Black. Country. Love. with Regina Black

[00:00:00] What's good, family? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams, the host of Black & Published Podcast, and the author of the novel The Seven Daughters of Dupree. This historical fiction novel is about the secrets kept between mothers and daughters over the course of seven generations, and is told backwards in time from 1995 to 1860. The Seven Daughters of Dupree was published January 27th, 2026, and is available everywhere books are sold.

[00:00:28] So if you can, please consider getting a copy of The Seven Daughters of Dupree today. This is the Mahogany Books Podcast Network. There were people that were like, I love this. This is so different and new than other people that were like, I do not know what to do with this. And I feel like my publishing trajectory has had a little bit of that.

[00:00:54] What's good? I'm Nikesha Elise Williams, and this is Black & Published on the Mahogany Books Podcast Network. Bringing you the journeys of writers, poets, playwrights, and storytellers of all kinds. Today's guest is Regina Black, author of the country music romance novel, August Lane.

[00:01:13] It's a book that recontextualizes the narrative around who can be a country star, as well as expands the perspective of who lives in a country-read rural life. When I sat down to write this book, I was determined to write a small town that was predominantly Black that addressed the actual real issues that happened in these small towns.

[00:01:38] A lawyer by trade, Regina pays tribute to a seminal fictional character she holds responsible for her career path until she realized she didn't like litigation. Plus, how fan fiction and live journal became her MFA workshop. And the national conversations Regina got to have about her novel thanks to the boon of Beyonce's Cowboy Carter. That and more is next when Black & Published continues.

[00:02:32] Regina, when did you know that you were a writer? Oh my goodness. I have known I was a writer probably since third grade. That's when I wrote my first thing, which was a poem about the weather. And I remember my teacher being like, did you write this yourself? And I was like, oh yes. And you know, looking back at me, I was like, wow, that wasn't nice. But yeah, I started with poems and then did short stories.

[00:02:59] And then I wrote my first kind of full length novel, like in 2006. So I've been writing books ever since. And so this has just always been what you wanted to do forever. Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, I always say I'm a reader first. Books were just my haven. I used to read so much like a book a day, that sort of thing. And it just never occurred to me that I wouldn't try to write my own one day. So, and it was romance.

[00:03:27] Romance is what got me really into reading. I read everything now. But back then I used to just read romance book after romance book. And so I fell in love with those. So you knew in third grade, you were a writer. You wrote your first full novel in 06, but you are a whole ass attorney, ma'am. I mean, let's make it make sense. Recovering attorney. Okay. Recovering. Yes. Yeah. Recovering.

[00:03:54] So I always knew I wanted to write books, but then I also knew I wanted to go to law school. Like I grew up watching like the Cosi show and Claire Huxtable. And I was just this small town girl in Arkansas and neither of my parents went to college. And so I was kind of modeling what success looks like based on the media images that I saw every day. And so I decided I'm going to be a lawyer. I think it was like 11 or 12. And I never deviated from that.

[00:04:22] Like, it just never occurred to me that I would be anything else. An undergrad, I majored in political science, love that degree. I went to law school and I'm one of those weird people that loved law school. I loved being in the classroom. I love learning the law. I am a writer and the law is a writing profession. So there was a lot of writing involved. And I didn't kind of hit a roadblock until I graduated from law school. I did really well in law school.

[00:04:50] Got an offer to be a civil litigator at a large firm, one of the largest firms in the state of Arkansas. And I got the job and realized that this is not what I was meant to do. This was not for me. Um, and that is a lot of y'all out there. There is. I'll talk to a few of you lawyers who get the job and be like, you know what? Not it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:15] And a lot of people go to law school because you want to help people or you went to law school because you just found the subject really interesting. And I was kind of a combination of both those things, which is why I actually ended up in legal education, because I could do both of those things. So. And write romance novels on the side. Absolutely. Yes. The novel that you wrote in 06. Yeah. What happened to it? Oh, it's, you know, it's on in Dropbox.

[00:05:46] No, I used to post online. When I was in college law school during that period, I used to do fan fiction online. I was on live journal. So I used to just write in certain fandoms. And then I wrote original stories that I posted on a fiction archive that I started with some friends of mine. It was just a website. And the website was focused on stories that centered women of color. That was the theme.

[00:06:14] And it was a little like we could write episodic type stories. You know, you write a chunk and you post it and people could read it. And we have like over a thousand members. It was really fun. And through that archive, I think I wrote 11 full length novels and novellas just kind of posting and sharing with people and kind of developed a following that way. And that was where I learned how to write really. Like lab journal was your MFA program.

[00:06:44] Yes, it was. Yeah. Working on voice, story structure, experimenting, genres, all that stuff. So then when did the art of scandal take shape or come through for you? That's interesting because that is actually a story that I got the idea while I was still posting online and wrote the initial chapters way back then. And then I graduated law school and life happened. I got married.

