Rachel Koller Croft

Laura: [00:00:00] Hi, Rachel, welcome to watch your next podcast.

Rachel: Hi, Laura. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here with you today.

Laura: So happy to have you here. So tell us a little bit about yourself.

Rachel: I'm Rachel Kohler Croft. I am a novelist. I've written the book Stone Cold Fox and the forthcoming We Love the Nightlife. I'm also a WGA Award nominated screenwriter and I live in Los Angeles with my husband and my rescue pit bull, Juniper.

Laura: I love this. So how did you get started writing? Like, what was your journey and also writing? You know, in Hollywood, it's LA is different from writing novels, too. So what's the transition? What's it like for you? Yeah.

Rachel: Yeah, well, we have a lot of ground to cover. Let's see. I mean, I've been writing since I was a little girl. I think most start quite young. But I wasn't sure if it could be my job 1 day. I don't know, and it's, you know, I had parents [00:01:00] that believed in me and things like that, but I come from kind of a blue collar neighborhood on the northwest side of Chicago, and I just didn't see anyone doing those things.

Rachel: But I've, I've come to learn I'm very galvanized. When I go through a breakup, initially moved to Los Angeles after I went through a bad breakup with my British ex boyfriend, cause I was going to move to England to be with him. And I said, F this, I'm moving to California. So I packed up my little Honda and moved out here and I did get a writing job.

Rachel: I got a job at a celebrity gossip blog. That was very popular at the time. And I remember thinking I've made it, I'm a Hollywood writer. But it was a terrible job. I had to write like nasty things about people all day. It was, that was not what my revered English degree was for. And I hated it so much that I actually moved back to Chicago after a couple of years.

Rachel: But that ended up being a really good detour. So I got into my writer dreams [00:02:00] were temporarily dashed, but I'm like, I guess I got to get a real job and I got into sales, which I was really good at. I really liked and it turns out that was a really cool detour as a screenwriter because I feel like nobody tells screenwriters that 80 percent of this job is selling yourself in a room and talking about your project and being able to, you know, hype yourself.

Rachel: Help yourself and your work up. So anyway, in 2013, one of the companies I worked with in Chicago moved me to L. A. to open the market there. A quick sidebar. I was selling luxury floral arrangements for to like hotels and residential buildings and places that spend a lot of money on flowers every year.

Rachel: It was honestly a really fun job. Anyway, got involved with a screenwriter and when we broke up, I said, God, if that jerk can do it, I certainly can. So I totally pivoted and I got like a day job where I could like, you know, make a living, but I didn't have to like turn my brain on that much. And I actually [00:03:00] was doing casting for the show naked and afraid.

Laura: So do you just make it before they come

Rachel: everyone's question. No, but you kind of had to visualize it because the network always wanted like good looking.

Laura: Yeah,

Rachel: People, which is funny because it is like preppers in general are not that focused on on their looks. So it was like, okay, you have to find like people that know how to survive.

Rachel: Anyway, this is this is a tangent, but you can leave it in if you want. So anyway, I'm doing that. Doing that during the day. I'm working on my scripts and. I had entered one of my scripts into the Nickel Fellowship, which is associated with the Academy Awards. It's like, if you're going to enter screenwriting contest, that's the one you're supposed to enter.

Rachel: And long story short, a weird thing happened where my script went viral because I received a sexist comment and I stuck up for myself. And it was one of those things that everyone wanted to read it. And I ended up selling it to [00:04:00] Sony. And from there, like I kept, you know, working very steadily as a screenwriter, which was super exciting.

Rachel: And so I enjoyed it. I really liked it. I still really like it, but a lot of times you as a screenwriter are brought in to give your take on someone else's very lovely book. And you know, it's, it's hard to sell something original. It can be done. It's just in the current market, or since I've been a screenwriter since 2015, it's just challenging.

Rachel: So I was sort of lamenting this to one of my previous managers and he said something kind of sassy, like, wow, if you want all this creative control, you're going to have to write a book yourself. And I said, that's exactly what I'm going to do. And then I fired him. Oh, but then I, then I started writing stone cold box in my off time.

