Actually, there is nothing Yom Kippurish about this post, except that it’s going up just after Yom Kippur ends.
1. Links of interest
Kate Duffy, an editor at Kensington and much more, has passed away. If, like me, you are not in the business and had never heard of her, you can read tributes at Barnes and Noble and Smart Bitches Trashy Books which reveal her tremendous impact on the genre. As a nonwriter, I rarely think about editors. But after reading those posts, it will be a long time before I forget about how important they are to creating the books I love.
Jane and Joan/Sarah F. at Dear Author posted a terrific reflection on the new Lambda Literary Awards criteria (which requires membership in the LGBT community, thus excluding straight authors who write GLBT fiction) at Dear Author last week, just after I posted last week’s Stepback, but it is such a good discussion (as long as you ignore any comments by “Anonymous”) that it bears reminding people it is still ongoing. An LLA board member posted on her own blog to clarify the situation here.
Author Victoria Janssen has been exploring category romance with guest bloggers for the past week. Today’s post is by Maili/McVane and like all of them, is well worth checking out if you don’t mind gnashing your teeth as the OOPness of some of them.
2. Blogs v. Boards
I was surfing around on the AAR boards, which I visit very infrequently, usually when someone there links here, and found this comment, “But in no way can the eleventy zillion blogs that have popped up in romanceland be considered places for discussion.” I wasn’t put out in the least, because my blog happens to be the eleventy zillionth and one.
But I looked around, and I honestly can’t agree with that assessment, at least if the AAR boards are held up as a superior alternative to blogs. There are a lot of very short threads, and not many active ones, it seems to me. The one thread I found really interesting was one where the poster who asked if there’s a point at which romantic suspense becomes too violent to be categorized as romance. I happen to enjoy genre questions, but, if that thread is any indication, those folks don’t.
When I started this blog, I found it odd that boards were less active than blogs. I mentally compared it to the Disney boards I have been frequenting since 2002. The DIS community has 33,000 members, and 2 million threads. I know of few Disney blogs anyone on those boards visits.
Over the past year, I have come to see things a bit differently. For one thing, I see a lot of the same people on blog after blog. It is not like each blog is a silo with its own group of strangers I have never encountered: there is a lot of overlap among the blogs I visit (which I like, although I know some find it incestuous and problematic). On the DIS, if I move from the Resorts board to the Off Site board, I encounter a whole different set of people (who tend to give each other the evil eye when they cross paths). Then, here, you have certain themes or topics that get treated on several different blogs at once, like the “manifesto” wave of recent times. Today, I believe that the multiple blogs in Romanceland do in fact end up replicating the community function of boards in many ways.
And just in case you think only Romland has its internecine conflicts, I will tell you what the issues are on the DIS that will start a 300 comment thread, get the mods involved, and get at least 2 people banned: 1. refillable mugs, 2. pool hopping, 3. getting your 10+ year old kid in on a child’s ticket. On a more serious note, I have also gotten in trouble for objecting when people write in to ask when Gay Days are held so they can avoid them.
3. Latina romance?
I hope this question is not ignorant to the point of upsetting anyone, but it occurred to me today that although I have seen lots of discussion about African American romance and m/m or f/f romance, and their categorization, and their marketing, and who can write them and who buys them, I don’t see that when it comes to the Hispanic community in the US. I know Harlequin publishes its books in Spanish, but it looks to me like they are translations, rather than, like the Kimani line, for example, written by and about the Hispanic audience. And then there are books like the one pictured, which seem more in line with the Greek/Sheik characterization — not really Latino in the way Kimanis are AA. Of course, there is tremendous diversity among Latinos, but they are 45 million strong in the US, a good 15% per cent of the population, and a growing market force. I know from watching The Soup on E! that telenovelas are very popular, and they are essentially romances, but are romance novels popular as well? And are some written by and for a Latina audience?
4. Contest winner
I am sorry for the delay (I plead Jewish holidays), but the winner of the 3 Romances that Really Cook contest is Phyl (please send your mailing address to jessica@racyromancereviews.com). If you haven’t checked out her blog, you should. She makes really nice quilts, not those old fashioned looking ones that remind you of your mortality, but really colorful, fun ones like this.
