Fresh Air - Writer Kennedy Ryan uses romance novels as a vehicle for discourse

Episode Date: July 2, 2026

The romance books Kennedy Ryan read growing up rarely included characters who looked like her. Now she deliberately centers people the genre has left out – like women of color and women with chronic illness and disabilities. The award-winning novelist spoke with Tonya Mosley about her “Trojan horse” storylines, the value of the sex scene, and giving people happily-ever-afters. Also, TV critic David Bianculli reviews Craig Ferguson’s new CNN series ‘American On Purpose.’ Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe to our YouTube channel Check out the Fresh Air ArchivesSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

This is fresh air. I'm Tanya Mosley. Say the words romance novel and watch what happens. Some people light up, others roll their eyes. Almost nobody is neutral. It's the best-selling fiction in the world, outselling mysteries and thrillers, and yet it's still the genre people feel they have to defend or apologize for. I've always wanted to know what makes a writer choose a genre that has historically been shunned by critics in mainstream publishing. I guess today, Kennedy Ryan is one of those writers, and in some ways her path is typical of the field. For one, Kennedy Ryan isn't her real name. Many romance writers use pen names. She didn't get her first publishing deal until 40, which is also common. 45 is the average age of the genre's most successful writers. Kennedy Ryan's love for romance began in middle school when she'd sneak the books past her mom who was a preacher. She came back to it after building.

a career in journalism and autism advocacy. Her characters are the people romance often leaves at the margins, black and indigenous, queer women, people living with disabilities, navigating ambition, caregiving, and grief. Ryan builds them the way she once built news stories by going out and interviewing real people first. Ryan is the first black writer to win Romance's highest honor, the Romance Writers of America Award, known as the Rita. Her bestselling novel, Before I Let Go, is being adapted for Peacock, and her latest book, Score, follows two former college sweethearts, reunite it while making a film about the Harlem Renaissance. Kennedy, Ryan, welcome to fresh air.

Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here. The paradox is really interesting to me because millions of people read fiction, but people are so drawn to romance. Romance outsells every other kind of fiction, but critics have been kind of condescending about it for hundreds of years. You looked at romance and decided, this is where you want to go. This, you want to go all in. What was it about romance for you? Yeah, I think I, like you said, I was young when I first discovered romance. I think it was one of my first introductions to seeing what relationships looked like. Besides, obviously, the one that was in my house, which was very healthy, fortunately, with my, my mom and my dad. But I liked, I think, the escape of it, too. I mean, I was only in the eighth grade. But I liked being transported kind of to another world. And there was a glamour to it, especially then. So this is like the heyday of the bodice rippers and Harlequin Presents. And so it was usually a very glamorous kind of setting. And I was living in rural North Carolina with like, dear on my front porch, you know. So the glamour of it, I think, really drew me. And just this idea that you could be in another world and also that

just kind of seeing women, especially loved, you know, loved and esteemed and at the center of something. I was a voracious reader, so I was reading a lot of things. But romance quickly became my favorite. And so, and, you know, I left it a little bit after high school. But in my 30s, I came back because it was, it was an escape. And I think it was a reflection of, a lot of hopes and dreams and desires and needs. And I think that's what draws a lot of people to it. You know, every romance novel, more or less, kind of has the same bones. It's like two people who have this intense attraction to each other. And then something is keeping them apart. And then in the end, there's always a happy ending. Love wins in the end. And millions of writers have kind of worked

inside of the same structure. What do you think makes you different? Oh, I don't, I think that each author, I don't think that I'm exceptional, you know what I mean? I think that each author has to figure out kind of their why. And what I mean by that is, why are you writing? I think for me, I am interested in discourse, you know, it is the, you know, guy meets girl or girl meets girl or guy. guy meets guy. But it is these two people who something is drawing them together, but then there's some conflict or there's some issue that's keeping them apart. And for me, I am interested in the dynamic, but I'm also interested in them as individuals in a very deep way. And I think one thing about the way I approach romance is that I approach it from what is the conversation I want to have, whether it's I want to talk about black women's mental health or I want to talk about neurodivergence or I want to talk about domestic violence or I want to talk about missing and murdered indigenous women. I start with what is the conversation I want to have and then I build the characters who I feel are best kind of equipped to carry that conversation.

