Rachel Lynn Solomon’s ‘The Ex Talk’ Tells The Hilarious Story Of A Faux Public Radio Romance
Rachel Lynn Solomon’s romance comedy novel “The Ex Talk” was released in January 2021.
Rachel Lynn Solomon
With her novel “The Ex Talk,” Rachel Lynn Solomon has written a love story and the object of that love is public radio. Other love themes in the book include family, friends, dogs, and above all, romantic love, with a lot of comedy in between. Solomon joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom to talk about her newly released book.
Interview Highlights:
About the main characters:
“Shay Goldstein is the main character and she has been working as a producer at a Seattle public radio station since she was in college. Her whole life she’s wanted to work in public radio, even though in the past she thought she would grow up to be a host. That didn’t quite work out. She’s used to being the wunderkind. She started doing radio as an intern and worked her way up and she’s now a senior producer at age 29,” said Solomon. She continued, “On the flip side of that is Dominic, who’s coming in fresh off of a master’s program in journalism. He’s a bit younger than she is. He has never worked in radio and within the first few months of starting at the station, he gets a chance to go on the air. She’s extremely jealous. Extremely angry. And she also finds him extremely attractive. [laughs]”
How “The Ex Talk” is born:
“Pacific Public Radio is what I call the fictional Seattle station. ‘The Ex Talk’ comes out of a brainstorming meeting that the senior staff have at the station. They are brainstorming some new shows. It’s clear that there’s going to be some budget cuts. The station is struggling a little bit and the show that Shay has worked on for years and years is on the chopping block. Everyone is going around suggesting things. Dominic suggests some investigative newsy-type shows. And Shay just randomly throws out the idea of a dating show. Her mom is about to be remarried, her friend is in a long-term relationship and she’s feeling a little left behind with regard to dating. Then she says ‘What about a dating show hosted by exes?’ And everyone is really into this idea,” said Solomon.
She continues, “Since there aren’t any exes at the station, their boss thinks that Shay and Dominic would be perfect to host the show because they’re constantly getting into it at work and really budding heads. They spend a lot of time really crafting their backstory and people really latch onto this idea of fake exes, unbeknownst to their listenership. People get really invested in them the way I think a lot of us listeners get invested in hosts and public radio personalities.”
Solomon’s connection with public radio:
“I started out similarly to Shay. I was really focused on public radio in college. I graduated early because I had so much internship credit because I was obsessed with journalism. I came to it a little bit later than she did. I didn’t discover it until my senior year of high school and I started listening to ‘This American Life’ and it just kind of changed me. While I was still in college, I started interning at one of Seattle’s public radio and news stations. Once I graduated, I very briefly worked in commercial radio, then found out very quickly that that just wasn’t a good fit. Then I was lucky enough to do some more fill-in work at our Seattle station, KUOW. Then, I ended up producing a weekly, pre-recorded show for several years.”
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