5. Embarrassing moment of the week. Erotica related.
Spouse and I had to shop for a new mattress this week. After I gave in on upgrading to a king size (it’s usually not just us but at least one of the following: cat, dog, boy, in the bed at any given time), we went to test out queen size mattresses at our local furniture store. You are supposed to lie on each mattress for a full 15 minutes, but all I kept thinking about were all of the other people who had laid on them, and their potentially inadequate hygiene habits, and even Andre the Giant could not have kept me down on that thing for more than 90 seconds tops.
Anyway, we were laying there (lying? this is the one I always mess up.) and I wiggled my eyebrows and said, sotto voce, “you know, we really can’t be sure until we #%$#^&^*&^%$ [edited to protect the innocent] on it.” I heard someone behind me clear his throat, and turned my head to look up into the eyes of the salesman.
It was a former student.
Happy week!
Related posts:
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#1 by Robin on September 29, 2009 - 2:08 am
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I cannot believe I’m the first to comment on this post!
1. SB Sarah’s post on Kate Duffy was lovely.
I’m disturbed by the comments re. LLA that they’re privileging GLBT authors because they’re afraid their work won’t stand up quality-wise to that of straight authors? OMGWTFAYK?
But then I find the whole “discrimination” language unhelpful there. All contests are exclusive, all are exclusionary and even discriminatory in the broad sense of the word. But I think there’s a substantive and substantial difference between, say, shelving AA-authored Romance separately and therefore taking it out of the mainstream and rewarding GLBT-authored books about GLBT characters. In one case, you’re denying a minority access to majority benefits, and in the other you’re affirming the contributions of a minority in a majority-dominated environment. It’s not that I don’t think reverse discrimination is impossible or unidentifiable; I just see the contexts as different. That also doesn’t mean I would personally choose to make those rules for the LLA if I were Queen. But I do think that it’s important to honor a community’s need to be self-affirming and self-legitimating on its own terms (even if I might not think those are the very best terms — it’s not my decision). So I find the reverse discrimination charges to be missing the point a little (or rather focusing on the wrong point, maybe?).
Am loving the Victoria Janssen tributes to category Romance. And I now am hunting for some of the OOP books I haven’t yet been able to scoop up. Although I *do* have at least two copies of Dance and even more of the original Windflower. So there!
2. To me, the primary difference between a board like AAR and blogs is that on blogs you have a post kicking things off. But even on AAR, a thread based on a book review is the same thing, IMO. And when people start threads, they set the initial agenda for that thread. Although it is definitely true that pretty much anyone can start the thread, so that’s different. But I don’t see it as *better* or *worse* and can’t help wondering why there’s so much *persistent* hostility toward bloggers when it’s not like we’re beating on AAR all the time.
Anyway, Jessica, have you Clay Shirky’s essay on the politics of groups? It so helped me understand the board/blog thing.
Also, thank you for using “internecine” – love that word and have been especially fond of it re. the online environment, lol.
3. I can’t even get started on this or I’d be here all night. But yes, I’ve noticed!
4. Congratulations, Phyl! Lovely quilts, btw.
5. Select Comfort (the sleep number bed). You don’t even have to #%$#^&^*&^%$ on it (student optional) to know how great it is regardless of what you’re doing on it and with whom.
#2 by Laura Vivanco on September 29, 2009 - 4:37 am
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“I know Harlequin publishes its books in Spanish, but it looks to me like they are translations, rather than, like the Kimani line, for example, written by and about the Hispanic audience.”
Yes, these are translations, just as (as far as I know) all the books they publish in languages other than English are translations. The markets for Harlequin’s romances translated into Castilian include Spain, México, Argentina, and those American Hispanic readers who prefer to read in this language.
From what I can tell, American Hispanic main characters are not as uncommon in “mainstream” romance as AA main characters, who very, very rarely appear in non-AA lines. I don’t know about the ethnic origin of the authors.
“they are 45 million strong in the US, a good 15% per cent of the population”
Regarding percentages of the population, it’s got to be borne in mind that some lines have higher percentages of non-US authors. UK, Australian and New Zealand authors are rather less likely to write about American Hispanic characters (or American characters of any ethnic/racial background) than are American authors.
