by SB Sarah • Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 01:15 AM
I have a few rules for gift giving, the first being that I put a good amount of thought into the gift I give, and the second that I do not ever, EVER give someone something that suggests they need improvement, or that there is something wrong with them. I don’t like gifts that might possibly hurt feelings, and I’m a big fan of the non-tschotske gift, because gifts that ultimately take up space and require dusting are not necessarily gifts I enjoy as a recipient.
I love experience gifts, too - for Hubby’s birthday one year I drafted an itinerary of all things he loves, from donuts for breakfast to baseball games (and the only team at home that day was a few hours away, so I incorporated driving on country roads in our convertible as part of the gift) to good food and wine at dinner that evening. I packed a change of clothes and surprised him with the dinner, if I remember correctly.
Either way, I love gift giving, even when the budget is tight and the options are limited. So Tuesday’s Publisher’s Lunch caught my eye as they discussed Random House’s new campaign to promote books as holiday gifts this year. In a mandate from CEO Markus Dohle, a task force (NOOOOOOO NOT A TASK FORCE NOOOOOOOOO!) was formed to create the “got milk campaign for books,” encouraging buyers to give books as gifts this year.
The ad campaign will reach the NYT Book Review, the New Yorker, and a crapload of other places, including Facebook and YouTube.
Smart, thinks Sarah. Very smart. But hmm. Book giving, as we discussed here when I brought up books that provide comfort and respite from difficult times, can be very challenging if one doesn’t know the taste of the gift recipient. As Jennifer Crusie once said to me during an interview for The Book (which isn’t due out until April 2009 so alas, I can’t plug our book as The Perfect Gift unless you’re buying for Mother’s Day. Or, “Your Mother” Day) there are some readers who absolutely cannot suspend disbelief for some circumstances in a romance. Some readers will not stand for paranormal activity, and others can’t handle historical romance for other reasons, but the point is apt: it can be tough to pick the right book, let alone the right romance for someone if you don’t know them well. You have to know what plots they are willing to suspend disbelief for, and which they are not. I don’t know that much about many of the people on my gift list, really, and their grasp and rejection of various realities and fictional worlds is certainly not part of my getting-to-know-you questioning.
I have bought books with varying levels of success for people in my world, including Hubby who is a rather picky reader, and my father who only likes books that weigh about 5 lbs. and are about the intricate minutiae of dead people, preferably Civil War generals. But if I were to apply Random House’s “Books = gifts” campaign to the romance genre, what books would I pick? Are there guaranteed romances that make great gifts for people, from those you know intimately to those you work with? Hell, can you buy a romance for people you work with or is that sexual harassment given the likelihood of nookification within the cover?
Plus there’s the added danger of the attitude toward romance. Even the fans of another much-maligned genre whip out their battering rod of condescension when examining romance within the sci-fi genre, so giving another person a romance novel as a gift might backfire in a multitude of ways - most of which will reveal more about the recipient than the gifter, if you ask me. (Note to io9: people whose genre is dismissed as a house built of Spock ears shouldn’t throw stones. Just sayin’.)
I can think of specific people whom I would happily mail a romance as a gift, among them my sister, who reads romance, and several of my friends, who read it as well.
But while I’ve been sitting here pondering which romance novels I’d give as gifts to people who may not read romance, I’ve come back again and again to the same thought. I’d be more likely to give bookstore gift certificates than actual books, allowing the recipient a true blissful experience, more potent than one of those massages with the hot flat rocks: the gift of guilt-free book shopping, book selecting, and book owning.
by SB Sarah • Wednesday, November 12, 2008 at 03:15 AM
In a failing economy, it becomes essential to any business to recycle and to seek alternative means to cut costs. Such as? Stock imagery! Hey, when you find a hot image with expansive man-titty, you work that for all it is worth. For example?
But wait, there’s more! It seems Silhouette has discovered that they can also use all the heads that were chopped off from all those headless cover illustrations, and invite those poor lost craniums to gallivant about their covers. How charitable! How fortunate, particularly for Bonnie Vanak!
Witness the evidence:
by SB Sarah • Wednesday, November 12, 2008 at 01:55 AM
The new design for the Romance Writer’s Report, official publication of the RWA, is pretty freaking sweet. I’ve taken to calling the issues by the stock image used on the cover (which is usually overlaid with text from a female writer of romance literature, like Austen, or, in the case of this month’s issue, Bronte) so the following commentary is from the Fishnets Issue.
