This week on Barely Famous, Kail sits down with New York Times bestselling author Carley Fortune, the mind behind viral romance hits Every Summer After, Meet Me at the Lake, and the brand-new release One Golden Summer. Carley opens up about her writing process, the real-life inspiration behind her lake-set novels, and how reader demand led her to finally give fan-favorite Charlie his long-awaited love story.Kail and Carley discuss everything from imposter syndrome and mental health, to balancing motherhood with a fast-paced publishing career. Carley shares how her personal experiences, including postpartum OCD and her time running Refinery29 Canada, deeply inform her characters. Plus, she teases exciting details about screen adaptations in the works, including her Amazon and Netflix deals.Whether you’re a longtime fan, an aspiring author, or new to the romance genre, this heartfelt episode is packed with creative inspiration, behind-the-scenes stories, and advice on writing with purpose.Purchase One Golden Summer HereChapter 7 book club is reading One Golden Summer together head to patreon.com/kaillowry to sign up!Thanks for supporting the show by checking out the sponsors!IQ Bar: To get 20% off IQ Bar and free shipping text FAMOUS to 64000bHiya: for 50% off their best selling children’s vitamin head to hiyahealth.com/famousNutrafol: Start your hair growth journey with Nutrafol nutrafol.com promo code FAMOUSGIFTShopify: Start your one dollar a month free trial period at shopify.com/famousSearch for your newest home on apartments.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What inspired Carley Fortune to write 'One Golden Summer'?
What inspired this book? I know you said the readers were asking for it, but when readers are asking you for something, how do you actually bring it to fruition?
Yeah, that's a good question. So one of the characters in this book, his name is Charlie. He was a brother in Every Summer After. And after that book came out, people wanted more of the main characters, but they also wanted him to have a love story, a happy ending. And I had people approach me at book events. I had two women wait at the very end of the signing line for like an hour and a half.
And they looked at me and they said, we have a bone to pick with you. Yeah. And I said, what? And they said, well, we've waited here all night to tell you, like, we need a happy ending for Charlie. Justice for Charlie. Justice for Charlie. And I would have pitches for who he should be with. The people were like matching him with characters from my other books and they were in my DMs all the time.
And so I had him, like, I knew that I could write him. I felt like I'd been thinking about him since I finished Every Summer After, like even before I had an agent, even before I had a book deal. his voice was in my head. And back then when I got my editor, we had talked about maybe a book for him, but I didn't really have an idea.
And then, um, the, you know, when I was thinking about what I wanted to do for my fourth book, I thought, you know, it's, it's time I've been thinking about Charlie. I feel like I can kind of put all the expectations of readers and opinions of which there were many aside and kind of tell the story that I wanted to tell. And it
Every Summer After is really about like my relationship with the lake where I grew up on the lake in Barry's Bay, the setting of the book. I lived in the bush down a dirt road and cottagers would come in the summer. They would come to their lake houses in the summer and the lake would kind of explode.
And so that book is about my like teenage years, whereas this book is really about kind of what the lake means to me as an adult. And it was really a matter of figuring out who the protagonist would be because I had Charlie and I did not know who she would be. And all my books have started with settings. All of them have started with the heroines.
And now I was like, I have to figure out who she is. And it was so hard to do.
I love Alice.
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Chapter 2: How does Carley balance motherhood and a writing career?
Because I think, what is it called? Vintage names are like coming back. Totally. So I feel like that's perfect. It's like a modern spin on a vintage name.
Yes. That's so true. I love that.
So do you still go back to Barry's Bay?
I do. My parents still live there. Really? Yes. Yeah. So we had this house on the lake and they sold it 15 years ago. And I hadn't got, they still live in town. They had an inn and a restaurant, which they sold. And now they have a house in town. And before I wrote Every Summer After, I visited our house on the lake for the first time since my parents had sold it.
And it brought back a lot of feelings and nostalgia. And so I still go up there to visit my parents. And I also, every year, my husband and my sons and I stay at a cottage on a lake nearby. And it's where I start writing all of my books. I saw that. It's where I started to write One Golden Summer. And it's where I wrote Every Summer After. And I just love being at the lake so much.
It's where I feel like... I feel like I take a deep breath as soon as I like I step inside the cottage and I look at the water and it's like, ah, the air smells different.
The air smells so fresh. I was telling you, like, I go back to my hometown. I'm actually going next month. And I as soon as I hit like the I guess the county line, it just smells different. So it's like the nostalgia.
Yeah, sure. Yeah, I love that.
But you're so your first book was a New York Times bestseller.
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Chapter 3: What personal experiences influenced Carley's characters?
She was a beta reader. She was one of the people that I sent the, when it was done, I sent her, her and three friends, the manuscript. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. So what were you doing before you started writing? I was a journalist for 16 years, but I wasn't writing. I was editing. So I, um, was assigning the writers and like coming up with the ideas for packages.
And in my last role, I was overseeing refinery 29 Canada. So I launched that brand in Canada, hired the editorial team, oversaw that team. And it was so wonderful. I was so proud of what we're doing. I loved the team, but it was so stressful. And in 2020, I got off a really stressful work call, furious. And I was at this cottage at the lake. And I remember it so clearly because it has a landline.
And I slammed down the landline, which is like the best feeling. And I was like, I'm going to write a book. I've always wanted to write a book. I'm it's 20, like in 2020, I need to do something for myself. I need to, I've, all my creativity has gone to my employers. I'm going to write a book. I'm going to finish it by the end of the year. And that, and that became every summer after. Yeah.
So then what was, did you self publish that one or did you go look for an agent?
No, so then I found an agent, and I was very lucky. I ended up signing with my dream agent, Taylor Haggerty, and then we sold the book after that. That's so exciting.