I took a look at September’s Silhouette Romantic Suspense line, and out of four books there was one with a heroine called Marisa Perez and one set in Colombia, with a hero called Xavier Monero. Out of October’s 4 books in this line, one has a hero who is “undercover DEA agent Adam Serrano.” I suppose, since they’re romantic suspense, the characters might be non-Hispanics operating under fake Hispanic identities, but there’s still likely to be a lot more of them in this line than AA main characters.
Silhouette Special Edition line (six books per month) has, in September, got and a novel by Karen Templeton (who I think has written quite a few romances with Hispanic central characters), with a heroine called Tess Montoya.
This month there’s also a romance with an AA central couple and Jane at Dear Author wrote that
Again, this tends to suggest that Hispanic characters are more common.
“And then there are books like the one pictured, which seem more in line with the Greek/Sheik characterization — not really Latino in the way Kimanis are AA.”
I wonder if there’s some confusion here derived from UK/US differences. In the UK “Latin” does not mean “Latin@” it generally means “Spaniards and Italians.” Since the Harlequin Presents line is edited in London (as M&B Presents), Harlequin may well have adopted the UK usage of “Latin” in their titles. And yes, the Latin lovers tend to get depicted as dark, handsome, vengeful “Others.” Occasionally “Latin” can mean “Argentinian,” too. Then the heroes tend to be depicted in much the same way as the Spaniards and Italians.
#3 by Aoife on September 29, 2009 - 8:18 am
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1. I found the comments around the LLA awards issue revealing and interesting, but not unexpected. The parallel someone drew (Maili?) with awards within the Deaf community–as opposed to the deaf community– was particularly pertinent, since I have found that some individuals who are members of the dominant culture/race/etc., have a really hard time imagining how someone outside that dominant group experiences the power dynamic.
2. I used to visit AAR often, but no longer even have it bookmarked because my experience was exactly the opposite of the comment you cite: there seemed to be very little real discussion, and what discussion there was seemed to be dominated by a few of the most frequent posters. That is not what I have found in the blogs I visit regularly. For the most part the topics are varied, and the commentary is interesting and intelligent. Well. Usually……
3. Talk about a politically loaded issue! I’ve erased my comments on this topic several times, so I’ll just sum it up by saying that in general I don’t think the number of Hispanic/Latino characters in currently published books reflect the current demographics, and I’m a little tired of the stereotypical characters that do appear in some books.
5. Oh dear. On the other hand, think how much you’ve expanded his world-view.
#4 by Victoria Janssen on September 29, 2009 - 8:49 am
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I was going to write a thoughtful comment, but after 5., I can only ROFLAMO.
#5 by Victoria Janssen on September 29, 2009 - 8:52 am
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Thanks for the link, btw. For the category-tagged posts only, here’s a direct link.
Also, backlist categories are turning up more and more on eHarlequin.com.
#6 by azteclady on September 29, 2009 - 9:04 am
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I first read Harlequin’s novels in the Spanish translations for the Mexican market, and I can tell you that those set in a Latin American country rarely resembled anything around me.
I’ve also lived in Puerto Rico and Venezuela, and again, nothing in the novels resembled the reality around me.
Please note that I don’t mean the fantasy aspect, but from the supposedly Spanish endearments to the behaviour, it truly seemed that Sheiks and Latin heroes were essentially interchangeable.
Mattress: I am torn between being horribly embarrassed on your behalf, and laughing myself silly. (With laughter pulling ahead just slightly…)
#7 by Victoria Janssen on September 29, 2009 - 9:24 am
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Can we have the “edit comment” link back? *bats eyes*
#8 by Wanderer on September 29, 2009 - 9:31 am
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LMAO at the mattress incident. A good way to start the morning
I think the silver lining is that he’s a former student and not a current one.
#9 by Phyl on September 29, 2009 - 9:54 am
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I left a comment earlier and it didn’t appear so I’m trying again. Apologies for the duplicate!
First, even though it’s #4, thanks so much for the win. I’m delighted. And thank you too for the kind remarks about my quilts. Oddly enough, when I was in my 30s I made lots of “granny” quilts. Now in my 50s I’ve discovered color and more non-traditional styles that really speak to me.
I also want to say that the outpouring of remarks about Kate Duffy has fascinated me as I’m purely a reader. I have read and loved many, many of the Kensington Brava books and it has been fascinating to learn about the woman behind those books. My condolences to all who knew and loved her.
