what it is. You know the last two BL dramas now that we’ve watched, this one and “My Stand-in” that we talked about in the last episode, there are some really bad family members in both of those dramas. It’s really like, yikes.

Will: Yeah, it’s obvious we really loved “Love Sea” and we think you might too. If you’re interested in checking it out, you can find it on iQIYI at iq.com.

Jeff: Yeah, definitely check that out.

So let’s get into the conversation with Merry Farmer. You’re gonna hear a lot about what I loved about “Thrown” as I talk with Merry. This enemies to lovers, we must save the family estate and art school… oh, it ticked so many boxes for me. The friction between Robbie and Toby was off the charts, as was their very deep desire for each other, even though they kind of hated having that desire. These two have such deep seated issues that it takes a lot for them to finally open up, but when they do it is so spectacular. Merry’s gonna give us all the details on “Thrown” and the new “Art of Love” series, including the real life inspiration behind it. We’ll also get some details on other projects that she’s working on, and, you know, she’s got recommendations for us too.

Merry Farmer Interview

Jeff: Merry, welcome back to the podcast. I’m so happy to have you here.

Merry: Oh, I’m so happy to be back. Yay.

Jeff: We have got to talk about “Thrown.” I just finished it last night. I was just like, oh my gosh. This is so, so good. I’m very happy we’re gonna talk about it.

Merry: Thank you so much.

Jeff: It’s the first book in “The Art of Love” series. Tell folks what this story about Robbie and Toby is all about.

Merry: Well, so it’s actually… because when I write my series I like to have an overarching plot… so there is a very old British family, the Hawthornes, who have an estate that they’re trying to save because, as a lot of people may know, these great big, huge British estates that go back hundreds of years are very expensive to maintain.

And the Hawthorne family at various points in the last hundred years has had it be a convalescent home after World War I, a la “Downton Abbey.” They’ve had it be a school in the middle of the 20th century, which a lot of them also did. And it’s currently an arts center, which services the community and they teach all sorts of different kinds of art classes, and the family also lives there.

So they run into a problem at the beginning of the book where an entertainment company is wanting to buy the estate from them for a fairly decent amount of money because they want to turn it into an amusement park. For people in England, Alton Towers is a big amusement park in the UK that is a historic estate that was bought by a company and turned into an amusement park. So there’s precedent for this actually happening. And the family has to figure out how to make enough money in order to not have to sell out to the entertainment company and lose their hundreds-of-year-old family legacy.

So they hire an efficiency expert, basically from a London company, and that’s Toby, to come and sort of assess what the family is doing. What more they could do. And of course, he and one of the sons of the family, Robbie, they immediately butt heads because they’re at opposite purposes.

Toby is sort of working class London. He’s got a lip ring, which I had fun playing with. And Robbie is grown up as part of this, like aristocratic family, 20th century aristocrats. But they sort of have to work together in order to find a way to save this estate for the family. And they have such different mindsets because they come from such different backgrounds. But they’re also instantly attracted to each other and hate the fact that they’re instantly attracted to each other. I wanted to play with the enemies to lovers trope, but also have them both be just decent human beings who ultimately really care for the issues that the other has to deal with. So that was really fun to play with.

Jeff: The friction between them was so good and the thing about it for me was they’re just immediately enemies to each other because they perceive this difference between them, and yet they’re for the same thing. I mean, the reader knows that Toby really wants to help the family save this place. It’s what he does.

Merry: Oh yeah.

Jeff: And yet those two can’t see that. It’s like you just wanna shake them both and go, come on.

Merry: And the thing is, I read enemies to lovers books in the past where I’m like, do these guys really have a reason to be enemies? Or did the author just do this to do it? But what I wanted to do is give a legitimate reason why these guys wouldn’t like each other. And it’s because the moment before they meet, they each like accidentally push each other’s buttons and say exactly the things that speak to their core wounds, so to speak.

It just starts off wrong because for Toby, he’s always had to prove himself. He’s from a working class environment. And if he wasn’t being put down for being gay, he’s being put down for being low class and having one of these families where it’s just a mess. And a comment is made that he takes the wrong way.

And then Robbie has his issues because he thinks he’s not achieving enough because so many members of his family are doing great things. And he thinks that just being a teacher is not enough, even though that’s what he really, really wants. And so his motivations and his worthiness are instantly called into question.

And they basically spend the entire book unraveling this blow up knot that they create when they first meet. And this road trip that they go on to… I didn’t specify where because I didn’t exactly know about the legal ramifications of just subtly mentioning “The Great Pottery Throw Down.” I didn’t want to like go there. So it’s a town between Birmingham and Manchester where they do a lot of pottery and have historically. And they’re filming a TV show competition about ceramics. Anyone who has seen “The Great Pottery Throw Down” will know exactly what I mean.