[00:07:13] I had a daughter. I stopped writing completely for years. I stopped doing it. And then in around 2019, 2020, you know, we know what happened during that time and everybody was, you know, baking bread. And I just went back through my Dropbox and said, okay, you always told yourself you were going to go back to writing. Let's do that. And I just kind of looked for something that felt fun.

[00:07:39] And I found that incomplete manuscript and said, oh, this is kind of hot. Like, you know, and so I finished it. But then after I finished it, I kind of stepped back and said, okay, what do I do with this? I have nothing. Where do I, cause I didn't have my fiction archive anymore. I wasn't posting online anymore. And so I started actually researching self-publishing. And after doing research, I went, oh, this is a whole business.

[00:08:06] And so I did not have the bandwidth for that. And so I found some writing mentorship programs. I started researching those. And I found one called Pitch Wars. And if you've been in publishing a long time, Pitch Wars is familiar to you. A lot of big names came out of Pitch Wars. And I knew nothing about it. All I knew is that I wanted feedback on my book. And I read somewhere that, well, if someone requests your manuscript, they'll give you feedback.

[00:08:35] And I was like, great. Maybe someone will request my manuscript. Well, I ended up getting into Pitch Wars, unexpectedly. And then Cherish Reed and Denise Williams were my mentors. And that is where I learned how to revise a book because I had never really done that. I had always just drafted it, went back over it, edited, and then threw the section up online and never touched it again.

[00:09:00] So Pitch Wars is where I learned how to take something I had written and really kind of mold it into a novel. And that was intense. That like took place over three months. And then we did a agent showcase where you post a pitch and an excerpt of your book. And again, I was like, if one agent requests my book, I won Pitch Wars. I got 26 agents requested my book. So you absolutely won Pitch Wars.

[00:09:30] I, yes. And it was shocking because that was in 2021, I think. And that was around the rom-com boom was happening. And my book was not remotely a rom-com. So I had no expectations that anyone would want what I had written. And so it was shocking. And then I got my agent and we went on sub and I sold it in like a month. What does your publishing trajectory look like?

[00:09:59] It was interesting because the book was not a rom-com and didn't fit really comfortably in what was happening. I had this kind of mixture of reactions to it where there were people that were like, I love this. This is so different and new than other people that were like, I do not know what to do with this. And I feel like my publishing trajectory has had a little bit of that.

[00:10:24] I was very fortunate that the person that picked up the Art of Scandal was a Sina Mahanian who had just worked with Tia Williams on seven days in June. And so she absolutely saw that book and said, oh, I know what this is. She was great to work with. She does more literary fiction. And so she brought those sensibilities into kind of how we talked about the book. And I learned so much from her as well, but she got it.

[00:10:51] But so many editors got that book and said, I don't know what this is. Like, I don't know if this is a romance or if it's women's fiction. Like, I don't know where to put this on the shelf. By the time it came out, I do think we were in a better place as far as, oh, there is a place for a romantic drama in the market. But I also still get that even with my second book. There was there's always this conversation of what is this book?

[00:11:20] Is it a romance book? Is it women's fiction? Is it contemporary fiction? Like, what is it? And from my standpoint, I've been writing romances. Like that is, that's what I sit down to write. So it fascinated me. I think that was one of the bigger surprises once I got into publishing that people didn't automatically look at what I was doing and say, oh, she's writing a romance. Because the core plot is romance. There's a happy ending. It meets the genre requirements.

[00:11:47] So, yeah, that that has always fascinated me. I think that's interesting because we're here to talk about August Lane. And I thought it was a romance. They get together in the end. They do. It was all about the love story and the love song from start to finish. Yes. I mean, there's other stuff happening. But yes. Yeah. I'm here for them. Mm hmm. Yeah. And I have a lot of thoughts about that.

[00:12:15] I think some of that has to do with the preconceived notions people bring to the genre. Like how people view the genre and say, hey, if I open this book and there's other stuff going on besides the romance or, oh, this is really well written. There's this sense like, oh, it can't read this way and be part of the genre that I expect to read this other way. The type of characters I write about and the stuff that they're grappling with.

[00:12:40] A lot of people, I think, look at a book with a character like Luke in August and their background and say, oh, you can't possibly have a character who is grappling with this type of trauma in a romance book, which is supposed to be light and escapist, that sort of thing. But, you know, we're living in the age of Kennedy Ryan. And sometimes those types of criticisms feel very, what is the word I'm looking for?

[00:13:05] Like, I can tell what you read if that is how you're viewing my work. It tells me that you are someone who reads a particular type of book from a, yes, it's very limiting. And I feel like Black authors writing in this genre have always done those things. You know, Terry McMillan was writing Waiting to Excel and she was grappling with a lot of different things. How Stella Got Her Groove Back to me feels like a romance book to me. People debate that.

[00:13:34] But that was my experience of like contemporary Black kind of romantic stories. Sandra Kitt was writing about race and a lot of social issues in her romance books. So it never occurred to me not to tackle those things in a romance book. I wonder if you agree with me, but I think it's because Black life to people who are not Black is inherently political.