I refer to my romance the way I write it as Trojan horse. You know, I'm smuggling in discourse. I'm smuggling in the conversation I want to have in what to me is the most accessible genre in publishing. And so there might be something, some conversation. Maybe you're not typically talking about black women's mental health or depression and how we don't need to suffer in silence. Maybe that's not something you're sitting around thinking about. But all of a sudden, you're reading a romance novel, and that's the conversation that's at the center. And it's making you think about it. And that is what's most interesting to me about romance. You know, for me, it is this vehicle for me to have discourse. You know, these stories are.

are so rich, you really could write them without the sex and they still stand. So what does that sensuality and sex do? What would be lost without it? You know, I don't know that a lot would be lost. I think that what is gained is that a lot of times culture makes women feel ashamed for our desires. We've been made to feel like we don't have a right to pleasure and made to feel that our pleasure shouldn't be at the center. And in a lot of situations, it's fine for men to have pleasure.

It's fine for men to pursue these things. But when women do, it's like it's a dirty secret. It's something that we're embarrassed about, or it's something that we hide, or it's something that we shame. And you do have what is called closed-door romance, meaning, you know, there's romance is such a wide spectrum. So there are some romance novels that have what's called open door. So, you know, it is much more detailed kind of sex scenes, the physical aspect of the relationship is more detailed.

And then you have fade to black or closed door romance where it's just kind of alluded to. And then you might have romance like there's a whole genre that's inspirational or Christian romance. And you may have like no sex on the page at all. So romance is just this, it's a huge spectrum of, you know, how physical intimacy is depicted. And I think it can, none of it is wrong. You know, I think it's what people are looking for. But for me, I think there's a power in embracing your own pleasure and in taking command of it and in owning it and not being ashamed of it. And I think that's a reclamation that a lot of women appreciate.

When we are made to feel ashamed for it, it's a function of patriarchy and misogyny. And I think that the dismissiveness and the condescension that a lot of broader culture has toward romance novels, is rooted in patriarchy. This is the only genre women are absolutely at the center. We are mostly writing it. We are the ones who are running it. We are the ones who are making money from it. And anytime women are benefiting at every level that way, patriarchy comes into play. Well, this is a thing that I was so fascinated by in researching because I didn't know any of this, but I came to understand that this is a genre that is written largely by women for women, And many of the women are hitting their creative peak in midlife, but the average successful writer is middle-aged.

And yet it's treated as unserious. But I was wondering, what have you learned women actually want from a love story that maybe they can't say out loud anywhere else, especially now that you've written so many of these novels? And you've received feedback from the women who read them. Yeah, I mean, people sometimes fixate on the physical aspect of a lot of these romance novels. And they're like, oh, it's, you know, women, reading, you know, sneaking off reading these novels and smud. Yeah, that's what they, that's how they think of it. And they say it in a really disparaging way sometimes. But honestly, I think that it's more layer than that.

And that's not every person. Like, there are some people who will read books. They may want to read erotica, which is, different than, you know, contemporary romance or romance. Erotic is a different category. And I don't want, yeah, I don't want you to have to do definitions, but for the layman who doesn't know, like, what is the difference between erotica and the romance that you write? Right. So erotica is basically the point of that story is the sex, you know? And when you're talking about a romance novel, like what I would write, which is more like contemporary romance,

there is a story, there's a plot. There is, you know, you're building out these characters and there's a world. Not that you don't have that with erotica, but the sex is the point. Like the sex is much more prevalent. It's dialed up. And you might get a little plot. You might get a little character development, but for the most part, the sex is the point. And in a romance novel, you definitely can have like varying levels of intimacy, physical intimacy that's

on page or off page, behind closed doors. open doors, but you are definitely going to build out a world and characters and plot and story. Like all of that has to be present or it should be present. So I think that and people who I do not shame people who want to read just for the sake of the spice. Like I think that that's if that's what you want, like I don't have disdain for people who are just like, I just want to read for the smut, girl go for it. You know, that's a completely valid thing. But I think that most of the time when I am talking to women, when they're reading my books, they like that women are respected.

