Links! Nora in The Guardian, Stephanie Laurens is repetitive, FridayReads drama, Transgender Day of Remembrance

Nov 20 2011 Published by under Links

I’m in the throes of preparing for Thanksgiving, but here is a quick links post:

Nora Roberts is profiled in the Guardian. It is the typical focus on her sales, output, work ethic, and personal history, with some expanded defense of the genre. Except for overuse (by which I mean a number of uses greater than zero) of the word “feisty”, a fun read.

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More coverage of the romance genre, as Brisbane’s Sunday Courier Mail profiles several romance novelists. I love this article, because it highlights a reader-reviewer, Kate Cuthbert (@katididnoz on Twitter), as well as making clear that different romance writers write different kinds of books (Anna Campbell reflecting on her rejection by Mills & Boon, says “Perhaps my style of writing didn’t suit Mills & Boon,” says Campbell. “I suppose I am more of an ‘epic’ type of writer. (But) I loved the escapism they brought to me as a child.”) [via @Bookthingo].

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Drama erupted on Twitter Friday as the fact that the #Fridayreads folks take money from publishers to feature certain books upset the folks who thought it was a reader-only phenomenon. RambleRamble has a short post on it, including a mention of some other ways publishers pay for readers to see their books, as does Katherine Catmull.

It’s true that this information was in the FridayReads.com FAQ, which is great. But I suppose I am in the same boat as most people, in that I had no idea there was a FridayReads blog, nor a FAQ. So it is probably a good thing that the disclosure happened in the place most people engage with FridayReads.

I’m not sure who fired the first salvo in this drama, but I do know that a few days prior, author Jennifer Weiner was tweeting angry tweets about #fridayreads because the same folks are involved with a book site, Book Riot, the latter of which mentioned her in an unflattering way (the post was Why aren’t Jennifer Weiner and Jodi Picoult pissed at Jeffrey Eugenidies?).

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It’s the 13th annual Transgender Day of remembrance. Stats on why this day is needed from The F Word. See Transgender.org for more.

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Here’s a post by writer James Buchanan on Presentation, Perception, and Reality. Buchanan, a multipublished author of gay romance, identifies as a Dom, a gender bender, and a bisexual.

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A very funny Breaking Dawn summary. With dolls.

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And a roundup of the seven harshest reviews of the movie from Time.

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Liz at Something More is blogging about the experience of listening to Stephanie Laurens on audio. Liz distinguishes pleasurable and unpleasurable types of repetition.

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A nice Wall Street Journal story on Epic (really loooong) Marriages and how they work.

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Martin Scorcese is bringing Jo Nesbo’s The Snowman to the big screen.

Happy Sunday!

 

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Point/Counterpoint: Respect, Romance, and Academic Credentials

Feb 23 2011 Published by under Genre musings

A guest post by Janet (@Janetnorcal), an experienced romance reader very knowledgeable about Regency romance in particular, who posts often at Book Lovers Resource and Keira (@KeiraSoleore, whose avatar never ever fails to make me grin), an aspiring romance author who blogs at her own Cogitations and Meditations.

How the point-counterpoint blog got started: Janet Webb sent Keira Soleore a Twitter Direct Message:

Direct message from Janet Webb: Friday, February 11, 2011 5:50:00 PM

I know [..] doesn’t purport to speak for anyone but don’t you occasionally get tired of articles focusing on Ivy league/Rom writer? I do.

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Direct message from Keira Soleore: Friday, February 11, 2011 5:55:09 PM

The reason so much media attention is on Ivy Leaguers is because everyone used to think romance writers & readers were losers…

…The fact that smart accomplished women are doing it gives it legitimacy. Akin to academic scholars lending it legitimacy.

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From: Janet Webb
Sent: Friday, February 11, 2011 6:22 PM
To: Keira Soleore
Subject: We should do a point/counterpoint blog on this …

Oh, I don’t believe that although I think that the ignorant outside world believes that. I think I must have missed all of the disdain — or ignored it. I started with Georgette Heyer, who was beloved by men and women alike: there was no embarrassment involved in loving her books. I don’t think that smart accomplished women writing romance gives it legitimacy, nor do I think that academic scholars writing about it lend it legitimacy. I think the worth of the books themselves gives it legitimacy. Like “Sunshine and Shadow” by Laura & Tom Curtis. I could name a million more. Don’t misunderstand me: I love smart books by anyone. And I love academic writing about the genre that interests me most — I just don’t think it makes it legitimate.

