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Megan Maxwell.
Nuremberg, 1965. Forget the English name and the German birth, she is the best-selling Spanish novelist (more than three million now) and her latest book,
Un corazón entre tú y yo
, continues to add to a silent and unstoppable phenomenon.
How is it possible that the Spanish novelist who sells the most books is almost unknown to the general public? I also wonder, don't believe it. When I go to Latin America I can't even go out on the street, but in Spain I go out like nothing. I imagine it is because the type of literature I write is not talked about much in the news or enters the awards or things like that. That is the reason. I can't understand it, but it doesn't really bother me either. Doesn't fame attract you, if only as recognition of your work? I write because I like it. Before I worked as a secretary and, thank God, today I live from my work as a writer and I live well. Once that is achieved, whether or not they know me on the street, I don't care a bit. I don't know if what I'm saying sounds a bit pedantic, but the truth is that I like that my life remains as it was. Although I also have to say that things are changing, it is not like a few years ago that absolutely no one knew me. Now rare is the day that they never say to me: "Oh, you're Megan, right?" Although we are still very far from Latin America, of course, there you have lived episodes worthy of the Beatles Totally. I arrived at the airport in Chile with my mother and as soon as I walked through the door I saw a crowd that began to run towards us. A little scared, we looked back to see who was coming, thinking it would be a footballer or someone like that, but it turns out it was because of me. The police had to come and evacuate us through private elevators ... I was amazed, of course, because when I get to Barajas at most my daughter is waiting for me to bring me home. Why do you think a genre that sells as much as The romantic novel? It is reviled because it is a literature whose readers are almost all women and women always have to work much harder. Anyway, I think it is beginning to be respected. A few years ago, when I went to a bookstore and asked for a romantic book, they always looked at me weird. And second they already told you: "Yes, it's there at the bottom." They always had them half hidden, as if they should be ashamed to buy them, which was not the case with more male genres like thrillers. On the other hand, today in any bookstore you can see that they have it in stands as perfect as any other type of literature. Breaking those prejudices has cost me and other authors a lot of work. How much machismo is there in those prejudices? When I met someone, found out that he was a novelist and asked me what he wrote, I knew that if he said that murder books he would find it more interesting than the truth. But I have always answered that I write a romantic novel. And usually the answer is either silence or "oh, these rose novels." No, excuse me, I write a romantic and erotic novel and they have the same work as a thriller, because it has a beginning, a middle and an end. I spend my life defending the romantic novel, but I am happy because I see that you are already looking at yourself with different eyes. And, hey, if you don't want to look at it like that, then don't look. It's their problem, I'm not here to solve those things anymore. Is there something that still bothers you? I hate when they say it's porn for moms, that makes me very angry. But, What are you telling me? The erotic novel is read by millions of women of all kinds. What happens is that anything that women like has to be ridiculed a bit and I don't understand it. As a writer, I know that they do not see me with the same eyes as a writer, but here I am to say: "Hey, I'm exactly like him, what happens is that as a woman I have to fight twice as much to get the things that for a writer they are easier. " Some will tell me: "Look what a feminist." Well, yes I am, because being a feminist is wanting equality, it is nothing else, it is not being more than you. And for that equality I fight. They called me feminazi and nothing of that. I am a woman who defends my rights as a woman and those of all women as women. If that bothers you, you have a problem. You have your own army, the so-called Maxwell Warriors, many of whom tattoo the name of your novels, some in the most unsuspected areas (spoiler: yes, there). Is it impressive? It's a huge responsibility, you can't imagine. I never thought that this could happen to me: neither sell so much nor have an army of warriors and more and more warriors, mind you, the boys read me more and more. It's amazing. Sometimes things happen without you looking for them and this about the warriors has happened because all the women that I write, it does not matter if it is in the thirteenth century or are current, are women with character who try to get ahead without the need for a man. Although then, logically, they fall in love because I write romantic and erotic history and I usually need a man for the plot and certain scenes. But I always write that man that we would all like from the feminine point of view. Many readers ask me where these men exist and, for now, only in books. If you find one like that, let me know that I am asking for it. What is the secret of your success? I write the way I speak, without looking for very bombastic words to sound very cultured, thinking that everyone understands it. And I tell stories that start from very normal problems and situations or normal situations, even if then I give them a