Thanks to Jamie, who forwarded me this link that set my blood pressure up another notch. I’m home sick today and utterly cranky, so the less I say about this one the better.
From an interview with author Polly Williams on Yahoo! about her book, Yummy Mummy:
Q: Are the heroines in your three books similar?
A: “They are all the same age, 34, but at different stages of life. I wanted to make the books relevant to those issues that women really face today, otherwise they would be romances.”
Nice. Thanks, Polly. So my romances aren’t relevant to issues I’m currently facing? I’m currently facing an urge to journey to Australia and tell you to bite me. I should read a romance, huh?
What really burns my toast – and that’s all I’m eating so don’t burn it, dammit – is that Williams then faces a question about the ever-awful term “Chick Lit.”
Q: Is it possible to get rid of the “chick lit” tab?
A: “Maybe if you write in such a way that is really difficult to read or you’re a woman author not writing about those kinds of issues. But this is not just the way we are perceived by readers, but the way you are marketed. It is not always a bad thing. At first I thought “yuk, chick lit” but as time goes past, if it sells a book and attracts certain readers, it’s not a bad thing.”
I abhor the term ‘chick lit.’ I think it’s pejorative and utterly stupid, and I’m glad I’m seeing less of it. But I’m not so pleased to see yet another author taking a swipe at romance as irrelevant and weightless. You’d think that someone who faces a genre label that dismisses the quality of the writing within it wouldn’t be so quick to toss judgment against another genre.