It’s Tuesday night, and romance author Lish McBride is gearing up for trivia night. 

“I host trivia at Hemlock State Brewing Company in Mountlake Terrace,” laughs McBride of her unusual weekly gig. “Being a writer is a weird job. It’s very stressful in many ways. So, I love my trivia on Tuesday nights.” 

She also loves Seattle—the city she moved to when she was 21 years old and snagged a job at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park. “I already had a book out, but I needed a day job,” says McBride, who now lives just north of Seattle. “I was originally hired at the attached café Honey Bear Bakery, but eventually I transferred into the bookstore. It was actually a pay cut because I wouldn’t get tips. But I figured the book discount kind of made up for it.” She left the bookshop in early 2019, after about seven years.

Her job at Third Place Books gave her a front row seat to the publishing world, an experience she would draw on throughout her career. “Learning publishing from that end was invaluable,” says McBride, who refers to herself as a hybrid writer, utilizing both traditional publishing and self-publishing. “I have a perspective on books on the shelf––what readers actually say about books, what covers work, and what publishing houses are better at getting these books to the bookstore. And because I worked events (at Third Place Books) for so long, I got really good at public speaking too.”

McBride’s love of creativity began when she was growing up in the small town of Silverdale, Washington. “I started reading really young,” she says. “As soon as I figured out someone made books, I realized that was what I wanted to do. I was lucky that I had a mom and a stepmom who were very supportive of reading and writing and would always run me to the library.” 

Despite her love for words, McBride says she struggled personally and academically in high school—something her 10th grade English teacher picked up on. “She told me, ‘there are people that are really good at writing and there are people that can do it for a living, and I think you can do it for a living,’” recalls McBride. Even with the reassurance, McBride ended up dropping out of high school—but years later, she tracked the teacher down on Facebook to share the news that she had, in fact, become an author. “Basically, I wanted to let her know that I didn’t die in a ditch,” laughs McBride. “I’m perfectly fine.”

McBride is more than fine. She’s gone on to write a total of ten novels, including her debut Hold Me Closer, Necromancer, her first adult book A Little Too Familiar, and her newest young adult novel Red in Tooth and Claw. “I write romance, and I credit that almost entirely to the fact that I grew up in a very dude-heavy household,” says McBride, who was raised with three brothers and multiple male cousins. “Plus, basically the books I really loved were the ones that had romance in them.” 

That realization snuck up on her. “I wasn’t against writing romance,” McBride recalls. “But the more I read it, I just kind of fell more in love with it. I realized it was something I did want to do.” 

She’s hardly alone. Romance sales have more than doubled in the past four years, and Seattle even welcomed its first romance-only bookstore, Lovestruck in Seattle, this summer.

“It’s been the most fun,” says McBride. “I love how responsive the readership is and how voracious they are. It’s been nothing but good.” Her love for the genre has only grown—especially as readers increasingly search for an escape from the real world. “Romance brings joy, and it brings connection and as a reader, it brings with it an amazing community,” explains McBride. “And those are all things that we kind of desperately need right now.”

Her next young adult book, Most Likely To Murder, is set for release in March. She’s drafting a new adult fantasy romance for her agent. And she’s been meaning to get back to work on a book she’s writing on Patreon. Her most recent release, The Suitcase Swap, came out in August, a later-in-life love story about two strangers whose luggage gets mixed up at JFK. “I am a little over the place,” laughs McBride. 

McBride admits the industry can be daunting, but she still urges writers to keep going. “You have to be a little hopeful, and you have to have some fight in you because it’s an industry that’s really hard to get into,” McBride says. “It’s really hard to stay in, and it’s not always very nice to you. But the thing that keeps me going on the days where I want to chuck my laptop into the ocean is those moments where a kid comes up and says, ‘this book mattered to me.’”

McBride shrugs off the uncertainty with a laugh. “Writers don’t usually retire, you know?”

See Lish McBride at The Grimm Market in Monroe on Oct. 11, 5-8 p.m.