Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Bitches on Bitch

Joint posted on Bitch Magazine.org and on Flavorwire is an interview about Bosoms, feminism, and defending our love of romance novels.

My favorite part:

MV: Why should feminists read romance novels?

SW: It’s a 50-plus-year-old industry comprised mostly of women writers operating their own businesses and producing a genre about women’s self-actualization, pursuit of autonomy, and acquisition of sexual agency for an audience made mostly of women, who buy over $1.4 billion dollars worth of books a year. No, no, nothing feminist or even subversive about that.

But did the word “smut” have to be used? Twice? Woe is me. As Kate Reading pointed out, it seems “counterproductive to try to talk intelligent[ly] and progressive[ly] about the genre when you’re also calling it names.”

Of course, now I’ve discovered that “smut” is a parasitic plant fungus that attacks a plant’s reproductive system. There’s a joke in there somewhere - in the meantime, Nicole suggests “were-smut” as the next paranormal theme. 

Australian Radio Didn’t Know What Hit It

Back on 3 May, or 2 May if you were me or Candy, we were on the radio with a hilarious dude named Alan Brough in Melbourne, Australia. It was epic fun.

If you missed it, ABC Melbourne was kind enough to get the mp3 online so if you’d like to listen, have at it. It’s too early for me to listen right now - I’d wake everybody up.

Romance and HuffPo

As Malle Vallik pointed out in her Tweet about this article, author Joanne Rendell has posted a marvelous examination of romance in academia and in the current market economy over at Huffington Post.

...the accompanying explanation that “escapist urges” are fueling these sales wasn’t satisfactory for me. Isn’t all fiction escapist in some way? I wondered. And why are readers escaping into this particular kind of fiction?

...I realized that it was too hasty to rush to this conclusion. Romances are not one kind of thing. Neither are their readers. And to draw fast conclusions about the genre and its audience is to perpetuate the kind of stereotyping which has always made romance the “most maligned of literary texts.”

Rendell discusses Beverly Jenkins’ presentation, as well as Dr. Guy Mark Foster’s examination, both scholarly and personal, of interracial romances. Rendell cuts through a lot of the stereotype to reveal the truth about romances - the one we already know: that the journey to the happy ending is so varied that there’s really no way to ever say that romances are “all the same.”

Full disclosure: I met Rendell at the Princeton conference on romance and academia, and I’m quoted in… read more »

Smart Bitches on All Things Considered: Now With More Stuff!

The extra content is online, even though All Things Considered isn’t scheduled to air for another half hour. Have a look! There’s Mavis, an illustration by Joanne Renaud, who represents our vision of the “stereotypical romance reader.” Check out the book for the truth about Mavis’ smarty smartness.

There’s also an excerpt from the introduction to the book, the Old Skool vs. New Skool Romance Flowchart, and an audio clip of Candy and I recommending romances to the host, including Lord of Scoundrels and some of the Save the Contemporary features, including Smooth Talking Stranger, Instant Attraction, Talk Me Down and Flat Out Sexy. 

My stomach probably looks like a balloon poodle, I am so nervous. Holy crap.

Smart Bitches and Heaving Bosoms on NPR

Heads up! Our interview with NPR’s All Things Considered will air tomorrow, Saturday 11 April. Local airtimes vary but you can find your local NPR station and check their schedule as to when it’ll air.

The interview was over 30 minutes long but I know we’re being edited down to about five or six minutes. I hope the good parts air but who knows? I do know that the sound technician with me in Connecticut was laughing, and the sound engineer with Candy out in Oregon gave up his plans to read a book while we taped and listened in to the whole interview - then old her we needed our own radio show. (Heh. How awesome would THAT be?)

All Things Considered will also be adding content to their website tomorrow evening or early Sunday morning, including the aired segment, an excerpt of the book, a picture of Mavis, who plays a very special role in Beyond Heaving Bosoms, our patented Old Skool or New Skool Romance Flow Chart, and possibly a clip of us recommending romance novels.