Finally, Robin’s right. Sleep number. Best bed out there.
#10 by Jessica on September 29, 2009 - 10:18 am
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Victoria Janssen wrote:
I had no idea it was gone. But after this thread (glares at Victoria and Azteclady) I will get it back come hell or high water.
#11 by Marianne McA on September 29, 2009 - 10:31 am
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I visit AAR all the time – and wouldn’t have seen it as hostile to bloggers.
There are people who comment regularly on the site who don’t like particular blogs (tends to be DA and SBTB now – used to be Mrs Giggles). But there are also people who comment at AAR and visit those blogs too.
IIRC, there’s a thread at the moment about how great Kristie(J)’s blog is – and last time I read it, no-one had done anything but agree.
I do think discussion has died down there – there are so many places to discuss ‘issues’ now. But they do review and discuss books, which really few places I visit seem to do. Makes sense, because a blogger can only read so many books, where a big site will have several reviewers. DA’s the other place that posts reviews frequently.
#12 by Jessica on September 29, 2009 - 10:58 am
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From Janet W, whose comment isn;t loading:
Please load it for me if mine doesn’t show up
Thanks!
Great round-up!
LLA fight — but it’s still fun/interesting to read the back and forths. Teddy Pig has some pointed observations. As for the retrospective of categories, I have to say, some of these books are so fabulous, so old and OOP, that I almost think it’s not quite a real discussion. By that I mean, when we read older books, just by virtue of them not being that readily available, we’re cherry picking. Which I SO appreciate … makes me run off and hope I can still find it for .01 plus shipping.
1. I don’t have a dog in the internecine
2. Blogs versus boards. Seems like an endlessly circuituous argument — someone from AAR talking trash about blogs, others elsewhere saying they never go to AAR anymore. ‘Jes saying, there’s tons of fascinating stories out in romland and there are few sites that I “never” go to … like this morning, Blythe Barnhill, of AAR, wrote about going to a Diana Gabaldon book signing: http://www.likesbooks.com/blog/?p=2741&cpage=1#comment-5294 … that’s as close as I’ll be getting to a DG booksigning and they reviewed the book and they’re giving away a copy. I may not go there as often as when it was, for me, the only game in town, but it’s my first stop for reviews of any book I might be thinking about buying/reading, especially if the book is OOP.
4. If I can’t be the winner, then let it be Phyl — she has the most gorgeous site and she always reviews books that I’m thinking about reading. Like the new Julia London, torn between two husbands one.
#13 by Jessica on September 29, 2009 - 11:02 am
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Marianne McA wrote:
You would know better, as I have only visited a few times. But the line I quoted was from a long thread in which many posters agreed with it. Then I saw posts that seemed to me to be pointed criticisms of various blogs, perhaps including this one, so I reacted. This is my weekly opinion post, so I get to be hot under the collar, off the cuff, rend my garments, and get caught with my pants down, sometimes all in one post!
#14 by Robin on September 29, 2009 - 12:24 pm
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@ Laura Vivanco:
I don’t want to turn this into a battle of minority Romances, but I do think it’s a misnomer to see AA-authored and populated Romance as *more* imperiled by discriminatory attitudes. I just think that the means and effects are somewhat different.
For example, I get really irritated at characters who have, as you referenced, Latino sounding names when it’s merely “ethnic flavor” for the character, not any real ethnic characterization.
And I find that many Latino/Hispanic characters in Romance are whitewashed or fetishized. IIRC, Julie Leto’s series featuring more robustly Latino protags was canceled, as was a Latino Rom line (just looked — it was called “Encanto” and ceased in 2001, according to Caridad Pinero here: http://www.caridad.com/books/encanto/).
So while I agree with you that the presence of Latino/Hispanic characters may seem more accepted and populous, I think there are other problems with their portrayal (and also with how Latino/Hispanic authors fit into the mainstream with similarly drawn characters) that are insidious precisely because of some of the factors you identified.