Jeff: I knew exactly what it was. I knew where you were. I could picture that whole thing. Even right down to where he went to hang out by the river. Like I know what all that is and you’ve just had to call it something else.

Merry: Yep. Well, one of the things that I’ve learned as a writer, I mean, again, I’ve been doing this for 15 years and I know people stress about, oh, is this fair use? Can I use this? Can I get away with it? But my whole thing that I’ve discovered is readers are actually very smart, and if you just give subtle clues without actually specifying, they’ll know exactly what you’re talking about. And you don’t have to run into any problems with copyright infringement, or you know.

Jeff: I know from reading the author’s note in the book, you rooted where this book came from in pottery courses that you’ve taken and the idea for this series kind of jumped out of that. Tell us a little bit about that.

Merry: It did. So as many people will know, I guess the last 12 months or so have been really rough for people’s mental health. And right about Christmas time, which despite my name, I do not do well with Christmas time. Long family issues, just me and Christmas do not mix. So I was thinking, what can I do to make it through this long winter and just keep my mental health in good order?

And years and years ago, I had taken a pottery class at a local… It’s funny because of the place where I’m taking, Abington Art Center in Pennsylvania. It is a Victorian estate that was turned into an arts center when the family donated it, I dunno who they donated it to, but it’s… They teach various different ceramics, painting, jewelry making, all this different stuff.

So I signed up for a class and taking this ceramics class and doing pottery again after years. It was such a lifesaver to my mental health because I started to realize a few things very quickly, which historically in my life, going back to when I was 10 years old, writing has been my hobby. But when your hobby becomes the way that you make a living, and when sales start to go down for various different reasons, and it becomes stressful, and you’re not sure of what you’re writing, you need some other creative outlet.

Because just because you’ve made your creativity into a business, that doesn’t mean you don’t need a another creative outlet. So just being able to go down into the pottery studio with people who are not connected to the writer world and play with clay, and do projects, and actually make something tangible and beautiful, and to learn new skills. It really saved my mental health this past winter.

And then I started talking to the people who worked there and we would sit down there and they would tell these stories about the crazy things that have happened at the art center. Both with other teachers, both with like students and what they would do.

And after a while I was just like, this is brilliant. I have to find a way to take a lot of these stories that they’re telling me, or like the spirit of the stories that they’re telling me. These would make great books. So I’ve just implemented like not… there’s that whole thing of you don’t wanna use somebody’s story exactly, cause you never know how that can go. But just the inner workings of a place like that. I was so entertained by it.

So I was finishing up my “Brotherhood Legacy” series, which is the contemporary version of my historical “Brotherhood,” and I thought, I definitely wanna do another m/m contemporary series because I’m just really enjoying this. And just the different possibilities for the different artistic disciplines.

I was actually explaining this to some of my… So the studio, not only do you have your art classes there, but they allow for open studio. So you can just go down into the studio and it’s like a great community of artists that I’m now a part of. So I was telling them, so yeah, I’ve got this book coming out, “Thrown,” it’s like my pottery-based m/m romance, which they think is hysterical.

And I explained the naming conventions for this series. “Thrown” is the pottery one. “Painted” is the one that’s going to be about painting. There’s one coming up, “Forged,” which is metalwork. The last one that I have a cover for, but it’s not gonna be the last in the series, is “Blown,” which I think is nyuk, nyuk, nyuk, but it’s glass blowing.

And so then people started coming up with other titles that I could use farther down the line. And it’s just like this classroom full of women in their fifties, sixties, and seventies coming up with titles for this series. “Oiled” was a fun one that somebody came up with. Oh, there was another one that was just absolutely just wild that I can’t remember it right now, but I was like, I can’t use that. That’s way too raunchy. One woman in particular was having fun coming up with these. So we might get to see some of these ideas manifested later on down the road.

So to summarize me going off on a tangent, it was just something that had really helped my mental health. It sparked this great idea and I was like, I gotta do that.

Jeff: What was it that led you to pottery?

Merry: I come from a family with a lot of artists in it. Like 20 years ago, I took the almost same class at the same place. And it was just fun playing with clay. I always enjoyed art classes in school, and so it was that whole… because I knew what it was, I knew where it was. I was familiar with the studio, even though when I got down there was like, oh, this looks totally different than I remember it. I also have a cousin who is like a world class ceramicist. Her stuff is amazing. I will never be that good, but she’ll never be able to write books like me. But yeah, I come from a family of artists. We’ve all done art at various different points.

Jeff: I know from watching “Great Pottery Throw Down” that you can make a lot of things out of clay and in ceramic work. What kinds of things are you making as you take the class and even work in studio?

