Maya Rodale's Blog: Maya Rodale's Blog, page 22
August 14, 2012
The Writing Girl Romance Series
August 9, 2012
Order an autographed book!
SPECIAL OFFER: Until October 26th you can pre-order a copy of Seducing Mr. Knightly and along with my signature, I'll personalize it to your (or your family and friends! Signed books make great gifts!). Oh, and you're supporting Independent Bookstores. Everybody wins! Order now!
July 24, 2012
New Novella: Once Upon a Ballroom!
I’m delighted to announce the debut of ONCE UPON A BALLROOM, an original anthology of short stories set in the glittering ballrooms of Regency England, by Caroline Linden, Katharine Ashe, Maya Rodale, and Miranda Neville.
Discover how a masked ball can turn friends into lovers … how a wicked, wonderful dream can indeed come true … how sometimes behaving as one should not can lead to the most passionate results … and how the truest love is a bond no scandal can shake. Anything can happen at a ball— scandal, passion, disaster … and true love.
Featuring:
The Truth About Love by Caroline Linden
Ask Me to Dance by Katharine Ashe
Once Upon a Dream by Maya Rodale
The School of Wooing for Inept Book Collectors by Miranda Neville
Available now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords!
July 20, 2012
Where is the Love? Romance Fiction Gets Cold Shoulder
My friend and fellow Katharine Ashe demystifies the genre in an article for the publication Duke Today. A great read!
July 17, 2012
July 15, 2012
July 11, 2012
Nora Ephron: “Be the heroine of your own life”
When I heard that Nora Ephron died I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to go to the movies again, since she made so many of my favorites (but I think she’s set a precedent and paved the way for more of Those Movies to be made, yay!). And when I heard about her Commencement Speech at Wellesley College, I had to watch it (I’m a sucker for commencement speeches, go figure). I was charmed and inspired by her wit and wisdom, but when she started talking about “be the heroine of your own life” I stopped multi-tasking and started paying full attention. Among the other gems, “take it personally” and don’t be a lady. You have to watch…
July 9, 2012
Are romance novels porn for women?
This is part 2 of a four part article. Read the full intro or skip to the sassy answer to the question of romance novels and porn.
If this picture were in color, you'd see that she was blushing.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that romance novels are naught but misleading fantasies that delude innocent young ladies, pornography for the feminine sex, and rescue fantasies for idle women, all of which end in marriages that snuff out the feisty, independent heroine.
Or so we are encouraged to believe.
We readers know instinctively these stories are GREAT and that none of the above statements are true. But have you ever wondered where these stereotypes come from and why they persist? Have you ever wanted to utter a devastatingly witty and smart retort whenever someone questions your preference for “trashy bodice rippers”? But no longer!
Behold, the secret history and smart strategies to outsmart the snark!
The Snark: Romance is just porn for women
The Secret History: Definitions of porn/erotica aside, the {ahem} thrust of this comment is to dismiss something that has been terrifying for millenniums: female sexuality. Whether it’s porn (or not), erotica (or not) two key aspects define sex found in romance novels in contrast to most other depictions 1) the emphasis on a women’s pleasure and 2) that she experiences this pleasure and nothing bad happens to her.
One revolutionary element that sets romance apart from “Serious” Fiction is that the heroines have sex and do not die in the end. Think about it: from Juliet Capulet and Anna Karenina to Madame Bovary and Hester Prynne, Literary heroines that dare to love often pay the ultimate price. It’s the petite mort VS The Big Death.
Because the happy ending functions as a reward for good behavior, what this suggests to readers is that it is acceptable—even desirable—to experience and explore pleasure with the person of one’s choosing. What’s wrong with that? Consider this in light of the eighteen and nineteenth centuries (and earlier) when a tremendous amount of wealth and power depended upon a woman’s chastity (inheritance laws being a prime example). With so much at stake, strict control of women’s sexuality was essential.
On her blog Smart Bitches Trashy Books, Sarah Wendell notes, “Politically and culturally we are instructed that we should feel shame for our own sexual curiosity and arousal.” Again we see that mockery, scorn and shame are just strategies to encourage potential rebels to keep their voices down and their hands to themselves.
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Read the secret history of romance novels...
No, really—What’s wrong with a woman enjoying consensual love making with a partner of her choosing? What is wrong with depicting this in literature marketed for adults? It’s a tough question to answer, isn’t it?