IMO, the issue of race in Romance is enormous and varied. And while I know there are vivid examples of readers who don’t want so-called “ethnic” books, I think there are also many equally vivid examples of readers who want more racial integration on the shelves and between the book covers, and who want more realistic portrayals of the gamut of racial/ethnic identities in Rom characters. Which makes me hopeful that we can soon get past the strange instance in which writing realistic ethnic characters often lands you on separate shelves, while being integrated into the genre mainstream often seems to require stereotypical characterizations.
(p.s. to Jessica: what happened to the tabs we can use to link, italicize, etc.? They seem to have disappeared along with the edit tab.)
#15 by Lusty Reader on September 29, 2009 - 12:39 pm
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Re: Latino names for “flavor” but no substance
Flipping channels I was suckered into watching some Latino awards thing (still not sure what it was) when I saw Eva Longoria talking. I like to look at her.
Anyways, they did some montage of famous latino athletes and mentioned Tony Romo and Mark Sanchez! I laughed in confusion and had to do some googling. Definitely a stretch in both cases and fits the “flavor vs substance” thoughts here too.
#16 by Laura Vivanco on September 29, 2009 - 1:01 pm
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“I don’t want to turn this into a battle of minority Romances, but I do think it’s a misnomer to see AA-authored and populated Romance as *more* imperiled by discriminatory attitudes. I just think that the means and effects are somewhat different.”
Yes. I know. Since Jessica had mentioned percentages of the population, though, I was just observing that there are greater numbers of Hispanic characters than there are of AA characters. I could also have said that one doesn’t see many Jewish characters in “mainstream” romance, and Jane at Dear Author’s also pointed out a lack of Asian characters. On the other hand, there seem to be rather a lot of Italian, Spanish, Greek and sheik (country of origin usually fictional) billionaire heroes in lines like Harlequin Presents who fall in love with not-very-rich White English/American women, and I’m pretty sure that in reality this is actually rather uncommon. My point was that if one were expecting representation of members of ethnic groups in the genre to reflect the percentages of those ethnic groups in the general population in real life, one would very likely be disappointed.
Some groups are over-represented relative to their numbers in the real world, others are under-represented, and both the exclusions and many of the representations of members of ethnic minorities who are represented in the genre can be problematic.
“Latino sounding names when it’s merely “ethnic flavor” for the character, not any real ethnic characterization.”
This, though, depends on the individual’s family history. For example, I’m half Spanish and I have a Spanish surname, but I was born and have lived almost all my life in the UK. My child speaks no Spanish, because English is my first language and I’ve always spoken English to him. If he had the same surname I do, people might assume from that that he’d have some Spanish “ethnic characterization.” But there wouldn’t be any.
#17 by Robin on September 29, 2009 - 1:05 pm
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@ Lusty Reader:
It’s interesting in the case of real people, too (as opposed to fictional characters, which are sold entirely on a one or two dimensional existence), because you get the accusations that someone is trading on an “ethnic” name. This charge is often leveled against Jessica Alba, for example — that she’s trying to make herself more Latina to gain street cred, or whatever (in Hollywood, I think that street is either Hollywood Blvd or Melrose, so that’s another issue, lol). Which kind of circles back to the LLA questions over self-identification and fetishization. And I have no idea what to say about that, but it connected immediately in my head when I read your comment.
#18 by Robin on September 29, 2009 - 1:15 pm
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@ Laura Vivanco:
I think, though, this goes to the difference between being a real person with all sorts of nuances and dimensions to one’s persona and personal identity and writing a character, which is always going to resolve into one or two dimensions and therefore remain limited in the nuances that are/can be created and communicated.
As in most things fiction v. RL, I tend to be more exacting in my expectations for fictional characters. Because IMO the author should never rely on the reader to assume things off page that are essential or important to understanding/knowing the character, unless the character is being written as substantially unknowable.
In other words, I can accept all sorts of variations and nuances in how names reflect and don’t reflect RL people’s experiences and personalities, but if an author gives her character a decidedly Latino sounding name, I’m not automatically going to give her the benefit of the doubt that she’s just trying to show how diverse society is. I’m going to be looking for clues about how to read that character — whether it’s about creating Latin spice, for example, or about the vagaries of family names and cultural blending. IMO the author has a much higher responsibility to make those choices logical to the reader, even if the conscious point is that they are not related in ways we might expect.
