Welcome to the Watch next podcast. Hello, Maho

i'm doing good. How are you?

I'm doing good. I was like, it's just we were chatting beforehand. I am so excited to chat with you. We're so excited to see this book, The Ex-Perimento, because it set of Venezuela and someone who grew up in Puerto Rico, who in the media that we consume in the eighties and nineties was a lot of times was exported from Venezuela. So I grew up watching your novellas, having the same singers they used to come to Puerto Rico. And so it really brought me back to my childhood. I have Venezuela friends, and I was like, it's just. Like the sense of community and sense of culture that I watch. And so as we were talking about it, some similarities, some differences. I was so excited to chat with you, to hear from your experience, being in Venezuela, and just what made you write this book and all the fun stuff with it. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Okay, so I am, my name is Maria Jose, but I go by Majo. Everybody calls me Majo. I live in Venezuela. I was raised in Venezuela. I'm a self taught English speaker. What else can I say about me? I'm a huge fan girl. I love romance. I love movies. I love music. And yeah, I love books.

Yes. So let's start. About how did you become a reader? Okay, first things first, let's talk about reading life, because. we are bilingual, so we probably have taught the classics in Spanish and Spanish literature, but then there's also English literature and there's English books, and you're writing English and you're writing for a

Mm-hmm.

which is Berkeley. I can see some parallels between us. For me, I learned, I grew up with both languages, I learned how to read in both languages, but I re discovered that I, reading in English was much more preferable for me. And I started reading a lot of the teenage literature at the time, which was like Sweet Valley High that we, visitors club, and I just. Kept going that way as opposed to reading in Spanish. That was something that I ended up adopting later on. I found it. I did read the classics. I did read Que, I did read some Thete, but for me, I tended to go towards English reading, but talked us about your reading journey because being bilingual, you have more options as a reader.

Yeah.

to read.

Well, I didn't become a reader until I was, I think, 14 years old,

Yeah.

I became a reader after I went to watch Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix on movie theaters.

Mm-hmm.

I had never read like a Harry Potter book or any type of fantasy book. Like I had read picture books when I was little, but that was it. And so we went to see that with my family, and I liked it so much back then when I was a teen that I just had to know what happened next. And I asked my mom, it's can I please get the next book? I didn't even read the whole series. I just read the last two books. I was like, can I please, please have the next book? And my mom got it for me and I read it. And I was fascinated by the fact that reading felt like watching TV on your head in your head. It

Yeah.

so it. Like it hooked me and then I wanted to read the next book. And I think that year it came out that year. I don't remember the year, but it came out that year that the fifth movie came out. And I read that and then it was like, okay, this series is over. I just read two books in my whole life and the series is over. What do I read now? And I had a friend who was a big Harry Potter and a big reader, and she told me, maybe you'll like the Narnia books. And she let me borrow them like she would take them to school. She would give me one, I would finish it. I would take it to her and she would give me the other one. And there were seven books and I started going through the Narnia series, which actually became my favorite series ever. And I flew through them, like I read them all in a week. I would just read a book in a day, and then I started going from there. Then I read Twilight, and this is how I went from reading in Spanish to. Reading in English. I read Twilight, the first three books, I read them in Spanish, and then when Breaking Down came out, I was turning 15 and I have an aunt who lives in Houston. For my, it is a big deal. It's a whole thing, like you get a special gift and this aunt sent me breaking dawn, like it came out that year and she sent it to me, but it was in English, but I was so obsessed with it that I just said, I'm gonna read this. And I probably understood like 50% of the book. I didn't understand like all of it. But I said, I'm going to read this like this. And at that point in my life, I had already started, like I already spoke a little English, so it wasn't terribly hard for me, but I wasn't like super fluid yet. And I read that book and I realized that I wanted to keep reading in English because one, you get book faster and second. You don't have this lost in translation moments, like you read what the author meant to say. For American authors or for English speaking authors, like if there's a Spanish speaking author, I will read that book in Spanish because it's a way that is supposed to be read.

Yeah.

But for books reading in English. I decided that I wanted to read more books in English because then I would get to read exactly what the author said instead of like the translator's interpretation where there's nothing wrong with translation, like that's how we get more books. But being like a newbie learning English, I just wanted to get better at it. And that's how my English journey. My reading journey started, I started as a teen, but then I became absolutely obsessed with books and Twilight was like my first HA at romance. So I started reading like more paranormal books, and then ya and then, adult books and I haven't stopped. I have a self.