Merry: Well, I am terrible at pottery throwing despite the title of the book. And I threw in for my dear friend Amy Patel. I threw in that “Ghost” reference scene towards the end of the book. That was for just for her cause she said you can’t write a pottery throwing book without that scene.

So I do what is called slab building, which I don’t know. Again, if you’ve seen “The Great Pottery Throw Down…” You roll out a long, big sheet of clay. I’ve actually made some of my own molds. So you lay it over the mold and you can make bowls. You can make anything, like boxes. I made a really great butter dish that I gave away to my brother. In this fall session that’s coming up, I’m gonna make a three-tiered fountain like they’ve done on “Pottery Throw Down.” We’ll see how that goes. They do that project towards the end quite frequently, and it doesn’t always work out for

Jeff: That is very true. That doesn’t sometimes work out and neither does building the working sink or toilet.

Merry: Oh yeah.

Jeff: People have issues with that occasionally.

Merry: For those who haven’t seen the show, the semi-final project is always either a sink or a toilet.

Jeff: Fit for purpose.

Merry: Yep.

Jeff: I absolutely want to go to Hawthorne house. I mean it just sounds amazing. What were you looking at in terms of like research, or things that you based it on, what you wanted that property to be?

Merry: Well, interestingly enough, it’s actually a couple of things. For those who don’t know, I am in England right now and I am about 500 yards away from Hatfield House where if you… if anybody happens to get the uncorrected ARC of this book, I accidentally, Freudian slip, wrote Hatfield House instead of Hawthorne House at one point in the book. And it’s this beautiful estate that’s up the hill from me. And a little bit that.

But last summer I also went to… It is Leeds Castle, but it’s actually an estate in Kent, which is nowhere near Leeds. And at Leeds Castle they’ve actually converted a big part of the grounds into, like they’ve got a hedge maze, they’ve got a mini golf course, they have a giant sandpit for the little kids. They have all sorts of events and things there.

So really, Hawthorne House was like an amalgamation of a bunch of the big British estates that I’ve toured at various different points because all these people, again, they’re very expensive to maintain, so they have to do other things with the property.

And Hawthorne House, not only is it an art center, they hold a Renaissance fair there on certain weekends in the summer. And that’s like a lot of these places will only do their activities on weekends during the summer.

But for those who don’t know, when I was just out of high school, in the mid 1990s, I worked at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Fair. It was one of the most fun things that I’ve ever done in my life. But it’s crazy. Those people are crazy. So I don’t know if you’ve heard the whole thing of the Venn diagram of queer people, people who play D and D, and people who go to renaissance fairs is a circle. So that’s basically… it’s funny because those are my people. And that was when I was like 18, 19.

And then life happened and I got away from all of those people and all the things. Like I was… I think I was accidentally dating a girl while I was at the Renaissance Fair. But like I was… so not even on my radar that I wouldn’t have known what to do anyhow. And then years later, sort of come full circle and, oh hey, like this is the exact same group of people, we’re just all old now. Well, older, but…

Jeff: I loved the joust. The visitors could take part in a joust and how you had that kind of staged up to make it a safe joust for the visitors. But I also love how Toby and Robbie just got to wail on each other a little bit.

Merry: Well, that’s actually based on… of course, writers take stuff from all over their life all the time. That is actually something we used to do in my elementary school gym class.

Jeff: Oh, wow.

Merry: Believe it or not. We had those giant things that looked like a Q-tip, but they were… you could just like wail on each other with them because it was the eighties. We just wailed on each other all the time and nobody cared. And we had these little pushy cart things, and we would do that. We would go zipping across the gym and then like wail on each other. I don’t know what gym teacher came up with that idea, but I remember that vividly from elementary school when I was in the eighties. So yeah, that’s based on something real too. I elaborated it for the purpose of the joust in this book, but yeah.

Jeff: It totally made sense as a way to have adults being able to safely joust, while the professionals did it over there somewhere.

Merry: And don’t you just wanna do that? Can’t you just think of somebody who you just wanna like do the whole joust? In the book they use pool noodles at first, and like whack on somebody with pool noodles.

Jeff: Then they figured out that was maybe a little too flirty to be wailing on each other, which was so awesome.

Merry: Yeah, it got a little bit heated, shall we say. Poor Toby and Robbie.

Jeff: You play with so many tropes, so well here. I mean, there’s the overall enemies to lovers, but then there’s the road trip and there’s a little forced proximity, one bed scenario going on. How did you bring together all of that material. Was it just the way that it kind of sorted out as you were going, or did you plot all that out?