#19 by KMont on September 29, 2009 - 1:43 pm
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OOPness? What is this in relation to category romances? My coffee’s worn off and that’s what feeds my brain throughout the day and I suspect it would be obvious to me otherwise. OOP means “object of power” to me, thanks to Karen Moning’s Fever series.
#20 by Jessica on September 29, 2009 - 1:51 pm
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KMont: LOL, “Object of power”! Actually, I meant Out of Print!
Thank you, Laura and Robin and Azteclady, for helping me think through the Latina romance question. more later on that.
#21 by KMont on September 29, 2009 - 2:09 pm
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Haha! See, I knew my coffee had abandoned me. Really though, thanks to Moning that acronym will nevah, evah mean anything else to me. Thanks for the explanation.
#22 by Wendy on September 29, 2009 - 2:31 pm
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Category romances go out of print in a nanosecond, so it’s pretty hard to avoid talking about OP titles
However thanks to Harlequin going digital, and bookswapping sites like Book Mooch and Paperback Swap, finding older category titles has gotten easier. Looking at my TBR – that’s probably not a good thing. Ha!
#23 by Magdalen on September 29, 2009 - 4:01 pm
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My comment is on one aspect of your mattress-buying expedition. The image of a former philosophy student now selling mattresses reminded me that when I got a Master’s in Philosophy at the tender age of 23 (I calculated that I would have had to stay in the department 4 more years before I had a reasonable probability of not being the youngest), I couldn’t get a respectable job. I finally learned sufficient typing skills to work as a temp. I used to joke that my diploma from grad school had small print at the bottom: This degree renders this person under- or unemployable for ten years.
After ten years, I got a decent job in public health, and after 13 I matriculated as the oldest student in my law school. I never sold mattresses, but I did hearing testing in a flour mill once…
#24 by Jessica on September 29, 2009 - 8:05 pm
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Robin wrote:
I totally agree with you.
Robin wrote:
Yeah, this is my take on it too. the Latino men in romance are about as Hispanic as the Sheiks are Muslim.
Laura Vivanco wrote:
Oh, I wouldn’t l expect this. All I meant was that, in so many other segments of the market, the Latino population in the US is recognized for their large and growing buying power. Romance is a business, and I was surprised that more efforts weren’t made to reach this demographic.
It may be that Latinas are not into romance novels, period, or they are into what is currently published, happy with that.
Wendy wrote:
It;s such a shame, but I am glad to hear from you and Victoria about the e-versions!
Magdalen wrote:
Well, in my discipline’s defense, he wasn’t a MAJOR, just a “gen ed seeker”. But my spouse is a historian and we see just as many of his grads working at Borders or Starbucks after graduation as my students. They eventually find really interesting things to do, and they eventually are very well paid for it, but it takes them longer than grads from more practical fields like nursing or engineering.
I actually think an MA in philosophy might make you less employable than a BA, though. Glad your career path worked out so well!
PS> I have been having a lot of trouble trying to upgrade plugins. Thank you for letting me know the edit options and other options are gone. I am going to try upgrading to the latest version of Word Press. It is very possible I will blow up this blog.
I really need someone I can just pay to do these things for me. I don’t have the time. If you have any suggestions, please email me.
#25 by Robin on September 29, 2009 - 8:29 pm
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I really need someone I can just pay to do these things for me. I don’t have the time. If you have any suggestions, please email me.
How about a former student? (Oh, come on, you knew *someone* would come up with it, right?!)
#26 by Jessica on September 29, 2009 - 8:37 pm
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Actually…that gives me an idea! Thanks!
#27 by Janine on September 29, 2009 - 8:57 pm
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With regard to the boards vs. blogs thing, I tend to see it as mostly a few vocal people, and not necessarily the majority of AAR posters. I am an AAR poster myself (I post there as LFL), as are some other bloggers like Kristie and I think we are just as representative of the AAR board posters as anyone else.
I have been posting at AAR on and off for over a decade and am very grateful to have found it. I know for a fact that many of today’s most popular bloggers started out in romancelandia as AAR posters and some of the authors I most admire learned their craft by discovering and reading great books that first came to their attention through AAR’s DIK reviews.
There is no question in my mind that AAR is a terrific resource to the romance community and has been for years but I don’t see why that diminishes what the blogs have accomplished, anymore than the blogs’ success could diminish any of AAR’s accomplishments.