I totally understand journalists going for the obvious story — Ivy League prof writes Romance. But that’s because they aren’t prepared to dig a tad deeper …

Cheers!

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From: Keira Soleore
To: Janet Webb
Sent: Tue, February 15, 2011 1:17:55 PM
Subject: RE: We should do a point/counterpoint blog on this …

See, we’re romance readers. We don’t feel any disdain. But I have only to look at the wonderful people I know who are outside the romance reading community to know the disdain and disregard they hold for romance novels. They do believe, unfairly so and without direct actual knowledge, that those are dirty books with poor writing; in other words “salacious” is the only way to describe them. Those lurid covers do not help at all!!!!!!!!

So that’s been my experience with romance’s reputation. Almost everyone I speak to in Romancelandia says similar things. So, yes indeed, the perception of romance in the larger world is more like “nudge-nudge-wink-wink porn for women” written by chubby, plain, not-so-bright sex-starved women. Do I agree with this? A thousand times no. But non-romance readers do believe this. The books are not getting the respect they deserve all by themselves.

That is why highly educated, successful women writing romance are needed to make a huge impact on romance’s perception. There is no one, not a single person, who has done more in this fashion than Nora Roberts. She has educated the media and the reading public to some extent. Without Nora, we wouldn’t even be where we are today.

And we have leagues to go. You don’t have to convince me, nor I you. We already know and respect the genre. We want wider acceptance and respect. That is why folks like Eloisa James, Julia Quinn, Lauren Willig, Cara Elliott, etc. are so important. Similarly, college courses offered in Princeton and other universities on popular romance give it further legitimacy for the world at large.

“I totally understand journalists going for the obvious story — Ivy League prof writes Romance. But that’s because they aren’t prepared to dig a tad deeper … “
>> I’m not sure I understand. Dig deeper for what?

Keira

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From: Janet Webb
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2011 2:40 PM
To: Keira Soleore
Subject: Re: We should do a point/counterpoint blog on this …

I’ll have to think about what you’ve said. It’s hard for me not to think that courses about Romance are to Literature as Rocks for Jocks are to Geology (see what I mean — outside world looking in). You’ll never believe what my mum just said about Betty Neels. That she quite enjoyed it and that it would make good hospital reading. Do you think that was because of the lack of Brighton? I know she really didn’t like Mary Balogh — because as a devotee of Austen and Heyer, she just kept seeing the problems and inaccuracies.

And you see, I don’t think I agree that professors who teach on the subject of the genre and smart women writers are changing the face of the genre and how it’s regarded. Does romance command more respect today? Just a few months ago the NY Times wrote a very tongue-in-cheek article about e-books and romance. I wasn’t feeling the respect.

Nora Roberts has a high school education — she’s as smart as beans and a fantastic writer and it’s the force of her books that command respect. I wouldn’t think she would even want that mantle. To me she is a butt to the seat writer who has a few close female writer pals but who speaks to the world — like she actually sponsors a local baseball team! She’s not cliquey, she’s not gossipy, she’s not whingey, she’s straightforward and she’s absolutely never complains, never explains. I could not imagine her in a million years complaining to a magazine, online or paper, about a review that she was unhappy with. She is so different in the way she interacts with the world compared to almost every romance writer I know. Now maybe I don’t know enough romance writers — I can definitely think of a few that are following in Nora’s footsteps.

To be continued … let’s keep the conversation going!

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From: Keira Soleore
To: Janet Webb
Sent: Sun, February 20, 2011 3:07:47 PM
Subject: RE: We should do a point/counterpoint blog on this …

The publishing industry is doing nothing to get romance noticed. Now, while the comments are still snide, at least romance is getting media coverage. Quite a bit of it as compared with before, because romance has shown itself to be a publishing phenomenon and there’s so much online conversation happened about it. Before, it was discarded as frivolous and not worthy of any ink in the media.

Despite being a publishing phenomenon, that is not what will sustain the upward swing of interest and respect towards the genre. Remember people have to read the books in order to be able to possibly respect them. Articles by respected individuals, university courses, etc. are standard guidelines of legitimacy. Application of those to the genre is a way to raise its profile. (I really wish publishers would lose those covers.)

