Meet the Authors, Robin and Jody

The authors of The Spectrum Series, Robin Bradley and Jody Leber-Pay, formed a writing partnership in October 2016. These close friends bonded over their love of storytelling, spinning elaborate contemporary fiction novels that defy genre norms and keep readers on their toes. They took the pen name Bradley Pay, and here they describe the adventure of writing together.

Writing with a partner is hard! It has its unique set of challenges, but it also keeps us motivated when we really just want to quit. We laugh a lot and quibble over words and storylines. We’ve learned how to compromise without affecting the quality of our writing and how to keep pushing ourselves to find a better answer when we aren’t satisfied with the results of our work. 

We initially met on a river cruise in August of 2016, part of a group cruising with a mutual friend. One rainy day, six of us found ourselves sitting in the bar of the boat as we traversed a set of locks. We all shared several bottles of Chianti that afternoon, and quite a number more over the ensuing days. It began when Jody made a quip about a man slouched over on the prow of the boat next to us in the lock - and then the stories began. They were just all silliness and wild romantic adventures; we created names for ourselves as we took parts in the stories. One of us became Gia, a carefree young woman who loved to hike; Robin became Remy (something to do with her penchant for nice cognac in the evening after dinner), who is an artist and university professor; then came Isabelle, Penelope, and Mercedes. Oddly, Jody never took on a role; however, there was a Turkish rug dealer, inspired by her husband, Gavin. As we repeated this afternoon amusement over several days during the cruise, we put together quite a set of stories.

We were intrigued by the idea of translating our stories into something more substantial, something we could actually publish. We met in October that year in a hotel halfway between our homes, and there our long-distance writing partnership began.

It has been a challenge, learning how to write fiction, how to narrate a series of five interconnected stories that span several decades. We had to transform that initial silliness into complex and interesting stories. Perhaps most importantly, we are two strong-willed women who had to figure out how to collaborate; we each bring such different personalities, skills and backgrounds to this work.