Admittedly, I haven’t read the latest thread on this boards vs. blogs subject in its entirety because as a blogger for a prominent blog, it is hard not to feel unwelcomed by those few AAR posters when reading those types of comments, and because in other such threads in the past I found my identity as Janine as well as LFL outed before I was ready to go public with it, and my reviewing credentials questioned. I have been reading widely in the genre for over a quarter century as well as posting informed opinions for a decade, and could name other reviewing credentials as well, were I to choose to do so. But I chose not to name any, because I came to the conclusion that arguing would only make me look defensive.
There’s no question that in the minds of many, AAR is the gold standard when it comes to reviews and that is a great credit to the site. But for a few folk, that means that all other sources of reviews on the internet are viewed as upstarts or pretenders to the throne, and suspect ones at that. Why this is I’m not sure.
The logic seems flawed to me, but I don’t see a point in arguing it, especially since I think these are only the views of a few vocal people and that they do not in any way represent the views of the owners of the site.
I am friendly with one of the AAR owners and I think she and the other three do a tremendous service to the romance community in providing their many reviews, interviews, features, databases and informative blogs. I enjoy the site or I wouldn’t keep returning to the boards despite the occasional blog-negative thread. I don’t want to see the boards vs. blogs thing divide us romancelandia posters into separate camps because I think we have more things in common than not, and collaborations serve all of us better than competition.
#28 by Natalie Acres on September 29, 2009 - 11:00 pm
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I want to know more about this mattress testing…..
Thanks for the smiles!
)
Natalie Acres
#29 by Meri on September 30, 2009 - 12:33 am
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Janine wrote:
I am an infrequent AAR poster who used to be a regular poster there. I agree that the majority of posters there are not hostile to blogs, but the vocal minority is made up of some of the most frequent posters there, and to me, it sets an unpleasant tone. SBTB and DA catch most of it because they are high profile, and I find it silly; this shouldn’t be a competition, just different parts of the romance community. I think AAR is a wonderful resource, but I don’t find it “better” than my favorite blogs.
AA and Latino/Latina romance: I read mainly historical romance and fiction, so I don’t know what the trends are in some of the other genres, but I do get the feeling that for all the focus on having more AA romance, other minorities and ethnic/religious groups are not very visible in romance, possibly to an even greater extent. In addition to Latinas, Asian and Asian-American H/Hs seem few and far between; I haven’t come across too many Jewish and Muslim characters, either. Are the sheiks ever Muslim in any meaningful way?
I agree with Laura that we can’t expect a representation of the exact percentages in the population, but some representation would be nice.
#30 by Jessica on September 30, 2009 - 6:17 am
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Janine wrote:
Yes, this is how I see it, too. I do agree with Marianne that it is easier to have a BOOK discussion on a thread, rather than in a response to a blog post review, which may be “Spoiler free”. And it is more democratic than a blog in some ways because anyone can post any topic they like.
I see them as compatible, and always have, but comments I found on that and some other threads, alerted me, for the first time, to another viewpoint, which I wanted to speak to on my own blog. And it is a minority, but a minority who purport to be close to the owners. If I were an owner who disagreed, I would be clear about it publicly.
So this point from Meri resonates with me:
” I agree that the majority of posters there are not hostile to blogs, but the vocal minority is made up of some of the most frequent posters there, and to me, it sets an unpleasant tone.”
Natalie Acres wrote:
You are dying to know… well, here’s all the explicit details… after a ten minute discussion as to whether we needed latex, memory foam, or sawdust in our mattress, we went with a Serta Perfect Day sleeper. It is being delivered today.
#31 by Eva on September 30, 2009 - 7:42 am
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I didn’t read all of the comments, just commenting on point 3 of your post.
I am Latina, (although I’ve never identified myself as such up until the last 5 years when I realized it- I’m half Brasilian raised by my Irish Nana- I self identified as Irish).
I wrote a novella set in Manaus, Brasil with Latin American characters. The full has been requested, and my BIGGEST fear if it is published? IS that they are going to market me/my story as Latina Romance. I didn’t write it as a Latina author, I have no concept of their heritage paradigm and I feel as if I would be a fake. So, it really comes down to story. I wrote a story that happens to be set in Brasil because that is setting the information I used would need. My characters happen to be Latin American because the girl who inspiried the story looked Latin American. So marketing it as such, I feel, would be dishonest to the intent of the story and Latina women.