Popular Literature is treated like that by the Literature Department. All genre literature is looked down upon. But the more university students clamor for those classes and the more teachers offer them, the more accepted the genre becomes. Like pop culture was accepted, so will romance.

Nora is all you’ve said and more. She took on the mantle of becoming the voice of romance for many years. Now that there are the Smart Bitches and many other bloggers, she’s stepped back from it all. Still when important stuff comes up, she’s there commenting, writing memos, being interviewed, etc.

Janet, who do you think is following in Nora’s footsteps?

Keira

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Ok, folks, can you answer Keira’s question? Any thoughts?

43 responses so far

PCA Romance Panel 3: Nora Roberts: Food, Community, and Voice

Apr 01 2010 Published by under Pop Culture Association 2010

(Brief notes on papers given at the PCA-ACA Conference in St. Louis)

Thursday April 1

Romance III: Nora Roberts: Food, Community, and Voice
Session Chair: An Goris, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven/DePaul University

“Recipes and Rituals: Food and Religion in Nora Roberts’ Three Sisters Island Trilogy”‖ Tessa Kostelc, The George Washington University

Through close textual analysis, this paper demonstrates importance of food and its connections to spirituality and mysticism, and to romance in this trilogy.

Circle Trilogy (2006) – Morrigan’s Cross, Dance of the Gods, Valley of Silence.

Heroine’s understanding of the kitchen spills over into her understanding of Wicca, the religion of her ancestors and new friends on circle island.

And then she compares that to relationships – time, originality, imagination, care – all ingredients of recipes, Wicca, and romance.

Further, food creates communal bonds – centrality of café, of group meals.

“Lights, Audiobooks, Action!: The Recreation of Narrative Voice in Nora Roberts’s The Circle Trilogy”‖ Glinda Hall, University of Arkansas

Notes the importance of voice to romance readers. She has a hard time with Nora Roberts. Notes that when she listened to the Circle Trilogy on audio during a 4 hour commute, she was hooked.

Does the performance reinvent the author’s voice, creating another community of romance readers.

She is a fan of NR’s performed word, but not her written word. NR as a storyteller – GH is a fan of her stories but in a particular form.

Issues of marginalization of the performed text parallel in some ways issues of marginalization in the genre.

[Later, someone suggested that Nora works well on audio because she tends not to write in complete sentences.]

“Let’s Keep It in the Family: Nora Roberts’ Connected Books”‖ An Goris

Theme of family and community crucial to NR’s oeuvre (200+ books, 400 million in print).

Connected book  format –which had been new in early 1990s, shift in genre and its publication practices

Genre of romance seems at first resistant to connected series, since each novel has a definitive ending

Also hesitation because of publication practices, of M&B, Harlequin, Silhouette in 1970s and 80s: focus in marketing on genre not novel itself. Not geared towards relevantly distinguishing novels.

Two-Three decades ago generic conventions were more dominant.

Moved from line driven to author driven genre. (title and author smaller type than words “Silhouette Special Edition”)

Roberts’ first use of connected books format was in 1985, 4 books about MacGregor siblings for Silhouette.

Typically, HEA is more of a promise than narratively portrayed in any depth. NR excels at fulfilling promise of HEA in subsequent books.

When SSE reissue these every few years, title and author are emphasized a little bit more, until in 2006 her name is the biggest thing on the page.

1991  Calhoun sisters novels for Silhouette Desire. First time connection is noted in marketing, with a special Calhoun logo on each book. (Courting Catherine, etc.)

Yet each book lives up to its generic identification – courtship narrative with HEA.

Power balance between genre conventions and individuals author.

Circle Trilogy 2006. They no longer function independently. Romance narrative relies on all books.

Relationship between genre and author has now changed.

The tendency to write families and communities was always there in NR. But it developed over her career in ways that changed the genre, its narrative and publication practices.

Now connected books are very popular in genre. Notes that this individuating dynamic is not much studies in popular romance criticism.

We need to incorporate tendencies to individuation in our criticism, in addition to emphasis on genre.

[Sarah Frantz asks the first question, noting that it was in fact Sam and Alyssa, Suzanne Brockman’s characters, who first began their courtship in a book in which they don’t have their HEA.]