I have it on good authority that… read more »

Love’s New Thrust: Romance in the NY Post

Romance, Lauren Willig, Lady Jane’s Salon, and yours truly are featured in the NY Post today in an article titled Love’s New Thrust. Behind that thrusting title, the article itself is mostly a discussion of how romance has changed. I spent a good bit talking to the reporter, Mandy Stadtmiller, the other night, and she was definitely after an article that talks about how romance novels are not what you expect, and how they’ve grown and updated over the years to feature savvy writing and sassy heroines.

Historical romance author Maya Rodale (“The Rogue and the Rival”), who came up with the idea for a local reading series called Lady Jane’s Salon (yes, Jane as in Austen), says, “What I love about romance novels today is they’re not your grandma’s romances. Heroines have become so much sassier.”

There’s also video of Lauren Willig reading her book, Leanna Renee Hieber reading Jenna Petersen’s book, plus me and Ron Hogan talking at Lady Jane’s Salon.

More Romance Positive News Coverage

Man, this is getting to be soothing and enjoyable, all these intelligent articles about romance: The Toronto Star did a profile piece on author Susanna Kearsley following her nomination for the Romantic Novel of the Year for The Winter Sea, or, as it was titled in the UK, Sophia’s Secret.

Kearsley does a very mellow and effective job of explaining the misconceptions of romance:

“When you say that you write romantic fiction, there are a lot of people who have an image in their mind of the `bodice ripper,’” she says. “It’s the one term that most romantic fiction writers absolutely hate because it has no bearing on what people are writing.

“Romantic fiction in the broader sense can be any novel that has a love story somewhere in it. It can be a mystery or a historical novel, as long as long as it has this very strong romantic thread running through it.”

What’s interesting is that Kearsley wrote to me personally that she said a lot more about romance, but of course due to the pressure of column inches (snrk!) her remarks were edited down. She tells me:

More Positive Romance Press

Thanks to Quichepup, we have a very rare event. We have word of the fourth positive press article dealing with romance and romance authors. Between the Sudbury Star, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the USA Today, the genre is having a lovely press fiesta.

And hello, Oklahoma! There’s more!

Since a massive and deadly tornado ripped through the state on Tuesday killing 9 people, good news of happy endings, as Quichepup put it, is always welcome, but more so right now.

The Oklahoman newspaper ran two articles today, one on NYT Bestselling author Gena Showalter and fellow Oklahoman and Blaze author Jill Monroe.

Smart Bitches Love Sudbury, Ontario

Sudbury Star reporter Angela Scappatura wrote a marvelous article about the advantages of reading romance in the face of criticism and derision, even from her own editor. I’m so flattered to have been interviewed, but more than that, I’m proud to be a part of romance-positive coverage in the media.

Yay romance, and yay Angela! Nice job!

My favorite part, and I’m egotistical enough to say so:

Romance novels are certainly not considered “stylish” but masses of women are still tearing them off of book shelves like the latest Manolo Blahnik.

“You can sneer all you want, but it’s a billion-dollar industry. Not that many items of creativity made by and for women achieve billion- dollar status,” said Wendell.

Ha! Sneer all you want! That means there’s more for me to read.

Publishers Weekly on Cover Clinches

Awhile back, a very nice lady contacted me about clinch covers. She was writing an article for Publishers Weekly, and several people told her that she ought to speak with me about cover art, so would I mind if she asked me about clinches?

Pah! says I. I would be pleased to talk about cover art! My opinions, gleaned from… three years of running this blog and searing my eyeballs with Covers Gone Wild!

The article went live today: The Forever Clinch by Lucinda Dyer, featuring a quote from yours truly, a mention of the Smart Bitch Book (THANK YOU) and a nod to some very wise people, including Kate Smith, founder of Romancing the Blog. The upshot: clinches can be awful but they’re not going away any time soon.

