19. BETHANY BAPTISE: Moving forward after review bombing & highlightin BIPOC characters in fantasy

Bethany Baptiste published her first novel, "The Poisons We Drink" amid a Goodreads review bombing scandal. Another author admitted to creating fake accounts and writing scathing reviews of their fellow debut class's books. Now, Bethany is talking about moving forward and celebrating the release of this book full of magic, love, and gore.

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00;00;00;05 - 00;00;14;14
Speaker 1
I do think that Good reads need to do a better job in how they deal with review bombings, because at this point in time, the ones that are doing the harming their book pages are locked while the victims pages are clear and free.

00;00;18;28 - 00;00;21;04
Speaker 2
Hi, and welcome to the literary podcast.

00;00;21;04 - 00;00;40;20
Speaker 3
I'm Stephanie, your literary hype woman. Today's author conversation comes to you from Young West in the brand new at the Greens Media Room, which was so much fun. But this is not an epic read author. This is a Sourcebooks author, and her name is Bethany Baptiste. She wrote The Poisons We Drink which you might remember was one of those books that was part of the review bombing scandal.

00;00;40;23 - 00;00;50;01
Speaker 3
So we had to talk about that, obviously, as well as her book. So here's my conversation with Bethany Baptiste. So exciting to have you on literary hype.

00;00;50;02 - 00;00;53;11
Speaker 1
Thank you for inviting me. I really appreciate it. I'm honored.

00;00;53;11 - 00;01;12;04
Speaker 3
So we've got to get the elephant out of the room. The business part of this out. Yeah. You were one of the victims of the Goodreads review bombing fiasco. Yes. So can I touch on that? And what the emotions were like for you as one of those victims and how you feel about it now that you've kind of come through it?

00;01;12;05 - 00;01;36;14
Speaker 1
Well, when I found out about it, I was very, very shocked and then the shock just really gave way to anger and then just a loss of trust, even though I didn't know the person who did it very, very well. We were still a part of a debut Slack community where everyone just really cared about each other and hyped each other up.

00;01;36;22 - 00;02;07;16
Speaker 1
And so the fact that we were targeted, it just made it feel it made the environment feel very unsafe. Then it was difficult to figure out who to trust because of that. And so especially since the environment that we interacted with each other we told a lot of personal things. We told a lot of personal, intimate things about ourselves as people or as authors or where we are in the publishing industry.

00;02;07;22 - 00;02;18;25
Speaker 1
And so it just felt like all of those things that were told in confidence just you know, it just felt like that trust was broken.

00;02;19;06 - 00;02;32;01
Speaker 3
What was the support like for you? And in all of this drama and the back and forth Was it malicious? Was it not? What was the community support like for you from the writers and other readers?

00;02;32;09 - 00;02;56;25
Speaker 1
Do you know what the support was? Absolutely. Amazing, and it's one of the things that definitely helped me get through that time. I was actually dealing with a family death in the midst of all of it. So it was a lot to process. But the but the community really came together and supported me and lifted me up. And the other victims.

00;02;57;13 - 00;03;30;00
Speaker 1
And they got the word out there and they were just really receptive to the things that myself and other victims were asking of them, which is predominantly just support and to get our our books out there to to more people so that people are aware that, you know, since predominantly, mostly marginalized authors were targeted, it's already hard enough as a by park author or a marginalized author and so we just wanted them to just spread the word about our books.

00;03;30;07 - 00;03;39;03
Speaker 1
And they did. And so, you know, it was just a very positive experience on that. And in the midst of everything.

00;03;39;07 - 00;03;47;28
Speaker 3
What do you hope review platforms like Good Reads Story? Graff learn from this to make their platforms safer and better for readers and writers in the future?

00;03;47;29 - 00;04;14;20
Speaker 1
I firmly stand by the fact that Good Reads story graph and those other websites. They are for readers, they are not for authors, and authors should not be engaging in reviews on those platform sites because reviews are not for us. However, when it specifically when it comes to good reads, authors have to engage with good reads because we have to claim book pages.