Disclaimer: These summaries are just one person’s interpretation, which is fallible. To follow up, click this link to contact the speakers for more information.

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A Brief Reflection on the Nora Roberts article in the New Yorker

Jul 06 2009 Published by under Genre musings

On Sunday I was sitting in the movie theater watching the wonderful Star Trek for the second time, and I was thinking about the science in sci fi movies. McCoy says something like, “if we crash, our blood will boil in 12 seconds.” This is wrong, and a lot of the “science” in Star Trek is wrong. Not just over simplified, but dead wrong. The same is true of many “historical” movies, regardless of the time period, from 300 to Braveheart.

I was thinking about the purpose of these pop cultural products, which is not to convey scientific or historical truths, but to entertain, often by hitting certain emotional buzzers. I’m not a die hard Trekkie by any means, nor am I generally bloodthirsty, but I let out a whoop with everyone in the audience when Kirk said to the Romulan who is holding him over a cliff by his neck, “I’ve got your gun” and blows him to smithereens.

Romance gets criticized for its fantasy elements, and for its reliance on emotional triggers to entertain (that there is a perfect person in the world for each of us who will love us unconditionally, that love is everlasting, that the HEA solves all problems, the sexual fantasies), while we overlook or indeed praise the very same elements in other pop genres, like historical or sci fi films. I’m not the first person to say that it must be the content, especially the feminine content, which seems to invite derision. When women produce cultural content that is not gender coded feminine, even if the majority of their readers are women, they do get more respect. I’m thinking of authors like JK Rowling and Charlaine Harris.

I subscribe to The New Yorker (you get a lifetime subscription when you get your PhD in the humanities. It’s a secret bonus few know about.) and I cannot recall once in the ten years I’ve been getting it, a review of a Nora Roberts novel — or indeed any romance. I checked The New Yorker online database and again found no critical notice of any of Roberts’ books (I could be wrong here. Correct me if so.). Yet, they did a very long Profiles article on Roberts in June (you need a subscription to read it). It’s odd that a magazine which has never seen fit to review any of Roberts’ hundreds of books wanted to devote so much space to her career as an author.  Then I read the article, and, like most articles about romance in literary venues, it engages more with her lifestyle and number of books sold — the “La Nora Phenomenon” — than her craft.

But Collins does point to strengths in Roberts’ writing, which is what made it truly shocking to this long time New Yorker reader.

EDITED TO ADD: Like here,

“Smark-alecks [like NR] make bad pupils but excellent students of human nature. Roberts is good at what she does not only because she is prolific but also because she can write zingy dialogue and portray scrappy but sincere characters”

“She is known for particularly believable heroes…”

“Her female characters frequently possess an entrepreneurial streak, and they are more independent than many of their peers, and certainly of their predecessors, even if some among them still have a propensity for crumpling like tissues at the sight of bodily fluids.”

“Roberts’ colloquial style can be inelegant, but it deflates the more vaporous of her scenes.”

“A self-taught writer, and an irreverent one…”

“Reading a Roberts novel is like watching a game of tennis between two very good players: it is not so much the outcome of the match but the back-and-forth between commensurate opponents that elicits the spectator’s pleasure.”

“When Roberts writes a book, she assembles a community piece by piece, a train-set village of her own invention.”

“Roberts would have made a keen satirist, were she not without condescension, or cruelty.”

“Hers are not Carrie Bradshaw fantasies.”

“Like campfire stories, Roberts’ books rely on verve and familiarity rather than on any particular polish or originality.”

“Roberts may be the most intuitive writer since Noel (Hot Lead) Loomis, who wrote several dozen Westerns straight onto a Linotype machine he kept in his house.”

“Roberts’s influences are myriad, and mostly popular.”

“Roberts’ writing, by her own estimation, had improved markedly since her early novels, which feature a lot of passive constructions and thesaurus words.”

“Compared with Nora Roberts, J. D. Robb is slightly more staccato and noirish, but Roberts says the voices are essentially the same. In both incarnations, she is spare, catchy and impressionistic. Her sentences are often clipped and she has a habit of turning nouns into verbs (‘two canine forms bulletted out’ the door). Her figurative language can be clever (‘Dobby’s face reminded Cilla of a piece of thin brown paper that had been balled tight, then carelessly smoothed out’) or it can be clumsy (‘They meshed like butter on popcorn, both lively and entertaining.’).

