Finding romance (novels)
Have you ever wondered how your favorite authors were introduced to romance novels? From discoveries made while babysitting to gifts from relatives, authors Jessica Andersen, Kristan Higgins, Debbie Kaufman, Jayne Ann Krentz, Caridad Piñeiro, Jill Shalvis, and Nalini Singh share their first romance read! Do you remember your first romance novel?
Starting out in romance
For Jayne Ann Krentz, writing is like a compulsion or addiction. She felt the need to keep writing and creating stories, even before a publisher accepted one of her manuscripts. She told filmmaker Laurie Kahn “I just racked up a lot of proposals, first 50 pages of a proposal, kind of thing, and then when that didn’t sell, tried another [...]
Cover to cover
This post was originally published on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and accompanied a podcast. The post appears here with the permission of Sarah Wendell and Lauren Willig: When I wrote my first (publishable) book, the book that became The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, I was pretty sure that I was writing a romance novel. The working title was [...]
Feminist romance
A professor of mine once said that all literary critics are either lumpers or splitters. Lumpers enjoy finding patterns in large groups of texts—an author’s entire oeuvre, a literary genre, a whole historical period—while splitters look closely at a handful of texts, or even just one, searching for the special, innovative, and unique. The foundational texts on popular romance—Ann Snitow’s [...]
Documentary Kickstarter
Yesterday, we had the opportunity to show the reel for our upcoming documentary, Love Between the Covers, at the 2012 Romance Writers of America convention in Anaheim, California! We’re extremely grateful for our reception and to the RWA for giving us the opportunity! We’d like to share the reel with you here as well. Visit LoveBetweentheCovers.com to see the reel [...]
Dreams and day jobs
I always ask romance authors what they wanted to be when they were young—and the answers I get are often surprising. Underwater archaeologist? Cytologist? Who knew? As for the various jobs they’ve had, the answers I get include waitress, journalist, scientist, nurse, and attorney. Some romance authors give up their day jobs as soon as they are able to do [...]
Category to chart topper
Every Sunday morning when I turn to the New York Times Book Review, I read the bestseller lists looking for familiar names from the early 1980s, when burgeoning new series of American category romances redefined the genre. I almost always find one or more: Nora Roberts (or J.D. Robb), Iris Johansen, Fern Michaels, Jayne Ann Krentz (or one of her [...]
Krentz on archetypes
Bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz writes under three names, one for each of the three worlds she’s created: she’s Amanda Quick for historical romantic suspense, Jayne Ann Krentz (her married name) for contemporary romantic suspense, and Jayne Castle (her birth name) for futuristic/paranormal romantic suspense. She believes that romance novels celebrate women’s heroic virtues and values, and that all genre [...]
