Grab your ginger ale, your hockey pucks, and your intense sense of longing, because we’re heading to the cottage. Cleveland author Sonia Feldman joins us to discuss the Heated Rivalry phenomenon—the hit show and its cultural impact, the art of adapting romance novels, and what it means to be girls who love boys who love boys. We also turn to another form of queer love found in Feldman’s forthcoming debut literary novel, Girl’s Girl.

Come for the hockey romance but stay for an in-depth discussion covering Feldman’s writing process, how she discovered the true heart of her novel midway through writing, why she read the entire manuscript out loud to a friend, how she determined she was ready to query literary agents, and more. Finally, be sure to stick around to the end for some rapid rivalry questions that make us contemplate ginger ale and vodka cocktails, raves vs. book events, favorite Heated Rivalry episodes, and our love of figure skating. See you on the ice for the happily ever after.

Content warning: This episode generally references sex depicted on screen in Heated Rivalry and in romance novels at large.

Sonia Feldman is a recipient of the PEN America PEN/Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, and her poetry and fiction have been published in literary journals like The Missouri Review, The Southern Review, and Waxwing. She runs Sonia’s Poem of the Week, a popular email newsletter. Girl’s Girl, her first novel, is forthcoming from Dial Press on June 2, 2026. Sonia lives and writes in Cleveland. Visit her website, follow her on Instagram at @writsonia, and preorder Girl’s Girl from Loganberry Books or wherever books are sold. Author photo credit: Lizzy Montana Myers.

Page Count is produced by Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. For full show notes and an edited transcript of this episode, visit the episode page. To get in touch, email ohiocenterforthebook@cpl.org (put “podcast” in the subject line) or follow us on Instagram or Facebook.