Rachel: So like whenever I had free time, I was working on it and it was really, really fun because. Writing scripts is fun too, but you really have to keep it snappy. You can't really linger on too many details. It's just a different type [00:05:00] of, you're, you're writing for something to be watched. You're not, I mean, no one's going to read this aside from people that might want to make it.

Rachel: It's not for consumer use, I guess is the best way to put it. Whereas like with a novel, I was like, Oh, I get to write about what she's wearing, what the room looks like that they're in and like, really get to be like the director of the book, which I really. really enjoy. And B's voice just came, I don't know if this is what this says about me, but her voice came so naturally to me, like it was really fun to, to make up this person who just goes after what she wants with no apologies.

Rachel: So yeah, and then when I wrote, and I had a solid draft that I worked on with my agent, we went out with it and it went to auction and it was very exciting and I got a two book deal. So after Stone Cold Fox, even before it came out, you know, you start working on your second book and It's not as leisurely as your first because you're on deadline.

Rachel: And then I come up with this crazy idea where I'm writing [00:06:00] about vampires. There's a supernatural element. There's two competing voices. It's in a foreign country and the, the timeline spans roughly 50 years, but we also dabble in Victorian times. So it was a really ambitious big swing and it was really hard to write, but I Love how it turned out.

Rachel: I'm really, really excited for people to read. We love the nightlife. Cause I think even if you are like, why the hell is the author of Circle of Love writing a vampire novel? I think once you read both of them, you get it because it is a story about a female friendship that goes completely off the rails.

Rachel: They just happen to be vampires.

Laura: First of all, I'm all about vampires. I feel like vampires should have their renaissance come back to it. I'm like, I'm loving, I know we had a witch renaissance lately, but I feel like vampires need to just come back. Like, we need these old ass people, you know, generations.

Rachel: vampires are my favorite spooky creature because [00:07:00] they are, they're like perfect. I always call my brand like bitches and glamour. And I feel like vampires perfectly suit my brand because they're always silly hot, like just outrageously hot. They always have a lot of money because they've been around for a long time and they're always out having fun.

Rachel: It's like they, vampires are all the spooky creatures and I love them all for different reasons, but vampires are the ones that I keep closest to my heart.

Laura: Yes, I am here for it. And so you got to go to London in some ways, you know, you were supposed to live in London, and then

Rachel: I know.

Laura: you just got to revisit a new magical world.

Rachel: I know. It's really funny because I've always been very connected to England. I don't know why. I don't have English heritage. My my dad is Irish, but that's obviously not the same. But I did my year abroad in England and I was going to move back to be with my boyfriend and then we broke up and I hadn't been in a very long time.

Rachel: And then I went on my first date with my now husband. [00:08:00] You know, you're you give like the bullet points of your life and I mentioned where I went to school in England, which is a smaller school about 2 hours north of London called the University of East Anglia, and he goes, my dad went there. I'm like, no, we did it like that.

Rachel: You're you're eating, but he did. And it was just like, kind of a funny. So my husband is half English. He has his citizenship and as luck would have it in 2022, you. My husband was shooting a project. He's a producer in Istanbul and to alleviate the time difference, his company put us up in London for a few months.

Rachel: And that was incredible. So as I was conceiving this idea, cause I was initially going to set it in New York or LA. And then I'm like, Oh no, I'm going to like set it right here. And we've since been able to go back many times. We eventually want to split our time in London and LA. Cause it is my, my, my Favorite city in the world and every place I mentioned, and we love the nightlife I've been to or spent time there.

Rachel: So I made sure, I mean, all the research [00:09:00] is legit.

Laura: Oh my gosh, I love this. Yeah, I love London. I think it's like, it's one of my favorite cities, you know, it's just there's contempt, it's like New York, but sophisticated and all money. Yeah.

Rachel: I just love how old everything is. And that actually, I think made the book so much better because you really lean into some of that old vampire lore and like the laurels just wouldn't hit in the same way in LA and the Hollywood. Exactly.

