Building an Extended Universe with Casey Dembowski -86

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Kathleen Basi [: 00:00:02

Welcome to Author Express. Thanks for checking us out. This is the podcast where you give us 15 minutes of your time, and we give you a chance to hear the voice behind the pages and get to know some of your favorite writers in a new light. I'm one of your hosts, Kathleen Basi. I'm an award winning musical composer, a feature writer, essayist, and, of course, storyteller. Let me tell you a little bit about today's guest. Casey Dembowski is the author of 3 award winning romance novels, When We're 30, The Corrie Effect, and Get a Room with her 4th novel, The First Love Myth coming in early 2025. Her novels focus on the intricacies of relationships whether they be romantic, familial, or platonic, and on the quiet inner workings of women and how everything in their lives leads them to exactly where they are whether they like it or not.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:01:01

Welcome to Author Express, Casey.

Casey Dembowski [: 00:01:03

Thank you. I'm glad to be here today.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:01:05

Yeah. It's great. You and I have known each other for quite a while. I can't even remember how we met now, but I know that it was right around the time that your first book was coming out. So we start with everyone with the same question, which is what's the most interesting thing about where you're from?

Casey Dembowski [: 00:01:21

I was thinking about this because I don't know that there's necessarily that much interesting about where I grew up, but one thing that's like a fun fact that I I discovered after I met my husband who was from New Jersey instead of New York is in the county I live grew up in Westchester County in New York, we call, like, subs or hoagies, we call them wedges.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:01:42

Oh, that is interesting.

Casey Dembowski [: 00:01:44

And, apparently, it's, like, only a Westchester thing, and nobody outside of that county, like, has any idea what that word means.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:01:50

I would have no idea what you were talking about. Midwestern girl here. I know Hoagie and I know Sub, but I would not know Wedge. That's very interesting. Okay. Well, let's get to know you a little better. What's the earliest memory that you can think of?

Casey Dembowski [: 00:02:05

Yeah. I mean, I have a lot of memories. I have a really big family, so and I had a single mom, so I got babysit a lot. So I have a lot of memories of, like, being with different family members, you know, when school was out or if I was sick. You know, sitting at my aunt and uncle's house, watching TV with my uncle, or going to a different aunt's house and, you know, watching her soap operas with her.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:31

Right. Did your mother know about this?

Casey Dembowski [: 00:02:34

I'm sure.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:35

That's great. I think we don't always have that sense of community now. So that's really cool that you had that experience growing up with lots of different people. You probably feel like you have a much bigger family than what we normally define family as, you know, I would think.

Casey Dembowski [: 00:02:52

Yes. So when I whenever we have a party, I'm like, well, we only invited, like, immediate family, and it's, like, 40 people. Right. Because, like, the people I consider, like, right in my immediate family are is a little bit more extended than most people would consider.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:03:07

That's really cool. Okay. So I'm gonna ask you another question because of what you're wearing today. Those of you who are only hearing the podcast will not know this, but she has the Disney castle on her jacket that she's wearing. So not that I'm leading or anything, but what's the favorite vacation you've ever taken?

Casey Dembowski [: 00:03:24

Oh, that I've ever taken?

Kathleen Basi [: 00:03:26

Anyone ever.

Casey Dembowski [: 00:03:27

Oh, they would probably mostly be in Disney. So, well, I wouldn't say I'm a full blown Disney adult. We did honeymoon in Disney, which was a lot of fun to do as adults. We've been there twice since we had our kids. So once with just our daughter, and then we just got back with our daughter who's 7 and and our 1 year old. That's just so magical. I mean, just seeing them interact with the characters and, you know, my daughter loves all the princesses, so we did all of that. So, yeah, we have a lot of fun when we go to Disney.

Casey Dembowski [: 00:04:00

We we don't go that often, but when we do go, we try to do, like, all the things.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:05

Did you do the boutique where she gets dressed up and everything?