Merry: Oh, I’m the plottiest plotter whoever plotted. But I oftentimes when I’m… I have like a multi-tier process for writing a book. When I tell people, well, how long did it take you to write a book? I was like, well, I can draft it in two weeks but that’s the tip of the iceberg of all the time I think about it, and outline, and make notes for it, and like shuffle tropes around.

And years and years ago… well, I guess it’s not that many years ago. I read Theodora Taylor’s book about universal fantasies and she just talked about tropes and things like that. And it’s ah, she’s got something. She’s onto something here. And so I do, honestly, I’ll confess, what I like to do is go… there’s certain Facebook groups where readers can ask for requests of what books they, “Hey guys, I wanna read a book with this, this, and this trope.”

I pay attention to the tropes that people are saying they really want to read. And I sort of steer things towards those tropes because, I mean, I love writing and I just wanna tell these stories. And I just have fun doing it, but I also need to pay the rent. So it’s nice to write something that I’m pretty sure will sell and people will actually like and tell their friends about.

I mean, I guess there’s no shame in writing something that you know people will buy when you’re doing it to make a living. But that’s also why I wrote my “Peter and the Wolves” books, because those are just writing for myself. And lo and behold, a lot of other people like them too.

But when I talk about my quote unquote work books, then I have to balance marketability with creativity and love because if you just write something wildly creative that you just love so much, sometimes it’ll hit and you’ll be able to pay the rent and sometimes it’s just not gonna be what people want to read. I’ll confess that I kind of pulled back from writing m/m historical romance because there’s not a huge market for it. Since I want to… primarily I’ve written m/f and m/m… but I’m pretty sure I wanna just switch entirely to m/m now. But I need to still pay the rent.

But I have another “Brotherhood” series that’s just like middle of the 19th century, and I have like two full outlines. I have four covers. I just don’t know when I’m gonna have time to write it because I need to write the things that are bringing in income right now. I hate that it’s… But I love the books that I’m writing because of it. So it’s only a small hate.

Jeff: It’s a small hate.

Merry: I hate having to think about these things consciously, but, oh hey wait, I really actually love this idea after all. This is what it’s like when you have to do this as your business. You can’t necessarily continue to just think of it as a hobby as much as I would like to.

Jeff: I don’t wanna get too spoily, but I do have to know about the finale a little bit. It was such a thrill to read the takedown of the person who was trying to take over Hawthorne House. Was it as much fun to write because it was just page turning, deliciousness happening.

Merry: As I said before we started recording, I feel so insecure about writing contemporary because I don’t have the proof that I’m good at it to a certain extent like I do with historical. But I just got there to that part. I was like, this is what has to happen. Is this too silly? Is this too out there? Nah. I’m gonna throw it in there anyhow, because this is the kind of thing you would see at the end of a British rom-com where… I will not give out super spoily specific details, but the main characters get help from some very colorful characters who… I tell people this book is “Brotherhood” adjacent… So they end up at the Chameleon Club, which for those who have read any of my “Brotherhood” books, know that’s the central location in London where members of the brotherhood hang out. They end up there and they get some help.

And I just like heard the Benny Hill soundtrack in the back of my mind as these guys were going. Yeah, I had so much fun writing that, yes. Well, it’s one of those things where I knew where I needed to get by the end of the book. I knew where I needed to have this one end before I pick up the continuing story in the next book. But it was like, oh, so how am I gonna get there? And then these guys just sort of popped into my head and I’m like… We may not have seen the last of them just because they were so much fun to write. So much fun.

Jeff: I hope they get to come back at some point because they were fun and you know they helped make that finale just sing.

Merry: Oh, good, good.

Jeff: What’s a favorite scene for you from “Thrown?”

Merry: Oh gosh. I really like the scene in the hotel room after they’ve been to the bar and they’re starting to get it on and things are finally getting all spicy and wonderful. And in my outline, if you read the outline, that was supposed to be sexy times all the way. And then I realized, these guys are so drunk this is not gonna happen. So it actually ended up being a lot of fun to write. Just very drunk, trying to get home from the pub. Finally, something’s gonna happen between them and just alcohol and sexy times with your enemy to lovers trapped in one bed just don’t mix, so.

Jeff: No, but then it just let all of that stuff just keep stretching out before they finally got themselves sorted. Because it’s kind of… I don’t know if anybody would call it officially a slow burn, but the way that they just had to keep peeling back on each other and how long it took. You just get these little bit more, it’s like, oh, yeah. Go, Oh, nope, not yet. Sorry.

Merry: Yeah. It’s like that. It’s for them too. But each…. How shall I say this? Each false start just opens up another layer to the onion and makes it a much bigger problem to solve, if that makes sense, without being too spoilerly.

Jeff: Yeah, I think it does.

