Show Notes
For the past four years Rachael has - with her book club co-host Anthea Hodgson - run a readers retreat. Sophie has attended twice as a ‘featured author’ and this year she was on staff, partly to teach a one-hour writing workshop on the Sunday morning. A few weeks before, in the Facebook group for the retreat, she asked if anyone had questions they’d like me to answer - and they certainly did! Plus more came up during the workshop itself. So she collected them, and we decided to answer some of them in this episode.
There were far too many to be contained in the one episode, so we’ll likely do another episode (or two). In this episode we focus on the questions that were from writers who are just starting out, thinking about it, or a little way into writing something and not sure about it. We talk about writer’s block, writing courses, how to find ideas and how to pick one idea to pursue. And more! There’s usually always more, because we like to chat.
These questions take us back to the original mission of Dear Rach & Soph, which was to answer questions about writing - or life, whatever you like. If you have a question you’d like us to answer on the podcast, please leave it in a comment on one of our social platforms or send it in a DM. And thanks for watching/listening! We very much appreciate you spending time with us. For more information about Rachael Johns: https://www.rachaeljohns.com
For more informationabout Sophie Green: https://sophiegreenauthor.com
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More from Dear Rach & Soph
Nina Kenwood was one of the featured authors at this year’s Rachael Johns Book Club Readers Retreat in Geelong, Victoria, a few months ago, so we met her there. At the time we had not organised to talk to Nina about her new novel, People Skills, which will be released by Text Publishing on 6 October. And we hadn’t yet read the book, but ahead of recording this episode we did (and have both read the novel before it, The Wedding Forecast). As fans of Nina's writing and her storytelling, of her sense of humour and her compassion for human foibles, we had much to discuss when she joined us on the pod for this episode.
A year ago, on the podcast, we talked to Chloe Berry, who was in the process of launching a digital marketing agency for authors and also planning to become a literary agent. Chloe is in her twenties and has worked in publishing as a marketer for romance and other genre fiction. Starting her own agency was, obviously, risky - starting any business is a risk.
Listeners-slash-viewers a.k.a. liewers, you’re going to have to watch or listen to find out why, quite early on in our latest episode, Rachael says, ‘This is not a poo podcast.’ We're not giving you any hints! What we will say is that we recorded this ahead of her going to the RWA conference in Darwin, at which she taught a day-long workshop, gave the opening keynote speech and was made a lifetime member of the RWA. In short, she was an RWA rock star!
At the time of recording this episode Rachael was preparing her day-long workshop for the RWA Conference, which is happening this weekend. Sophie was meant to attend but, due to personal circumstances, had to cancel, so we aren’t seeing each other in person as planned. Yet we are together on screen and in audio in this episode, which we recorded about three weeks ago.
As has become customary, each time Rachael or Sophie releases a book, we devote an episode of the podcast to discussing it. This time it’s Sophie's turn, with The Frock Shop, which was published on 21 July 2026 (blurb below).