From time to time, someone in the blogosphere takes it upon himself to mock old romance comics. I mentioned one such episode a few months ago. That first one got me kind of hot under the collar, because frankly, mocking romance comics is shooting fish in a barrel, as well as seeming to me to  … Read more

No. And no, this is not a continuation of my previous story of my collection of supposed bad habits. It just so happens that immediately after I humorously called my romance novel reading a bad habit, one of the more irritatingly perennial, stupid putdowns of romances, lamely couched as a balanced discussion in the Atlanta  … Read more

We all develop bad habits. These are defined as repetitive behavior that harms us in some way but also delivers some reward to us. For most of my life, my favorite reading material has been defined by society as a bad habit. When I first started reading comic books, I was the age when most  … Read more

Here we go again: The latest version of the usual debate has been raging on various web sites. You know, the one about whether romances are serious literature, or should be considered seriously, or even should be reviewed by serious literary reviewers in serious literary publications (see Smart Bitches: Litblogs vs. Print Reviews: FIGHT! 6/15/07.)  … Read more

What kind of romance cover makes you want to pick up the book (or comic) and read it? I’ve always been attracted to covers with brides on them. Bridal gowns are so special, so elaborate, and so individual. And women usually only wear them once. Sure, celebrities or Hollywood types may have fabulous white (or  … Read more

We talk an awful lot about romantic heroes in romance blogs. But we don’t say a huge amount about the heroines, except maybe the ones who are Too Stupid to Live. Well, that’s another column. I got to thinking about romance heroines who made a big impression, and why. Of course what first came to  … Read more

What is it about a romance that keeps people reading it generations after it was published? Even centuries? The three romances I talked about last time, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights, were all eventually enshrined as literature. But so were Pamela by Samuel Richardson (the first English novel and the first English  … Read more

A month ago, the NY Times had an essay in the book review section by Rachel Donadio (“Art of the Feud”) repining about the lack of robust literary feuds today. (Norman Mailer evidently would be happy to, but nobody wants to play.) Donadio cited with nostalgia the exciting blood feud between Mary McCarthy and Lillian  … Read more

People often ask why don’t you put more humor in romance? The easy, technical answer, is that writing humor is difficult and it often falls flat. There aren’t many writers who can manage to be funny in print. But that’s not the main problem. When you put humor in romance you run the risk of  … Read more

I was talking to a writer recently who has been immersing herself in the romantic era of King Louis XIV of France. The Sun King had a keen sense of the importance of appearance. He made the court of France the most glamorous and romantic of Europe. He turned his palace of Versailles into a  … Read more