There’s two articles of note that I wanted to give a hearty ‘WOO HOO!’ about. First, Carrie Lofty penned a rather lovely article entitled “The Trials and Triumphs of Unusual Historicals,” and aside form the general rocking-ness of the article itself, many of the individuals she cites as sources for her examination of alternative settings for historical romance are .... bloggers. WORD TO YOU LOFTY LIKE WHOA. Jayne from Dear Author, KristieJ from Ramblings on Romance, and Azteclady, who blogs over at Karen Knows Best are all cited, with URLs, alongside authors like Gaelen Foley, Jade Lee, and Sandra Schwab, which makes me so giddy I squealed while reading. Way to go, ladies, and well done Lofty, using readers with big voices to discuss a topic we frequently debate: the future and potential of romances that aren’t set in the Regency - something that readers often mention they want more of, myself included.
Then, Eilis Flynn wrote an article titled Snappy Comebacks, or, “What to say when some douchenozzle disses your romance again.” I mention it because the original article which inspired this one was published in the RWA eNotes, which, impartially speaking, is the best damn e-newsletter in the history of the universe, bar none.
The article is a hoot because it reveals the technicolor crap comments authors have heard, from party guests to coworkers to media. I was particularly enamored of this one:
Patricia Rice refused to be manipulated by a radio host. “I had a radio interview once at 6:00 in the morning,” she explains, “and when the smarmy host asked if I’d read a passage from one of ‘those scenes,’ I read one describing the hero’s hand.”
I hope the hero had big hands. With long, firm fingers.
But Michele Stegman, author of Fortune’s Foe, makes a point that I hadn’t thought of - and I spend a good amount of time telling people which lake to jump in should they be dissing the romance:
“...When you meet a new couple, one of the first things asked is often, ‘How did you two meet?’ You already know the couple is together. What you’re hoping for is a good story.... In a romance, you always get a good story.”
It’s a nice spin on Nora Roberts’ perennial assertions that romance is about the journey to the happy ending, not the happy ending itself, and focusing on the ending discounts that journey. Way to go Flynn and Lofty for a job well done.
by SB Sarah • Tuesday, November 11, 2008 at 05:52 PM
From the Professors Brilliant comes a Call for Papers. Alas, I cannot participate, as it starts on the first night of Passover, and if I left RT early and skipped the PAGEANT OF MAN TITTY for Pesach, you can understand that New Orleans is not among my ports of breadless call either. Otherwise I’d be there with beads on.
But if you’re looking for a scholarly opportunity or a place to send a proposal last minute, have a look.
PCA / ACA National Conference: New Orleans, April 8-11, 2009
(Conference info: http://pcaaca.org/conference/national.php)
CALL FOR PAPERS: Romance Fiction
We are considering proposals for individual papers, sessions organized around a theme, and “special panels” featuring authors or editors. Sessions are scheduled in one-hour slots, ideally with four papers or speakers per standard session.
Should you or any of your colleagues be interested in submitting a proposal or have any questions, please contact one or both of the area chairs (see below). Please feel free to forward, cross-post, or link to this call for papers.
We are interested in any and all topics about or related to romance fiction: all genres, all kinds, and all eras.
Some possible topics (although we are not limited to these):
--Individual Novels or Authors
--New Directions in Romance Scholarship (historicist, formalist, post-colonial, queer-theoretical, etc.)
--Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Romance, and same-sex love within predominantly heterosexual texts
--Genre-Bending and Genre-Crossing authors and texts (erotic romance, SF romance, chick-lit, urban fantasy, highbrow / lowbrow crossover texts, etc.)
--African-American, Latina, Asian, and other Multicultural romance
--Young Adult Romance and Chick-lit (series, novels, authors, communities)
--Category Romance (its past history, recent and forthcoming lines, changing demographics, etc.)
--History of Romance Fiction and its major subgenres (major authors and texts, turning points in the development of the genre or any subgenre)
--Romance and Region: places, histories, mythologies, traditions
--Romance on the World Stage (texts in translation; romance manga; non-Western writers, readers, and publishers; local, national, and multinational publishing)
--Romance communities and the Romance Industry: authors, readers, publishers, websites, blogs
If you are a romance author or editor and are interested in speaking on your own work or on developments in the romance genre, please contact us!
As we did last year in San Francisco, the Romance Fiction area will meet in a special Open Forum to discuss upcoming conferences, work in progress, and the future of the field. Of particular interest this year: the new International Association for the Study of Popular Romance (IASPR) with its affiliated scholarly publication, Journal of Popular Romance Studies (JPRS)!
Submit a one-page (150-250 word) proposal or abstract (via regular mail or e-mail) by November 15, 2008, to the Area Chairs in Romance:
Eric Selinger
Dept. of English
DePaul Univ.
