Sarah Dass

Black Romance Podcast

Dr. Julie E Moody-Freeman and co-host Dr. Carole Bell interview Sarah Dass, award-winning writer of Where the Rhythm Takes You.

Sarah Dass Sarah Dass is a young adult fiction author from Tobago that is best known for her debut work of fiction Where the Rhythm Takes You. While she was born in Trinidad, her family moved to Tobago when she was two years old. Dass has been telling stories since she was a young child. At the age of eight years old, when she ran out of Nancy Drew novels to read, she tried to pen her own. She would later go on to attend the University of the West Indies and University College London. Sarah grew up in a seaside resort in Tobago, and her debut novel draws inspiration from her experience living there. She has described Where the Rhythm Takes You as the book she would have wanted to read when she was growing up – a romantic, contemporary YA story set in her home country. She hopes readers like her, who love Trinidad and Tobagonian or Caribbean-set fiction, enjoy and connect with her characters. Sarah’s most recent YA novel is When the Vibe is Right. It Waits in the Forest will be published by Disney / Rick Riordan Presents in 2024.

Dr. Julie E. Moody-Freeman is the Director of the Center for Black Diaspora, Co-Director of the Social Transformation Research Collaborative, and an Associate Professor in the Department of African and Black Diaspora Studies at DePaul University. She is the co-editor of The Black Imagination, Science Fiction, and the Speculative and The Black Imagination: Science Fiction, Futurism, and the Speculative. Her work on African American Romance has appeared in Romance Fiction and American Culture, The Routledge Research Companion to Popular Romance Fiction, and the Journal of Popular Romance Studies. She is also the creator and host of the Black Romance Podcast, which is building an oral history on Black Romance writers.

Dr. Carole Bell is a Jamaican-born communication researcher, writer, and critic with two decades of experience working at the intersection of media, culture, and politics. A lover of books, TV, film and democracy, her writing has appeared in print and digital media outlets including NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and the Grio, and she is a contributor to the Black Love Matters essay anthology. She earned her PhD at UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Media and Journalism concentrating in political communication, public opinion, and public policy and communication effects. She also holds an MS in Television and Radio from Brooklyn College, and a BA in English and American Literature from Harvard College.

Thanks to the Center for Black Diaspora at DePaul University for sponsoring this podcast!

Creator, producer, and host of the Black Romance Podcast: Julie E Moody-Freeman

Co-creator, Co-producer, and Co-host of Season 4 of the Black Romance Podcast: Carole Bell @cvbell

Marketing and Promotions: Jennifer Gardner @jpgm.a and Miya Jefferson

Sound Editor: Miya Jefferson

Black Romance Artwork: Kyle Gabb @Marciano_arts