They like that they are with a partner they can trust. They like the fact that their dreams and their ambitions and their goals. And I'm talking specifically about the books that I write, that their dreams, their goals, their ambitions are respected. I always say all of my heroes are feminist. you know, and a lot of people have said to me, well, aren't you concerned that you are giving women unrealistic expectations and don't you want to reflect the reality of, not really? Like, I am interested, and I'm not saying that I'm writing some fantasy because I think my books are very much grounded in real life and in real issues.

These are women who are navigating chronic illness like lupus and, you know, who I've written like different, different limed, you know. women who are, you know, have, who are amputees. Like, I am interested in. Which is unique. Yes, I think it is unique in some ways. But I think what I am, what I am doing specifically is I am writing from the margins to the center. I grew up, you know, we talked about me reading romance novels when I was much younger. Let me tell you, in the 90s, in the 80s, in the 90s, even in the early 2000s, you were not seeing a lot of diversity on the shelves, you know, with romance novels. Every heroine I was reading about was white and thin and blonde and blue-eyed or, you know, a quote-a-bunette.

Yeah, you mentioned these Harlequin novels that you would read. What were the types of books that you were reading when you were seeking them in your room? Yeah, they were category romance, which, you know, that's Harlequin Presents, Harlequin Romance. It's very much like a formula, usually, but it's a quick read. It's, you know, girl meets boy, and the plot will vary, you know, like with any other genre, the plight can vary, but you're still going to have a happily ever after. But these books were, I mean, mostly, there wasn't very much diversity. You didn't see a lot of queerness. You didn't see ethnic diversity.

You didn't see disability. You didn't see any of those things. It was these perfectly able-bodied white women who were thin. Your latest novel score, it follows two former college sweethearts who broke up badly a decade before and they're kind of thrown back together making a film about the Harlem Renaissance. And Verity is the main woman character and she's a screenwriter. She also has bipolar disorder. And I don't think I've ever read a book about love and desire from the point of view of a person with a mental illness. illness. How did you come to decide to give your character this type of backstory? I am interested in

writing the stories of people who don't typically see themselves at the center of cultural narrative. And you know, what I mean by that is usually it's not the, you know, usually the, it has been the black girl, the fat girl, the sick girl, the disabled girl. She was the sidekick. She was a secondary or a tertiary character. But she's so. certainly wasn't at the very center. And she wasn't the one who was getting the happily ever after. And I want to take those identities and those experiences and those communities that have been on the periphery of cultural narrative and set them firmly at the center. This is the second book in the series. The first book was a heroine who has lupus. You're not reading a lot of that.

I mean, not that it doesn't happen at all, but there aren't a lot of romance novels that are focused on women who are navigating lupus, you know? And now women, there are. are a lot of women who, particularly black women, who suffer from lupus. It's one of the highest autoimmune diseases. So you've done a lot of research here and really trying to figure out not only your audience, but the realities of your audience. Yeah, for sure. And I think a big part of this series and kind of a lot of what I write is, and I say this all the time, there's someone for whom you're not too much. And what I mean by that is like there's someone, we, we, we all hope that there is someone who's going to love us through hard times, through bad times,

through difficult situations, you know, in real the book where before this, book one of the series where the heroine has lupus, she's going through a flare, you know, and she's self-conscious because she has lesions and she has bald spots. And her body, she is in a battle. And yet, this romantic partner is, he's impervious of all of that. Like, he's like, I love you. I'm I'm here for you. I'm going to stand by you. What in it? And you just be surprised at all of the emails and messages and DMs that I get from women who are living with chronic illnesses who are incredibly moved by that because that is their hope. You know, their hope is that there is someone in real life who will love them that way, you know, even given difficult circumstances that they're navigating in real life. And I want that. You asked, you know, about romance. Romance to me is.

the genre of hope. It is the genre of love, obviously, but I think it's also the genre of hope and it's the genre of joy. And people sometimes talk about the happily ever after being, quote, unquote, predictable. But every genre has its, you know, has its, you know, these are the boundaries of the genre. These are the things that you can expect from the genre. And it's just that with, you know, romance, it's a happily ever after. Me, especially writing black and brown and queer and chronically ill and fat people. Like when I am writing those identities that in the real world, a lot of times our outcomes are compromised.

