Today’s special guest is women’s fiction author Brooke Bentley and we’re chatting about Sideline Confidential.
Bio:
Brooke Bentley is a former television anchor and award-winning sports reporter. After graduating with a master’s in journalism from the University of Southern California, she spent two years working for the Houston Texans as a media personality and over a decade working in sports journalism. Brooke now devotes her time to championing local nonprofits, including Homemade Hope, where she served as the development director. She and her husband live in Houston and are raising two young boys.
Welcome, Brooke. Please tell us about your current release.
I pitched Sideline Confidential as The Devil Wears Prada set in professional football. Young sports journalist Blake Kirk lands her dream job working as a reporter for her hometown’s pro football team. She anticipates many of the challenges that accompany the gig – long hours in the office and on the field, many days of travel, immense pressure to succeed as a woman in sports journalism. What she doesn’t expect are the double standards and old-school entitlement that trip her up at every turn. From day one, Blake faces off with her boss who does everything in his power to make her job difficult—from forcing her to ride a separate bus to the games; to blocking her from interviewing players in the locker room; to pushing her to “network” with colleagues at a strip club. As suggestive notes appear on her desk and a celebrity tryst is weaponized against her, Blake’s dream devolves into a nightmare, and she is forced to choose between her dignity and her career.
What inspired you to write this book?
I started writing this novel at the most inconvenient time in my personal life. I had recently returned to my job in sports journalism after giving birth to my first child. I was navigating my first football season as a mother with little sleep, uneven hormones, and a layer of baby weight (which people are quick to point out when you work on camera). This novel had been percolating in my subconscious for years, but I had been too immersed in the sports media world to write it. The time away during my maternity leave and the challenges I was facing as a new mom with a demanding work schedule gave me a new perspective. I found most of my alone time came while I was pumping breast milk at work, so I would use those quiet moments to mentally draft the characters. Over the next few years, I wrote the manuscript intermittently while also having a second child. Then, I shelved it. I was busy “mommying” and working. It wasn’t until news broke about disturbing harassment allegations in professional football that I decided to revisit the novel with a new lens. I started with a blank page and renewed determination to detail the sexual politics women face in sports journalism. Be pretty but not too sexy. Know your sport but don’t outsmart the men. Be a great mother but don’t take off time from work. It can feel like an impossible tightrope. That’s what I set out to capture.
Excerpt from Sideline Confidential:
I spent most of the day holed up in my office with the door cracked. Ryan messaged me to join him for lunch in the team cafeteria, but I lied and said I brought food, instead scavenging kolaches from the break room. The post had circulated through the stadium, and I was in no mood for conversations about Jackson Ways.
Messages streamed in from people who saw the photo. Friends excitedly asked for the juicy details. Media members asked for quotes. I replied to no one and sent all calls to voice mail. Emotional exhaustion overwhelmed me. My body felt boneless, like it lacked the infrastructure to operate.
“Knock, knock,” Ryan said, sliding his head inside my office door. I shook my head silently.
“Blake, you have to come out of hiding. We have Coach’s press conference in a few minutes,” Ryan said.
I winced, thinking about gathering in the team auditorium for Coach Bush’s weekly Monday address to the media. My friends in the media would undoubtedly ask me why I didn’t travel to Sunday’s game and, even more embarrassing, about my photo with Jackson.
“Ugh. That’s the last place I want to be right now.”
“I’m guessing this has to do with the photo of you and Jackson that’s making the rounds.”
“That and the verbal bashing I took from Johnny today. I don’t have the strength to go downstairs and face everyone,” I said.
“Put one foot in front of the other. The hardest step is the first one. But I know you can do it,” he said.
I took a deep breath and pushed myself out of my chair. I followed Ryan to two seats at the back of the auditorium, far removed from the fray of reporters near the stage. A reporter I recognized from ESPN sat in the front row, her long, auburn hair meticulously framing her heart-shaped face and cascading down her green silk blouse. She tapped a coworker’s arm and showed him a message on her phone. Jealousy streaked through me. I wanted to be in her position. Sitting at the front of the room, admired by colleagues at the top of their professions, wearing fashionable clothes. Instead, I cowered in a back row, avoiding other media members and wearing a wrinkled outfit that smelled like a kolache shop. Oh, and my boss was forcing me to go on a date where he would be chaperoning. That was the icing on the cake of my dream job that was devolving into a nightmare situation.
What exciting project are you working on next?
I have been mentally drafting a couple of novels, both of which involve sports. I love sports. I played college volleyball and I consider my happy place to be golfing or hiking with my husband. Sports has taught me countless valuable lessons in life. How to focus, push myself beyond limits, recover and rest, breathe deeply. I could go on forever. But I think what makes sports so special is that they bring together people from all walks of life—be it cheering in the stands, competing on the field, or coaching on the sidelines—and it exposes what is raw and beautiful about the human condition.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
When Mother published my piece “The Pressure to Have It All,” I felt seen and heard as a writer. The piece was tender, vulnerable, and straight from the heart. Very different from the news stories I had published in my journalism career. The response from readers was equally raw and emotional. I remember a volleyball coach writing that she cried while reading the piece. She had been hiding in the locker room while she pumped breast milk between games, and reading my piece validated her work-mom struggle. Knowing that my writing had touched at least a handful of readers gave me a renewed sense of purpose as I worked on Sideline Confidential.
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your workday like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
For the last few years, I have had three jobs- nonprofit grant writing and fundraising, mommying, and writing. I wrote this novel juggling all three commitments. The greatest challenge was carving out time for writing between my paid employment and my hug-rewarding family responsibilities. I often wrote in the predawn quiet or late at night. Earlier this year, I began moving my career toward full-time writing as I poured my heart and soul into finishing and launching Sideline Confidential.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I like to write in a silent, almost meditative-like environment. No noises. My phone off. That’s why the early morning hours are the most productive for me. When life is bustling in my house, I take my laptop to the quietest corner (and bribe my sons with screen time). It’s what I call survival mode!
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
This probably won’t come as a surprise- as a young girl I dreamed of becoming a sports reporter. I grew up cheering for the Houston Rockets and watching Lisa Malosky anchor coverage of the team. My high school senior yearbook predicted, “Found in 10 years: reporting on the sidelines.” Working in sports journalism often felt like a dream come true, but it also stretched and tested me in ways that I never imagined, especially after I had children. I ultimately left journalism so I could have more time with my family. But now I feel like I get the best of both worlds- I get to tuck my sons into bed AND write about life, love and sports from the comfort of my home.
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
My “why” for Sideline Confidential is that I hope it empowers women who work not only in sports but in any male-dominated workplace that is laced with sexual politics. It is incredibly hard and scary for young women in entry positions to find their voice and stand up for themselves. I want this book to tell them that they aren’t alone. Many of us have been there and we can support each other by listening, speaking up, telling our stories, and giving each other a voice.