Laura: to have moved from Europe or like other countries are older than us. Like, yeah,

Rachel: have turned it probably would have turned into a totally different book and I love that like because it's this book has a lot of really specific funny things that I enjoy. So obviously London, disco, vampires, but then I snuck in like Victorian era orphan vibes. Cause I, I love like [00:10:00] the secret garden and little princesses. I even mentioned like, I love Pitbull, the singer. I mentioned him at one, but I just put in like everything I like about nightlife and partying and having fun. I was like, I'm putting it in this book. I

Laura: Yes, I love the fact that you're like you have fun and honestly it shows in the books like you have fun writing them and sometimes like you know there's something to be said when the author is having fun it's just like showing the best parts of their favorite things it's like okay I'm enjoying this ride just like I am wrote during the Stone Cold Fox and I really wanted to be friends with Bea like I just

Rachel: hearing that. Listen, some people don't like her and that's fine. I knew

Laura: just want to be friends with her like she's like my kind of people.

Rachel: Right. I, the way I describe it, it's like, if someone likes B, I'm going to like them.

Laura: Yeah, it's

Rachel: It's for me, it's like personally a good barometer of friendship.

Laura: Yes, like I, I don't know if she reminds me I live in New York for 14 years and she reminded me of that New York [00:11:00] vibe like that. Like, there's a there's a different level of, you know, of ambition, and there's a level of cutting through the old money and cutting through the old ties from boarding school and from all these places and like being like, , I'm scrappy, I'm just gonna figure this shit out.

Laura: And I'm gonna get as Farthest as possible and no holds bar. Like, yeah, that's a lot.

Rachel: you used the word scrappy, because that's truly like, I think all my characters are scrappy. Like it's just, they're, they're scrappers. They go for it. And sometimes they do bad things, but they're getting what they want.

Laura: Yes. I am here for it. So I'm so excited for, we love the nightlife. Everyone should pre order it or just buy it. It's gonna, it's gonna be a wild ride. And obviously we love vampires. So vampires are the, are a good thing to come back. So

Rachel: Hot and scary, the best combination.

Laura: they just love nightlife.[00:12:00]

Rachel: a good time. Get on board.

Laura: Yes. All right. So let's chat some Booker Women Nations. What kind of books do you tend to read?

Rachel: I read pretty widely. I do keep current with the thriller genre because that's the sandbox I'm playing in and I enjoy them. So I'm always, and I love the thriller girly community. Like, I don't know if you saw on my Instagram, I got so many juicy, great blurbs from my friends that I've met at Thriller Fest and There's a book out today I'm really excited to read.

Rachel: I just got it in the mail Liv Constantine's sequel, The Next Mrs. Parrish. I

Laura: So good. I listen

Rachel: I have work to do today, but I'm like, oh, I just want to sit down and read that book. So definitely read a lot of thrillers. I'm really excited for Robin Harding's next thriller, The Haters. I love The Drowning Woman, and I also just love her.

Rachel: She's very, very cool. I'm excited for Mae Cobb's new one, The Hollywood Assistance. And, oh, and Rachel Harrison has a vampire book coming out called So Thirsty, and her book comes out, I think, the month after [00:13:00] mine, September. So I'm excited to read hers too. And on that note, like, I do read a fair amount of horror.

Rachel: I really like to be scared. I watch a lot of scary movies too. It's just sort of, I don't know, I'm a Scorpio. We're sickos. We like what we like. But I read a lot of literary fiction too. And I love when it's funny, like I feel like the Irish British girls are really hitting it in specific ways, like the Rachel incident by Caroline O'Donohue.

Rachel: I love book, good material by Dolly Alderton, really good actually by Monica Hyde. I don't know. There's just, I, again, I feel very connected to that place. There's like a sense of humor or something that I just, I really connect to. What else? I'm in I'm in a book club that I started in LA 10 years ago.

Rachel: We just celebrated our 10 year, I guess six months ago. We celebrated our tenure year, which is really cool.

Laura: That's really amazing.

Rachel: yeah, and it's really fun because we all don't have the exact same taste and it's kind of. cool because I'm often reading things. Maybe I wouldn't necessarily pick up [00:14:00] myself. So I feel like it's a good way to keep us all reading, you know, across different genres.

Rachel: And then it's kind of cute too, because usually when there's like a creepy book, everyone's like, Oh, we know this, this is a Rachel pick. Like if there's a historical fiction pick where like, or there's like a woman at the center, it's usually my friend Maria's pick. You know what I mean? There's just like, It's like you have your identity within the club.