00;04;14;23 - 00;04;44;22
Speaker 1
We have to create our own profiles. We have access to behind the scene things that forces us to interact with that platform. And so it kind of blurs the line. I do think that Good reads need to do a better job in how they how they deal with review bombings, because at this point in time, the ones that are doing the harming their book pages are locked while the victims pages are clear and free for people to engage with.

00;04;44;22 - 00;05;04;19
Speaker 1
And so people aren't able to remove their reviews from those book pages of the people who are doing the harming and it almost is almost like an endorsement for for that author. So I do think they really need to reevaluate how they look at their or at their review arms.

00;05;04;23 - 00;05;14;16
Speaker 3
So now let's move on to the fun things and talk about your book. Yeah, poisons we drink. So for anybody who hasn't already seen this, doesn't know what it's about, give us a little sneak peak synopsis of it.

00;05;14;19 - 00;05;38;19
Speaker 1
Yeah. So the poisons we drink, it is about a eight year old, which by the name of Venus Donat. She lives in Washington, DC and she runs an illegal love potion brewing operation. And so in this world there are all different types of love potions there. Yes, there's romantic love potions, but there's also self-love potions there is friendship love potions, there's familial love potions, and then there's love potions where people can fall in love with an idea.

00;05;38;28 - 00;06;08;28
Speaker 1
And so Venus really likes to brew love potions where people can fall in love with an idea. And so when her mother is murdered, she's offered the opportunity to avenge her mother's death, but she has to brew love potions where politicians fall in love with the idea to not pass a hateful bill into law. And so there's a lot of front stabbing and back stabbing there's a lot of twists and turns as Venus tries to navigate the underbelly of Washington, DC.

00;06;09;09 - 00;06;14;02
Speaker 1
And so it's a story about potions, politics and power.

00;06;14;04 - 00;06;17;22
Speaker 3
What was the inspiration for what was the spark for this story?

00;06;17;22 - 00;06;42;26
Speaker 1
It kind of started in November 2016. It was election night when I went to sleep. Hillary was winning, and when I woke up, Trump won and I was like, Oh, OK. It was like a very much like shock to my shock to my senses because of what he stood for. And so a few months later I was feeling very sad and depressed and I sat down to watch a one of my favorite movies of all time, which is practical magic.

00;06;42;26 - 00;07;15;17
Speaker 1
And I fell asleep and I had a dream about a pink haired girl doing something very, very awful. When I woke up, I knew that I wanted to write a story about her in practical magic. The catalyst of the story is love potions, love potions causes all the chaos, all of the drama. And I was so fascinated by the idea that a love potion could cause just so much damage to other characters that I knew that this pink haired girl that I had a dream about, she was going to brew love potions, but I didn't want it to be like romantic love potions.

00;07;15;17 - 00;07;41;01
Speaker 1
I felt like was very boring. I wanted to write a story where she could brew other types of love potions. So after doing a bit of research and finding out that the Greeks had names for all of the other different types of love, I decided that this character was going to brew all of these different types of love, including one where people could fall in love with an idea.

00;07;41;01 - 00;07;44;09
Speaker 1
And that's kind of how it's bit it began.

00;07;44;13 - 00;07;49;16
Speaker 3
And if you were going to drink one of the love potions that Venus brews, which one would you pick? Oh.

00;07;50;00 - 00;08;22;18
Speaker 1
If I were to drink a love potion and it would probably be self-love, it was be self-love. I do a really bad job with taking care of myself. I don't eat when I should. I don't drink enough water. I don't you I you're right. And I don't I don't I need to keep my house more clean. And so I feel like if I were to have a self love potion, I would be able to do all of those things and it would probably make my life so much easier.

00;08;22;18 - 00;08;28;10
Speaker 1
And I should probably maybe it'll also help me pay attention to when, like, the light turns on him or her.

00;08;29;18 - 00;08;30;20
Speaker 3
Where you're supposed to pay attention.

00;08;30;20 - 00;08;38;11
Speaker 1
But I know it's not a it's not a suggestion. It's it's a pretty oh.

