Sugar Sand Land by Patricia Leavy

Patricia Leavy, PhD is a novelist, sociologist, and arts advocate (formerly Associate Professor of Sociology, Founding Director of Gender Studies and Chairperson of Sociology & Criminology at Stonehill College). She is widely considered the world's most visible proponent of arts-based research, which merges the arts and sciences. Patricia has published over 50 books, nonfiction and fiction, and her work has been translated into numerous languages. She has received over 100 book awards. She has also received career awards from the New England Sociological Association, the American Creativity Association, the American Educational Research Association, the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, and the National Art Education Association. In 2016 Mogul, a global women’s empowerment network, named her an “Influencer.” In 2018, she was honored by the National Women’s Hall of Fame and the State University of New York at New Paltz established the “Patricia Leavy Award for Art and Social Justice.” In 2024 the London Arts-Based Research Centre established "The Patricia Leavy Award for Arts-Based Research." In recent years, her passion has turned to penning romance novels.

Emerson Blue has built a life around being seen, while Renn Walker has been forced into hiding. What drew you to explore a love story between two people on opposite ends of visibility?

I’m both a sociologist and a romance novelist and I think that dual perspective shapes the stories I tell. In the age of social media just about everyone has a public image whether your famous or not—a curated image—and I’m fascinated by how that impacts our lives. I’ve always been interested in the gap between appearance and reality. That gap is heightened in a world ruled by Instagram images, TikTok reels, mass media stories, and the whims of “influencers.” But how do you get at the gap between appearance and reality and identity more broadly? I’m obsessed with romance and so a love story was entry point into the topic. By creating a love story between celebrities, I was able to show the reality of their lives and include media stories and public commentary in the form of social media posts. That allowed me to explore the gap between what people think is true and what actually is true. At the end of the day, relationships are always central to my novels, so I very much see this as a romance first and foremost. But it’s also about identity in today’s society.

The romance between Emerson and Renn is both sweet and sexy and you can feel the closeness between these two characters despite their different lifestyles. Would you call this an “opposites attract” romance? 

The romance between Emerson and Renn really is the heart of the book. It’s authentic and deep. On the surface, they look like opposites. Emerson is a reality star, influencer, and basically the most famous person on the planet. She has used social media masterfully to create her persona. The world thinks she’s an open book, but in fact, she’s not. As a counterpoint, Renn is a fallen star who lives in seclusion and is so uninterested in social media he doesn’t even own a computer. The whole world has made assumptions about him despite his silence, but assumptions aren’t always right. On top of which, he’s revealed much of himself through his music; simple, straightforward country songs that resonate. So, on the surface, one is all about curation and the other has no artifice. Yet, they are both artists. Art matters to them. Beyond physical attraction, their love of art is what really connects them. So, while you could call this an “opposites attract” romance, the characters share more in common than what others may think. 

As a sociologist you’ve written nonfiction books about the power of the arts in research and society, used your platform to advocate for the arts, and this thread continues across your fiction catalog. What does Sugar Sand Land say about the arts?

In Sugar Sand Land, Emerson and Renn meet at a party. Emerson is having a conversation about the arts—demonstrating her impressive knowledge—and Renn is instantly enchanted. So from the start, the arts are a part of their romance. Both Emerson and Renn identify as artists, but in very different ways. Renn is a country artist. His songs are straightforward and narrative driven. There is a purity to his art. Emerson envisions her entire life as a work of art. She’s a reality star, social media influencer, and brand partner. She carefully curates her image, and her image is her art. She also constructs public moments that the media and her fans capture in photographs producing iconic images. Again, this is all her art. Fame is her art. There are many scenes throughout the novel that include the arts in explicit ways. For example, there are scenes that occur in art galleries, night clubs, or concerts venues. There are also private scenes of Emerson and Renn creating art. Art is a topic of conversation throughout the book too, including in ways I don’t want to reveal for fear of spoiling something. I think the book celebrates all the ways in which the arts impact our lives. It simultaneously asks questions about what counts as art and who gets to decide. 

Emerson describes herself as a “living piece of art.” In a world driven by image and curation, where do you think the line exists between self-expression and self-construction?

