Joanna Shupe posted a TikTok on November 11, 2024, in response to angry readers chastising her for writing in her newsletter about her disappointment with the election results. I have included the audio with her permission.She says in her comments that she could teach a whole class about the parallels between the Gilded Age and the current political and cultural climate, which I am calling The Dumpster Age. I reached out and said, I can’t offer a class, but how about a podcast episode?

Joanna was kind enough to walk us through some of the parallels between then and now that give her some despair, and how infuriating it was to have readers scold and chastise her for expressing in her newsletter a perspective that she already thought was pretty clear from, you know, all her books about the Gilded Age.

And, if I can take a moment: this is my 650th episode.

Six. Fifty.

And at the end of the month, on Jan 31, Smart Bitches will celebrate our 20th anniversary.

Thank you. Thank you for valuing my work on the podcast and online, for valuing our perspective on the site when we explore romance and everything surrounding it.

Just…thank you. Thank you so much for being here.

You can find Joanna Shupe on her website, joannashupe.com. Her newsletter is joannashupe.com/newsletter. She’s on Instagram @Joannashupe and on Bluesky.

She also writes dark mafia romance as Mila Finelli.

We also mentioned:

• Schoolhouse Rock: “The Great American Melting Pot”
• Heather Cox Richardson’s Substack
• Joanna Shupe’s original TikTok Video
• The r/RomanceBooks thread about it

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