You mentioned “Painted” is coming right out. It comes out in just a few months, November 22nd. Tell us a little bit about Rhys and Early. We meet them in this book. They get the epilogue in this book. What do we get in “Painted?”

Merry: Oh, I’m not a hundred percent sure yet because I’m…

Jeff: Okay, that’s fair.

Merry: And once I sit down again, like I got so off of… You know what? I don’t know what it is. My last three or four books that I’ve written, I’ve gotten so far off outline once I sit down and start to write. But what I really wanted to play with for “Painted” is… So Early is really questioning his gender and, well, I should say they non-binary. And it’s been very difficult for them because their family does not accept it. So because they work for the Hawthorne family, the Hawthornes kind of like take them in and give them a safe place to figure all these things out.

Which for Rhys presents him with a big moral dilemma because he’s older by quite a bit than Early, but so attracted to them. And then that’s confusing for him, the whole workplace. Cause technically it’s a workplace romance. There’s the questions for him of whether he’s taking advantage of Early. Early, again, is just so confused, but has always had a thing for Rhys and it’s sort of like when a relationship is just so, so wrong, but so, so right at the same time. And lines are crossed in the middle of that book and it’s sort of going to have to be about where do you… if you’ve made a mistake can you recover a relationship and just like the ethics of being in a relationship these days especially with people who are questioning their whole identity and have nowhere else to go. Where is the line between caring for somebody and helping them and taking advantage of them?

And then of course there’s, like for both of them, I wanted to play off of that whole thing. They’ve been painted with the same brush sort of a thing cause I have to tie in the art to the whole thing. But yeah, that one might actually end up being a little more serious than this one. I’m not sure yet.

Jeff: Okay.

Merry: Maybe we’ll see.

Jeff: I liked the glimpses that we got, and then, like I said, a little bit more in the epilogue finding out about them.

Merry: I’m gonna have Early… something that has always been a bucket list thing for me. I don’t know if I’ll ever do it, but I’ve always wanted to… this is ridiculous… I’ve always wanted to pose nude for a live model art class. I don’t know why, but I think that would be fun. So at some point Early’s gonna have to pose for Rhys’ class

Jeff: Oh wow. Okay.

Merry: Shenanigans may end up happening that way. We’ll see.

Jeff: Probably.

You teased us four books for “Art of Love” that you mentioned, but that you saw it going further. Do you have a sense on how big this series might get?

Merry: Well, this is a terrible thing to say, but I like to just keep writing in a world until I get tired of it, or readers get tired of it. But I love working with the family dynamics and this family, the Hawthorne family, they’re already taking on so much character that I did not initially intend to do.

Characters just take on a life of their own, and this entire family has taken on a life of their own because the parents are very, like 1960s British liberal sort of a thing. Like they’re very… like the British version of hippies and are all into just experimenting. The parents have had an open relationship with both sexes and the kids have been raised well. I wanted to play with the idea of the kids have been raised without any preconceived notions of what you should or shouldn’t do in a relationship. So like how does that affect the way you go into relationships as an adult?

I wanna play with that idea throughout this series too. But of course there’s gotta be cousins and just people who hang around the family, do different things like that. I just really like the family and I like having, I guess, a vehicle to play with all these different tropes that I’m excited about.

And I was like, Ooh, let me write more about that and see if I can figure out how I feel about that trope. There’s so much going on in the world and there’s so, so many things just to write about and I don’t know. I just love writing, man. Just write all the books all the time.

Jeff: We got a question from Rhonda who’s a member of our Patreon community. This kind of ties back to a little bit of things you were talking about before cause you did bring “The Brotherhood” into more of the modern era during the “Legacy” series, and Rhonda was just kind of curious, what brought about that decision.

And I think you hinted at it a little bit a second ago with just that historical, in m/m, is not doing as well right now as it perhaps had in the past.

Merry: It is a really woo woo story actually. I came up with the idea for the “Brotherhood Legacy” while I was on a cruise in The Bahamas. And if anyone who knows me, I love cruises. We were parked at… Royal Caribbean has their own little island in The Bahamas, and it was one of those things where everybody else had gotten off the ship but I stayed on the ship and I was doing some free writing. I had like my tablet and I was just sort of writing down, sort of journaling, sort of coming up with story ideas. And I was sitting there looking out over this beautiful turquoise water with this cobalt blue sky, and it just sort of popped into my head, gee, I wonder what the Brotherhood is doing now.

Because I’d had them in the 19th century and they had the organization, I talked about how it was started, things that they’re doing in the Victorian era, in the Chameleon Club and their purpose for each other. And I was just like, I wonder what all these guys are doing now because obviously The Brotherhood still exists. So like what does that look like?

