Content Creator Cazzie Ahmed on manifesting her career as a fangirl & navigating the politics of fandom
BooksmartShow Notes
In this episode of Booksmart, hosts Sunny Adcock and Allie Daisy King sit down with Sydney-based professional fangirl Cazzie Ahmed (@filmgirlcazzie).
Ahmed tells us how harnessing her long-standing affinity for pop culture has helped her build a loyal network of more than 12k followers and a side hustle that is swiftly becoming a 5-9 outside of her already full-time 9-5 career. The girls discuss the value of building your own digital platforms and the challenges that arise when you wish to be taken seriously as a creator with growing access to opportunities, especially if you're a fangirl with a predominantly female audience. Ahmed also shares how she's learnt to establish boundaries and protect her space as an emerging public figure in the book and film world. Plus, she gives her input on the girls' ongoing discussion about how much say fans should have in the casting of book adaptations and how fandoms play a large role in making these adaptations possible.
More from Booksmart
In this bonus episode of Booksmart, hosts Sunny and Allie meet with Canadian author Bal Khabra, of the beloved hockey romance series Off the Ice — which includes Collide, Spiral, Revolve, and Embrace.
In this very special episode of Booksmart, co-host Sunny had the sublime opportunity to interview English actress Daisy Edgar-Jones for the Sense and Sensibility junket held in Sydney last week. Edgar-Jones plays Jane Austen's beloved Elinor Dashwood, the sensible older sister of Marianne and Margaret Dashwood, whose emotional restraint is tested when she grows attached to Edward Ferrars. The actress is no newcomer to book-to-screen adaptations, having risen to prominence for her roles as Marianne Sheridan in Normal People and Kya in Where the Crawdads Sing. She is also set to star in the upcoming production of Gabrielle Zevin's novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. Listen to hear the stars' thoughts on adapting classic literature, maintaining your sensibility, curating the perfect angsty playlist, working with Australian author and screenwriter Diana Reid, and reading Sarah J Maas's Throne of Glass and ACOTAR series. Sense and Sensibility arrives in cinemas across Australia on October 15th, 2026.
Welcome back to book club friends! Things are heating up down under, hence our desire to choose Jenny Jackson's New England set contemporary novel 'The Shampoo Effect' as our September book club pick. The hype surrounding this book has been hard to ignore, with VOGUE calling it one of the "best books of 2026". Many readers have likened the reading experience to overhearing juicy gossip about a friend group you know only tangentially. But does the story, focused on one accidental pregnancy and a tight-knit group of dysfunctional friends in their 30s, live up to the buzz? Fortunately, the answer lies in this loving diss (about a book that would have been a far better television show). Warning: this episode contains spoilers for the book's central plot twist. You can purchase The Shampoo Effect by Jenny Jackson online from QBD Books using the following link:
The BookTok girlies have been blessed with yet another book-to-screen adaptation with Ali Hazelwood's 'The Love Hypothesis' dropping on Prime Video. But the real question is, does this adaptation and its stars Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman have chemistry?
In this episode of Booksmart, hosts Sunny Adcock and Allie Daisy King take on the current romantic fiction boom and share which new love stories you should be reading.