So you're an e-reader, so how do you read in your phone? Like how do you read, like you're

I prefer to read on my phone or on my tablet

okay?

because there's I read on my iPad now

Yeah.

to not heal my eyesight, but I mostly read eBooks. Because we don't really have that much access to physical copies here in the country, unfortunately. And also because if there's a book that I really want to read, I can pre-order it and I get it the same day. I don't have to wait for shipping. I don't have to wait for anything.

yeah.

But I do buy the physical cup. If I loved a book, loved it. I will buy a physical copy just to have it and to hold it and to smell it. But I mostly read, eBooks on my tablet. On my iPad.

So talk to us about the process of becoming a, going from reader to writer, because that's a jump, that's a different area. And then

Yeah.

writing in span. Not only writing in English, which is your second language, and getting published in a big five. Publisher it's not just like you, your journey is wonderful to see. 'cause it's like you're coming from against odds and you're coming for like an actual publisher, Talk to us about how did you end up this writing journey?

Okay, so when I was 16, it all started. I'm 32 now. By the way, when I was 16 half of my life ago, I read Twilight.

Yeah.

when I was reading Twilight, at that point in my life, I had only written fan fiction. I was writing Jonah's Brothers fan fiction 'cause I swore I was gonna marry Nick, which is also why I started learning English. 'cause I was gonna marry Nick and he didn't speak Spanish, so obviously I had to learn English so we could communicate. But at that point I was just writing fan fiction and then I read, Twilight and I loved it so much that I really felt like I wanted to write. I stopped writing film fiction and start writing something original.

Mm-hmm.

was like the first time that I said maybe I wanna do this. This is what I want to do. I want to make other people feel the same way that I feel when I'm reading. And that's when I started writing. I remember that back then. I would write in notebooks. Like I would just buy a notebook. A hundred pages notebook, and I would just write an entire book, an entire story on there. I remember back then, books used to have like phone numbers for their offices in each country. I don't know if you ever have an Alpha Water book, a Planeta book.

Yeah.

the back they had, it's an international.

Yeah.

Publishing house. So at the back they have all the numbers, the phone numbers for their different offices. There's like the Puerto Rico office, the Mexico office, the Columbia office, and there was like the Venezuela office. And I remember after I finished this story on this Cinderella notebook that I called them and I was like, how can I get this published? How can I send it to you? I wrote a book, how can I send it to you? It was in a notebook and I rem the guy was so nice, he was trying very hard not to laugh. I remember that the guy was so nice and he told me like I needed to type it into a Word document at least. The book was terrible, but that was the first thing that I ever wrote. And then I, my friends read it and then I kept going and I kept going. But back then I was still writing in Spanish. And I made the switch to English when, I'm gonna be super honest here, like why I did it, but I made the switch to English when I realized that there was no money, unfortunately for this in the Spanish market, like in the Latin American market,

It

I mean, there is money because authors do get paid, but it does not come close to what the US pays for books. So if a Latin American publisher can pay you if they pay you. 'cause here, at least in Venezuela right now, there are mostly hybrid, publishers and not traditional publishers. So if they pay you and you don't have to pay them, it's very low. It's oh, I'm gonna give you $500 for your book and you should thank me for it. Well, I did my research back then, like I'm talking 10 years ago. And I saw that debut authors were getting paid oh, it's a $10,000 advance. And I said, I have to switch. I have to do it. 'cause I just have to. And 10 years ago I was still like, today it is still. So crazy. A thought or a dream to be like, you know what, I'm gonna from my little house in my little city. 'cause I don't even live in Caracas 'cause like I don't,

Yeah, you're

I live in a,

I looked, I was like, she doesn't, she lives to town like

I live in a town.

Kaas

Yeah.

love this. I am so fascinated by this, because I'm like, yeah, this is like you, you had against all the odds and you're like

Yeah.

being scrappy and being like, you know what, this is happening right now,

did it take 16 years? It did, but

it's fine.

it's fine. I know that book was not gonna get me anywhere, like the book that I wrote when I was 16.

Yeah.

But, the Real Journey started. I think I was, I think around 2012.

Mm-hmm.

Wait, let me, 2015.

Okay.