A lot of times our outcomes are not as good as other groups. I can create a world where we are guaranteed joy. Well, the thing about that, I just want to say my producer, Teresa, said she almost wished after reading score that she didn't know a happy ending was coming. because it sort of took the suspense out of it. If the reader knows that these two end up together, for instance, where's the real tension? You're kind of pushing back against that idea. Yeah, I think a little bit.

I mean, in the sense that every, every, you know, genre has its conventions. You know, it has its expectations. And some people will say, well, a romance novel doesn't have to have a happily ever after. Yeah, actually, by definition, it does. love story, may not, you know, like maybe they die in the end. But with romance, I think that it's not even just about the ending. It's about the journey. It's about what we're learning about each other and about ourselves. Because, for example, since we're talking about score, there's so much that happens. There's so much self-discovery and self-understanding that both of these characters

are experiencing. For me, it's not even just the point that they're going to end up together. It is what do they learn about themselves and how do they navigate and start to build a life together. That's going to look different in every book. So if there are people who just like don't want a happy ending, they don't want to know that it's going to end happily, maybe romance is not their bread and butter. But I think that for people who love romance, and I have a lot of what I call non-romance romance readers, and usually there are people who don't typically read romance and they'll say something like, I don't read romance novels, but I read Kennedy Ryan because they feel like there's something

different about the way I'm approaching the genre that appeals to them. But I can see that if someone doesn't want that aspect of it to be consistent, that maybe that's not the genre for them or maybe they don't read it as much as others. The part about the happily ever after that I think is so amazing, especially for black women, for chronically ill women, for women who are in real world navigating uncertain outcomes, especially the timeline we're living in now, I am creating a space where you see someone who looks like you get joy and get a happily ever after. And for some people, they don't get to see that in real life. And it is encouraging and it's hopeful for them to see it, even in fiction. There are so many women who have told me, I decided

to give love a chance again after I read one of your books. And I'm like, you know, it's fiction, right? And they're like, yeah, but something about it encouraged me and made me feel like maybe I shouldn't give up on it quite yet. So I think that's good. I think that giving people hope and joy is, especially in the times we're living, there's not a downside to that for me. If you're just joining us, my guest today is romance novelist Kennedy Ryan. Her new novel is called Score. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is fresh air. This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is romance novelist Kennedy Ryan. She's the first black author to win The Rita, Romance's highest honor. And she's published more than 20 novels in just over a decade.

She came to fiction after careers in journalism and autism advocacy, and she's known for love stories that center the people the genre often leaves out. Her bestselling novel, Before I Let Go, as being adapted for Peacock. And her latest score, follows two former college sweethearts reunited while making a film about the Harlem Renaissance. I want to talk a little bit about the stories within the stories because in this book, as I mentioned, it's about two former college sweethearts who are reunited while working on a film about the Harlem Renaissance. They aren't living in the Renaissance, but they're making a movie about it. And this isn't the first time that you have actually gone to that time period. Your novel Reel lives there too.

What is it about that period that you like going back to that pulls you there? Yeah, I think I, like so many, am fascinated by the Harlem Renaissance. I think that it's probably like one of the greatest concentrations of American art and specifically black American art in history. and just how it really like was incredibly exported and impacted literally the entire world and all culture. You know, jazz and also the blues and our art and our writing and all of the great figures who came out of at Baldwin and Zornil Hurston

and, you know, all of these incredible writers who emerged during that time period. For me as a writer and as a creative, it's the most, probably the most fascinating, artistic era for me in history. And, you know, this, it's kind of like a movie inside of that story. And I honestly thought about, it's Desi Blue is the fictional character. You know, she's a fictional historical character. Although she feels very real, like she might be based on someone real. Yes. Well, you know, and she is based on kind of amalgamation of people like Ma Rainey and Billy Holiday and perform. from that era, it's kind of an amalgamation of all of these. Her queerness, she's bisexual,