little spark. I also think that this about the Warriors was something that many women needed: to belong to a group of women that does not involve anything, does not ask for anything, just talk to them, feel part of it. Before the pandemic, they would hang out with each other and it's great that women in their 60s go out for coffee with girls in their 20s and feel connected. Do you spend a lot of time with your fans? Several hours a day, yes. It's the least I can do. I carry my social networks and during the day I respond to my Warriors in Spain and when night comes I get to those from Latin America. I pay a lot of attention to social networks because, apart from that it amuses me, it is the least I can do with those people who have made my career go up.What would the nuns at your school think if they read your books? They would scandalize a lot. Two years ago they organized a meeting of former students and the nuns found out that I am a writer because many colleagues told me: "Aunt, I read you." The poor nuns freaked out: "And do you write those things?" And they laughed, but if they read it they would put their hands to their heads because, furthermore, as everyone thinks that everything I write about sex I do ... Of course, you are the voice of experience. Totally, as if it was difficult to document all kinds of sexual practices today. You cannot imagine how many people write to me to ask questions and to give them advice on sex or relationship issues ... Let's see, I write erotic novels and I try that when you read them, your libido increases, logically I do not write those scenes so that you stay as usual, but I am neither an expert nor a sexologist. How did you start? I have always liked them very much. I had never thought of reading, but writing. I was the typical newspaper girl and things like that. But over the years I was bored at home, there were no social networks or so many television channels, I didn't even have a computer, and I took a pen and paper and started to write. And after two or three days I I realized that I had created characters and a story that I continued to develop until I finished a novel called Almost a Novel. I printed it for my mother, my aunt ... the typical. And since they liked it a lot, they asked me for another one and that's how I spent 6 years: writing novels for my family that I didn't send to publishers. I thought: "Who is going to want to publish me? If I had to stop studying early because I had to work to help out at home ... If I don't have studies or a sponsor, I don't know anyone influential, and I don't know if I write well." But my family insisted that I try and, in the end, I sent one to shut up ... and they rejected me. Did many reject you? For 12 years, I spent 12 years receiving one no after another. What happens is that when they rejected me the first time, self-esteem entered me and I looked for the yes until it arrived. Living from writing never entered your plans? I worked as a secretary in a legal office and was a mother too. When he put the children to bed, he would give me an hour and a half to write every night. But it was pure hobby, the time to do what I liked. And how did you receive the first yes? It was when I least expected it. I signed up for an online romance novel course to see what I was doing wrong. Many publishers, when they rejected my novel, they told me that the women I created had too much character and I had to lower it. And shit, I do not lower my character because I have it and I have surrounded myself with women like that. I grew up in a house with my grandmother, my mother and my two aunts, not a man. So, don't tell me that women have less character. So I signed up for the course and the final work was a novel. I didn't even send it to the professor, because I thought he wasn't going to burden that man with 300 pages, but he called me to ask for it, he read it and he came back to me that he was an editor and wanted to publish it. I had a hit. It was a small publishing house in Seville and that's where my career began. Was it all shot yet? No way, it was just that novel. Then I kept sending the publishers and they kept saying no, until yeses began to arrive and, finally, Planeta knocked on my door. And that Planet was one of the ones that had rejected me the most. Revenge is served cold. Yes, it is also that my own current editor rejected them. We laughed because we both saved the emails from then and all the novels he rejected are published today by them. But, well, maybe the right moment was now and not the previous one. They have bought the rights to your erotic saga to make movies. I'm super happy with that, it's tremendous. You have a part of fear because you already know that a movie and a book often differ a lot, but, yes, we have sold the seven titles of Ask me what you want to Versus Entertainment and Warner Bros. I am living a dream that I never imagined that I I could live. Do you notice the pull of the Fifty Shades of Gray phenomenon? It has helped a lot. Fifty Shades have been important and, look what I'm going to tell you, the Twilight saga. Because in both there is a love story through the middle that directs the whole plot and people began to be interested in those kinds of books where they tell you a love story seasoned with other themes, be they vamipros or sex. They have encouraged a lot to read romantic and erotic novels.
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See links of interest
Work calendar
Barcelona - Elche, live
Atalanta - Real Madrid, live
Borussia Mönchengladbach - Manchester City
Zenit Saint Petersburg - Valencia Basket
Napoli - Granada CF