Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Oh boy. Those of you who like the snarking we dish out every week on our Covers Gone Wild feature will looooove this site: It’s Not Porn, Really!

Books, judged solely by their covers. I love it.

Bam’s other blog, It’s Not Chick Porn! is also a hoot.

Bam is now my favorite romance-reading sociopathic bisexual girl.

I’ve been meaning to post a link about this for DAYS now but I keep spacing it out like the good little space cadet I am.

Anyway, Marianne Mancusi’s house was struck by lightning while she was in Reno for the RWA conference. She lost everything--everything except her dog (which, seriouly? Made me sniffle in relief when I read about it). Luckily, some truly awesome people have rallied round and donated all sorts of stuff, AND there are all sorts of eBay auctions going on now, with the proceeds going to Marianne.

We Smart Bitches are donating two items: a Guest Bitchery session (auction ending in approximately 1 day, 18 hours, so bid soon, motherfuckers!), whereby you can bitch to your heart’s content right here in this little space of ours, and a manuscript critique by Sarah and me (kinda like a review! But without the public evisceration!).

Me? I’m coveting the autographed copy of Bet Me. (Yeah, y’all are feeling surprised, somehow?) But there are loads of other goodies too, including other autographed books and manuscript critiques from people who can actually walk the walk, as opposed to a couple of smart-mouthed chippies who have never finished writing a novel in their lives but who have very definite opinions on what’s crrrap and what’s not.

So go forth! Bid! Spend wantonly! It’s for a good cause.

We, the Smart Bitches Candy and Sarah, are proud to present the first in what we hope will be a series of interviews regarding the romance world, and who better to start with than Gayle Wilson, President-Elect of Romace Writers of America.

We asked Ms. Wilson a few questions, addressing recent events and other Very Important Issues, and here are her erudite answers, though she asks that we clarify that she is answering for herself, and not as a spokesperson for the RWA. We Smart Bitches love it when people are willing to speak for themselves, so welcome and thank you, Gayle, for being our first interview!

1. We read your apology and our readers thought it was a very appropriate response. What do you have to say to angered members of RWA who are still very upset regarding the recent decisions of the RWA, aside from the awards ceremony (e.g. the graphical standards policy, the survey of what constitutes romance)? What would you like to say to members who are outraged at the overall direction the organization seems to have taken?

Please understand that I am not the official spokesperson for RWA.  What I say here is only the opinion of one member in good standing, albeit one who attends a lot of board meetings.

I believe that one of the biggest problems this year has been our failure to communicate promptly and appropriately with our members.  In some cases, like the definition of romance controversy, the board was considering areas in which our financial resources should not be committed.  For example, should RWA provide space at our conferences for publishers who don’t publish romance, and if so, how do we define “romance”?  In this instance, because we evidently didn’t make that motive perfectly clear to members, some of them came to believe that the board was trying to shut them out of RWA.  On the graphical standards issue the board was trying to protect the organization from having extremely graphic ads in our publications that we were told might trigger postal regulations requiring different and expensive packaging for our magazine.  In that case, the board’s decision was rushed because we didn’t have complete and accurate information.  As soon as we received that, we suspended the standards until a member committee could consider whether there was a need for them.

I personally believe that if the members had been immediately informed of the whys and wherefores of some of the decisions made this year, much of the current distrust would not exist.  The board is made up of people who truly have RWA’s best interests at heart.  We have, however, made mistakes.  We regret them, and we have learned from them.  I know that simply saying that will not reassure outraged members, but I hope that by our future actions we can restore the trust that was damaged this year.  That’s one of my major goals.

Update! Sylvia Day posts Debra Dixon’s rebuttal, and based on other evidence, concludes that Medallion dropped the ball. The comments have some interesting reading material, too. Found the link on Alison’s blog.

A couple of days ago, Kate Rothwell posted a letter from the CEO/Editor-in-Chief of Medallion Press about how their status as RWA-approved publisher has been yanked.

OK, I can see the value of vetting a publisher and giving it an organization’s Stamp of Approval so that aspiring authors who sell to small presses can be assured that they’re legit operations, not scam jobs.

But this part of the letter struck me as very, very strange:

Several months prior to Book Expo America 2005, we received a call from your [the RWA] office alerting us to the fact that you would be sending out a letter asking us to re-qualify for RWA approval. We were also told at that time that we had done nothing to warrant the re-qualification, but that your organization was having trouble with a particular publisher and chose not to single them out.

How weird does THAT sound? One iffy publisher was under investigation, but all the other small presses had to go through the re-qualifying process so that the iffy publisher’s feelings weren’t hurt?

Weird, weird, weird. I don’t get it. Can someone enlighten me on why this would be necessary?

Also, how often in the past has the RWA cleaned house for its list of approved small presses? Or is this the first time it has made presses that previously qualified go through the qualification process AGAIN with no evidence of malfeasance (e.g. opening up a vanity press division)?

I’m genuinely curious. Anyone care to educate me?

Please?

Sarah: Dear God. It’s like a checklist: open shirt? Check! Tucked into pants? Check! Ruffle? CHECK!

But what’s up with Ichabod Crane’s low-hanging saggy scrotum, there? I mean, is shirt-dude kneeling out of pity? The man is half-dead, and the half that’s dead is down his pants.

Candy: The dude on the left looks really, really bored. “Oh boy. Another blowjob from a blond twink with nipples harder than sapphires. Just another day at Gaywyck.”

Sarah: MY EYES! MY EYES! Jesus in a sidecar, what is this? Romance for the elephantitis-loves-mullet set? Wouldn’t you seek help if your nads swelled up to the size of cantaloupes?

I can’t even see the rest of the cover. All I see is “giant nutsack!”

Candy: Mr. Testicular Elephantitis bears a somewhat strong resemblance to a friend of mine. His FACE, people, I mean his FACE. So there’s a whole new level of “EEEGAAAH!” going on over here when I look at this cover.

And in addition to elephantitis, Aspen… I mean cover dude totally looks as if he has scoliosis as well. I mean, is it possible to curve your spine THAT MUCH and still remain upright? I (and other adherents to the laws of gravity) would love to know.

And yeah, what’s up with the mullet, man? I guess I should be grateful it’s not Jheri-curled into the bargain.

Sarah: Published in smaller markets as “Fag-Hag’s Lament,” this cover features Lila Fowler from Sweet Valley High, dressed in her Civil-War best, running towards the cliffs of despair as she realizes that Bruce Patman loves himself, and only himself, and since he’s been conveniently cloned, so much the better for both of them.

Candy: And I thought Boondock Saints fanfic was the only place where twincest runs rampant.

That there’s an actual term for this fetish makes me even sadder and scareder.

My question is: Why is the silly girl walking away? If it were me and I’d just been utterly shunned that way, I totally would’ve whipped out my camera (or my sketchbook, to be historically accurate) and had a good time watching the two boys getting it on while recording it for posterity.

Not to mention the excellent blackmail material this kind of thing would’ve afforded....

Sarah: “Gee, Chet, thanks to some poorly-developed computer graphics, your leg appears to be going directly through my ass.”

“Golly, Lesley, you’re right. And so nice of you to compare my leg to my… other leg! Seems the soccer field is the only thing that’s empty.”

Candy: Wow. Another mullet. Twincest, elephantitis and mullets.

*starts weeping*

What’s weird (besides the mind-bogglingly awful artwork in general) about this cover is, everything on these two figures is hugely overdeveloped… exept for one key area.

OH COME ON. I can’t be the only person who automatically looks THERE on these covers. And it just doesn’t seem as if there’s anything THERE for the dark-haired dude.