is a reflection of that, her grit, you know, her talent, her experience. Some of the things that I document in real actually are things that I read about these women experiencing in real life, you know, fictionalizing those things to make it feel even more authentic. I'm always amazed that people are like, I'm Googling Desi Blue and I cannot find her. I don't because they think she's real. Yes, yes. But also because you do have people who are real in your book sometimes. So I can see how that works.

Well, how do you make the decision to say, I'm going to make this character fictional and I'm going to put in, drop in this real person? Yeah, I think that having a fictional character like Desi Blue rub up against, like, real, who would have been that character's contemporaries, it makes it feel more real. And it also gives me the opportunity to share and educate the audience about a lot of characters like real-life people whose contributions in their art may have been lost or may have been buried or may have been forgotten. You know, in score, we're talking about Gladys Vintley. You know, they go to a club and she is performing in Harlem in her white tuxedo and her white top hat and her close cut, you know, hair. She's presenting very masculine, but she's a woman.

And she is in real life an LGBTQ plus pioneer, you know, a trailblazer. So to have someone like that in the book, it is a reflection of what was actually going on in that time. And it makes it feel more real and more grounded in reality. I want to talk a little bit about your research, your journalistic approach to your research. And also a little bit about the choices you make in the sense. stories that you become fascinated in and end up writing about. Back in 2019, you wrote The Kingmaker, which was about an indigenous activist fighting a pipeline. And it's a romance novel, too, as well. And as part of your writing process, you spent four months interviewing Native American

women, I think 10 of them. What was the spark that made you want to live inside of that world? I saw a documentary, and I can't remember the name of the documentary now, but it was a documentary about the pipeline protest that we saw, you know, I don't know, 2015, 2016, like somewhere around there. But it was that it was a documentary about all of the pipeline protest. And I just, it kind of sparked something in me wanting to explore that world. And I was very hesitant. You know, I had to really assess if that was a story that I felt like I should. tell or that I could tell. And I set certain kind of like expectations for myself. Like these are the things you have to do if you're going to write this story because I have seen people who are not

black women write black women stories. And sometimes I'm like, oh, maybe you shouldn't have done that, you know. And I didn't want that. And I also didn't want to take up space that was someone else's if I didn't feel like I could do this story justice. And I saw a lot of, um, a lot of common ground between what indigenous women in this country navigate and what black women in this country navigate. But before I wrote that, I have seen a lot of harmful representation of indigenous people written by people who are not indigenous. And so I had to really interrogate that for myself before I wrote that book. And I found a lot of people that I wanted to talk to. And there were some of them who were like, I don't, I'm not sure that I want to

talk to you because the last time I talked to somebody, they wrote a really bad book or they wrote a really bad article. And one of them even said to me, I will talk to you if you read these books. And she gave me like three books to read. And I read them all. And then I came back to her and I was like, are you ready to talk? And she said, you read them? And I said, well, yeah, that's kind of my job. Our guest today is writer Kennedy Ryan. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley. And this is fresh air. This is Fresh Air. Today I'm talking with romance novelist Kennedy Ryan. I want to go back to your childhood for a moment, you growing up in a small town in North Carolina. When you say small,

how small are we talking? It is so, it was so small that like, it would have a phone number for one town. We had a P-O box, no, a route. We had a route for our mailing, for our mailing, dress. And I went to school for another town. Like it was in between small towns. And how far from the biggest town? What was the biggest town? Oh, the biggest town would be like Durham. And it was probably like 45 minutes, 40 minutes or so to get there. Basically, this is a strip of land that my grandfather owned. And like as far as the I could see, it was just farmland that he owned. And he sold off all of these plots of land to put his kids, I think it's 12 of them. My dad will kill me because I get it wrong, but put all of his kids through college and he only kept, he kept a plot of land for each of them.

