Rachel Spangler has avoided getting a real job by staying in school for way too long, and she has loved (almost) every minute of it. She holds degrees in politics and government, women’s studies, English, and college student personnel administration from Illinois State University. Throughout her college experience, she has been actively involved with PFLAG, PRIDE, FMLA, and Safe Schools, all of which influenced various aspects of her first novel, Learning Curve.

Rachel and her partner, Susan, recently moved to western New York, where during the winter they make the most of the lake effect snow on local ski slopes. In the summer, they love to travel and watch their beloved St. Louis Cardinals. Regardless of the season, she always makes time for a good romance, whether she’s reading it, writing it, or living it.

Who would you count among the authors who have inspired and influenced you?
There are so many authors who have influenced me. When it comes to reading/writing, I am like a sponge just trying to soak it all up. In general fiction I love Virginia Woolfe’s To the Light House, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, and Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, just to name a few. In lesbian fiction I owe so much to my wife and Rita Mae Brown. Susie got me a copy of Venus Envy and Rubyfruit Jungle for our first Christmas together, and I was so hooked that have been reading wonderful women authors like her every since. The most influential have been Radclyffe, Kim Baldwin, Georgia Beers, and Karin Kallmaker, but I can honestly say I’ve been influenced to varying degrees by all of the amazing lesbians romance writers I’ve had the pleasure of reading.

Bold Strokes Books will release your first book, Learning Curve, in 2008. Can you tell us a bit about the inspiration behind the story?
As strange as it may sound to some people, I heard the voices. I was waiting for a PFLAG meeting to start, and there was a Melissa Etheridge song playing on my headphones, and suddenly I heard a conversation in my head. The next day in one of my classes I was bored and instead of taking notes on world geography, I just wrote down that conversation. It turned into one of the first scenes in Learning Curve where all the major characters are in the same room. From there, things just started unfolding.

Any unforeseen hurdles, technical or otherwise, pop up during your writing of the book?
Not so much. I never planned on writing a novel in the first place. I was just killing time when I was bored and didn’t have the money to buy anything new to read. Then, even when it became clear that I was writing a novel, I didn’t plan to submit it for publication, so I didn’t feel any pressure. If I didn’t have free time, I didn’t write. If I lost a scene to a computer problem, I’d just write a new one. So, maybe there were hurdles, but I didn’t notice them because I had no real understanding of Learning Curve as anything other than a hobby.

Do you plot significantly before you start writing?
Not significantly, no. I start with the characters, usually building them based on conversations and then asking questions like “what kind of a person would say that?” Or “what would make her react like that?” From there I start to get an understanding of their desires and shortcomings, which gives me a better sense of where the plot will go next. I usually know what I want the next scene to be, and beyond that I know I want to find a realistic way for things to end well. Anything in between there gets worked out along the way.

How do you decide what to name your characters?
My main characters have named themselves really. Ashton has been Ash from the first words out of her mouth. The same it true with Carrie; there was no real thought given to her name. With some side characters I have had more trouble and have had to ask for other people’s opinions, but that is pretty rare. Every now and then I really like a name and have to ask Susie if we would ever name a child Campbell, for example. If she says no, I go ahead and write a Campbell. If she says maybe then I have to wait and see if we ever end up using it in real life.

Did you experience any ‘problem characters’ – ones that bumped heads with you because of what you wanted them to do/not do?
They all do what they want to do. I’m just the vessel through which they communicate. If I try to make them do something just to speed up the plot or fill in a gap, the writing always comes off sounding trite or contrived. I really have to let them move at their own pace in their own ways. I know all my characters’ basic personalities, desires and fears, but sometimes that doesn’t cover every little detail. There are still some areas where Carrie will always be a mystery to me. She’s a complicated woman, but then again the great ones usually are.

What about editing; do you rewrite as you go or do you prefer to finish a first draft first before returning for the second?
I edit very little as I go along. I usually read the previous scene before starting a new one just to get me back in the right mind set, and if anything jumps out at me I’ll stop and fix it. Then when I go back and read it again beginning to end I can see the big picture a lot better and make the substantive changes that are needed. My wife and our friend Lori also act as beta readers even though we didn’t know that term the first time around, and they are both great about asking questions that make me think about things from another person’s perspective. Typos, grammar, and usage errors mean nothing to me. I’m a terrible copy editor, so that’s where having an English Ph.D. for a wife is a lifesaver.

Then there is Jennifer Knight, who comes in after we have all had our fill of it and bestows on us her creative genius and insight. We’ve only just started working together, but she’s already taken how I see certain characters to a whole new level.

What is your writing environment like?
For the first two years my writing environment varied depending on my class schedule. God have mercy on any professor who put me in front of a computer because that almost guaranteed that I’d be working on Learning Curve and not class work, but even if I didn’t have a computer in front of me, I was still prone to scribbling down things in notebooks and on the back of worksheets if the lectures got too dry.