802 West Belden Ave.
Chicago, IL 60614
773-325-4475
eselinge@depaul.edu
Darcy Martin
Women’s Studies
East Tennessee State University
(423) 439-6311
martindj@etsu.edu
by SB Sarah • Tuesday, November 11, 2008 at 01:50 AM
Our Grade:
Title: Talking With the Dead
Author: Shiloh Walker
Publication Info: Samhain Publishing November 2006, ISBN: B000R93DC6
Genre: Romantic Suspense
This was a free Kindle download from Sam Hain (distant cousin to Sam Adams) and since it was three dots long (the length of a book on the Kindle is depicted by a series of dots beneath the title in the contents section of the device) I figured it would be a quick read for me.
Let me say outright: there were a lot things that frustrated me about this story, but Shiloh Walker’s writing is not one of them. Despite the elements that I’ll get to in a moment, I’ll be looking for Walker’s books in the future because her writing is SOLID. The narrative voice was unique and inviting, and often underscored the subtle language differences between the hero (a Southern man) and the heroine (an Indiana sheriff). The plot was tight, with growing and ebbing tension.
Even in the confines of a novella, the hero was nuanced and sympathetic. Michael O’Rourke can hear the dead, see the dead, and generally gets pestered by the dead who aren’t pleased that they’re dead because they wouldn’t be if not for whatever murdering fucknut who killed them. O’Roarke is nearly burnt out entirely, and he began his adult life with most of his innocence and humor cut off by a neglectful, abusive mother. He was saved only by the love and watchful care of his brother. The heroine, Daisy Crandall, is a small town Indiana sheriff plagued by a serial killer who kidnaps women, rapes them repeatedly, chokes and revives them, and then cuts them all over so they exsanguinate slowly, too weak to get help after their dying bodies are dumped in a field. Sick mother fucker.
O’Rourke rolls into town because he’s guided by the sense of anguish and terror that cloaks the town limits, and finds himself assisting both Daisy and the latest victim in the quest for the killer. O’Rourke’s past is revealed in the initial chapter, so he’s already wrenchingly sympathetic. Daisy, on the other hand, must confront the limitations of her own investigation and figure out why this O’Rourke guy is so damn creepy.
Walker has serious skillz with the dramatic tension, the descriptions, the pacing, the mood and the narration, and as a character O’Rourke is marvelously written. I particularly adored the dialogue between O’Rourke and his brother – familial banter with an extraordinary subtext, and humor balanced with pain. Those were definitely my favorite scenes.
There’s very little “meh” in this novella for me – I either adored parts or was screeching about others. The good, I’ve outlined. I don’t know if I can underscore how good I found the good parts, particularly Walker’s writing. It’s damn good. So what made me screech?
There’s a serial killer in a small town in Indiana, and not once does Daisy have to deal with a panicked town? Why aren’t more people flipping out?
The villain was plenty scary but once he’s revealed in full, he becomes less so to the point where he’s too easily vanquished. There was no explanation of who he was or how he fit into the community – or how he managed to be an uncaught yet prolific serial killer in a small town in the first place.
But the two most jarring elements were the unresolved plot points, and the sexuality between the protagonists. The romance between protagonists was flat, and it went from “Hey you’re cute” and “You have a nice ass” with a soupçon of “Gee your hair smells terrific” to serious bonerating in .02 seconds. Plus, since that rapid acceleration of bonerating status happens AFTER some violent discussion of rape and the murder victims, it was hard for me to separate the two because the protagonists’ attraction was so flimsy and based on so little time together that it read like satiation of lust instead of true emotional connection, even the beginnings of one. Plus, the subtext of the seizing sexual gestures within their first encounter was discomfiting when contrasted the villain in the preceding chapters.
Further, the resolution of O’Roarke’s brother’s story is left out, despite several specific statements as to what end his brother is seeking. O’Roarke’s brother is one of the factors that enables the reader to understand the nobility and strength of his character; to see his brother cheated of his own resolution in the end of the story was terribly unsatisfying. Unless there’s a second book about him, I am really, truly bummed that he didn’t have his own ending. The lack of resolution to that particular plot point, since it supercedes all the other resolutions that Michael must seek on behalf of others every day of his extraordinary life, is disappointing and leaves a great void in my enjoyment of the novella.
But even despite those dangling threads and my questions of the scope of the villainy, Shiloh Walker has some badass writing chops. Her writing is sharp, descriptive, and intelligent, and I was instantly dragged into her story. That’s quite a talent, considering how short novellas are. The fact that I missed the ending to the journeys of ancillary characters is also a testament to Walker’s talent, because I gave a hell of a crap about secondary characters, and missed seeing them reach a satisfactory ending. As I said, I’m definitely keeping my eye out for more, as I am ever a fan of unique and fascinating character collections.