“Almost everyone I spoke with praised Roberts’ storytelling, her incantatory ability to engage the reader. ‘Storytelling’ also suggests a quasi-extemporaneous quality, the privileging of the thrust of the narrative over its details, and while Roberts’s narratives have momentum, they are not always painstakingly crafted”

“Another pitfall, when you’ve written almost 200 books, is repetitiveness.”

“The spunky-heroine voice that Roberts favors is winning, but it can seem like a fallback. … At other times, her characters … seem to hail from the Nixon era.”

“There is a kitchen-table quality to sex in romance novels which distinguishes them from pornography. … Fine, strapping fellows as the men are, they might not always be recognized by their human counterparts.”

“In Roberts’ early books, the sex could be rough and spastic.”

“The hallmark of Roberts’ sex scenes is narrative continuity — the hero and the heroine sleep together, and they don’t suddenly turn into wildly different people.”

The New Yorker reviews lots of popular films (and anyone who thinks snark in romance reviews makes them different from “professional” reviews has clearly never read Anthony Lane) and popular music (Sasha Frere-Jones regularly reviews such popular musicians as Kelly Clarkson and Lady Gaga). Heck, in this week’s issue there’s a story about a “dry cleaner to the stars”. It hit me as I was sitting in the theater watching Star Trek, a movie The New Yorker reviewed, glowingly, that this isn’t a divide between different publications. It’s a divide within the very same magazine. If the magazine can review the gamut of films, from Bergman retrospectives to the latest Judd Apatow and Ben Stiller, and the gamut of music, from Wagner to Madonna, and if it can recognize, in its Profiles section, that a romance novelist has real writing talent, then why isn’t there space to review a wider range of fiction?

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Academic Talks on Nora Roberts, Mary Stewart, Laura Kinsale, and Grace Livingston Hill

Apr 10 2009 Published by under Academia, Genre musings

More summaries from the April 2009 Pop Culture Association Conference, this time a romance panel featuring some of the bloggers at Teach me Tonight! As usual with these posts, keep the possibility of human error (mine) in mind.

“Me, Myself, and I: Love As the Integration of selves in the romance fiction of Nora Roberts”, An Goris, doctoral candidate, U. of Louvain, Belgium

NR always engages with basic narrative conventions of romance genre, but also marred by numerous forms of diversity. Goris focuses on 8 books, out of NR’s 200. Love is presented as a complex, multifaceted, ambiguous emotions. Love as both huge and scary, disruptive, but also simple, basic, real – life’s basis. H/H experience love first as one, then as the other. Calls process the “integration of selves”. Can see this in NR’s writing in her representation of body, mind, and relationships.

Conceptual dichotomy, mind v. body, rational v. irrational, artificial v. natural. Body as vessel of emotional truth. Ex. Characters go pale when shocked, prior to even realizing cognitively they are shocked. Ex. Characters need to touch each other prior to recognition of feelings. H/H emotional journey from conflict to harmony b/t mind and body.

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My First Nora (Review – Born in Fire)

Aug 17 2008 Published by under Reviews

Cover comment: Boring, could be anywhere, but easy to buy without embarrassment

Setting: Contemporary Ireland, switching between the heroine’s home in rural County Clare, and the hero’s tony digs in Dublin.

Series: Yes, this is book 1 in the Born In trilogy. Book 2 is Born in Ice, Book 3 is Born in Shame.

Main characters: A starving artist with major family of origin issues, Maggie Concannon is a “fiery” heroine in at least 3 ways: she has reddish hair, is a professional glass blower, and has a hell of a temper. Rogan Sweeney, yin to Maggie’s yang, is urbane, cultured, calm, business-minded, and “born in” money.

Plot: Straightforward romance plot (no spies, blackmail, violence — unless you count rough sex — or paranormal elements).

Distinctive features: Setting, temperament and profession of heroine.

My take in brief: Born in Fire is one of those books that most people love, and while it is not one of my personal favorite romances, I can easily understand why.

First published in 1994, I listened to the Audible edition, which came out earlier this year. Read by an Irishman, the accents were perfect to my ignorant American ears, but the narrator’s version of female voices was to read their dialogue super fast, which it made them all sound slightly hysterical.

Word on the Web:

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