Along with the thought of what the real money in m/m romance is in contemporary which was… that was not the major concern. But I just wanted to try something new and different and that little question, wonder what these guys are doing now because clearly it still exists.

And then I was like, well, are women able to join The Brotherhood now? And how did they make it through the eighties and the AIDS epidemic? And all of these different questions. By writing that contemporary series, I got to sort of, in my own mind, I don’t know if all of it made it to the page, sort of think about the progression of what The Brotherhood became from where it started. Obviously in the 19th century it had to be a secret organization, but after the 1970s it didn’t have to be a secret anymore. So how would that have changed the organization?

So, yeah, I just wanted to play with these story ideas and the characters in the worlds that… I don’t know where they come from, but they’re so real to me. I actually just wanna know more about stuff, so I go looking for the answers. That’s just such a hippie answer.

Jeff: How was it shifting gears after so much historical? You mentioned still that you still feel a little skittish writing and the reaction to contemporary.

Merry: It was very daunting because I don’t… inside my… I don’t necessarily feel like I am very good at writing contemporary, which may sound like a ridiculous thing, but that’s not where I got my start. That’s not how I built my audience. So I’m so insecure about whether the contemporary books that I’m writing are any good because I haven’t been doing it for that long.

And it’s more of a challenge for me. But I like the challenge. I like trying to write something that’s not just like, oh yeah, I can write this in my sleep. Because when you get too complacent about your writing, I think that’s when it could go stale.

Jeff: Did you have to like shift mindset or anything, or just tell contemporary stories? I say that as if it’s the easiest thing to do, just to go tell a contemporary story instead.

Merry: Well, it’s this year. I don’t know why I’m doing it, but I’ve been going every other for books. I’ve actually got three series running right now. An m/f historical romantasy cause it’s not the actual historical timeline. This m/m contemporary series, and I got my omegaverse series. And for some stupid reason, I keep shifting between them and it’s like jerking my brain in one direction and then jerking it in another. By the end of this year, I’ll only have two series running. So maybe that’ll be easier, but who knows?

This is why I do so much pre-writing and outlining and thinking about stuff and just going off on long walks and daydreaming about stuff that’s going on. You need to do the prep work before you do the full writing to just shift mindset a little bit, yeah. This time I shifted countries to write this book that I’m working on now. That was a big mindset shift.

Jeff: Why did you put “Thrown” and Hawthorne House in the UK rather than setting it where the inspiration happened?

Merry: Well, because it was kind of inspiration from over here as well, like visiting all of those big estates. And I did wanna connect it to “The Brotherhood.” I don’t know. I’m big at connecting everything that I wrote, right? I mean, I’ve published over 200 books at this point, across several different genres, and I think about 85% of them are connected. So, I like to connect.

And also, I am such an Anglophile and if I could I would move over here tomorrow. But they don’t have a visa for me because they got rid of the artist’s visa in 2012. I’m really hoping they’ll bring something like that back in the next couple of years. I also have a pretty large fan base in the UK who want to read books that they… I’ve actually had them say, I’m so glad you write books that are set in the UK because I’m just so used to reading everything in the US and it’s really nice to have them over here. So, yay.

Jeff: Nice, I like that.

Tell us a little bit about what’s going on in your omegaverse writing with the MM Farmer name.

Merry: So years ago I was like, omegaverse is weird. I’m never even gonna read that. It is just too weird of a concept. Men getting pregnant. What? That’s weird. And then I started reading some. And then I read Roe Horvat’s “Precious,” and it was like, oh, that’s it. I’m gonna have to write this now. And the “Forbidden Desire” series by Piper Scott and Virginia Kelly. Although I don’t have shifters in mine, but I read those and I was like now I’m in love with this genre, rats.

So the first series I wrote “Bangers and Mash.” That was, I call it fluffy omegaverse. And it’s more like sweet stories, sometimes lower angst. They’re kind of fun. But I got to the end of that series and I was just sort of, again, looking around at what people want, what things are popular, what I’ve been interested in terms of my own reading lately.

And I was like, I’m gonna write a dark omegaverse series. So I had this series “Omegas After Dark.” I did the “Perfect Match Agency” series with Roe and Wendy Rathbone, which is like a matchmaking service. And I was like, what if there was like a Grindr app for alphas and omegas who had these dark fantasies and they wanted to play out some like really heavy, dark stuff. So I’m having so much fun writing these really erotic, really raunchy dark books with just wild stuff happening.

And the first book in that series, “His Hunter,” was primal play, which I had so much fun writing. And it’s like, please don’t ever let… well, thank… my mother has passed away, but if she was still alive, I’m like, do not let my mom know I’m writing this, whatever you do. But it’s fun and it’s been very well received. I’m so pleased people are liking these wildly erotic, very raunchy, super steamy books. Yay. The one I’m writing right now is gonna top the other two, just in case anyone was wondering. “His Master,” it is way out there. So it’s fun. I enjoy it. Other people enjoy reading it. But boy, is it fun.