[00:13:58] That to be able to write a genre specific romance that follows whatever tropes that you choose to pull while still staying in the lines of the three act structure, the third act breakup and the happily ever after in the end.

[00:14:13] Other races and ethnicities have the privilege of suspending the politicization of their identity in a romance to make the core plot all about the chase and the catch and the breakup. Whereas Black people, that might be the central plot, but there's other shit happening just because we live in the world. Yeah. Do you agree with that? I absolutely agree with that.

[00:14:39] I feel like that was another thing that took me aback a little bit when I started publishing because, you know, I wrote The Art of Scandal and I felt like I was just kind of writing what I thought was a semi-realistic depiction of a Black woman in the situation of being a trophy wife to this really popular kind of handsome white politician. Like what life might be like with her. And that book constantly gets like trigger warnings added for racism.

[00:15:09] And when I was writing it, I wasn't thinking in terms of like, let me grapple with racism. It was more like, let me be honest about what it's like for this woman just navigating the world. And so, yes, you're right.

[00:15:23] When we write honestly about our experiences in the world, a lot of people that are privileged, like, you know, white readers, readers that can pick up a book and be removed from those type of issues, pick up our books and are confronted with those realities. And so they hyper-focused on that. And I do think that's part of it.

[00:15:48] Like, they think a romance book is somehow supposed to be stripped of those realities because it's escapism. It's something they read when they want to be in a good mood. And now I'm being confronted with the fact that this woman goes into a store and she's followed. Like, I don't want that in my romance. So this must be literary fiction. Or it's just our lives. Yes.

[00:16:11] So then if that was your experience with the Art of Scandal, I feel like, I don't know if this is true, but I feel in my spirit, like August Lane was in like your fucking novel was like, you thought about that with Art of Scandal. Now I'm gonna just go all the way in and piss you off because I can. I, it was a little bit of a fucking, it was a little bit, it was a little bit of that.

[00:16:33] With August Lane, I very much kind of tried to write something that I knew was going to be different from the Art of Scandal because I actually started writing August Lane before the Art of Scandal got sold. So I knew it was going to be different from that because that's how I was coping with the stress of like, if no one wants this book, let me write something different. But I really sat down and wrote it after the Art of Scandal was already out.

[00:16:57] And then having people kind of say that when I literally feel like I just kind of grazed the surface of certain issues. I sat down and write this book and once I decided to write about black country musicians, I was like, I just might as well be honest about it. Because people are going to pull those things out regardless. So let's okay, let's go. Let's just really talk about like what this is like for people in this industry. So yeah, there was a little bit of that when I sat down to write this one.

[00:17:25] And when did you start August Lane? This was like, honestly, 21 is when I started writing it and I actually got 50,000 words into it and just redid the whole thing. Because I really started getting into research, like historical research, like about black country musicians and that sort of thing. And after about 50,000 words, I actually kind of realized, oh, I actually know what I want to talk about.

[00:17:54] Because I think I was writing it as just a straight up romance. And then I realized, no, I need to make this more personal. And that always tends to come later with me because my first reaction is like to keep myself out of the book, which that's not where good art comes from. I think anyone that writes or makes art understands that like some of your best work is when you draw on kind of these personal experiences and passions that you have. And so that first version I felt wasn't personal enough.

[00:18:20] And so I went back and started working on it in the beginning of 2023 and then worked on it all the way through 2023 and 2024. So you started this book before Cowboy Carter came out. I did. And we had this conversation nationally. Yes. I will never forget where I was when she showed up at the Grammys in that cowboy hat. And I just said, please let this be what I think it is. We needed to get another new era.

[00:18:50] Yes. And it was. And that was wonderful. So then August Lane came out in 2025. That was last year. That's when the Cowboy Carter tour took place with the album drop the year before. Yes. What was it like to have a national conversation going on about black country artists, black country music, and that being the center of your book as it's preparing for publication? Like how amazing was that for you and everything?

[00:19:19] Oh my gosh, it was wonderful. I'm not a big marketing person. That is not my favorite part of books. But thinking about the marketing and just talking about this book while you have this album, it's kind of this like viral soundtrack to it was probably the most fun I've ever had on the marketing kind of publicity side because I love Beyonce. I love that album.

[00:19:45] And then I wrote this book, which was, you know, the book of my heart, and I got to talk about it all together at the same time. And it would always kind of make me emotional. And then Sinners came out too. And that was like black South everywhere. And everybody's wearing boots and listening to the country. And it was probably, I don't know if I will ever have a book release that was that meaningful and joyful for me. It was wonderful.

[00:20:10] What has been your favorite subject to discuss surrounding all of the misconceptions about black country music and the black South? Oh man, there's just so many. I think one of my favorites is the black singers that we all know and love that were making country music. But because they were black, it was classified as something else.

