Why is it So Hard to Ask to Be Paid for Your Writing and Art? -- A joint interview between NYT Bestselling author Evelyn Skye and painter Sally Fama Cochrane

Hello, Protagonists! In this post you’ll find:

🎥 Our latest podcast episode, which is part interview of me, part interview of the artist whose work inspired the paintings in my book

🥳 My newest novel, One Year Ago in Spain, is out today!

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🎥 CREATIVE. INSPIRED. HAPPY Podcast:

Celebrating One Year Ago in Spain

Welcome back to the CREATIVE.INSPIRED.HAPPY Podcast, an interview series with incredibly successful writers about how they rose out of obscurity to build fulfilling careers. With each episode, I hope you'll learn something to make you more creative, inspired, or happy!

Today we're celebrating the release of my newest novel, One Year Ago in Spain, and to do that, we have a fun joint interview for you, with me and artist Sally Fama Cochrane, a classically trained painter whose gorgeous work was the inspiration for the paintings in my novel.

In this episode, we go back and forth, asking each other the same questions, to delve deeper into how creative careers are the same yet different in the worlds of writing and fine art.

We talk about:

🟨 our processes for making a book or painting from idea to finish,

🟨 balancing motherhood and art,

🟨 why artists have a hard time asking to be paid for their work,

🟨 the little Easter egg in One Year Ago in Spain that my long-time readers will find,

🟨 and so much more.

Afterwards, explore more of Sally’s incredible art on her website or Instagram.

I hope you enjoy the show!¹

»Watch here, or listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Podcasts! (please leave a rating for me on Apple or Spotify 💛)

» Past podcast episodes live HERE

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🥳 My newest novel, One Year Ago in Spain, is out today!

yes, that’s part of my pink apron at the bottom of the photo. I almost forgot to take a picture with the book for this newsletter, and I remembered while I was cooking dinner last night. (We had whole wheat pasta in a mushroom ragu. It was delicious, thanks for asking.)

I loved writing this book for you, and now it’s finally here! It’s truly a gift to get to spend my days weaving dreams into stories for readers and writers like you who appreciate all the hard work that goes into it.

📚 Is this book for adults?

Yes, it is. I feel like I’ve fully made the transition now into adult fiction, since One Year Ago in Spain is my third novel for adults (The Hundred Loves of Juliet and Damsel being the previous two.) I will always love the time I spent writing for young adults and children (six novels), but writers—like all artists—change throughout their careers, and I’m really enjoying this new stage of my career here.

☀️ Is it a vacation read?

Yes, if you want to be whisked away to Madrid, and you enjoy characters with depth to their backstories and emotions, but with an undercurrent of hope and love.

(It’s not candy-coated breeziness, but it’s also not super heavy. I like to think it’s in-between.)

There is a lot of me and Tom put into this book—personality traits, yes, but also big emotions like self-doubt, unconditional love, and what finally makes people willing to take leaping risks.

It’s also about the bonds of blood and of found family, and about letting down your walls to finally believe in yourself and the good in others.

I hope you enjoy meeting Claire and Matías.

💛 Thank you for buying copies for yourself or other readers in your life. 💛

One Year Ago in Spain is available in paperback, e-book, and audiobook anywhere books are sold.

Description:
A woman must woo her lover’s soul back into his body to wake him from a coma—or risk losing him forever—in this moving novel from the author of The Hundred Loves of Juliet.

Claire Walker has always had her life in perfect order, including her high-powered job at one of Manhattan’s top corporate law firms. Yet the one thing she cannot seem to find is a perfect love to complete it, until fate pushes Matías de León into her path. Matías is a Spanish artist who is everything that Claire is not: free-spirited and creative, chaos to her order. She falls for him, hard—and he for her.

A year later, however, Claire begins to question everything about their relationship. How can they possibly work long-term when they’re so different? Might it be best to end it before they are both in too deep?

Then tragedy strikes while Matías is visiting family, leaving him gravely wounded in a Madrid hospital. And when Claire drops everything to race to his side, she finds she is the only one who can see and talk to Matías’s soul, detached from his comatose body. But that soul has no memories of his year in New York, of her, or of their relationship. Claire soon realizes that in order to lure Matías back to his body, she will have to convince him to fall in love with her all over again. But can lightning strike twice? Can the same magic that brought them together once do so again?

1. photo credit in intro video: Arturo Holmes/WireImage via Getty Images (Evelyn Skye attends Netflix's "Damsel" New York Premiere at Paris Theater in New York City); Erin Ashford (Evelyn at Stanford sculpture)