Casey Dembowski [: 00:04:09

Yes. We did. So, the first time she did it, she was Rapunzel, and then this last time, she was Aurora.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:17

I gotta say that there's a part of me that wants them to do that to me, honestly.

Casey Dembowski [: 00:04:22

I mean, it's so hot though. Like, she wore the dress for, like, half an hour, but she had on she left that hair up. Like, she didn't wanna take it out when she had to go to bed. So she had that hair Yeah. For, like, 12 hours, and it did not move.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:36

Oh my gosh. Yeah. It is hot. It is so hot down there. I have never sweated as much as I sweated at Disney and in New Orleans for 2 summers in a row when we took those vacations. Alright. Well, let's shift gears and talk a little bit about your book, shall we? Mhmm. The reason we're here.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:52

Your most recent one that came out just about a year ago is called Get a Room. Can you tell us a little bit about that book?

Casey Dembowski [: 00:05:00

So Get a Room is enemies to lovers, fake dating, best friend's brother romantic comedy.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:05:08

That sounds like a lot of fun. And Get a Room is part of a whole what you call a universe of books. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Casey Dembowski [: 00:05:16

Yeah. So my books are all stand alones, but they are in an extended connected universe. I mean, it's pretty common in romance. I mean, all the Abby Jimenez books do it. Basically, it starts with my first book, my debut when we're 30, which sets up the whole world. And most of the world is connected through the idea that there's this band and this magazine that everybody likes and reads. So they like this band that I made up called Wilderness Weekend. And then there's this 2 magazines, deafening silence, which is where the main character in my debut works and this other magazine called talented.

Casey Dembowski [: 00:05:54

So as you go through all the books, you hear about the band, they might be reading the magazine, you might see a byline from, like, Hannah in the first you know, who's the character in the first book.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:06:05

That sounds really fun. And it also I think it must take some of the complication out of trying to create a whole new world. It's like you already know the rules of the world that you're in, and you don't have to make all that up new every time. You can just explore. Is this one of those where you have people from earlier books who show up in the later ones as side characters?

Casey Dembowski [: 00:06:26

Sometimes. So whether I try to do my first two books, they're essentially completely standalone separate from each other with the exception of the band being mentioned. And then the 3rd book, Get a Room, which we're talking about today, that brings those 2 books into the same universe. So So you have, like, little cameos from the characters. You find out kinda where they are now. But what I try to do with each book is expand to the universe. Mhmm. So we start in New York City, and then we go to upstate New York, and Get A Room takes place in Philadelphia.

Casey Dembowski [: 00:06:58

And, actually, the first love myth, which is coming out sometime in the next couple months, takes place in the main character from my debut's hometown.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:07:08

Oh, that's fun.

Casey Dembowski [: 00:07:09

So it that one is very loosely connected, so it doesn't actually have really any of the characters. But, like, again, you see the magazine, you hear the band's name, so you know they're all connected even though they're new characters each time.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:07:22

That's very cool. So do you think that this book would have been exactly the same if you'd written it? So Get a Room specifically, And probably your new one coming out too. As you're writing these later books, did you always know you were gonna write in this universe, or did that come later? And how has the expansion of this universe made this book particular to this time and place?

Casey Dembowski [: 00:07:45

Well yeah. So I didn't know. I thought it would be fun because I love reading books where you're kinda like, oh, that's that person from that book. And I even, like, back from my childhood, could I have, like, books that I read, and then you would see, like, the character in another like, just as a a classmate of a different character. Some of the authors when I used, you know, my You books that I used to read, so I've always liked that. But what I had did when I wrote my when I was editing my second book, The Corrie Effect, I had already started writing Get a Room, and I knew that Get a Room took the ex boyfriend from when we're 30 and transplanted him into a new city with all new characters. So what I did is I basically had to connect the Corrie effect to those 2 books. So I was able to put the main character in Get A Room, Brian, into my second book, kinda hidden in there.

