CassAsks - Dani Wilde (Patreon)

I'm not much of a poetry gal (you might be able to tell one day when my Alyssa/Whitney book comes out, as it took myself and Monica quite some time to fine tune a poem) -

So when Dani -- very well known on social media as Dani Roberts, someone who has been a lovely patron for quite some time, as well -- expressed an interest in doing a CassAsks after publishing, I was very intrigued by the opportunity to ask some questions to someone that has published a sapphic poetry collection.

Read on to see what she has to say:

1. Your writing debut is called Read My Lips, and it is all sexy sapphic poetry. What inspired you to write/publish it now?

To be honest, I didn’t set out to write or publish a poetry collection this year, but I needed a positive outlet to channel the grief and rage I’ve internalized since the U.S. election and to process some personal grief. I chose sexy sapphic poetry as an intentionally explicit act of queer resistance—women fully embodied in their wanting, their pleasure, their power.

Read My Lips is written entirely in acrostic form, and my intent for each piece (there are ~70) is to evoke the essence of the word it spells by creating a sensory experience. I wanted to celebrate—in great detail—the complexity of how it feels to be a woman who loves women in a deceptively simple format. 

2. Have you always wanted to write? Why poetry?

I’ve always loved to write and can remember writing poetry as far back as elementary school. I remember practicing different poetry styles I learned in eighth grade and still have my (cringe) pieces in a composition book somewhere. In college, I took multiple creative writing courses as well. Writing is part of who I am.

I love writing poetry, specifically because it helps me make sense of the world, and I equally love reading poetry because it helps me understand the world through someone else’s eyes and heart. There’s so much beauty and weight in the words people choose to describe what they’re bearing witness to in the moment. I just wanna create and connect with art that makes me feel something…I struggled to find that through a sapphic poet lens, so I made it myself! 😆

3. Piggy-backing on that – what was your first fandom you ever joined (if you were into a fandom). Did you read fic for it? Have you ever written fic? 

Does the HCLU count?! I’ve read and re-read everything you’ve written, and am obsessed with the AUs and bonus chapters. I’ve participated in the book clubs and servers because I can’t get enough of the characters & how you write. I’ve never written fic.

4. What inspires you to write a new poem? Is it a specific line or a word or an idea you’re trying to describe?

If you could only see my Notes app. EVERYTHING! I spend an exorbitant amount of time in my head, so writing poetry is my way of connecting the dots; I’m also a deeply empathetic person, so it’s a great way to put language to and process what I’m feeling so it doesn’t just live in my body forever.

I mostly explore themes around identity, grief, intimacy, and hope. And anything can inspire an idea really...a song, a conversation, a larger systemic issue, something I’m personally going through. I’ve mostly found it’s just about paying attention to the world around me, tuning into my senses/feelings, and then channeling it onto paper.

5. Are you interested in writing any fiction? Any sapphic romance novels on the horizon?

You know…I do have interest in at least trying to write sapphic fiction one day. Right now, I’m actually working toward a publishing deal for a non-fiction aligned with my day job; I intend to write a memoir one day as well. I’m really enjoying the process of writing, and I’m even starting to think of myself as an artist (which honestly feels very weird?). The poetry collection will be my debut published work, so if it lands positively, I’d love to explore what else I’m made of once I have more creative and calendar capacity!

6. All right, enough about writing (blasphemy! Just for a couple of questions, though) – because your main pursuit in terms of vocation for the last several years has been generating a platform as an anti-career coach. Why don’t you take a second to briefly share what that’s about?

So the first thing I will say about this is that I am publishing Read My Lips under the pen name Dani Wilde…because what I wrote would most certainly get me written up with HR in a corporate environment (so maybe think twice before gifting it to a coworker 🤣). 

Also, thank you for this question! My platform as an anti-career coach is all about helping people change their relationship with work and redefine success on their own terms (and trash talking capitalism along the way). We’re at a breaking point in the workplace–and I hope to build a more human-first future of work where we define true wealth as well-being.

I also just did a TEDx, where I discuss what hustle culture is costing us on an individual, organizational, and societal level – fucking awesome experience. Really enjoyed being on stage, and looking forward to doing more of it in the future.

My mantra is dream jobs don’t exist—as me publishing this poetry collection indicates, we’re way too multifaceted to be just one thing, or to center our identity around our careers. I intend to stay curious and explore it all.