When I started thinking seriously about writing and I found, a critique partner, and I started being like, I wanna do this. Like I wanna try this for real. So I started writing fantasy and I tried to do what was it called? It works. I think I tried to do pitch wars. I tried to there were different. Programs, different mentorship programs that I tried to do. I didn't get into any of them. And then one day I was like writing a new fantasy book that I like, a shiny new idea that I had, and it was so complicated. It was set in Venezuela. That was the first time that I was actually setting something here. But it was fantasy and it was so complicated that I lost all joy for writing. I was like, I don't wanna do this anymore. This is so hard. Like the world building the idea was super cool, but I just like the writer I was 10 years ago could not have done that book. So I decided, five years ago, I decided, that I was going to write something for myself. I said, you know what? I just wanna have fun. I'm going to write something for me. This was 2019. I think I'm gonna write something for me. I'm just gonna have fun with it. And that's it. So I wrote a story. Based on the initial spark of an idea for that story was when Shawn Mendes and Camila Kaja started dating and everybody was saying like, it's pr, they have no chemistry. And that was the first spark of an idea. I said, what if what if it's actually pr? What if it's not real? What would happen? So I wrote this book. About two musicians and one like the girl, her name was Carina. She was very like, her reputation was very clean. She was like spotless reputation, but she wasn't that famous. And then there was Levi who had a horrible reputation, but he was basically Justin Bieber. In order to clean his reputation, his team comes up with the idea that he should date somebody with a very good reputation. And then these two start dating. So I wrote that start fake dating. So I wrote that and I showed it to my friends and my friends said, this is the book. Like you should do this. It was the first time. Yeah,

book right now,

it was ya too. It was ya. They told me like, you should try dfi. I don't if you remember dfi, like on Twitter, you should try dfi. And I hadn't finished editing the book and my friend told me it's basically done. You don't have to edit a lot, so submit it for dfi and if anybody wants it, then you can just take a few weeks before setting it till I finish it. And I said, sure, why not? And I submitted like I did my Twitter thing. For D Pit and I got a few agents interested in reading the book. And this friend that I'm talking about, she's one of my CCPs and she's from Colombia and she had found her agent the year prior during D Pit while living in Colombia. And I said, well, if she did it while living in Colombia, like people do it, it's something that people actually do.

Yeah.

I, I did the DVP thing. I had four offers of representation. I couldn't believe it. Whoa, this is getting the odds. So I had four offers of representation and I went with my agent, her name is, she said UTA. And we went on stuff with that book and it didn't sell. Like at that point I had already done not the impossible because people are doing it, but you talk about it and you say like she did the impossible. And, we went on sub and that book died on sub. And then she told me, why don't you write something said in Venezuela? Because that book was said in Los Angeles, I think.

Yeah.

And she said, why don't you write something said in Venezuela? At that point I was still writing ya and I tried a few ideas and none of them stuck. I was watching, Viviana's podcast on YouTube, like she has a show on YouTube and I was watching her interview Edgar Ramirez. I was just watching my thing and the first part of an idea came and I was like, what if this woman had a child? What would it be like to.

Yes.

raised by somebody like her, like she knows so many people. She's so iconic, she's so beloved. What would it be like to be raised by her? So that was the first part of an idea. And the second one was, I was listening to, I don't know if you know them, Morat. They're Colombian. So I was listening to them and\ Their Love songs are so Good, and I said, what if these people like gave love advice, like they would be so good at giving love advice. Because I mean, they write great love songs, so they must be good giving love advice. And I kind of merged those two ideas and that's how The Ex-perimento came, like the main concept for there's this woman who, her mother is this public figure that everybody loves and then something happens and she needs love advice from a guy in a band. And I started writing it I was like so obsessed with the idea that I wrote like 20,000 words in a week or something, and I sent it to my agent and she said, okay, just keep going and we'll see where this go. I like this idea. I like where you go with it, just keep writing it. And I did. And everybody that I sent it, like my other cps, were like, also, we love it so much. It's so good. You should I, we think this is the book, like several people told me, I think this is the book. I was like, I don't know, maybe it is. It was another celebrity romance. And the main reason why the first book didn't sell was because it was a celebrity romance. Like I was told. I don't know if it's true or not, but

it The market has changed 'cause

yeah.

trending now with the Taylor Swift and stuff like that. So there's some celebrity stuff. It wasn't, I think when you were selling the market, 'cause I've been doing this for

Yeah.

It

selling.

the five years ago, it was not selling. It was like I had, I have friends who had died in submission or died even getting an agent represented. 'cause people were not buying celebrity stuff. It has changed, like we have some celebrities. We get a lot of

Mm-hmm.