Rachel: And I really like that. So right now we're reading, I haven't started yet, but the frozen river by Ariel. I might be butchering her last name. But it sounds great. And then I like to read memoirs too. I just started the sociopath memoir by Patrick. I don't know how to say her last name.

Laura: I know which one you're talking about and that's on my queue. I have

Rachel: Yeah. I literally just started it last night and it's very, very good.

Rachel: I wish I was an audio book person. Cause everyone says the audio book is very, do you listen to audio

Laura: I do. So I listened to it. I'm in my audiobook era, so I got to listen to like, memoirs are great because they're just like, you'll hear the story. I find the audiobooks are great for story time. [00:15:00] Like, if you want to, , nighttime stories. So, , walk, , get you to sleep, and stuff like that.

Laura: It helps for the anxiety. Just, you get immersed. But, I, I actually listened to your book. I really love, like, Stone Cold Fox. It's so good. , it's even better in audio. It's so immersive.

Rachel: I, so I was sent, it's very nice though. They send the author, you know, several samples and you kind of get to pick, and there was one narrator that it, it's very popular and everyone really likes her, but she just, I don't know, she wasn't sry enough. And I, Carlotta's voice is so sultry and it has like a grit in it.

Rachel: And I just, I was like, no, that it's. That's, that's, that's B. And then I just selected the narrators. We're having two narrators one for Nicola and one for Amber and that was, that was really fun too. But yeah, I wish I was an audio book person because I feel like it's like a really efficient way to do it, but I find my, I, I'm not, it's not how I receive information,

Laura: You know it takes it takes practice. I would say like I got it the same way I was like a [00:16:00] voracious reader and then somehow I think I found you have to find your group But it's rereading other books reading books are like, you know Finding your speed limit also because it can be frustrating when so slow, but if you process information fast faster than you want to speed it up, but not to speed it up because then you just miss things.

Laura: And then there's also it's part it's okay to miss stuff. Like, it's okay. Like, you don't need to know every single detail. It's like you get the high levels of the story and you get to be

Rachel: I do that when I'm reading. I can be, and not every book, but sometimes a

Laura: Celebrity memoirs are a really good place to start.

Rachel: right, because you can hear their voice. I've listened to Anthony Bourdain's and I really like,

Laura: and Jessica Simpson is, I think it's like a good starter point. If

Rachel: I read their book. Oh my God. It is one of my favorite celebrity memoirs of all

Laura: listen to her

Rachel: All the names. I love, I hate, I hate when a celebrity writes a memoir and they don't tell you shit. And I'm like, you know, I'm reading this for, give us [00:17:00] the gas. And I just feel like that's what it's

Laura: So,

Rachel: Our mayor sucks.

Rachel: Nick sucks.

Laura: yes.

Rachel: I feel the total hottie, which I agree on my list. Like I just like ate that up.

Laura: So Jessica says it's a good place to reread. Britney Spears is another one. Michelle Williams does a really good job and she does the whole narration about when Justin seems genuine. It's hard.

Rachel: that clip online.

Laura: just like, you're like, holy crap, she went there. So those are like, so let me remember, so good starter and then just like, find your way, like, you know, libraries are a great place to borrow them.

Laura: Don't get yourself an Audible membership. Don't buy the audio book. You know, go for the library for

Rachel: I'll start practicing and we'll see. We'll see.

Laura: Yeah, I have a question. How did you get started with your book club? Like, how did you put people together? Like,

Rachel: Yeah, I have really hot tips about this. So I started my first book club in Chicago and how we did it was partially inspired by my [00:18:00] mom's my, when I was younger, my mom used to have a bunco club. Do you know that dice game? It's like, it's not really in fashion anymore, but like once a month they would switch houses.

Rachel: And she goes, you know, When people are doing these gatherings, there's always like pressure like don't don't do potluck. Whoever is hosting does all the food and everyone else brings a bottle of wine and that's that. And that's like been a really like as far as like the logistics of hosting really helpful because it's like you host once or twice a year depending how many people are in the club.