7. What started you down that path?

It’s been a decade-plus-long unfolding, but it started when my mom died from cancer when I was 23 just nine weeks after her diagnosis. I couldn’t afford to take unpaid leave, so I worked from hospital waiting rooms and her bedside in hospice—and was back at my desk after three days of bereavement leave. Not knowing how to process my grief, I threw myself even deeper into work because it felt like the one thing I could control.

That pattern of overworking continued for years. I jumped from one demanding role to the next, believing that I'd eventually find the happiness I was chasing but feeling like a failure every time I didn’t. My breaking point finally came in 2021 when I was suddenly laid off just one month after moving 1,000 miles away from home.

That was my wakeup call into the reality that so many people face: you can dedicate your whole career to playing by the rules and still end up losing.

The real problem wasn’t people failing at work—it was work failing people. And so my business was born.

8. What is your favorite meal?

Uhhh black coffee? Just kidding (kind of). For something actually edible…sushi! 

9. You’ve actually been a patron on here for a while (thank you, and I am so glad to have you here) – but this gives me a great opportunity to be able to ask: if you had to pick any two main characters from anyone in the HCLU to be best friends (that aren’t), who would they be?

Thank YOU. Take my money.

I am choosing, first, Hannah, because she was forced to sacrifice friendship for that douche canoe Michael and—though I know she’s fast friends with Caroline’s crew—she needs/deserves her own people, too. I am choosing Taylor to be best friends with Hannah, even though they’re more than a decade apart, because she feels like the big sister Hannah never had. They love taking trips together, Taylor showing Hannah more architecture than she could ever dream of all over the world. This gives Caroline and Brooke the much-needed time to focus on their very serious work back home when they can’t join in on the adventure.

10. What book got you into reading?

This might be an impossible question for me to answer? I was a nerd in school, completed all my summer reading assignments, and loved every second of it. From Where The Sidewalk Ends and the Velveteen Rabbit to To Kill a Mockingbird to The Scarlet Letter to Wuthering Heights to the Divergent Series…I could go on and on and on. 🤓

11. What book got you into reading sapphic romance?

I think the first sapphic romance I ever read was Living by Lise Gold.

12. What song would you pick to summarize the theme of Read My Lips – or songs?

Did I put together a playlist just because you asked this? Yes. I explore intimacy from so many different perspectives in the collection–yearning, sex, spiritual connection, love—that I couldn’t decide on just one song.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2UbT4jgqVwnurCZ57JJM2d?si=fea2c7badccf44ca 

13. What is your favorite Taylor Swift song and/or lyric?

The gays may crucify me for this, but I’m not a Taylor Swift fan 🫣

But in the spirit of my collection, let’s go with I Can Do It With a Broken Heart from The Tortured Poet’s Department.

14. Have you ever read a book – or fanfic – that is criminally underrated? Now is your chance to advertise it: 

I have yet to foray into fanfic, and so I will recommend a book (nonfic) that fundamentally changed me: Untamed by Glennon Doyle.

15. What would you title your auto-biography?

Overthinking in Dog-Hair-Covered Sweatpants

16. What is your favorite trope to read?

Friends to lovers for sure. Emotional intimacy heightens and strengthens physical intimacy tenfold. I also enjoy second chance romance, and characters who are newly exploring their sexuality. Those first times 😭

17. Finally – where would you put these characters on this seating chart: 

Charlotte Thompson from Those Who Wait by meEvelyn Hugo from The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins ReidRegan Gallagher from The Snowball Effect by meDelilah Green from Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring BlakeSawyer Kent from Back in Your Arms by the lovely Monica McCallanTaylor Vandenberg from In the Long Run by me

Explain your reasoning :) 

Charlotte at one head of the table, and Evelyn Hugo at the other…for obvious reasons? They run shit and no one can tell them otherwise. 

Next to Charlotte is Regan, because they are besties. In between Regan and Evelyn sits Delilah, who I believe could physically stop Regan from having a physical or verbal altercation with Evelyn—because Evelyn treated someone she cared about like THAT?!—and could also hold a good conversation about photography (posing, being photographed, paparazzi) with Evelyn in the absence of said altercation.

Across from Delilah sits Taylor, who’s riveted by the photography conversation, coloring it with the most amazing sites she’s captured during her travels for her blog. They’re all artists/creatives.

Finally, between Charlotte and Taylor & across from Regan, sits Sawyer. She connects with Charlotte over history and antiques, and their late grandmothers. Regan hyperfixates on how Sawyer puts the antique pieces back together again and offers to bring over baked goods so she can watch it happen in real time.