We are all in a constant state of becoming. Identity is not fixed. It’s something we create and recreate. It’s something we embody. It evolves. We are simultaneously expressing ourselves and constructing our identities. It’s symbiotic. The question is: Are we expressing ourselves in an authentic way? Are we constructing an identity that is true to who we are, aspirational for who we want to be, or something else? Maybe it’s a bit of all these things at once. Emerson considers her entire life a work of art. I love that. In some ways I wish everyone thought about their life as a work of art and embraced the endless creative process that helps us become who we are meant to be, but again, as a process, not a destination. For Emerson it’s much more specific because of her public persona, but really, we can all look at our lives as the greatest works of art we will ever create. 

Renn’s storyline touches on cancellation and exile. What complexities around public judgment and redemption did you most want readers to sit with?

I believe the role of artists is to document, chronicle, and re-imagine. We pose questions and reflect aspects of culture back to people, sometimes twisting things from the real world to fit into our story world. How people respond to art is up to them. As a novelist, I create characters and stories. My goal is to prompt reflection and to raise questions, not to tell people how to answer them. 

I think most people would agree that American society has become deeply divisive. People feel like they are for something or against something. It’s all “either/or” instead of “both/and.” To me, that’s really limited, dangerous, and inherently problematic. Cancel culture is symptomatic of this larger problem. There are so many people against the death penalty because mistakes can happen, and we know that they do. Yet many of those same people are proponents of cancel culture. I don’t believe we should be able to publicly ruin someone’s career or life based on rumors or allegations alone. I believe in due process. I also believe that you can support the “Me Too Movement” and support women sharing their stories and simultaneously disagree with cancel culture. The fact that these things have become polarized is emblematic of the larger divisions we’re seeing and a lack of nuance. The false polarization of spirituality and science as if one can’t believe in both God and science, is another example. Celebrities are not the only people affected by cancel culture mentality. There are incidents of young people in middle school and high school committing suicide because of rumors spread about them, often with the help of the internet. When you’re young, reputation can feel so important. Having your reputation harmed can feel overwhelming. So while in the novel, I’m using Renn to address some of these issues, it’s not just about wealthy famous people. I think what Renn does to himself—essentially punishing himself by living in seclusion—illustrates something that happens to many people. We are often the hardest on ourselves and the only way we know how to withstand bullying and ridicule is to withdraw. Our world becomes smaller. We become smaller. 

Cancel culture raises interesting questions about the arts too. How much do we tie the art to the artist? How far do we take it? Do we start going back and investigating the private lives of all the artists who have work hanging in museums or authors who have their books in the library or playwrights who have shows on Broadway? And what are we looking for? Crimes? What if someone just wasn’t a good person? What does it mean to not be a good person? Where are the lines? Who decides? This kind of thinking is so dangerous for everyone. It’s like we’re doomed to repeat the Witch Burnings, but we use clicks and comments instead of torches. People burn just the same. We’re all covered in soot and ash. No one escapes. It’s all far more complicated than we often see playing out in public discourse. So those are some of the questions raised in the novel. 

Both characters are shaped by how the public perceives them. Do you think it’s possible to ever truly separate who we are from who the world believes us to be?

The most important relationship we have is the one we have with ourselves. There’s no number of likes or followers that can make you feel good about yourself in any lasting way. That’s all temporary. Like any other high, it fades. You come down. It’s vitally important to have a sense of self that isn’t bound to the opinions of others. This is hard to do when the outside noise is loud. The trick is to develop a strong sense of self based on the things that matter in the long game of life—living with integrity, enacting your values, doing meaningful work, and having intimate relationships. Above all, it’s important to bridge the gap between who we are and who we want to be. The more we create an authentic sense of self that is based on things that matter, the less affected we are by the outside noise. 

Social media plays a powerful role in this novel. How does constant visibility change the way we experience intimacy and connection?