And that was our community. So you're talking about basically community of my family. And then on the outskirts of that, people who bought the land that my family owned. It's my uncle living to the left and it's my uncle living to the right and it's my uncle, you know, living in front of me who's raising hogs and on a Christmas morning. brings us a little white cheesecloth bag with slaughtered, you know, sausage. It is, you know, it is a pear. It's pear and peach trees in my backyard. It's, you know, a grapevine. It's cherry trees. It's a garden. My dad coming straight home from work going straight to like pull collard greens and string beans. I am a country girl, you know. Through and through. It sounds like it. Through and through. Yes. Your dad, your dad was also a college administrator. for several HBCUs, historically black colleges. It's interesting because they feature prominently in many of your books.

They often HBCUs are there. He was an academic and your mother, a preacher. Yes. Yes. Well, I mean, and my mom had a full-time job. She was, she worked, she was a dental hygienist, but she also was a preacher. And then later on, that's what she did full-time. But they, and now they're both preachers.

Now they have a church together. But yeah, so, I mean, I grew up. My dad is such a huge part of why I love language. You know, he has two master's degrees and a doctorate. But my mom is the one who really foster my love of reading because she's a big reader. And I'm the classic, you know, before we had screens, I'm, you know, with the flashlight under the covers reading well into the night. So I had, they're amazing. They, you know, they're a huge shaping force.

That famous story that you tell all the time about your mother saying, oh, no, you cannot read these types of novels. But do you remember what you were reading and what she caught you reading? You know, and it wasn't even a caught because I didn't know that she would object. I was reading. I don't remember the specific title, but it was a, a historical romance, you know, and it's got like a woman on the cover with her breast spilling over the bodice and, you know, a half-naked man. And I'm like, look, Mom, you know, I just, I didn't, it didn't. I was just like, I love this. And my mother was. And back in the day,

they used to have them at along the grocery store checkout. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. And I would, I was at the, the library was like one of my favorite places in the world. And it's not, like, was this expansive library and it was this huge selection, but I loved it. You know, it's where I first read Jane Eyre. It's where I first read, you know, all of the classics and Tony Morrison and, you know, like, that's where I found, that's where I kind of discovered my love for language and for reading. And then one day I was like, I think I was in the eighth grade and one of my classmates handed me one of the like historical romances. That's how I came, came into it. Was she handed it to me? loved it. And I took it home and started reading them. And I didn't even think to, like, hide it

from my mom. It's just I told her about it or she saw me with it and she was horrified, you know. And then I was, she was like, you are not allowed to read them. You know, with distance from it, I understand why she was monitoring what I, you know, what I ingested. I completely understand that because we now have parental controls. and all of those things. But as an eighth grade, you're just like, I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm going to sneak around and do it if you tell me that I can't do it. So, yeah, but it's a funny story for us now

because I did not tell her until I was in my 30s that I had hidden all those romance novels from her. She thought I had stopped reading them. Because after she told you to stop, you continued. And then you just collected them so many that you kind of had a little stockpile in the closet or something like that. Oh, yeah. Hundreds and hundreds of romance novels like hidden at the beach.

back of my closet behind clothes. And it was like literally in my 30s when I was like, you know when you told me to stop reading romance novels? I didn't. I want to go to a very, very important, pivotal moment in your life that really changed things for you. It was before you started writing fiction, your son, you have one son. He was diagnosed with autism, two years old. And, you The very next day, your husband loses his job. Yeah. Take me to that week. Oh, one of the toughest weeks of my life.

I think, because my son is now 25. And 23 years ago, like, the landscape for autism was very different than it is now. Like, we didn't have a lot of the solutions. We didn't have a lot of the supports, the waivers, the, you know, the financial support, insurance. Everything was considered experimental, so you're paying out of pocket for everything. And then I think there was just a lot we didn't know. Like literally when the doctor diagnosed my son, he told me that I should, told my husband to give me time to grieve.

That's the word he used. And he said, you know, motherhood is going to be just so different than what she thought it would be. And it has been very different than I thought it would be. I think, you know, autism is a spectrum. And it looks different for different people. And my son is very impacted. Even at 25, he's still only partially verbal.