Now I write at home. We have these great green chairs that are comfy enough to live in, so most afternoons you’ll find me there with my feet up and a lap top just tapping away. It’s a pretty cushy life.

If you could sit down with any writer for a chat, living or dead, who would you pick?
Such a tough question. I’ve really been so lucky in that Bold Strokes Books offers a tremendous amount of support for their authors, and that has allowed me to begin to have some of those dream conversations with writers I admire so much. Outside of the BSB team, though, it changes every day. Usually my favourite author is whoever I happen to be reading at the time.

You're somewhat of an academic as well – tell us more about that.
As nerdy as it sounds, I am totally an academic. I had such a wonderful experience during college at Illinois State University that people began to think I would never leave. I have a B.A. in political science with minors in English and women’s studies and a master’s in college student personnel. Despite a few general studies classes that were boring enough to allow for the writing of a novel, I really did love my classes. I had great relationships with many of my professors, and I think that really comes through in Learning Curve in that Carrie is a combination of so many of the amazing women I got to know throughout my time at ISU. I really can’t say enough about those women, and hopefully they know who they are. They instilled in me a lifelong desire to keep reading, learning, and challenging myself.

I was also very involved in a lot of student groups such as PRIDE, the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, and the Colleges Democrats, which led to some great experiences and amazing friendships. The students and staff involved in those groups still really inspire me, so expect to see more of their influences in futures novels.

What was the last book you read? Did you like it?
The last book I read was Natural Child Birth the Bradley Way, which was honestly a little terrifying (I’m 6 months pregnant with Susie’s and my first child).

The last fiction book I read was Julie Cannon’s Come and Get Me, which was amazing. I am such a sucker for a romance, and this one was a great one! It’s a traditional romance with a very modern edge, and I highly recommend it.

Tell us something about Rachel Spangler no-one else knows…
I’m pretty much an open book, just ask and I’ll tell you almost anything, which leaves very few secrets. In fact my wife is often having to shout “Heeeeey” across the room at me when I’m talking to friends because I’m giving away too much information. It happens so frequently that most of our friends have even learned to impersonate her and do it when she’s not there.

When you're not writing, how do you like to pass the time?
I’m a bit of a sports fanatic. In the winter I live to ski. I go over these little bumps getting less than an inch off the ground and start thinking I’m really hot stuff, so then I hit a bigger bump going a lot faster and usually fall hard. I’m not satisfied until I’ve totally wiped out. In the summer and fall it is all about the St. Louis Cardinals. I never miss a game. I’m also becoming a pretty big tennis fan and when I’m not pregnant I will play a little bit, albeit very badly.

Now that I’m pregnant I’m not able to take any really physical risks. My wife and I spend a lot of time just hanging out around the house, getting things ready for the baby to arrive. We’ve also been travelling a lot lately. I have a great relationship with my family, so it’s always fun to visit and get caught up with them.

What do you always have in your fridge?
There are few things I always have in my fridge. It gets very empty, but we try to have bacon in there at all times. In my opinion, there are very few things that aren’t made better with bacon.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about ‘being a writer’?
I think there is this idea that we are either rich and pampered or tortured, starving geniuses. I am really neither. I live a pretty boring life in a small, middle-class college town.

What’s next for you after finishing Learning Curve?
I’m working on another romance that is being strictly guarded because I’m at a very critical stage and I don’t want to jinx it, but I will say it is set at a family-run ski resort, so I have found an excuse to behave like a ski bum and write it all off as research.

Beyond that I hope to get into some romances with a social conscious, but I need to develop my craft a little more before I feel comfortable balancing romantic relationships within the context of broad political/social issues.

What do you feel makes your books unique or stand out from others in your specific genre?
Wow, I hadn’t thought about that. I hope there is something that makes my work stand out. If I had to pick something, I would say that Learning Curve’s protagonists are diverse in age, education, and social background. Ash is in her 20’s, butch, and lacking formal education and formal goals. Carrie is 30, femme, highly academic and seriously driven. Tess is a teenager who has a lot of potential but no idea where she is headed, and tons of things standing her way. I’d like to think that these women cut across a lot of lines in the lesbian community and offer everyone at least a little something they can identify with.

What do you consider your best and worst attributes?
My best attribute is that I am a maximizer, meaning I see the best in everything and everybody. I really focus on the positive in my friends, my family, and my students, no matter what else they have working against them. I very rarely write anyone off completely. This trait makes me a terrible beta reader, but a pretty good friend.

I have many bad attributes, but I think the worst on a regular basis is how hard I am on myself. I am constantly second guessing my decisions if everything isn’t perfect. I still lay awake at night rehashing things that happened years ago trying to find another way I could have handled things. In fact, by the time you read this I will probably be second-guessing this answer.

A happy writer is...
Working on a great idea.