It’s like the famous Shakespeare quote, “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” But people forget the rest of it. The full quote is, “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.” In other words, we all perform our identity for others, whether that’s teachers, classmates, parents, employers, colleagues, or in the case of Emerson and Renn, the media. But we don’t just have one identity or one version of ourselves. We play many different roles. As a sociologist. I think of Erving Goffman who built on Shakespeare to suggest humans have a “front stage” and “backstage.” Basically, he differentiated the public stuff people see and the backstage, private stuff, like brushing your teeth or having an argument with your spouse. Social media is very much a part of “front stage.” It’s a public-facing, curated offering. An image. A narrative. Often a highlight reel. In short, a social media profile is a constructed version of ourselves. Human beings have always had a front and backstage. So in some ways, this isn’t new. Yet social media has taken identity curation to a different level. There’s a different kind of intentionality. And quite literally, we can apply different filters. We can airbrush in ways we can’t do in real life. On top of that, we often think we know people because they’re visible on social media. But we only know their social media profile. In this way, social media can create a false familiarity. I think it’s one of the reasons the relationship between Emerson and Renn is so intimate from the beginning. It’s happening outside of social media. It’s based on a genuine, in-person connection. While the world may be commenting on their relationship, Emerson and Renn don’t care. They know what is real. 

Emerson Blue is a master at social media. As an author, how do you feel about social media? 

It has good and bad aspects. At the end of the day, it’s a tool so it depends on how you choose to use it. For me, social media has been vital to my career. It allowed me to grow my author platform, market my books, find readers, and connect with bloggers. I would not have my career the way I do without social media. That said, it can take up a lot of time. Sometimes with one change to an algorithm or if some of your biggest followers drop off, suddenly your posts don’t perform nearly as well. When that happens it feels like work you’ve done for years is suddenly less valuable and that’s hard when you make your living as an author. There’s a bigger dark side to social media too. People can be harsh. Comments can be cruel. Sometimes it’s because people are cloaked in anonymity, other times it’s because of a persona or identity they have created that they want to maintain for their followers, and sometimes it’s just because the internet can be a dumping ground for people’s angst. Add to that, if you scroll around comparing yourself to others it can make you feel bad. It’s ironic too because what you’re comparing yourself to isn’t real. As Emerson would say, a social media profile is highly curated—a work of art. It isn’t an accurate representation, but rather a construction. All this said, as an author, at this point, I need social media and there are aspects of it I enjoy, but it’s a complicated space and requires good boundaries and a strong sense of self. It’s also important to value your work and protect your creativity and mental health so that you can continue to create. The best advice I would give any artist is to have a relationship with your work that isn’t dependent on anything external, positive or negative. It’s a constant challenge, especially in the age of social media, but an absolute must if you want a long career as an artist. I know how much work goes into each of my books and what my intent is as an author. I’m conscious of how I use my voice and I care enormously about the craft of writing. To me, my novels are beautiful. What other people think isn’t really any of my business. I try to remember that and tune out the noise so that I can continue to create. 

This is a romance, but it’s also a story about identity and reinvention. Where do you see your characters years from now and what can they teach us?

I loved writing Emerson and Renn’s romance so much that I didn’t want to stop. Without spoiling anything, I would say that the book ends on a note of reinvention. On top of that, because the book is very much about contemporary society as much as it’s about the characters, I felt there was more to explore. So, I’m elated to share there is a sequel which will be released in September 2027. I don’t want to give too much away but it’s about fame, what’s public and private, and the dangers that emerge when you invite the whole world into your life. I learned a lot about identity, reinvention, and authenticity from the characters, and how important it is to distinguish illusion from reality or things that are ephemeral from those with gravitas. Readers can take whatever they want from it. Mostly, I just think it’s a beautiful love story so if that’s what readers get, that’s fine by me. Honestly, I’ve been an author for over 25 years and published more than 50 books and this set of novels is my favorite thing I’ve ever written. It merges everything I’m interested in more than anything else I’ve done. 

At its core, Sugar Sand Land explores illusion versus reality. What do you hope readers take away about the stories we tell ourselves—and the ones the world tells about us?

We all need to think about what to make public and what to keep private in our lives. We should never compare ourselves to people on social media. It’s a highlight reel. It’s like comparing your insides to someone’s airbrushed outsides. People don’t always share their pain publicly. Many people carry invisible scars. There can be a real disjuncture between public myth and private pain. Many of us struggle privately in ways we don’t share online. Above all, Sugar Sand Land is a love story. Love helps us become more of ourselves not less. Our real selves. No matter what I write, I always champion love. Love and art are the two constants across my catalog,

---

Website
Facebook
Instagram
X
​
Purchase the book HERE.