Or to again quote Sarah Wendell: “Romance is not porn for women. Porn is porn for women. There is nothing wrong with either one. And whatever a woman employs to satisfy her own sexual curiosity and hornypants is her business, not yours.”
Read More Sassy Responses to Snarky Comments:
Does marriage destroy the independent heroine?
*Excerpted in an article originally published by The Romance Writers Report.
July 2, 2012
Sassy responses to the snark against romance novels
It is a truth universally acknowledged that romance novels are naught but misleading fantasies that delude innocent young ladies, pornography for the feminine sex, and rescue fantasies for idle women, all of which end in marriages that snuff out the feisty, independent heroine.
Or so we are encouraged to believe.
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I hope you're reading dangerous books!
We readers know instinctively these stories are GREAT and that none of the above statements are true. But have you ever wondered where these stereotypes come from and why they persist? Have you ever wanted to utter a devastatingly witty and smart retort whenever someone questions your preference for “trashy bodice rippers”?
The answer lies in British history and literature in the 18th and 19th centuries and my research lead me to the following answer: today’s scorn of romance is an inherited attitude from a time when reading by the working class, and particularly of romance novels, was considered very, very dangerous.
During an era when revolution was in the air (American, French, Industrial) and society was experiencing a massive change (hello, middle class!) anything that threatened the status quo had to be squashed. Romance novels, which featured daring, confident and powerful heroines who lived happily-ever-after, were exactly the sort of incendiary reading material that suggested to readers that they too could be agents of change in their own life and society at large. Of course, this had to be stopped.
The British government tried to extinguish this scourge of novel reading with taxes making reading material and reading light prohibitively expensive. When those methods failed, an attitude of scorn and shame was adopted to drive this revolutionary literature underground by making women embarrassed to read them, or ashamed to talk about them if they did.
But no longer! Behold, the secret history and smart strategies to outsmart the snark!
The Snark: Marriage destroys the Independent heroine
The Secret History: When feminists (and others) dismiss romance novels it’s often because they end in marriage, which is perceived to “destroy the independent, questing woman depicted in the rest of the story” as McDaniel College Professor Pamela Regis writes in her must-read book The Natural History Of The Romance Novel.
But it’s a particular kind of marriage which graces the end of each romance novel: The love match. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was the crazy new thing kids were doing those days. It also—scandalously—represented a woman’s choice.
Regis explains: “For centuries, in many cultures, marriages were “dynastic”–formed to solidify political alliances (among the high-born) or to provide a couple with enough resources to establish a new family. They were political agreements and business deals, that might also involve love, but that did not necessarily have to. ”Companionate” marriages–ones made for love–are now so entrenched in our culture that I have to teach students that things were not always this way. “
What’s so scandalous about the love match? It’s a celebration of a woman’s choice. For the first time in history, women were able to have a say in their life-long companion. Regis echoes this in her book: “The heroine’s choice is key. Choosing a partner is one of the most essential expressions of personal freedom. It’s part of the joy of reading romance.”
I know we’re all thinking all those heroines who disguised themselves as a boy, escaped in the dead of the night, stowed herself away on a ship, all to escape some wretched arranged marriage to an awful brute. She didn’t do all that to marry some other Nodcock, now did she? No. She saved her feisty, independent self for a man who loved her for those exact qualities (however much they may vex him).
The Sassy Response: Respect a woman’s freedom to choose
Some readers may disagree with a heroine’s decision to rush down that dark alley or to keep that shocking secret, but at the end of the day it’s her story to live. So let’s respect a woman’s intelligence to choose a mate who will support rather demean, love rather than control, and generally like her feistiness and make her happy. Should she choose to marry or not, for love or for another reason, respect that decision as well. Oh, and let’s remind the Snobs and Snarkers to respect our choice of reading material, too!
This was originally published in The Romance Writers of America trade publication. Come back next week for more sassy responses to the snark (We’re looking at you, “Mommy Porn”)
June 27, 2012
Fan Girl Day: Loretta Chase
One of my all time favorite authors is Loretta Chase. Full stop. Once, I met her and had a total fangirl moment and she was extraordinarily gracious about it. So naturally, I had to watch this rare video interview with her and my pal Morgan Doremus of the must-read publication RT Book Reviews. Anyway…watch! Enjoy!
Discuss: what is your favorite Loretta Chase novel?
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