And, you know, he kind of works at his own time. You know, there are certain benchmarks that I thought he would reach when he was 10 that he still hasn't reached or that he reached much later. One of the things I think that this journey has taught me is not to compare myself, my son, our life to anyone else's. things got really dark. You're in this moment. The health care system has not really caught up to what it needs to for you as a mother. And the financial impact was just, it was a lot for you in that time. Yeah. Instead of only surviving it, though, you built this advocacy group, then a therapy group for couples going through it. And I, Kennedy, I just always marvel at people who build the thing they need when they have the least. amount of resources or power. And when did you realize you'd have to build the thing that didn't exist in order for you to actually survive? Yeah, I think it kind of a lot of times came down to, am I going to pay for therapy or am I going to pay my light bill? And I was like, we shouldn't

have to make these decisions. My husband and my, both of our cars were repossessed. We woke up one morning and the cars were gone. We had to do a short sell in our house. We didn't have food sometimes. It taught me a lot about community too, you know, people just kind of rallying around us and making sure that our family had what we needed. And I just kind of said to the Lord one day, like when I'm praying, I'm meditating and I'm like, I just don't want anybody else to go through this. Like, I don't want anybody else to have to make these decisions. These are impossible decisions. And I decided to start a foundation. I did not have a lot of money. Like I was not in a place where people would think, oh, you should start a foundation.

I was like, I need help too. But I kind of like examined the gaps. There was a gap for, you know, therapy, obviously. And so one of the things that we did was we people, a lot of it was like only the people, people are only getting speech and OT in school. And when it's summer, a lot of those kids weren't getting. those services anymore. So I raised money so that we could supplement and that we could pay for that. And then we had a lot of couples were experiencing marital strain, whether it's at the very beginning or people who have been in this a really, really long time and are worn down. We started doing

marriage retreats. We also started paying for couples therapy. And then I thought about, gosh, if it's this hard for me and I have a partner, how hard is it for people who are single parents? And then we started programming that was specifically targeting single parents and their entire family, like all of their children. So for me, it was just kind of like a reflection of the gaps that I was seeing. So you're going through all of that and like, what was it like at night? Then you're sitting at a computer and then writing romance? Is that how it worked? You're like, how do we get here?

You know, my husband found a job and it took him away a lot at night. And so it was just me and my son, and this is when he was younger. And a lot of kids who are on the spectrum are fascinated with water. And my son was so fixated on water. He and I would go to this river. Because we lived in Atlanta at the time. We lived in Atlanta for 20 years. You know, that's kind of home to us for the most part.

I would take him to this river in Atlanta every evening. And he would frolic, you know. And as I was sitting there, this community built around a river called Rivermont just started kind of in my imagination and it became the centerpiece for the first series that I ever wrote called the Bennett series. That just sitting on the riverbank every night watching my son play in the water, I just started dreaming about this imaginary place called Rivermont and this family and, you know, all of, and it became four books, you know. Kennedy Ryan, thank you so much for this conversation. Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me.

Romance novelist Kennedy Ryan. She's the first black author to win the Rita, Romance's highest honor, and she's published more than 20 novels in just over a decade. Her latest novel is called Score. Coming up, TV critic David B. and Cooley reviews the five-part documentary series

Craig Ferguson, American on Purpose. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. Craig Ferguson, who hosted the Late Late Show on CBS from 2005 to 2014 has returned to television with a five-part documentary series on CNN.

The series is called Craig Ferguson American on purpose, and it concluded last Saturday, but is available to stream on CNN.com. The CNN network is presenting a marathon showing the entire series on July 5th. Our TV critic David B. and Cooley has this review. Craig Ferguson was born in Scotland

and moved to the United States pursue a career in comedy. He did well. In 2005, he earned the job of host of The Late Late Show on CBS, a job he held for just shy of 10 years. Ferguson took a deconstructionist David Letterman-type approach to his role and kept evolving his style and his personal voice. Monologues weren't a string of topical jokes, but became loose one-way conversations about whatever Ferguson was thinking and feeling. He didn't have a sidekick, so he invented one. Or had someone invent one, a comedy robot.