[00:20:36] Like finding out that the Pointer Sisters had Arkansas Connections and they had like a whole country album that won Grammys. Or I found Tina Turner's country album and it wasn't streaming anywhere when I found it. The only place I could listen to it was on YouTube. And how I never knew that was her first album after she left Ike. And just listening to Bill Weathers and like hearing it differently.

[00:21:03] Because I'm doing this research and I'm listening to how Southern he sounds and how like those roots. And then, you know, just talking about that, like going on tour and people talking about music to me. And I love music. So the fact that I got to talk about my book and music was amazing. And people asking me for like music recs and being able to say, hey, listen to this, you know, Warren Treaty. You may not have heard of them. They're amazing.

[00:21:29] And being able to kind of reframe like Lionel Richie for people, things like that. That has been probably the most interesting and fun conversation to have every time I talk about this book. And so then, what do you think August, JoJo and Luke have done for readers who were not aware of the roots of country music in Black culture?

[00:21:53] When I was writing the book, I realized at some point that the actual love story and the narrative and the character development I was writing for them kind of mimics so many of the themes of country music. Which is why I ended up structuring a book like a country song, because I really feel like, you know, I had this light bulb moment of like, oh, that's what the story is. The romance is basically a country song.

[00:22:17] But it's a bunch of iconography and themes that have been kind of hijacked by like this white, more regressive, conservative narrative. Like, oh, those are things for white people. And I hope that when you read these books, in these characters, embodying these things in a very specifically Black way, I feel like I wanted to kind of transform those things and allow people to kind of reclaim those things in their mind.

[00:22:46] Particularly people like me. I've lived in the South all my life. And so much of this stuff has just always been part of my life. And just putting that in the correct frame and the correct narrative and being like, no, this isn't just theirs. We own these things. We are rule Black Southerners. This is our culture. So that's one of the main things I hope people take away from those characters and reading this book. Can you read something from August Lane? Yeah. So that I can get into this foolishness with these people.

[00:23:16] August Lane by Regina Black is a second chance romance novel between Luke Randall and of course, August Lane. They were secretive high school sweethearts until Luke left, abandoned August and stole her notebook of country music songs where one became a bonafide hit. Years later, Luke is down on his luck, but has an opportunity for a career comeback by performing at a festival in his hometown with August's superstar mother.

[00:23:45] His return sets them on a collision course toward each other and all the old scores they still need to settle. Here's Regina. Okay. Okay. This is a chapter one in 2023 and it's Luke's point of view. The last guitar chord hung in the frigid air that pumped relentlessly from the air vents of the Memphis best value bar and lounge. While the customers stare blankly at Luke Randall, like they were still waiting for things to get interesting.

[00:24:12] Someone cleared their throat and the sound startled them out of a trance. Their applause was slow and drenched in pity. But hell he'd take it. These days he'd take anything that wasn't ambivalence. Luke leaned forward and drawled. Thank you. In a deep smoky tone, he'd been told gave his voice more swagger. That was I Fall to Pieces by the Patsy Cline. One of my favorites. He flashed a smile. Not a big fan of sad songs before dinner, huh?

[00:24:42] I won't blame you. That's country for you, right? Everybody's leaving. No one's getting laid. Someone snorted and chuckled. Even when the music was shit, he could still work a crowd. Always wondered about that song, he said. Like, there's gotta be a story there. There's always a story. He ran his hand along the guitar frets. Maybe they were married. Whatever Patsy was singing about, I mean. Feels like the bad side of a divorce. Just play the fucking song. The heckler slurred the words from the back.

[00:25:12] The audience reanimated, as if the guy had tossed raw meat into a herd of zombies. Someone shouted in agreement, and they started clapping, for real this time. Staring up at him with feral eyes. Do it, their glares told him. I paid five bucks to hear the one song that makes you worth the shit. If you don't play it in the next five seconds, no one will ever find a body. Luke didn't acknowledge the man, who yanked off his John Deer cap and started pumping his arms like they were at a football game.

[00:25:41] Arguing was pointless. As a lone black man in a sea of drunken white faces was also potentially dangerous. Instead, he retreated into himself, as he usually did when this happened. And it always happened. Light clockwork. Every Thursday night around eight, before the kitchen started serving entrees and the bar started watering down the whiskey, someone's patience would snap, and the vitriol was spread like a virus.

[00:26:07] Luke took a long drink of water, leaned into the mic, and sang the first lines of the song he hated with every fiber of his being. I'm frozen in place, my heart's gone numb, but you keep breaking apart and still feel something. He locked eyes with a cute black woman with waistline sister locks in the front row. She was perched on the edge of her chair, fully aware of the figure she struck in a hostile room filled with camo and denim.

[00:26:34] She smiled without murder in her eyes, and he smiled back out of habit. That's how he usually got through this. Focusing on a friendly face who got a kick out of being serenaded made the partist parts go down easier. Because every song did have a story. This one haunted him like a ghost. Thank you. So, when we meet Luke, baby is down bad. Mm-hmm. He is down all the way bad. Yes.

