SHAY GOLDSTEIN: Working too closely with your partner.ĭOMINIC YUN: Or maybe interrupting them constantly. Here are some other reasons couple break up these days: jealousy, broken promises, insecurity, infidelity– We’ll take some calls a little later, but we wanted to start with our story, because clearly it’s something even Shay and I can’t agree on. I could have read a whole book of them (seriously, a sort of epistolary novel made from radio transcripts? mmm, yes please…).ĭOMINIC YUN: On this first episode, we’re talking about why we broke up. Once they start running the show, we also get some transcripts, and these are just glorious. They are both very smart, very competent people who talk for a living (or at least aspire to do so), and their banter reflects that. Dominic and Shay really do have great chemistry, and their bickering, both friendly and less so, is clever and funny and pretty charming. The main part of the story is a lot of fun. He is an utter sexist jerk in that annoyingly plausibly deniable way where women just somehow are the ones who get asked to take notes because they are better at multitasking, and so forth. (Incidentally, if Kent just pinged your sexism radar, well done you. Dominic is all about the news and the hard facts, and, Shay, you like the more human-centred, softer pieces.” You two have this great chemistry, this natural conflict. I know I spent a lot of time in this office, but I’m perceptive. I see the way you two act around the newsroom. Not, of course, that she and Dominic have ever dated, but that’s not going to stop their boss, Kent:

Matters get even worse when it becomes clear that the station is about to undergo downsizing, and suddenly it seems that the only way Shay can keep her job is by hosting a new program in which she and Dominic pretend to be exes and talk about modern relationships. She loves public radio for its ability to tell stories that connect personally with listeners, and for the connection it gives her to her father, a fellow public radio fan, who passed away when she was in high school.Īs the youngest person at the station, she also loves being thought of as the up-and-coming young hotshot… and so she doesn’t love it very much at all when 24-year-old Dominic Yun is hired, fresh from a master’s in journalism, and determined to do ‘real’ news stories, even if that means kicking Shay out of her recording booth. Shay Goldstein has been working at Pacific Public Radio for ten years, beginning as the ‘wunderkind’ intern, and rising to the role of producer of the station’s flagship show, Puget Sounds. It is also something of a belated coming of age story. The Ex Talk is an enemies-to-lovers fake relationship romance set in the world of public radio. Theme: Enemies to Lovers, Mistaken/False Identity, Workplace

The ex talk by rachel lynn solomon