And partway through the show's run in 2008, Craig Ferguson applied for United States citizenship, passed the test, and became a U.S. citizen. He filmed that process and showed it on his program, but didn't leave the idea there. In 2009, he wrote a memoir called American on Purpose. And now he has a five-part documentary series with the same name on CNN, in which he travels the country and speaks to Americans about America.

What is America? Is it a promise? A contradiction. A dream. Everyone has their own idea, including me. I wasn't born here, but I love this place. I want to show you why I became American on purpose. Even though Craig Ferguson is a comedian by president,

profession, he's not doing this series just for laughs. Well, not just for laughs. He retains his goofy sense of humor and his appetite for the unpredictable and the uncontrollable, like interviewing tourists in the middle of Times Square. But he's there

to say something and to hear what other people have to say, on the occasion of our country approaching its 250th anniversary. One of the questions he asks is about the American dream, which I found fascinating as a TV has historian. More than 50 years ago, keyed to the American bicentennial, PBS presented a wonderful

series called The Great American Dream Machine, asking the very same question. Here's how earlier in 2006, Ferguson's interviewees answered it. One thing that I think about America is freedom. Also the dream. American dream. What is the American dream? You can work hard and achieve your goals. What do you think the American dream is? The ability to to embrace your aspirations. Be happy. Be happy. Be happy, build your own future on your own way.

I ran a marathon. Oh, you're right. Congratulations. The American Dream. What does it look like to you? I think just having the opportunity and options to do whatever you want to do, whether it's running a marathon in New York City.

Freedom of religion. Freedom of choice. Just everything. Freedom. You can be yourself. Yeah, you can. In another sequence, Ferguson burrows into the United States.

the origins and intentions of our country's founding documents. In Philadelphia, he gathers some historians and actors who portray Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin to stand over historical documents and discuss them. We hear in this clip from a historian and the actor playing Jefferson talking in his own voice about his own opinions and Ferguson. All of them have thoughts on the subject. The Constitution is not meant to limit the people. The Constitution is meant to limit the government.

People have laws to protect them from each other, keep each other from break each other's arms, picking each other's pockets. People have constitutions to protect them from their government. There's a writer of our time, George Orwell, who said, he who controls the past controls the present. It was the use of a tyrant, the idea that if you can lie about the past,

you can control the situation that exists in the moment. One of the great things about this amendment is that it allows us to look at our past and not change it but argue about it. What the first amendment establishes in clear writing is that it is impossible to have a conversation if you're not allowed to disagree. It is American to respect someone who disagrees.

This discussion of freedom of speech is timely right now and not only because of our country's impending anniversary. If the merger deal goes through between Warner Brothers, which owns CNN and Paramount which owns CBS, it's already been approved by the Department of Justice. The content of future CNN programming may be adversely affected. CBS News Management already has weakened the legacy and integrity of 60 minutes. Many media insiders fear CNN may be similarly targeted

with editorial interference if the merger is finalized. If that happens, a show like Craig Ferguson American on purpose may soon be an endangered species on CNN. Ironically, it may even be history. David B. and Cooley reviewed Craig Ferguson, American on Purpose. You can catch it on the CNN website, and all five episodes will also air on CNN on July 5th, beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. If you'd like to catch up on interviews you've missed, like our conversation about a new breed of ticks bringing dangerous illnesses and allergies, or our conversation, conversation with Isaac Butler on how art saved his life. Check out our podcast. You'll find lots of

fresh air interviews. You can also find some of our video interviews on YouTube under This is Fresh Air. And to find out what's happening behind the scenes of our show and get our producer's recommendations on what to watch, read, and listen to. Subscribe to our free newsletter at whey.com.com slash fresh air. Freshier's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with help today from Adam Stanishefsky. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorak, Anne-Marie Boldinato, Lauren Crenzel, Teresa Madhousin, Marcia, Monique Nazareth, Susan Yacundi, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.B. Nesper.

Thea Challoner directed today's show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.