[00:27:03] Recovering alcoholic, singing in two-bit bars, one hit wonder, and he's broke. Yeah. He's done. He's done. He's not a good hero. No. Because not only are you down and you broke, he is, ah. And I don't think either one of them is surprised because August is also down just as bad. Yes. Yes. Like she's sleeping with a married man throwing hands on the front porch scrapping at night, throwing coffee on people.

[00:27:33] and I'm sorry I'm giving the story away but like we're here for the paperback version so go get it anyway like she can't even come into church like this Sunday not for you friend why put them so low you know at the start of the romance like this is not a meet you

[00:27:55] no no it's not you know I that was very deliberate on my part so this book is told in dual timelines and I love a dual timeline I love a second chance and where I wanted you to meet both of these characters in the present is kind of at that low point in their life where you see what being a part has done to them and it's it's a very kind of in my opinion it's a very romance focused sensibility

[00:28:25] of I think of a second chance romance as like one complete love story and like you mentioned before the structurally love stories kind of have this third act breakup is very common where in the third act they break up for some reason and in a second chance romance in my mind the third act breakup happened during the first romance right and so where we meet them is at their low point

[00:28:50] it's that dark night of the soul that most storytellers know so that's his rock bottom that's her rock bottom they are both kind of trapped and they are stuck and they are not moving forward and this is who they become and what their life kind of turns into when they are not together and they are not reaching their potential and so I just really love the idea of kind of starting these characters in

[00:29:20] the present at a place where you know exactly how dysfunctional and how badly they've screwed things up because they didn't follow that path of leaning into love and being together and then over the course of the book you see how much better that they are together and this is probably also just how I think of romance as a genre in general one of my things that I always think about is when I put a couple out there

[00:29:48] for you I need to convince you that not only do these two people need love but they need love from each other not just general love because I sometimes will read a romance and I'm like this is cute and great but you know Jane can be replaced with Jill and as long as love is in this person's life I think they will be fine for me a good romance convinces you that not only is love the key to these people's happiness

[00:30:14] but love with this specific person is the key to happiness because that to me is what makes this particular romance compelling like very specific to these two people and very compelling and one of the things I always try to show you is this person makes her better and this person makes him better and so in every lifetime yes that is it is Luke and August in every lifetime yes okay yeah at the end of

[00:30:43] that book I want you to be like you know what I actually don't know if they would have gotten here with anyone else okay so that's those two her mama his mama too but yeah her mother is this country star who has like a Vanessa Williams Miss America kind of storyline which I love the little nod there and manages to rise above it anyway and she is the one who really ends up bringing August and Luke

[00:31:10] back together who inspired her inspired Jojo yeah so definitely Vanessa Williams I actually read her memoir which is fascinating it's one of those things that kind of teaches you more about a situation that I think a lot of people assume that they know things about it's a great book so I read her memoirs reading a lot of books memoirs and things from singer-songwriters for research for this book

[00:31:36] so it was a little bit of her and then also Tina Turner and Tina Turner was really inspiring I was listening to a documentary about her where she was doing a bunch of interviews just generally about her life and career and the way that she would talk about this amazing music career this traumatic experience

[00:31:59] with Ike and coming out of it in this kind of exhausted way she would talk about that because you know she would constantly get asked about it all the time but there's also this kind of like defiance in her about like how people insisted on framing that experience in a way that she was like that wasn't accurate or they insisted on classifying her music a particular way and she'd be like no I sing rock

[00:32:25] her voice really influenced the way I wrote Jojo okay we can talk about Luke's mother now we're getting all the parents out of the way Luke comes from a broken racist home yeah he was marked from birth to not be okay yeah I feel like Luke's situation was me kind of writing about small town life and some of these

[00:32:50] things that happen in small towns that people don't talk about like the colorism that kind of happens a lot where I located this in Arkansas it's like close proximity to Louisiana and his mother is from Louisiana and she's kind of has this girl background and there's an element of colorism there and kind of this default assumption that part of the reason she's in the situation she's in is because she fell in love with this dark skinned kind of country farmer boy that amounted to nothing

[00:33:20] and so she's like striving into her striving means proximity to whiteness and so you know the fact that Luke looks like his dad and his brother is the son of a white musician that she had a child with and so the different ways she treats them it's kind of this internalized thing that is happening in their house and then beyond that you talk about the secrets of small towns and small town life and

[00:33:46] we're really talking about is rural America and it's not necessarily a stereotype but it is what happens there is drug addiction there's poverty there is lack of economic investment and infrastructure in this area where people live not necessarily because they can't go anywhere else but they do want to be there they want to see the best for their community but it is dying around them and setting your novel in

[00:34:15] that kind of community in Arkansas which is where you are from what do you want people in other areas of this country to know about what middle America experiences on the backs of development and expansion elsewhere that was something that was really important to me too because as someone who grew up in a small

[00:34:38] town myself my experience kind of felt invisible in ways that really were only clear for me as I got older usually the depiction in media when our stories told is largely like a big city urban story the way our narratives and then the rural life is reserved for white people and there are these huge populations