Yeah, it happened very, very fast. And did you already have kids when that happened? I know you don't talk about your personal life as super- Yeah, I'm happy to talk about my kids.
Yeah, I had one boy then. I have two boys. Max is eight and Finn is four. And so Max was, we had Max and then I became pregnant when I was writing Every Summer After. So Finn was born right when we were like finishing the edits on Every Summer After. So, so much was going on. So much. And we moved houses at that time. Oh my gosh. And it was like so wild.
Like I got a book deal, moved homes, finished edits on the book and had a baby within six weeks. Wow. And my husband was in quarantine in our house because it was like the pandemic. So I was like super pregnant and like packing up our house.
So it was just your world sort of flipped upside down in a very short time. It did, yes. But what is that trend on TikTok right now? It's like the butterfly effect. If you did not make one decision or you made one decision differently, your entire life would be different, but for the better for you, right? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
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Chapter 4: Are there any upcoming screen adaptations of Carley's novels?
Chapter 5: How does Carley address mental health in her writing?
focused when you write on just what you want to bring to the world for sure yeah um I don't like to leave bad reviews on books because if I don't like it I always still tell people like it wasn't for me but you should read the reviews you should definitely check it out like I don't because what's something that's not good to me might be so good to somebody else it's so true and I don't want someone to especially now that I we've done like the chapter seven book club on barely famous I like you know I
I still want to give everyone a chance and I love all the authors that I get to talk to. And so just because if there's ever a time where something isn't for me, it might be for someone else.
It's so true. Yeah. My best friend and I might like disagree on books all the time. Yeah.
So we were just having that Alessandra and I were just having that conversation. She was like, I didn't love it, but we differ. So you might like it.
And so
I'm not going to not recommend a book simply because I didn't love it.
Yes, yes.
But when you're writing your books and you have very realistic characters, how do you do that? Are you putting yourself in a setting? Are you picturing people that you know? How does that work? Oh, that's a good question.
So I can't see the characters very clearly. I try to describe them so that you can picture them, but I'm not envisioning an actor playing the role. But the setting, the spaces, I... I can see very, very well. It's almost like a movie set for me. And I do draw out the exteriors. Did you do this? I didn't. The painting on the cover is by Elizabeth Lenny, who's done all my covers. Very good.
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Chapter 6: What does Carley define as escapism novels?
Yeah. I mean, it's all seems like there's always, you know, this person might be interested in it or this person and it's like, oh, that's so fun. And I try not to get too excited about any, cause you know how it is.
Like there's a lot of talk and there's a lot of, you know, possibilities, but until you are, you know, having that zoom call with a team or with a group of people and like seeing whether, um, Like they really are interested or you really connect with them and their vision with them. And then until everything's signed and sealed, I try not to get like too. But it's been very surreal.
Like having, you know, four years ago when my first book came out. Um, I like had no, I didn't even know I was going to have a book. Like, so to have all of this happen, it's just like takes, it's taken a while for it to sink in.
I would, I would imagine so, but it's all happening so fast. I mean, you're, we're talking about 2020 to 2025, all of this is happening and you have I guess almost all your books are being optioned essentially. Yeah. Yeah. What is that? How does your family feel? Do they feel like you are like, um, you went from being mom and a wife to celebrity overnight?
Um, I think, well, my kids don't, they don't get it.
They don't know. Um, which is great. And my son, my oldest son kind of is starting to get it, but, um, and he just wants to act in everything. He's like, can I, we have that in common. Can I be in this?
You need an extra I'm here.
Let me know. Okay. But for Marco, it's been like, I think the first thing for him was how I started writing every summer after, which was I wrote every single day. I would get up at 5 AM and write before I started work. And sometimes after Max went to sleep, I'd write or on the weekend. And I had just transformed and I finished it in four months. And he was like, what is going on? on.
And it was started as like a passion project. It was a passion project. And then, so when it became, you got a book deal for it, what was his reaction to that?
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Chapter 7: How has BookTok influenced Carley's readership?
I mean, I want to go there. Like if this is a real place, let's take a vacation. I'll take my whole killer network over there. Like everyone have a passport. I love it. So do you ever integrate your thoughts and feelings from reading? your own situations into your book.
For sure. For sure. And sometimes they often find their way in without me really realizing it. So with this book, Alice, she's a photographer and she is a freelance photographer. So she's really been hustling to get to a spot where she has a list of clients who love her. She's always making her clients happy. She's always saying yes. She's always delivering.
And she's realizing that, wait a second, what am I getting out of this? What creatively... creatively fulfills me. And that is something that I really relate to as a journalist. And she's kind of stepping back and trying to figure out what is work for me now and what do I want? And I think I'm somebody who I can have trouble figuring out what I want. It's like, I am a very hard worker.
I like to say yes. I like to stay busy. But then when things get
are quieter it's like wait a second what do like is this what I want yeah what do I want um and so that like that felt really personal to me and Alice's story and so little like things like that just tend to like I didn't know what her career journey would be right when I started writing but that like felt like right I liked when she does the shoot for the I think it was swish magazine yes and she decides that she's gonna send the pictures that were
sitting right in her own heart. She was going to send those and she wasn't going to do what the editor asked or what she wanted. And I was like, I can resonate with that because I'm in a place at 33 years old where I'm trying to tell people no, not to hurt people's feelings, but because this is what feels right to me. And I don't want to be a yes man or a people pleaser.
And so I resonated with that.
It's really hard to do. It's so hard. It's really hard to do. Especially when we want people to be happy with our work and we want to excel. But like you have to like – so how do you do that while like maintaining your dignity and like what you value? It's hard. It is hard.
But I love that you incorporate that in your books because that's so real to real life. So we're escaping but also maybe finding inspiration in the characters and – we can use it in real life.
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