Jeff: That’s great. I mean, you’re having so much fun. I can hear it in your voice. You talk about writing these fun stories.

Merry: Well, I mean, I love it. I have always, since I was 10 years old, sitting in my third grade class every day just crossing my fingers and wishing that the teacher would assign a creative writing assignment. And then this voice from the beyond said, you don’t have to wait for Mr. Morley, who was my teacher, to assign a creative writing assignment. You could just write something.

And it’s like, that was one of those moments that just changed my life because I love it and I’ve been doing it for 40 years now and it’s gotten me through a lot of really difficult stuff in my life. I am not playing life on easy mode. There’s just been a lot of stuff that’s happened, but I’ve always had writing to… I’ve actually had therapists say, you do realize that you have basically done self therapy through your writing for most of your adult life.

And it’s like, I just… I love it so much. I can’t imagine not ever writing. So I was at one of my first writers conferences that I ever went to like 25 years ago. I was talking to one of the guys who was a presenter. He was talking about writing and doing it. And I was talking to him, I was like, I could no more stop writing than I could stop breathing. And he looked at me in the eyes and said, then you’re gonna be a success. That’s what it takes. And I was just so flattered. But he was right.

But then there’s Barbara Cartland who is one of the grand dames of early romance novels, who was writing until she was 98. And I just met somebody who knew her the other day. Go figure. Yeah, up here at Hatfield house, I went to a outdoor performance of “Henry V.” It was very posh. It was very good too. But she was writing until she was 98. And that’s my goal. So I love it. I don’t ever want to stop, I’ll have to go through about nine more genres before I kick the bucket because there’s just…

Well, that’s the other thing too. I’m not gonna be writing m/f anymore because I just feel like I’ve run out of things to say in m/f. I have this one series that I’m working on that I need to finish two more books and a publisher just picked it up. So maybe they’ll want me to do more. Who knows? But I just love it. Yeah, I just do.

Those are just my workbooks. Like that’s not even getting into my “Peter and the Wolves” world, which I purely write that for myself because I love those characters and I love that world. I got their names tattooed on my body because I love them so much.

Jeff: For people who are watching on YouTube, they ought to see a little flash of the tattoo there. Yeah, right there on the shoulder.

Merry: It is who I am. I don’t know what I would do if suddenly I couldn’t write anymore.

Jeff: You touched a little bit on what’s coming up in “Art of Love.” Is there anything else that you wanna kind of give us a heads up on that’s coming towards the end of this year and as 2025 gets started?

Merry: Oh, well, I think again, by the end of this year, I will just be concentrated on “The Art of Love” and my “Omegas After Dark” series. I don’t quite know what I want to do after those yet because I’m still having so much fun with those two series. There’s a couple of charity anthology projects that I’ll be doing, but I’m gonna try to tie them into those series, so we’ll see.

But who knows what strange and unusual ideas will hit me next and what tangents I’ll go off on. There’s just, oh… there’s so many, there’s so many great things out there to write.

Jeff: Shifting from great things to write, I’d love to know about some great things that you’re reading or watching. What have you got to recommend to our listeners?

Merry: I just finished watching the Olympics cause that’s when we’re recording this. That would took up a lot of time for a while.

But, again, this summer has been so difficult on my mental health with everything. Like I’m really sensitive to noise level, like not like actual physical noise, but like the noise that’s been going on social media with everybody getting upset about something. It’s like can we go two months or two weeks without a major earth shattering, world changing event?

So I’ve actually been re-reading a lot of favorites as comfort reads. I’ve been rereading Taylor J. Gray’s “Streetboys” series, which she just finished, like for the fifth or sixth time. I’m lucky. She’s a very good friend of mine who I just hung out with here last weekend. So I’ve been beta reading all of those books before they’ve hit the market. So like I’ll read it once, she’ll do her revisions, and I’ll read it again and give the thumbs up. And then when it comes out, I’ll read it a third time.

In terms of new books that I’ve just finished reading I finally got around to reading “The Captive Prince” trilogy because I’ve been worried that my “Peter and the Wolves” books are too similar to this world and maybe people would say, oh, but you’re copying her. They aren’t. It’s the same general concept of non-magical fantasy, historical feeling, political intrigue, but mine are way less intense than hers, but still with the political machinations.