[00:35:02] and it's across the south of black people that live in small towns and in rural areas that are invisible to people like these conversations particularly right now when just rule as a concept is so politicized and it is firmly politicized on one side of that conversation it just completely erases the fact that these

[00:35:25] rural issues rural economic issues rural social issues impact black people and they impact them even more in a lot of cases than white people in rural areas because of the double marginalization of not having access to things not having access to something as basic as internet there are so many parts of Arkansas that don't have like wi-fi or consistent access to wi-fi things like that and like how that

[00:35:50] really impacts an already vulnerable population in a different way so all of that being said I feel like I just really when I sat down to write this book I was determined to write a small town that was predominantly black that addressed the actual real issues that happened in these small towns like you said the economic impact that's something I experienced firsthand because my mother used to work in like

[00:36:17] factories that closed down and things and it affected our lives and my small town was dying you know as I was there but then there's also this aspect of small town life where there are people that have lived there their entire lives and they build these communities and it is they live there because they want to live there because they are passionate about those places and so another influence or inspiration for

[00:36:41] Arcadia was Helena West Helena which is a predominantly black town in Arkansas with a big blues music tradition they have a festival every year and people from Helena West Helena are so passionate about that town in that city and it is struggling it is trying to survive and there are people down there that and they are black people and they have devoted their life to keeping it alive and so that is what I wanted to

[00:37:10] depict in this book that's what I wanted people to see so then bringing it back to the story it's all coming together where Luke is having to go back home Jojo was supposedly going back home and they're all going to collide into August's life around this Delta Blue Music Festival which would be a big boon for the community because Jojo is being inducted into the Hall of Fame and so she wants to do this concert for her community

[00:37:37] and so then all the major players are there and talking about economic investment and opportunity meeting the moment where these two star-crossed lovers have to get themselves together like for me that was the heart of the book yeah and I feel like at the end I was like I feel like Jojo was a

[00:37:59] villain but if it had not been for her villainy we would not have seen the trajectory of Luke and really of August because like you're rooting for August I was rooting for August like the whole time but I was like she would really sacrifice herself for this man and for everybody else around her and be stage fright and I was like no girl no so if it had not been for her trifling mama

[00:38:29] we would not have got the ending was that always your plan because I feel like that was also another love story was between August Jojo and even August's grandmother it's like they have a very difficult dynamic but there was love there in that family yeah that yeah that was always my plan writing those women I feel like if someone asked me what aspect of this book is the most personal to you it would

[00:38:54] probably be that not in the very specific things that happen but in the fact that I was raised in a household of a single mother and predominantly women she had four kids three of us were girls and those complicated intergenerational kind of dynamics birdies journey to being saved while her daughter is a teenager and how that impacted their household those are things that I have personal experience with

[00:39:21] and so that side of the story was very personal to me and it was very clear in my mind like what type of narrative I was writing and kind of what I wanted to show and I really just really wanted to show the complexity of that that you could have like birdie who came back to the church and found something that like healed her and made her happy but then it also had this negative effect on her relationship

[00:39:47] with her daughter and then you have Jojo who had this horrible traumatic thing happened to her and out of it came August and Jojo constantly wrestling with the fact that she loves her daughter but her daughter represents the worst thing that ever happened to her and then August knowing she's the worst thing that ever happened to her mother and spending her life constantly trying to justify her presence in

[00:40:13] the world because she doesn't feel like she should have been there and just wrestling with those complicated feelings it never surprises me when people read this book and they're so polarized about like I love Jojo I hate Jojo I like August feel the same way we do we do we do yeah because it was like Jojo's story was about her complicated feelings with her relationship with her daughter but then it

[00:40:38] was also about ambition it was yes it was also about ambition the price of ambition what you're willing to do for your own ambitions to see your goals out especially as a woman particularly as a mother yes and I always felt like you know Jojo's podcast happens a year after the action in the romance and so you are getting a

[00:41:03] little more of a reflective version of Jojo instead of kind of a reactive version but then also in the present you're just getting August's perspective of Jojo and so I always kind of have that in the back of my head as I was writing these things and I always feel like Jojo has a very clear-eyed version like vision of herself like when she

[00:41:26] explains kind of her feelings about being a mother she doesn't give herself much grace in that situation where honestly when you're dealing with your daughter maybe she should have given herself a little bit more grace to kind of allow herself to be with her daughter on that level I think and basically holding herself back and being like I'm not a mom I never asked for this I'm ambitious and kind of just embracing

[00:41:54] that what she ultimately did was not be a mother to her daughter writing Jojo was actually one of my favorite parts of this book because she's so complicated she's so unapologetic about who she is and I do think in August's story she's the villain she's like the antagonist but she's also a person and so that's what makes her really interesting to me like she's the villain in August's story because

[00:42:20] August is still hurt but she still loves her like that's that's still her mom for better or for worse that's still her mom and she still loves her and I think she still has the need of a child to be recognized and say like don't you see I'm good enough yeah and you know August's happy ending like the end of her arc really is kind of about not staying stuck in that place where she's constantly