Swift and fiction that's been going on right now. So God bless it. But, the market's fickle.

It is, the market is fickle.

Yeah.

It's not because I think that

can just repackage that book and, see if it sells again, maybe make them adult and have some spicy scenes.

I've thought about it like maybe we can.

personally when you were saying, I was like,. I want that because it has the elements that we love. We got fake dating, we got relationship, we got the bad boy, we got the good girl, we got opposites of track. I can sell that book in no time.

Yeah, I love that book. I have thought about it. But I don't know, we'll see what happens. But I think that when I got an agent, a lot of people say that publishing is a matter of timing and luck and, having the right book when the right trend is going on. When on the trenches, on the query trenches, it was during the pandemic and everybody wanted romcoms, everybody. Every agent wanted a romcom because they just wanted to escape and they just wanted to be happy. So I was lucky enough to have a romcom during that time.

Yeah.

now I don't know if everybody wants to escape

Oh, we

their countries,

we're

we still, yeah.

We're still escaping. I think it's an equal opportunity. 2025 been an interesting year for everyone,

It has been an interesting year. Yeah.

escaping. I, as I was telling you, so word listeners, this book, the FI device I get 10. How to lose a guy in 10 days. Around that area. Done Horse Prada, we get singing competition. We got like a Sweeny hero. And I was selling this hand, selling this book to my friends and I was like, you gotta put this in a pre-order. Like it's it is the romcom that we like. It is also said in Venezuela, it's also said in a culture that you probably have not experienced. And it gives you an insight. I love that the mother is a former Miss Universe because as a Puerto Rican and Venezuela, we used to compete head to head for the Miss Universe. This is an important thing in our culture. The Miss Universe, the pageantry around that.

Yeah, I made her like the most prolific person she could have been while also making her kind of, washed out. Star because like you were saying at the beginning, we don't get that anymore. Like we don't get that type of content or TV anymore. So people who're like iconic, they're doing other things because the TV that they used to make, they don't make that anymore. So they had to evolve with it. But I try to make, I named Viviana after Viviana dit, in honor of her. We love you. Everything that she was in, we love her. She's iconic too. Like she's a national treasure.

Yeah.

I made Viviana. Macho the mother, like I met her, everything. She was a singer, she was an actress, she was Miss Universe. She was a model, she was a whatever she wanted to be. She went and she was that.

path. That was the path. Because I even went to school, I think I shared with you, I went to school in Puerto Rico and one of the girls I went to school who was like, her dream was to be a miss universe.

Mm-hmm.

was to do that. And you wouldn't think of it like you were like, when you meet her, you're like, oh, okay. And she. competed in 2005, I think, and didn't make it to the cut for Miss Puerto Rico. And then she competed again and waited to Miss Puerto Rico and then actually made it to, I think she was second place in the pageant. And then after that she's been an influencer. She's been in, her accent does not sound like the same way I talk. They have cleaned up your accent. And they're doing all these different thing nerd influencers. They have the stuff like, so it's a path. Like it's our OG influencers, see influencers in Instagram. Our OG ones were our Miss Universe,

yeah.

actors, in our media.

Yeah. And they had to do everything and you would go on to see them on a bunch of stuff, like talk shows and Yeah. You would go to see them On any, on everything.

commentary on the Miss Universe pageant or any other pageant or any, they'll do fashion segments.

Mm-hmm.

one I watched Puerto Rican tv 'cause I don't like American tv. And so in the morning show we got our. OG Miss Universe, from like the 1990, she still does fashion commentary. She does like how a proper etiquette and how to do, they have modeling schools. They do they do all these different things to kind of like what you think of a beauty pageant.

Yeah.

career in Latin America. It is not about what career in the US but Latin America. That was a career that people aspire to.

Yeah. And it paid off like

Did.

it did.

All right, so let's talk some book recommendations.

Okay.

type of books do you recommend nerd listeners to pick off?