Will there eventually be Latina Romance? I think they could have tried already? I don’t know. I think publishing is circling the wagons and not trying new things so much (see today’s RTB post about publishers cutting the midlist). But where I live? EVERYTHING is in Spanish/English and the ethnic aisle better be well stocked with favorites, and growing, so I think the purchase power is there already.
#32 by Sherry Thomas on September 30, 2009 - 9:59 am
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Wish you a fabulous inaugural @#$% on the new mattress, Jessica. And maybe a fabulous farewell @#$% on the old one, if you could cram that in –ha!–before the delivery.
#33 by jillsorenson on September 30, 2009 - 10:45 am
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Hahaha, mattress testing. My husband made a comment (too dirty to repeat) while we were in a drive-thru the other day. Like, right by the order mike. I think the employees overheard him. So embarrassing.
Latin romance!! I do a lot of Hispanic/multicultural characters, but I’m not writing for a Latin audience, per se. I wouldn’t want my books shelved separately.
#34 by Maili on September 30, 2009 - 1:05 pm
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I can’t keep track of numbers, so sorry for not listing them.
- the boards vs. blogs issue
Before AAR overhauled its comment system platform, I was a frequent poster… well, let’s be honest – I inhaled the bloody board. It was a paradise for people who love discussions.
There was a streak of anti-blog bias showing up at the time, but I think it was mostly because some bloggers blogged about some of AAR’s reviews and/or editorials. Some interpreted those as attacks on AAR itself.
And some felt that the blogging scene was destroying the community spirit because bloggers were breaking away from a central community point, such as the AAR board and other boards, and taking with them were frequent posters/readers. Hence the ‘Screw you! We like it here more!’ mentality among a few.
But the thing is, it’s all part of the online evolution.
Some people from newsgroups and mailing lists saw the growing popularity of online CGI/message boards as a destroyer of the Usenet.
Fast-forward a couple of years later, people of message boards saw blogs as a destroyer of message boards.
A couple of years later, Twitter is now seen as the enemy of the blog scene because some feel it’s destroying the community spirit of the blog scene.
It still doesn’t mean the Usenet is dead (it isn’t) or that a message board is as well (it still isn’t).
It just means more choices for people to enjoy. That’s how I see it, anyway.
- mattress
Hilarious!
#35 by heidenkind on September 30, 2009 - 5:35 pm
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You’ll have to… have a snack? Hop on the mattress? Color-coordinate your linens? What???
I’m pretty sure I saw a Latina-marketed line of serial romances at the grocery store. They were super-colorful.
#36 by Janine on September 30, 2009 - 8:18 pm
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Meri,
Of course, I don’t disagree with that. Since I blog for DA I’m of course very partial to it, but I think there are other wonderful resources too, and I guess I just don’t want all that AAR or the blogs have contributed over the years to be lost from sight because of this perceived competition on the part of some.
Jessica,
The viewpoint exists and is worth discussing; I just wanted to make the point that it doesn’t represent everyone who is associated with AAR.
You have a point, but there could also be other reasons for choosing not to step into discussions as a site owner.
#37 by Jessica on September 30, 2009 - 9:25 pm
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I agree with you, Janine. Thank you for providing the insight you have on this issue.
And something good has come out of it. While I disagree with some of the more pointed criticisms of blogs, I do agree that the blog review format is not the best for book discussions. This is a point many of us have made in our debates about what a review is for, and whether to include spoilers.
So, in an effort to make lemonade, I have invited readers to join me in a discussion of Anne Stuart’s Black Ice on October 25-27th, a book which I happened to read on your recommendation. Hope to “see” you there!
#38 by Janet W on October 1, 2009 - 9:42 am
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I ran across this old chesnut and thought of you: “Chickens lay eggs and humans lie down”. So no eggs on the new mattress!
#39 by Janine on October 3, 2009 - 7:49 pm
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Just noticed this. You missed an opportunity to do a post on atonement and asking for forgiveness in romance.
#40 by Jessica on October 4, 2009 - 7:01 am
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Oh, that’s right. I owe Sherry a post on moral repair. this week!