Joanna Lowell is the author of A Rare Find, a Regency-era sapphic romance that blends adventure, heritage, and queer joy. In this conversation, she shares the inspirations behind the book, the importance of diverse stories, and what readers can expect from her latest novel.
What was your inspiration behind your most recent book?
A Rare Find was inspired by three things. A Goonies-infused childhood fantasy about doubloons. An enduring obsession with Jane Austen. And a deep desire to add to the canon of queer joy. Hence, my Regency-era sapphic romance—two nemeses search for gold only to discover that love is the greatest treasure of all! A Rare Find takes place in Derbyshire, a county in England that I first read about in Pride & Prejudice. I wanted to set a novel in Jane Austen’s world, while turning up the dial on the hijinks. My main characters, Elf and Georgie, navigate the social norms and pressures of 19 th century life, but not in the ballroom. Instead, they’re mostly out of doors, teamed up against their better judgement on a quest to solve a medieval riddle that will lead to a Viking hoard. It was very fun and satisfying to send them on a range of silly and perilous adventures. I gave Elf the summery, starlit queer awakening of my heart. And I gave Georgie the chance to become the person that they’d never dared to be. Writing the happily ever after made me as happy as it made the two of them.
What does Reading Rainbow mean to you?
For me, Pride is most powerful today when we reckon with its (and our) history. My partner has a t-shirt that says The First Pride was a Riot, a slogan that links Pride to the Stonewall Uprising in June of 1969. Trans women of color led the resistance, and it’s important to keep that spirit of resistance alive. We can do so by standing in solidarity with the most marginalized in our communities. This involves acknowledging the fact that there have always been tensions in the LGBTQ+ movement for liberation, that too often, racism, classism, misogyny, and transphobia have divided us. The current administration is trying to divide us now, erasing and criminalizing trans people, trying to pretend that gender variance doesn’t exist. So, it’s time to link elbows and link struggles, to make Pride a challenge to Don’t Say Gay laws and also bans on youth access to
gender-affirming care, to mass deportations and also genocide and white supremacy. “Reading with Pride” means celebrating our love for each other and our commitment to creating a world in which all of us are free. It means reading banned books. It means reading LGBTQ+ stories in June, and the rest of the year too. It means reading to educate ourselves, and also to escape into fantasy, so we don’t forget how to dream.
Why do you feel representation of a variety of people is so important when it comes to writing books?
The world is nothing if not various, and the range of published books should reflect that. I spent some formative years in Queens where I would hear people speaking in over a dozen different languages on the walk to the train. We need literatures that represent and speculate about the incredible richness and diversity of human experience, because stories can shape our understanding of reality and of what’s possible. Stories can strengthen our empathy. At manypoints in my life, I’ve picked up a book and felt less alone, because a character resonates with my own identity and way of seeing. I’ve also picked up books and felt my heart and mind expand, because I connected with characters who are nothing like me. It's not just that we need to see lots of different kinds of representation in books. Who writes the books matters too. Progress has been made, but there are still disparities in publishing, an underrepresentation of Black writers, Indigenous writers, queer and trans writers, disabled writers, immigrant and international
writers. We can keep things moving forward by reading widely and by supporting writers from underrepresented communities. Diverse books enlarge our visions of what has been, what is, and what might be.
Tell us a little more about the book and why you decided to write it.
A Rare Find is an enemies-to-friends-to-lovers Regency romance novel, with some Jane Austen-y trappings, plus archeological escapades, and also very, very queer –the main characters and almost everyone else. I was excited to write a novel affirming that LGBTQ+ people have always existed, and happily at that. Terms and ideas about sexuality and gender identity are specific to particular times and places, but people have always lived and loved in all kinds of ways. Today, Georgie would most likely identify as nonbinary, which was not a term anyone used in 1818. The word “nonbinary” doesn’t appear in the book, but Georgie does use they/them pronouns with their friends. The practice of sharing pronouns wasn’t a thing in Regency England. However, “they” referring to a singular person shows up in writing as far back as the fourteenth century. A
friend group could have hit upon the idea of using it with someone for whom “he” and “she” didn’t quite fit. I wanted to dramatize that historical possibility. And also, model the importance of recognizing and respecting each person’s gender identity. A Rare Find is a romantic romp through the English countryside and a story that connects the past with the present to show that queer love matters, then and now.
What can fans expect from your book?
In A Rare Find, you will encounter the following: Rampant flirtation and banter. Light danger in sheep pastures, on peaks, and along the river. Family drama. Queer community. A period- appropriate pronoun discussion. Lots of kissing. A happy ending.
What's up next for you in the bookish world?
I’m not sure! I write a lot of different kind of things, under a couple of names, and I’m taking a few months to think about where to focus my writing energy. My next publication is an excerpt from an unpublished novel (not romance) I wrote as Joanna Ruocco; you can find it later this summer in McSweeney’s Quarterly Issue 79.