[00:42:44] looking to her mom to go is it enough have I earned it now am I okay now can you love me now and that she's like you know what that actually isn't the beginning and end of me I can actually move on and build my life independent of that constant like being stuck there waiting for my mother to acknowledge me and in my mind after the story ends that's what allows that relationship to heal so because I like

[00:43:14] one of JoJo's last interviews where she's talking about the concert that August gives I could tell in the language almost if I'm listening to the podcast like she's so proud she's so proud yeah like that is my time a year after the initial release after the Cowboy Carter album and world tour as we're about to prepare for a new Beyonce era whatever she's gonna take us to and readers are still having the

[00:43:40] chance to discover August Lane and the richness that you have put into this novel what is it that you want them to hold on to after the last page there's so many things a lot of the things we've already talked about particularly about just looking at southern iconography and countryness and cowboy life and all of those things through you know holding on to that different lens that we were able to kind of

[00:44:06] develop because of Catholic Carter because of sinners because of all those things I want that to inspire more people like I want to see more of that and particularly from like voices personal experience like no you don't have to write away from these things right towards them right because this is actually the first book I ever wrote about Arkansas really and all the stuff I wrote and so that's definitely one of them

[00:44:31] but also I just want people to read this book and kind of sit with the emotional journeys that this couple went on and I don't know just kind of reframe earlier we were talking about how people think about romance I want people to pick this book up and say oh romance can do these things too you know it can talk about these

[00:44:55] things too so I do want this book to be a book that people recommend or point to when they say hey you know romance is tired it's generic I'm like no it can be highly specific and I'd love to be included along a list of other you know brilliant highly specific writers I want this book to be included on that rec list so I think you've succeeded thank you all right so I know you prepared for this part so let's

[00:45:25] I did let's go ahead and go to our speed round in our game with your notes Regina I'll probably improvise though that's my way what is your favorite book right now South to America by Imani Perry who is your favorite author and Kay Jensen what is your favorite song my all-time favorite country song is I Fall to Pieces by Pat Ziegler and who is your favorite artist any genre any medium Ryan

[00:45:50] Cooper I love his approach to storytelling the stories he chooses to tell he's pretty much my favorite I'm always excited about what he's gonna choose to do next if August Lane were to get the screen treatment who would play Luke August and Jojo I think just from a purely music standpoint Miles

[00:46:10] Kenton his voice and just he I would absolutely love to see him be Luke Coco Jones for August I just love her energy her voice is super powerful and just physically she just looks like August in my mind and for Jojo Renee Goldsberry she's glamorous but like super elegant and just kind of has this powerhouse

[00:46:37] of print like just perfect so what do you think is the best book to movie or book to series adaptation one is Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Rosely that film was perfect if you look at the cast it's The Wais of Washington and Don Cheadle like it was such a great adaptation just hands down amazing the other one is Interview with a Vampire because I actually think it made it better the current Interview with

[00:47:03] the Vampire not the first movie the television show just took the source material and just elevated it to something I think that the bones were there but it's just amazing if money were no object where would you go what would you do and where would you live I would probably live in either Atlanta or Washington DC those are two of my favorite cities it can be expensive but yeah like the culture

[00:47:32] the vibe just everything about them I love those cities and I would probably I don't know I would do something all-inclusive because I just want to go someplace where I don't have to think very much and it probably would be a wine country like Napa or something like that I love that yeah name three things on your bucket list I like to cook and I kind of collect cookbooks and one of my bucket list

[00:47:57] items it's to cook every single recipe in a cookbook from front to back one of my favorite is Jubilee by Tony Tipton Martin and I'm obsessed with Tony Tipton Martin's everything and so I would love to just sit and cook every single Jubilee recipe just from front to back at one point I've made a few that's a tall order it's a challenge right yes so I have a list of retirement things and that is well then you got

[00:48:23] to pair it with the drinks from the one that she knew about the spirits I have that one I have that one I'm looking at them right now they're next so that's one thing the other is to write a screenplay I would love to write a screenplay one day and the last one would probably be like I was born in Germany my dad was military and I've never been there I think I was three when we left and I'd like to go back

[00:48:47] to the country I was born in hmm what brings you joy books do bring me joy I love reading just really getting that feeling of getting lost in a really great book the one you can't wait to go back and pick up a lot of times that usually as a genre I don't write it because that allows me to kind of disconnect from the work side of it and just purely engage with the story so that brings me joy and also my family

[00:49:16] I have the best family like I have the best husband my daughter I mean she's 10 we're not in teenage land yet but she is a constant source of joy in my life my siblings my parents are wonderful so yeah definitely family what brings you peace I'm the most peaceful first thing in the morning getting a cup of coffee and just clear-headed well rested and everybody else is asleep and it's one of