Best quote: Jennifer Enderlin from St. Martin’s Press: “Avoid at all cost poses where the heroine is bent so far backward she’ll be in need of a chiropractor.”

Well, don’t avoid it too often, please. We needeth the covers to snark!

3:30

Marianne Mancusi produced a 3 minute Better TV segment about Sherrilyn Kenyon’s new book - and big ups to MM because for three minutes and thirty seconds, the segment profiles Kenyon, her fans, her dedication, their dedication, the groups of people totally devoted to her books, and there’s a bit of me with my friendly neighborhood sinus infection in there, too, talking about fans who want to live in the worlds which writers create, and how extraordinary that is. It airs today in a bunch of markets across the US.

Yay Marianne - way to go!

Good Morning Today Show Folks

Howdy! If you saw me or Jane from Dear Author, Marcella White Campbell, or Kassia Krozser on the Today Show and are checking out our sites as a result, welcome! Nice to meet you!

As is the standard in tv, where there’s piles and piles of tape but the audience sees about seven or eight inches of it, our segment was probably pretty quick. But we were talking then and are here now to say that the stereotype of romance readers is wrong. Romance readers are smart, erudite, clever, and tired of being dismissed as undersexed, overweight frustrated women. I hope that our enthusiasm and love of romance came across. If you like romance novels as much as we do, we’re glad you’re here.

ETA: There is a link to the video online if you’d like to see it for yourself. My comments after I watched it for the first time are below - click the “more more more” for, well, more more more.

Tango with Sarah!

Tango magazine asked me for a summer reading list, only instead of new and best-of, they wanted a beach reading list that was guaranteed to make any vacation, or wish-you-were-on-vacation reading time enjoyable. So I thought about my never-fail books, from the cracktastic and utterly escape-y fun to the more recent books that rocked my socks, and added to that the books that I go back to over and over again for yay summer reading. Drawing inspiration from your ideas, I came up with a list that finally, after MUCH editing, fit within the word count limits.

The article went live today, so if you’re interested on how I winnowed a list of 356,375 books down to, like 15, have a look. (I’m such a dork. I keep going back to look at it. Lookee! Something I wrote!) Happy Officially Summer, Y’all!

Romance, Politics, Sports, Guys, and Texas

So what do the following things have in common:

Sports and Dude Talk Radio Houston Texas Romance Novels Politics Hillary Clinton

The answer?

Me.

Commence freak out!

At 1:30 eastern, 12:30 central, or thereabouts, I will be on 1560 AM, The Game on the Ken Hoffman show. Hoffman’s blog is pretty cool, sort of a latter-day Dave Barry, with an emphasis on fast food reviews. Apparently one can listen online. I’m not sure if I could have the courage to listen to myself. I hope I do not do the verbal equivalent of tripping on a chair and flying headlong into a wall and knocking the pictures down.

Why sports talk dude radio in Texas? Good question! Based on this entry, and the powers of Google-Fu, David and Ken want my opinion on why people hate Hillary. I guess they want a Bitch to comment on the idea of whether being a Bitch incites hatred, or whether the hatred was already there, and “bitch” is the best title to file it under. Either way. I shall endeavor not to make a complete cake of myself.

Bitches in Sadie Magazine

Remember Sassy magazine? I do. I subscribed. I had no idea how revolutionary it was until it was no longer around and I missed it. It was the first and only magazine in my teen experience that wasn’t about iridescent taffeta prom dresses with three-foot ruffles, celebrity crushes, and interminable ad spreads featuring porny Lolitas shilling for “Love’s Baby Soft.” After reading an issue I felt unquestionable smarter, even if I didn’t quite get the fascination with Evan Dando and the Lemonheads.

Sassy bit the big one when it was absorbed into Teen magazine, which, really, is like the Death Star aborbing the entire rebellion fleet and belching into space afterward. Back issues are still on eBay, some at exceptional markup.