How to Write a Cozy Mystery (the rules are changing): Episode 314 with Mia Manansala

Shownotes up front&#8212;but scroll down, there&#8217;s an announcement!<br/><br/>Mia P. Manansala (she/her) is a writer and book coach from Chicago who loves books, baking, and bad-ass women. She uses humor (and murder) to explore aspects of the Filipino diaspora, queerness, and her millennial love for pop culture. She is the author of 2 books so far in the Tita Rosie&#8217;s Kitchen Mystery series: <a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9780593201671">Arsenic and Adobo</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9780593201695">Homicide and Halo-Halo</a>. <br/><br/>I was excited to talk to Mia because I read my way through hundreds of cozies well into my early adulthood, and I thought I knew the genre pretty well&#8212;but in coming back to it recently, I could see that things have changed. Just like in romance, there&#8217;s far more of an effort to balance reality with the deeply unlikely yet also deeply satisfying elements of the genre that are the reasons we come: Protagonists we love, puzzles to solve and justice to serve and peace to restore&#8212;until the next book!<br/><br/><strong>Links from the Pod</strong><br/><br/><a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9780758273291">Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder</a>, Joanne Fluke<br/><br/><strong>#AmReading</strong><br/><br/><strong>Mia: </strong><a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9780316256704">Like a Sister</a>, Kellye Garrett <br/><br/><a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9781250801746">Secret Identity</a>, Alex Segura <br/><br/><a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9780812983586">The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay</a>, Michael Chabon<br/><br/><a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9781250804983">Under Lock & Skeleton Key</a>, Gigi Pandian<br/><br/><a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9780593336731">Dial a for Aunties</a>, Jesse Q. Sutanto<br/><br/><a target="_blank" href="https://bookshop.org/a/1183/9780593333051">Four Aunties and a