Meryl Wilsner Brings Sapphic Summer Spice To Dipsea

Meryl Wilsner knows how to write about queer love. With three popular romance books under their belt— Cleat Cute, Mistakes Were Made, and Something to Talk About—they’ve made a name for themself as a romance novelist. They create stories for everyone, but especially women who love women and the sapphic energy comes through on every page. Which is exactly why we wanted to collaborate with them here at Dipsea and how The Detour, a brand new full cast audio drama exclusively on our app, was created.

The Detour is a summer roadtrip story reimagined, think Thelma and Louise but the sapphic storyline isn’t just in the subtext…

After a heartbreaking breakup, Alex is leaving her old life behind and heading to Los Angeles for a fresh start. But when her car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, her cross-country journey takes an unexpected detour. Stranded in a small town with no hotel in sight, she finds herself at the mercy of Sierra, a rough-around-the-edges mechanic, who couldn't be more different from Alex.

Reluctantly agreeing to stay with Sierra while her car is repaired, Alex braces herself for an awkward week in unfamiliar territory. But as the days go by, an undeniable connection begins to form between the two opposites. Worlds collide as the sarcastic Sierra shows Alex a side of life she's never experienced, and Alex's charm starts to crack Sierra's tough exterior.

The Detour is everything a summer romance should be—messy, sexy, and queer. To celebrate the release of this brand new story, we interviewed Meryl about the project. Here’s what they had to say:

What made you want to create this series with Dipsea?

I always want to push myself with my writing, and working with Dipsea was a great opportunity to do that. Telling a story through mostly dialogue, over only three episodes? I’ve never done something like that before. But more than just a chance to try new things, I knew writing for Dipsea would be fun, and that’s so important to me, to find joy in my work.

What inspired you while writing The Detour?

Honestly, I couldn’t stop thinking about how the episodes would sound once produced. It’s such a team effort to bring Dipsea stories to life, and that drove a lot of my work—thinking about the emotions and character and sass the voice actors would bring, imagining the audio cues for background noises or scene changes.

How was the experience of writing for audio different from writing for the page?

It’s so different! Establishing setting, describing characters, literally everything is different writing for audio. Like I said on the last question, creating a story with Dipsea is a team effort. I had to trust that the voice actors would imbue these characters with the emotions I imagined for them, because that wasn’t something I could just put on the page. And of course, the voice actors are amazing and hit it out of the park, but it was just such a different process of writing. It was a very good lesson in show don’t tell, because when writing for the page, there are always going to be times you do just tell the reader something, but that wasn’t so much an option with writing audio. It uses different writing muscles.

Do you have any favorite moments or lines from the scripts?

I really love when Alex takes charge in the first episode when they’re hooking up. Sierra is this butch mechanic, and I think, you know, you probably expect her to be more of the top in the situation. But Alex is not shy when it comes to getting what she wants.

And I love pretty much any time either of them calls the other one sweetheart.

What do you hope listeners take away from this series?

I mean…I’m not sure it’s appropriate to say. Seriously, though, I want listeners to think it’s hot! I write romance because I love romance, and of course there are a lot of important lessons about loving yourself and letting yourself be loved, but also sometimes the most important part for me is that it’s hot. Not everything has to be that deep!

Tropes are so popular in fiction...what are some of your favorites in the queer romance genre?

I always say my favorite trope is forbidden romance, but that’s really a cheat answer because it encompasses so many others. Forbidden can mean boss-assistant, age gap, best friend’s sibling (or mom 😏), and even something less obvious like rivals to lovers. I just love anything where characters know they really shouldn’t be falling for each other, but they do anyway.

What do you imagine comes next for Sierra and Alex?

It’s tempting to say they live happily ever after, but I don’t know that we leave them in a place where we can be sure that’s where they end up. Alex has more work to do on figuring out what it is that she wants in life, and maybe a long term relationship with Sierra fits with that and maybe it doesn’t. That’s another way writing this was different than writing a book—this series is really only a glimpse into the lives of these characters. Their future is nebulous. What comes next? Whatever you want.