[00:49:42] the few times in a day I can just kind of relax and just be at peace with myself and my own mind what is your favorite sound rain being inside and if it's raining outside there is something actually peaceful definitely about that sound and who as an artist career do you most admire writer or otherwise oh Kennedy Ryan hands down like just no question she is doing I just kind of sit back

[00:50:10] and look at everything she's done and what she's accomplished and what she does with it and I feel like that's the part that I find so wonderful and inspiring is that she's worked so hard to build this wonderful career and this wonderful body of work and she's so warm and personable with her fans she's so generous with her time and then she also says okay I have this platform I'm gonna elevate these other

[00:50:37] authors or I'm going to sign this development deal and develop black properties I'm going to do something with this and that is somewhere to say what would you from a career standpoint what would you like to do it's that and just watching her do that it's just so inspiring to me our game is called rewriting the classics classic is however you define it yeah name one book you wish you would have written indigo by

[00:51:05] beverly jenkins I just read it actually for the first time like last year and I can't shut up about it that book is doing so much that in a beautiful romance wonderful characters the level of historical research the things that I learned that I didn't know is someone that considers myself fairly well read it I just I loved it it was such a joyful experience for me to read that book so definitely

[00:51:30] indigo name one book where you would change the ending and how would you do it sense and sensibility by jane awesome I was so frustrated by the end of that book that I refused to read the end of the book my big issue was how the couples ended up and this is my romance brain there's no way Eleanor should have not ended up with Colonel Brandon like it was such an obvious ending and the fact that

[00:51:58] Colonel Brandon picked Marion I'll never forgive that book for that so I literally got all the way through the book got to the last chapter and I was really with the story I'd seen the movie all this and I just put it down and didn't pick it back up because I was like this is absolutely wrong I'll never forgive her for this so big feelings I love it keep the same energy for this last question

[00:52:22] name one book that you think is overrated or overtaught and why I'm gonna keep smoking at Jane Austin Pride and Prejudice okay I know people love Pride and Prejudice all the enemies to lovers fans that's kind of like canon they're foundational enemies I don't like that book I don't like that romance I don't care for the main character I remember reading that book and feeling like

[00:52:49] ambivalent about whether they got together and just partly because enemies to lovers is a very difficult dynamic for me to truly embrace because it really is based on making just so many assumptions about who a person really is and with enemies to lovers it's but you hate this person because you don't know them and ultimately you know when I'm looking at it I get really irritated and impatient

[00:53:16] with these people's refusal to just sit for a second and actually like act like adults and have a conversation and I I kind of felt that like and I was being Pride and Prejudice so like it's it's everyone's favorite book by her and I just think it's overrated Persuasion is Highly Superior I Will Die on That Hill that is the best Jane Austen book I love it so oh all right my final question for you today

[00:53:42] when you are dead and gone and among the ancestors what would you like someone to write about the legacy of words and work that you left behind that they read my work and it made them understand themselves a little bit better and it made them understand people in their life a little bit better I tend to write books about people who have done things that are difficult to forgive themselves for they have made mistakes and I would love for people to say you know there was something I was holding in my heart

[00:54:11] that after I read this book I let go or there was someone in my life that I absolutely loved that made a huge mistake and I've been holding on to that and I was able to kind of move past it and either forgive them in a way that kept them there or forgive them in a way that let me move on I like the idea of this work I'm doing kind of accurately or honestly depicting the human condition but then giving us kind of a

[00:54:39] roadmap to joy and so that's what I want people to say about my work big thank you to Regina Black for being here today on Black and Published you can follow Regina on the socials at Regina Black Writes on Instagram and threads and make sure you check out August Lane out now in paperback from Grand Central you can get a copy of the novel from Mahogany Books and get 10% off your first purchase

[00:55:04] using code Black Pub at checkout that's B-L-K-P-U-B that's our show for the week if you like this episode and want more Black and Published head to our Instagram page it's at Black and Published and that's B-L-K and Published there I've posted a bonus clip for my interview with Regina about the importance of Claire Huxtable pop culture representation and what it would have meant

[00:55:33] growing up to have seen and known more Black authors make sure you check it out and let me know what you think in the comments I'll holler at y'all next week when our guests will be Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray authors of the historical fiction novel A Pair of Aces so even though we've zero evidence that Polly and Eunice work together and of course we write fiction so you know it's a lot of the things that we can't imagine but there were many many women who helped Eunice and and helped

[00:56:03] that case theme I wanted to explore a woman who had all of this ambition and she had a son so did she send her son away for his safety or for her ambition so that was a theme her background what was expected of her and what she yearned for that's next week on Black and Published I'll talk to you then peace

[00:56:30] what's going on family this is Derek Young and Ramonda Young owners of both Mahogany Books and the Mahogany Books Podcast Network we really want to thank each and every one of you for listening to this episode and if you enjoyed what you just heard drop us a review and rate us on whatever platform you download podcasts on we truly appreciate each and every one of you for supporting us and making us your go-to for black books and we look forward to connecting with you all sometime in the future thank you again fam and always remember black books matter