00;08;38;20 - 00;08;53;25
Speaker 3
It's true. Women are especially bad about it's very bad. My husband was giving me crap because my tire light was on for a good two weeks. Before I even mentioned it. Yeah, it's fine. So magic is a big deal in this book. How do you approach building your magic.

00;08;53;25 - 00;09;23;21
Speaker 1
System with the magic system? I I it it almost had two layers to it. So there is the magic system that all of the witches operate from, right? So like, there is something called a birthright. And birthright are just powers that are very, very common to to witness such as, you know, telekinesis and telepathy, starting fires or or what have you.

00;09;23;21 - 00;09;49;14
Speaker 1
And then I also had to have a separate magic system, which is where Venus operates from because she's a brewer. And Brewers have to follow a specific set of rules to brew the potions. And I needed the magic systems, both types of magic systems to have a cost. I didn't want witches to just be like, Yep, I'm going to lift this thing in the air and everything is going to be OK.

00;09;49;14 - 00;10;09;06
Speaker 1
I wanted everything to have a cost to it so that it could raise the stakes more specifically for Venus. Because with brewing, you know, when you think of a witch brewing in a cauldron, a lot of the times it's I'm going to throw a lot of oddly named ingredients into a cauldron and then that's it. But that's not how it works for Venus.

00;10;10;03 - 00;10;33;11
Speaker 1
When Brewers brew potions, there is something called a degree of recoil and it's basically where the potion will jump out of the cauldron and throw hands. They will throw hands, they will fight you, they will try to claim your life. And sometimes they do claim your knife. And so it does get a lot of it gets bloody, it gets bloody, it can be fatal.

00;10;33;11 - 00;10;54;10
Speaker 1
And I liked that idea of like very few, very few witches could do this job because there's just way too much at stake. And so when I when I think of magic systems I think of what my character needs and then the magic system, I have to create it in a way where the magic system can give them what they want.

00;10;54;12 - 00;11;04;26
Speaker 1
But it comes at a cost. And then I can also use the magic system to actually create an obstacle course so that it prevents my character from getting the things that they need.

00;11;05;00 - 00;11;08;15
Speaker 3
And along with crafts, you have some real fun acronyms.

00;11;09;02 - 00;11;09;11
Speaker 1
Like.

00;11;09;11 - 00;11;23;13
Speaker 3
Yeah, like Swigs, when you're building this world, building these acronyms, so does like the word that you want it to be start. So do you start with that or do you start with like tinkering? How does this happen? Yeah, things. I'm very curious.

00;11;23;13 - 00;12;06;20
Speaker 1
So so basically what happens is when I am coming up with the worldbuilding because I am a pantzer, I might know a little about the plot and I know I might know like the the premise as a whole, but I use the worldbuilding to help me figure out what to do with the rest of the plot. And so for me, I sit down and after I come up with the characters and after I come up, what I think she wants and after I come up with, you know, other details, now it's time for me to actually create a world that could actually where she can actually like move through it like an obstacle course.

00;12;07;02 - 00;12;37;14
Speaker 1
And so as I'm creating the details for the world, I actually open up a separate word document and I start creating a a worldbuilding Bible like a glossary. And so if I come up with something like Swigs, then after I come after I come up with the acronym, then I will write the definition of what it means. Or if I come up with, say, like the brewing system, it has it has three different tiers it has a singular note, a binary note and a tri inary note.

00;12;37;14 - 00;13;02;28
Speaker 1
What do those things mean? And so I write that out before I ever write the story. I try to write out as much of the terminology and details in rules as I can so that when I actually sit down to write the story, I might not know what happens after Act one, but I do know enough about the world to figure it out along the way.

00;13;03;05 - 00;13;06;01
Speaker 1
And so that's kind of how how I set things up.

00;13;06;07 - 00;13;17;22
Speaker 3
And race plays a huge part of this story. Talk about the importance of seeing black characters portrayed in a positive light, in fantasy and sci fi in that genre when you don't really see it all that much at this point.