I have all sorts of opinions on those books. Some I’m willing to share and some I’m not cause I don’t want people to throw tomatoes at me. I almost did not complete reading the third book cause I got really mad at it at one point. But I love the world that she’s built so much. It’s really cool. There are people out there who love these books more than I do, but I do like them. But I’ve often found for me, in my particular reading tastes, the books that everybody just absolutely loves and goes nuts over, I’m like, yeah, it’s okay. And a lot of them might just… There’s been a lot of really popular m/m books that I’ve started reading and I’m like, I can’t. I just can’t read this.

But that’s, as my dad used to say, that’s why Baskin-Robbins makes 39 flavors, or however many they make. Just not every book is for every reader and that’s, okay. I’m just always afraid that I’m going to offend people by saying, I just really didn’t like their favorite book ever.

Jeff: It can be a risk. Yeah, I tend to only talk about the things that I do love and the things I have opinions on, only Will gets to hear about those.

Merry: Yeah.

Jeff: So tell everyone best way to keep up with you online so they can know more about as “The Art of Love” continues and all the other stuff you’ve got going on across the pen names.

Merry: It’s always good to sign up for my newsletter because I always say I’m just gonna send it out when I have a new release. But then I keep coming up with reasons to just say, Hey guys, guess what? Guess what? And I post sometimes, send out vacation pictures with that.

My Facebook group though, is probably the place where I am most active. That’s Merry Farmer Readers Group, Merry’s Little Lambs. So, I post a lot in there and I have some very active community members in my group who post some very funny things too. I appreciate them for that. And I am also on Instagram. But like more than that is just too much for me.

Jeff: Totally understand.

Merry, it has been so fun talking to you about “Thrown.” I can’t wait to get “Painted” in a couple months and just wish you all the success on this new series.

Merry: Oh, thank you so much. It’s, I just love it. It’s been fun.

Wrap-Up

Will: This episode’s transcript has been brought to you by our community on Patreon. If you’d like to read the conversation for yourself, head on over to the show notes page for this episode at biggayfictionpodcast.com. We’ve got links to everything that we’ve talked about in this episode.

Jeff: And thanks so much to Mary for telling us all about the new “Art of Love” series. I really hope you’ll pick up “Thrown” if you haven’t already. It is so very good. Meanwhile, I’ve already got “Painted” on pre-order, so I can get that as soon as it’s released.

Now let’s get another take on the interview. Hey, ChatGPT, I’d love to know what you thought of the conversation with Merry.

ChatGPT: Sure Jeff, here’s what I found interesting in your interview with Merry.

Merry’s discussion about how her personal experiences, particularly her involvement in a pottery class, significantly influenced the creation of “Thrown” was fascinating. She delved into how this creative outlet helped her mental health and how the stories she encountered during these classes inspired the settings and dynamics in the book. The integration of personal life into creative work adds depth to the story and showcases how real-life experiences can shape fictional narratives.

Also, Merry’s strategic approach to writing, particularly her use of popular tropes like “enemies to lovers,” “road trips,” and “forced proximity,” was another intriguing aspect. She mentioned how she pays attention to what readers want and steers her writing to align with those desires while maintaining her creativity. This balance between artistic expression and market ability is a smart move that reflects her understanding of the romance genre and her audience.

And finally, Merry’s transition from historical to contemporary romance, particularly with her “Brotherhood Legacy” series, was noteworthy. She candidly discussed her insecurities about writing contemporary stories despite her success in historical romance. This shift was driven by both personal curiosity and market demands, illustrating her adaptability as a writer and her willingness to explore new challenges, even when they push her out of her comfort zone.

These points highlight Merry’s creative process, her strategic thinking as an author, and her willingness to evolve as a writer, all of which made for a compelling conversation.

Jeff: So I really appreciate how Chat picked up on how much we all got to understand about Merry and her process from using her pottery class as the spark that led to the “Art of Love” series and on how she’s kind of unsure still about writing contemporary, even though she’s written quite a few now. And I can tell you, she does contemporary just as awesomely as she does historical. And of course she shared a lot about her personal and business thinking too and how all that combined into why she shifted to contemporary. I really enjoyed talking with her all about that.

Will: Alright, I think that’ll do it for now. Coming up next on Monday, September 23rd, we’re revisiting one of our favorite books as we talk about LaQuette’s “Under His Protection.”

Jeff: I always love a good romantic suspense, and “Under His Protection” is one of the absolute best. If you haven’t picked up that yet, you should really go get it and have a read, so you’ll be ready for our in-depth discussion.

Will: On behalf of Jeff and myself, we want to thank you so much for listening, and we hope that you’ll join us again soon for more discussions about the kinds of stories we all love, the big gay fiction kind. Until then, keep turning those pages and keep reading.

Big Gay Fiction Podcast is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. Find more shows you’ll love at frolic.media/podcasts. Original theme music by Daryl Banner.

 

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