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Portland author Sam Saldivar’s new book “Play you for it” came out in October, 2025 and shares story of two Oregon women who grapple with their feelings for each other, along with challenges in their careers<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Penguin Random House<\/p>\n
In her new novel, \u201cPlay you for it,\u201d Portland author Sam Saldivar shares a romance about finding your place on and off the court. <\/p>\n
The book follows two Oregon women as they grapple with their feelings for each other, along with challenges in their careers: Jordan, who just got named as the first-ever female head coach for a Division I men\u2019s college basketball team in Eugene, and Beck, a Portland-based reporter trying to land the big interview she needs to secure an anchor seat. <\/p>\n
Saldivar herself worked as a broadcast journalist for 5 years before writing this book.<\/p>\n
OPB Morning Edition host Jess Hazel met Saldivar at the Portland women\u2019s sports bar \u2018Sports Bra\u2019 to chat about the book. <\/p>\n
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Portland author Sam Saldivar worked as a broadcast journalist for five years before she started writing sapphic romance novels.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Penguin Random House<\/p>\n
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. <\/p>\n
Jess Hazel: <\/b>One of the main driving tensions in this romance here is the conflict of interest. [How] did you approach that idea of balancing your work life with personal life and the passion for both? Did that come up for you a lot in the writing process?<\/p>\n
Sam Saldivar:<\/b> I think just [with] my background as a journalist, that\u2019s always existing in your work. I mean, this is kind of a much smaller example, but when you\u2019re a beat reporter covering, let\u2019s say, the Oregon Ducks and you\u2019re a student there and you\u2019re a fan. But you can\u2019t really be a fan. You have to be objective. <\/p>\n
Obviously this was a more extreme example because there\u2019s a relationship there and there\u2019s love there and that\u2019s a driving force of the book. Where is that line? How can you respect yourself and your values and what you love and still do your job and be effective that way?<\/p>\n
Hazel:<\/b> In this book, because there\u2019s multiple queer characters, is this idea of coming out and what that looks like for different people. What is the importance of a coming out story? Do they still hold the same importance that they did maybe like 10-20 years ago, when coming out was almost guaranteed to be a fairly painful experience?<\/p>\n
Saldivar:<\/b> I think it still holds weight. I think we\u2019re starting to get to a point where it\u2019s not as surprising anymore. In this book especially it\u2019s more about people in public facing roles where being out isn\u2019t as common. For instance, in this book there\u2019s a male player who has a coming out story, and we don\u2019t really see that as much at the college level or from professional athletes all the time. Then with Jordan being a visible coach at a very high level and being out. Fortunately, [it\u2019s] something people still feel compelled to do sometimes, but I think it can also be powerful and inspire others as well.<\/p>\n
Hazel:<\/b> Another element here is this divide between the more metropolitan areas in Oregon, specifically with your book Portland and then Eugene, as well as rural places that have sometimes very contrasting values. Was that intentional? Or did it just kind of come up as using Oregon as a setting \u2014 this is gonna happen?<\/p>\n
Saldivar:<\/b> Yeah, I think it was a bit of using Oregon, but I did want to take it further. There\u2019s some contrast. We see them get out of even the Eugene area and go to an even more rural area to recruit a player. It was again inspired just from living here and also creating some tension for Jordan as well, of maybe not being received as well as a woman or someone who\u2019s out and queer. <\/p>\n
At least for me living in Portland, you\u2019re kind of like \u2018there\u2019s the city.\u2019 I feel like Eugene\u2019s sort of an in-between and then you have even more rural and out there. So it was fun to get to explore all three and kind of have them all foil each other as well. We didn\u2019t get to spend as much time in Portland in this book, but it was still there for sure.<\/p>\n
Hazel:<\/b> We are here at the Portland Sports Bra, and this is kind of on the leading edge of making women\u2019s sports really popular and well recognized. What does it mean for the city to have places like this? <\/p>\n
Saldivar:<\/b> One, it\u2019s awesome. I love coming here. There is an interest in women\u2019s sports and seeing women on the court. And I think this is also a really good example of women not just playing but also women being part of the infrastructure of sports, which this book is definitely about as well having Jordan be a coach. We are seeing more women coach whether it\u2019s as assistants on the men\u2019s side, whether it\u2019s coaching on the women\u2019s side. A place like The Sports Bra is another great example of women creating their own space to support other women on the court and having a place for the fans. There\u2019s a lot of a lot to say for having women building their own infrastructure and economy around the sports world.<\/p>\n
Hazel: <\/b>Yes, and Portland will soon have many more fans coming to The Sports Bra with the Portland Fire starting play next year. Is there gonna be a future book featuring the Fire in it somewhere? <\/p>\n
Saldivar: <\/b>That\u2019s a good idea. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019ll be a book, but I think I will definitely be in the stands at some point. I\u2019m really excited to see the WNBA come to Portland in general and hopefully we see that spill into not just basketball but other sports as well. I think soccer kind of kicked it off. They\u2019re expanding with more teams and the NWSL getting such a warm reception in Portland \u2014 it seems like it\u2019s just a natural fit to have a WNBA team come here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Portland author Sam Saldivar’s new book “Play you for it” came out in October, 2025 and shares story…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[3444,77,170421,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-524827","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-lgbtq-author-books-portland","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115429399785341134","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}