Bitchin' Blog Posts
: Romantic Times
April 21, 2012 | Saturday | 26 Comments
As I'm sure you already know, there's more to romance and more to Romantic Times than man titty. Much like a romance novel, there's a lot happening on the surface of the conference, and a lot more interesting things going on behind that surface. For example, CNBC was broadcasting live from RT, and focusing lightly on the business numbers of romance as an industry while showcasing shirtless men, women gathered, sometimes in white boas, generally conveying a rather awkward party atmosphere. And of course, erotica, and "mommy porn" was brought up. Of note: one of the most hilarious visual compositions…
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April 20, 2012 | Friday | 15 Comments
Surprise, surprise, Nalini Singh was in our hotel room, so we tied her to a chair and interviewed her. She's live, not on Skype, and it's a really fun and casual conversation because we didn't plan to do this. We had the microphone and a half hour to chat. We did attempt to get real answers out of her, and were totally unsuccessful, despite threats and stares of doom. You'll hear about how Nalini approaches her writing and her series, and we talk about heroines, reality television, reading romance, and Gwen Stefani, too. Here are some of the books, foods,…
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April 18, 2012 | Wednesday | 55 Comments
Zoe Archer was kind enough to write up the survey results from the Romance Family Feud game at Romantic Times. I'd posted a link to the survey a few weeks ago, and the answers during the game itself were so funny, I asked if they'd be willing to share. Thank you!! A big thanks to everyone who participated in the Romance Reader Family Feud survey we posted a few weeks ago. We had over 575 responses! The Family Feud game at RT turned out to be more fun than is possibly legal in several states, and we have you to…
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April 17, 2012 | Tuesday | 12 Comments
First, I typed up the entry but it didn't go live - my apologies! I think the next technology I'm going to find is voice-activated blogging. "Post, go live, OK SUCCESS!"
Anyway, the winner of a free six-month subscription to Sourcebooks' new "Discover a New Love" community is Karen H Near Tampa.
Congrats Karen H, who is lucky to live near Tampa, since St. Pete Beach and the Tampa zoo are two very awesome reasons to live near Tampa!
And now, Links that are All About the Joy and the Beauty!
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April 17, 2012 | Tuesday | 20 Comments
I took a lot of notes at the RT sessions I was part of - and this might be the most I've written by hand in a long, long time. What follows is a general round up and highlights of the sessions and things I noticed at RT this year. Reading! I was part of four sessions. One was "Choosing the Right e-Reader for You," with Jane Litte and Angela James. That sessions was up against some very popular sessions, and was very intimate. We had some folks who were still unsure which reader they wanted, and some who were…
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April 07, 2012 | Saturday | 4 Comments
Friendly reminder for those attending Romantic Times next week! The Boner Donor Bingo Game is Saturday April 14 at 2:30 pm local time. It's right after the Giant Bookfair, which is from 11:00 - 2:00pm. So if you get some books, you can bring them to the bingo game, where there will be mayhem, bawdy jokes, a ton of candy for marking your bingo cards (and maybe eating), and really, really, I'm not even kidding, awesome prizes. Seriously. So many awesome people have sent me prizes and items to add to big honking gift bags of excellent, and I wanted…
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February 15, 2012 | Wednesday | 9 Comments
Late last year at Posner's book signing for EIKAL, I learned about SuperAmit's battle to find a bone marrow match after he was diagnosed with acute leukemia. Through social media, he found a donor, but the facts I learned about the bone marrow registry and the lack of donor matches for minorities was eye-opening. You might have seen the Maccabeats' video for Hanukkah (I featured it here as a Friday video) also sought to raise awareness for the bone marrow registry and the need for more matches to help save the lives of people who have leukemia. Over the winter,…
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May 01, 2010 | Saturday | 33 Comments
RT is difficult to describe to someone who isn’t familiar with romance novels, with fan conventions or with the way avid women readers feel about their books. For example, I told someone recently that romance novel readers have a noise they make when someone mentions a book they adore as well. Sort of a heavy sigh, like an extended, “Aaaaaaah.” I’ve said before that two romance readers might not have a single thing in common except the books they read, and that alone gives them hours of conversation. However, I am guilty of forgetting, and I need to be more…
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April 27, 2009 | Monday | 17 Comments
If you read the Twitteration, you probably got a micro-sense of the Mr. Romance pageant last night. Heather Osborn calls it the mangeant, and clocking in at just under an hour, it was a zippy-mangeant, too. The battery on my laptop hadn’t charged all the way yet. The opening was funny and silly and sort of slapstick - a lady was reading a book, and the contestants come out from backstage one by one and dance with her. While they were all sculpted and earnest about it, she was hamming it up to the audience, laughing and giving about 42…
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April 24, 2009 | Friday | 7 Comments
After a night of dueling pianos and a very late bedtime, Jane and I headed over to the Wyndham Convention Center this mornign under the impression that our panel on blogging was at 230 pm. In fact, I booked the flight to Princeton based on the idea that I wouldn’t be able to leave until after 5pm. Imagine my shock when, at 11:10 I received a text from Jane saying, “Our session is at 11:30am.” It was at 11:30 on the scheduled card in our registration, too, and I hadn’t noticed. DOH. I was being interviewed by a holy crapping…
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April 23, 2009 | Thursday | 8 Comments
What, it’s 1:30 in the morning so technically it’s Thursday, and that’s about as inspirational a title as you’ll get. Jane and I are eating M&Ms and drinking water after a loud and danceful evening of piano bars, tequila, beer, and really, really loud music. My ears are going to ring until Sunday. Jane and I made it over to the conference center today around breakfast time, and even though this is my second RT, I was surprised by how many people I recognized and how many people recognized me. I saw Beth Ciotta (whose hair looks fabulous) when we…
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April 22, 2009 | Wednesday | 14 Comments
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned the epic clusterfuck of travel I have going on this week, but in case you’re curious, here we go. Presently I’m at Romantic Times in Orlando, where today I’m on a panel about historical romance with Jane. Then, this afternoon I’m on a panel about social networking and new media with Ron Hogan. That will be so difficult, since there’s really nothing about Twitter or the growing power of using a social network to reach consumers (*koff koff Dominos *koff koff Amazon) that we can talk about in terms of author promotion. Then tomorrow…
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March 15, 2009 | Sunday | 12 Comments
If you received your issue of Romantic Times magazine, you may have noticed Smart Bitches were inside. We’re in ur magazine, talkin’ ‘bout Pirates! It’s true: Elissa Petruzzi did a marvelously fun interview with us, and we’re in the “RT Bookshelf” section of the April 2009 issue. We talk about sexuality, pirates, the economy, our book, our site, and pirates. I thought it turned out terribly well, and as usual Candy cracked my ass up. Romantic Times generously gave us permission to host a PDF of the interview over here at Bitchery HQ, so if you’d like to read it,…
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