00;13;17;22 - 00;13;43;02
Speaker 1
Well, one of the things that was really important for me is I wrote morally gray black characters. And in fantasy I feel like there's this expectation that black characters have to be likable and it was I really wanted to write black characters that did a lot of things where you might not like them, but you understood why they did the things that they did.

00;13;43;02 - 00;14;09;26
Speaker 1
I feel like when it comes to morally, Craig, your actors like white, morally gray characters are more are given a lot more grace than, say, morally gray black characters. And so I really wanted to push the boundaries in what my characters did in the story, especially when it came to operating in a world that hates you and does not like you or want you.

00;14;10;02 - 00;14;55;12
Speaker 1
How would you respond to that? And so they do a lot of awful things, but they do the awful things, and it makes sense why they do those awful things. Even if we don't agree with those awful things. So I do think that there is there should be variety in regards to black characters in fantasy. There should be likable black characters, there should be sky black characters, there should be extrovert, an introvert black characters, there should be, you know, just all types but I feel like we need to give black authors more grace when it comes to creating characters that step outside of that that likability.

00;14;55;19 - 00;15;27;18
Speaker 1
And the other thing is that I do feel like when we when we give by POC authors or black authors that that that grace to create those types of characters it ends up being a positive experience overall for for black readers are our marginalized readers because we really need that representation we exist in a world where if you are black or you're bar POC or your mom or you're marginalized, that we have to be likable.

00;15;27;18 - 00;15;55;00
Speaker 1
Even, even, even in the real world. We have to be very, very likable. We're not allowed to show that we're frustrated or angry or annoyed. And we have to we have to control or guard our emotions and we have to be considerate for others that aren't considerate of us. And so with that representation, I do think that that positively impacts by POC fantasy or black fantasy as a whole because we need that representation.

00;15;55;00 - 00;16;07;12
Speaker 3
One thing I loved about this was the chapter headings those are so fun. Talk about your process for writing these like fake ads and like kind of like fake news stories to go along with your story.

00;16;07;20 - 00;16;34;07
Speaker 1
Yeah. So it started off the poisons we drink was originally a two book series, and so I was asked to turn it into one book. And so because of that a lot of worldbuilding that would have been spread out across two books, I had to cram it into one book. And so when I rewrote it to be a standalone, I got a lot of feedback of there, this is, this is a lot.

00;16;34;18 - 00;17;01;07
Speaker 1
And so I didn't want to remove those details because I felt like they fleshed out the world. And so I extracted a lot of detail, a lot of worldbuilding details, and I took a step back and I was like, OK, what is I what if I created it so that it was like someone like went into Google and typed in information about which years, what types of things would pop up.

00;17;01;11 - 00;17;25;03
Speaker 1
And so I kind of I plugged it in at the start of each chapter to give the reader that that background information that they had going into the chapter. And I'm sure it was hit, I'm sure it was hit or miss for, for some things. But I did like, you know, putting like proverbs. I liked putting with your PTA Wikipedia quotes.

00;17;25;03 - 00;17;37;09
Speaker 1
I liked pudding you know, excerpts of potions and the ads. It just was a lot of fun because I just felt like it added more texture to the world, you know, because it's a standalone now.

00;17;37;25 - 00;17;43;09
Speaker 3
So this was a two book deal. What are you planning to do for the second book? You know.

00;17;43;22 - 00;18;01;24
Speaker 1
I haven't I'm still trying to figure out what I want. I'm kind of on the fence about what I want for book two. But I do know that because this is a stand, because the poisons we drink is a stand alone that's it. We're not going back into the world. So book two will be in a completely different world.

00;18;01;29 - 00;18;28;07
Speaker 1
I just don't know what I want yet so that I'm on the fence about that. But whatever it is, I know that I have been leaning more and more and more towards horror. I dabbled with it just a little bit in the poisons we drink because it is very bloody and it's very gory. And so I would like to start leaning heavier into into horror.

00;18;28;07 - 00;18;40;27
Speaker 3
The blood, the horror, the horror. That's something that was part of the struggle for you to get this book published in the first place. And you're very open about yeah. Your story. Why is it important for you to share your story with other potential authors?