Casey Dembowski [: 00:08:43

So readers, when they were reading it, would have had no idea. And then when they got to get a room as they were reading, they would have figured out that he was this, like, super minor side character mentioned in in the second book.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:08:53

That's so fun. It's like little Easter eggs in your books for you. So let's talk a little bit about I mean, you've already talked a little bit about your process of trying to figure out these things. You work full time.

Casey Dembowski [: 00:09:04

Mhmm.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:09:04

So you're writing novels in your, quote, unquote, spare time, and you have 2 kids, and you're on your 4th book. I'm completely boggled. How? How does that even work?

Casey Dembowski [: 00:09:16

Well, I was fortunate to have a bit of a backlog of Mhmm. But I generally write very early in the morning or, like, before I'm going to bed.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:09:29

Doesn't that keep you up at night?

Casey Dembowski [: 00:09:30

No. I'm a pretty strict bedtime person because if I don't get my sleep, I don't really function. So it yeah. I mean, I write in between, I kinda call it, like, just where I can fit it in, when I can fit it in. One thing I do to when I'm really into, like, a book is I make a playlist, and I pretty much just listen to it, like, every time I'm in the car or, you know, just anytime I can listen to music because that keeps me in the headspace of those characters.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:09:58

That's cool.

Casey Dembowski [: 00:09:58

When I get to the page, I don't have to be like, where was I and what was I thinking? Because my brain is just always there.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:10:05

Yeah. Well, is there something that has surprised you about this writing journey, about the writing career, the publishing process? Is there something that surprised you about that?

Casey Dembowski [: 00:10:14

I don't know if there's anything that particularly surprised me. You know, I work in marketing and communications, so I kinda got a really interesting look at all sides of the publishing path because I did have an agent, and then my book didn't sell, and then I went to a small press. And now, I mean, I think the only thing with publishing is just how long it can take. Mhmm. From start to finish. So I remember when my second book was coming out, that book was my MFA thesis.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:10:45

Oh, wow.

Casey Dembowski [: 00:10:46

So So it was my MFA thesis in April 2011. And my debut, which was not that book, that book became my second book. But my debut came out pretty much exactly 10 years later. So from MFA to first published book was 10 years. And so it was 11 years I was working on that book before my second book, which was my MFA thesis.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:11:09

Yeah. You always hear I mean, it's like a truism that it takes a long time, but there's just nothing quite like experiencing it to really recognize it. So that's also interesting. So thank you for that. As we start to wrap up, let's ask you, where's the the best place for people to find you and your books? Where should they go?

Casey Dembowski [: 00:11:26

I would follow me on Instagram. I'm Casey Dombowski. So it's instagram.com/casey_dombowski. That's where I post the most, and it has the links to everywhere else you could find me if you wanted to find me somewhere else.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:11:40

Very good. Okay. So last question of the day is this, what book or story is inspiring you the most these days?

Casey Dembowski [: 00:11:47

Oh, these days.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:11:48

That's not Well, I mean, you can make it, like, over your whole entire existence, or you can do it for, like, right now. I give you leave to choose.

Casey Dembowski [: 00:11:57

Overall, in my life, the book I would say is most was most influential for me was this book called The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen. I don't know if it was the time I read it or the age came out when I was senior in high school, but it was like that book for me. Like, it just resonated with me, and I have read, I think, all of her books. And she's my favorite author, and I've actually had people say, like, oh, you you know, you you write like her, which makes sense because I've read all of her books. You could actually probably if you could see me, you'd see they're actually all behind me. But, yeah, I would say her collection and and that book in particular just was really influential for me, and I think was one of the things that was really, like, I wanna do this. I wanna write that book for somebody else.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:12:48

Oh, that's cool. Very cool. Alright. Well, thank you so much for joining us on Author Express, and good luck.

Casey Dembowski [: 00:12:55

Thank you.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:12:59

Thanks for joining us today. We hope you'll take a second to give us some stars or a review on your favorite podcasting platform. We'll be back next Wednesday. And in the meantime, follow us on Instagram at author express podcast to see who's coming up next. Don't forget. Keep it express, but keep it interesting.