A Conversation with Addie about Meet Cute

When Anatomy of a Meet Cute was announced, the idea was quirky enough that I got a lot of people asking me where my ideas for a rom com set in a community hospital doula program came from (And, I get it. It is an unusual place to set a rom com!). Luckily, I had the chance to do a Q&A to answer all those questions about where I get my ideas from and other *slightly* embarrassing things about my process. If you haven’t read Meet Cute and you want to pick it up, I got your links here:

Hope you enjoy this look into my strange little mind. Ha!

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Q: You tend to write contemporary romances with bigger themes. For this book, how did you land on doulas and healthcare inequality and think, “There’s a rom com in there”?

A: This question is a bit embarrassing because I feel like the answer offers insight into my very weird mind! In general, I’m fascinated by the ways in which individuals and institutions try to fill the gap ineffective governance and public policy often create. (Nerdy, I know. I have a degree in public administration for a reason). During the pandemic, when we were all reading any health news we could get our hands on, Stanford Medicine published an article with findings about the poor birth outcomes that queer families experience. As a Black woman, I’m acutely aware of the depressing statistics for my community as well. It made me curious about who the system works for and what mitigating actions could be taken to help communities like mine. That led to an internet rabbit hole looking at studies done on pregnancy outcomes for people who had access to doulas or birthing coaches. At the same time, I heard a funny story about a physician who was on a plane when an emergency happened. They were a specialist and spent the whole flight internally panicking because they felt like they didn’t remember enough about emergency medicine from med school be helpful. Luckily, there was an emergency nurse on board and the person was fine. The two ideas crisscrossed in my mind and that is where the idea was born!

Q: You often write about family, are there any similarities between your family and the families in this book?

A: I do write about family a lot! My family is much closer to the family I wrote about in The Checklist and The Bounce Back—quirky, but loving. I am so grateful not to have a mother like Sam’s—yikes! To me, Anatomy of a Meet Cute is a celebration of a different kind of family—the chosen kind. With this book, I wanted to explore chosen family and the special role they play in helping you through the messy process of becoming your own person.

Luckily, I have a steadfast set of friends that I can rely on. One of my best friends is a total Jehan, a planner with a quiet, sharp wit. Similarly, our other bestie has some serious Duke tendencies—charm for days. Both of them have a penchant for encouraging my most outrageous and farfetched choices…including me buying a hot pink, furry jacket that makes me look like a Lisa Franke character and Big Bird had a tragic baby. If things go wrong and one of us has to sit and cry, the others will do whatever it takes to help. We will get on a planes, give tough love, or sit on the floor and eat some ice cream to pull each other through.

Q: Were you ever worried about writing aspects of this book? As you were drafting, what kept you up at night, and why?

A: So many things! The most obvious was getting the medical details right. I’m not a medical professional or a doula, so I had to rely on interviewing people who worked in the industry. So many people were generous with their time in order to help me get the details right, and I really didn’t want to let them down. The silly thing I worried about was mixing up my Bay Area geography. I live here, but I am notoriously terrible with street names and directions. I still get lost going to my best friend’s house! Needless to say, I live in terror that I mixed up a street name and will forever have characters driving the wrong direction down a one-way road. (If I did this, do not tell me. Just let me live in oblivious peace.)

Q: Your name has an unusual history, where did it come from?

A: My real name is a family name, and I love it! But, I also love not having weirdos from the internet bother me in real life, so I chose a new family name—Addie Woolridge. She was my grandmother’s grandmother and the first woman in my family (whose name I know) to be emancipated. Reading for her would have been illegal, so I love that I can put her name on a book. It’s a form of rebellion, an act of self-definition, and a reminder of who paved the way for me to be here.

Q: How did you get into opera?

A: In elementary school, I struggled with a reading disorder. Learning to navigate that was challenging and even though I really liked school, the stress of being in a classroom during reading time and the meltdowns over homework were not fun. My parents were worried that my little-kid confidence would take a hit so they went in search of something I could be good at outside of academics. My elementary school music teacher mentioned that I could carry a tune, so my parents had me audition for a competitive children’s choir. I was accepted and I loved it from day one! No one could read Latin in choir so I was on even ground there. And, it turned out that I could project like a fog horn. Best of all, I didn’t struggle to read symbols, so I could work on reading music and feel successful while I was struggling to figure out words. Eventually, words came more easily and by the seventh grade I was reading like a champ, but by then I was hooked on classical music!

Q: You are a marathon runner and you are finishing up the seven continents challenge. Which races do you have left, and what’s been your favorite so far?

A: I have Australia and an Arctic race to go. I hoping to run the Sydney marathon this year after three years of waiting! My favorite race has been the Cape Town marathon, in South Africa. By running standards, it was the worst race I’ve ever run, but I do not care because the other runners were incredible. They were generous, friendly, encouraging, and compelling. The part that amazed me was the singing. During apartheid, many different cultures were forced to live together, which meant that people learned each other’s languages and songs out of necessity. If one runner started singing to pass the time or get through a rough bit of the course, other runners who knew the song would join in to support them. I’ve never seen or heard anything like it. It was worth flying to the other corner of the globe to experience, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

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