00;18;40;27 - 00;19;09;02
Speaker 1
I think it's important to share because I do feel like in traditional publishing it, there is often a very hush hush culture, and that's very difficult when you are a bi POC author because our experience, it's very very specific and it's very separate from a of from a white traditional publishing, a white traditionally published author. And so I feel like with honesty, it prepares people for what could happen to them.

00;19;09;07 - 00;19;31;23
Speaker 1
And so that's why I've always been very, very honest because when I was coming up into the industry, I had nothing as a reference because I thought that what I thought the things that were happening to me as a black author, whether I was querying or going on sub or what have you, I thought that that wasn't normal.

00;19;32;08 - 00;19;54;02
Speaker 1
But then when I spoke to more people behind the scenes, I realized my experience is actually extremely common. But you don't hear about that because there is whisper networks and there's things like that. So I feel like being vocal is very important because I want more people to be more educated so that they're aware of what's happening. If they come into the industry.

00;19;54;18 - 00;19;57;19
Speaker 3
So your job is an inclusion specialist.

00;19;57;19 - 00;19;58;28
Speaker 1
Oh yeah.

00;19;59;12 - 00;20;02;21
Speaker 3
Can you talk about what that is and how that plays into the book industry as a whole?

00;20;02;21 - 00;20;26;04
Speaker 1
I'm an inclusion specialist. I work with actually like teachers families and like child care providers of children with special needs and disabilities. And so I help the families and the teachers and the providers get the funding that they need to take care of the children so that the children get services and so that they don't have to pay out of pocket to make sure that the kids get what they need.

00;20;26;21 - 00;20;52;18
Speaker 1
I love it very, very much, but I will say so even though I work with, you know, the infants in the toddlers in the preschoolers, I will say that as an inclusion specialist, it has shaped my role as being a traditionally published author, because I think about when these kids grow up, what books are going to be waiting for them, what books are going to be waiting with them.

00;20;52;18 - 00;21;27;12
Speaker 1
That reflects the the needs that they have. And I feel like we're still in the even though we're in 20, 24, I do still feel that we're in the early stages of more diversity and inclusion in the traditional publishing industry. Yes, we have more books, but every every year or every couple of years, I believe it's Lea and Low, I believe Lea and Lowe, which is like a publisher, they release a diversity like a diversity survey and the results of the diversity survey.

00;21;27;12 - 00;21;56;15
Speaker 1
And we still have a long way to go. We have a long way to go about the types of books that are geared towards by park and even the specific identities within the within being by POC or or disabled or with mental illnesses. We have a long way to go and we need more books because most books, especially in kid lit, they are for able bodied white people and we need more.

00;21;56;18 - 00;22;00;25
Speaker 3
The last question we always ask because this is literary hype. What books are you hyped about right now?

00;22;01;10 - 00;22;08;04
Speaker 1
Oh my gosh, I really want to read Rooney's Fate by Hayley Dennings.

00;22;08;06 - 00;22;09;01
Speaker 3
It's so good.

00;22;09;13 - 00;22;42;24
Speaker 1
You've read it, man. Lucky I really want to read Cruelest Colin by Lily Me. I believe it's a cruelest calling or the cruelest calling, whichever one. But I really want to read that one. I really, really want to read. I want to read A Mastery of Monsters by Marcel Sambora. I really want like I'm I'm getting back into my dark academia bag and so that I'm really excited for that one.

00;22;42;24 - 00;22;47;21
Speaker 3
Well, thank you so much for taking time to talk about your book, The Places We Drink With Literary Hype. Thank you.

00;22;51;02 - 00;23;08;03
Speaker 3
Thanks to Bethany for taking time out of her festival to talk with me and literary hype about her book, The Poisons We Drink. If you'd like to get a hold of the poisons we drink, a link to this is in the show notes for you. And don't forget to subscribe to the Literary Hype podcast and give us some stars if you're enjoying these conversations.

00;23;08;12 - 00;23;14;13
Speaker 3
And hey, don't forget to tell a friend. Share the good times with them. Thanks so much for listening to the Literary Hype podcast.