I would say just speak up, anything that you wanna read without a care in the world, the romance General sometimes is very, looked down on, is that a, I think that's the word. That's the way they, it's supposed to be said. And same as fantasy or romantic or science fiction or anything. So for me, I'm not an intellectual reader, as in I'm not looking to learn when I read, if I learn something cool or if I find something interesting enough for me to read, as in. To learn, fine, I will do it. But I mostly read for entertainment. I will read because I wanna be happy and I'll read because I wanna escape and I read because I want to laugh or because I'm bored, so I don't want something that will put me to sleep. So I read in a way that it's like. You don't, I don't care what anybody says when I read what I read, like I'm gonna read romance and it's fine and I wanna, I'm gonna read ya and it's fine. And I'm gonna read a middle grade novel and it's fine because that's what I feel like I want to read in order to feel entertaining, to be happy. So just basically read anything you want to read and within that scope, if you want to read romance, like my favorite romance novel of the last five years was. What was it called? You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle. I loved that book. That was such a funny book. I can't wait for the movie, by the way. Because when I first started, I think it came out in 2020 or 2019,

Yeah,

but

it was bef around the pandemic

yeah, it wasn't around the Pandemic. I read that book and I was obsessed with it.

Mm-hmm.

It's so funny. It is what a romcom should be.

Yeah.

It is what a romcom should be. If you're reading fantasy and you want to learn more about Venezuelan culture, I recommend reading Gabriela Romero, LA Cruz. She wrote a duology based on Venezuelan folklore. It's so good. If you want to learn more about Venezuelan folklore, that is, those two books are the books. If you're Venezuelan, it's gonna be so relatable. She has all the food. She has the monsters. She has a version of Simon Bolivar like she has everything in it.

gosh.

It's so cool. I met her like we've been friends. While, because we met through Pitch Worth

Mm-hmm.

and I was lucky enough to read like an early version of the book, and I just call like the character I just call, and that's it, but she has ketchup, but she has el sibo, which is a monster that we have, like a legend. It has everything and it has romance. It has adventure. I can recommend it enough. It's so good. What else? If you like horror, there's a Colombian author. Her name is, it's my Colombian friend, but I also really, she's one of the best authors that I've, that I know that her book is called V Chica. I don't personally like horror 'cause I don't like to be scared. But I read the book and the book is so good. I only read it because I saw the backstage of it as she was writing it, and I didn't feel like it was possessed or anything. So I, that's how I read it. But it's so good. It's called Bo Chica is very Colombian. It has a gothic vibe, so I recommend that for anybody who's like looking to read horror, but also looking to learn a little bit about other. Cultures, other, legends from those cultures too, history 'cause it has a bit of a historical element and a bit of a gothic element and a bit of a horror element. So it's a very good book. I loved it by Carolina Flores said Chi Lab book. What else? Oh, I think that's it. I can't recommend a lot of rom-coms 'cause that's mostly what I read.

Yeah.

I'm a huge Emily Henry fan. My favorite, but I don't know if you wanna take my advice. 'cause my favorite Emily Henry book is most people's least favorite, which is People in the Middle Vacation. So many people hate that book. I love that book. I think it's the best Emily Henry book. I don't understand the hate towards it, but I can't wait for the movie either.

It is a romcom. I did interview the actually, because Yuin King the movie, and so she

Mm-hmm.

great. It's a rom drama. It's how to Write a love story or something like that. You and King. So there, it's

I know what book you're talking about.

They're both in a writer's room and she thought he killed sister

Mm-hmm.

it was like this really high concept and we're like, how this is gonna work. But it's so good. And so LY actually came on the show and she was like in the process scouting locations for people unification, and she was, brought and talk about the process of even writing. I think she was writing Beat Reads as a screen fighter and all this different things. So I'll link that, for listeners who are like, you don't wanna go down the Emily Henry Rabbit

Cool.

But yes, people moving to vacation, it's so much fun. There's like traveling. It's

just traveling and being funny

Yes.

well, I love Emily Henry and I have read, I have yet to read the last one. The Big, beautiful Life. I haven't read that one yet, but I've read all the other books and I love her. Like all her books are five stars for me all the time. I feel like she doesn't totally write romcoms. She writes romance, but they're not always romcoms. But people we meet on vacation does feel like a romcom. Like it's funny, it's Sony, it has everything like that book feels like a romcom. And I think probably funny story also feels like a romcom to me.

Yeah.

I read Happy Place and I was like, it's not making me happy.

No,

I loved it. I loved it, but it did not make me happy. I was sad for most of it.

Yes. I understand. Hotel,

Well, you can find me on Instagram as Maria j Morillo LL author. Yeah, that's Maria. I never know how to, Maria j MariJo.

Yeah.

Author. You can find me on threats, same handle thank you. I had such a good time.

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