Rachel: At the time, and you know, and you can, you can just order pizza. No one will judge. Or we have some people in our club that are like clinically insane. They like go through the book with a fine tooth comb, find every single recipe. Like they create like a whole mood and we do book club awards every year.

Rachel: And one of our one of our categories is best host. So there's always like fierce competition for that award. But how we started it and how I started in Chicago as well, I asked two of my friends to invite two more of their friends that I didn't know. [00:19:00] And that's kind of how it started. And, you know, sometimes people dip in and out, but generally, I mean, again, the one in LA we've had for 10 years. I think six of us or so have been in since year one, but even like year two, year three, like people have really hung on. I think we have nine members right now. And sometimes people take like, like a sabbatical, like one of our dear members is getting her advanced degree and she had to move to Philadelphia for a year.

Rachel: And so she's, she's still reading the books and keeping up, but like when she moves back to LA, she just, she just comes back in. So we're very flexible that way. But so when I moved to LA I asked two of my friends to invite two more of their friends and we just kind of went from there because it's kind of, it's a really fun way to make new friends and meet people.

Rachel: And if someone doesn't stick, they don't stick. I mean, people are welcome to to leave or whatever. You're not, you know, you want people that are going to commit and then and then, oh, this is how we kind of run the [00:20:00] show. So if you're hosting. You make the food. Everyone else brings a bottle of wine. We socialize for, I don't know, 30 minutes at the top.

Rachel: And then we sit down, we do grades, letter grades. My, I'm the president, my vice president, Claire takes records of all the grades. We have the grades of like every book we've ever read. She has like, like a serious record of everything. It's so cool. Cause we did a lot of fun stuff for our 10 year, where we like did book of the decade and looked back at all these things.

Rachel: It's fun to have that data point. And then the host will lead the discussion. And then after that sort of organically wraps up, the host, as a reward for hosting, gets to pick the next book. And then we go down the list of hosting. So it's like, you have to have, I think those, not that they're like harsh rules, but like having a set order of things keeps the club sustainable.

Rachel: Because it can be and we've had like, listen, like holiday book club and everyone's like had way too much wine and we hardly talk about the book, but generally we're there to [00:21:00] talk about the book. So,

Laura: love this. I actually you just spark some ideas. I've been I've been in a new city for about three years, I'm actually moving and like to a better place. And I started to make friends and I was like, Oh, like, this is a fabulous idea to make local friends to say how I found readers. And it was like, Oh, maybe just start a book club, like, you know, this way it's organic, but same time connect with friends who have similar interests.

Laura: And so tips are so helpful. So,

Rachel: you're friends of friends, you're probably going to like them. So like, invite to people, I don't know, that like to read. That's the other thing. I was like, please invite people that actually read. Like this isn't a secret wine club. We enjoy wine, but we do like, I, people can come if they don't read the book, but it is frowned upon.

Laura: yes. Oh, thank

Rachel: to crack the wolf sometimes.

Laura: You're like, you need to have a letter grade and it's not enough for do not do

Rachel: You can do, I mean, listen, [00:22:00] I've done it too, where like, sometimes there's just a book where I'm like, I like, can't, I can't read this. And so I'm like a sad incomplete. But I do like when everyone's read the book. I mean, it's fun when we all love a book. Of course, but I really like when we get a book where it's like kind of split down the middle because the conversations are so much juicier, which is really cool.

Laura: Oh, these are great recommendations. So Rachel, thank you so much. So tell us we can find you online.

Rachel: I have a website, rachelkollercroft. com, and I have an Instagram I'm very active on, which is rachkollercroft. And I would like to be more active on TikTok, but I haven't done it yet. But my handle is the same there too. So you can watch my empty page until I get the courage to show myself.

Laura: You know, you just like, you show up and you will show up. And so who knows, TikTok maybe then, who knows? Like,

Rachel: know, I know. It's funny though, like, you know, [00:23:00] cause I'm so comfortable on Instagram. I know exactly how to work everything. And so TikTok is like, well, I don't know, but I feel, I feel like I can figure it out. So it's, it's on my to do list.

Laura: it is all good. So Rachel, thank you so much for being in the show.

Rachel: Thanks for having me.