Pam Rosenthal's Blog: Passions and Provocations, Even Now, page 6

Read this Book!

No, not mine. Well, read mine too, but if you like historical fiction at all, do yourself a favor and get hold of a copy of Hilary Mantel's spectacular, prize-winning Wolf Hall.

I'm posting today at the History Hoydens blog about my experience of reading it: one of the pure deep pleasures to match my seven-year-old memory of laughing my head off at Through the Looking Glass. But unlike my seven-year-old self, I'm trying to describe the kind of pleasure I got, which I think– hope — sheds some l...

If you really want to hear about it…

…the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

Which quote, if you're of a certain age, might be unmistakable.

J.D. Salinger died last Wednesday at age 91. And the first sentence of his 1951 novel, The Catcher in the Rye, changed the way I read and ultimately...

Banned Books Week

Just a quick reminder that it ends tomorrow. So do celebrate by contemplating all the treasures someone, somewhere, sometime wanted to keep you from reading. I'm having my say about it today over at History Hoydens — do come by or comment here.

And a quick question: do you know of any romance novel that got deep enough under somebody's skin that he or she tried to ban it?

©2009 Passions and Provocations. All Rights Reserved.

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Kate Duffy

Just a few words in honor of this extraordinary romance editor who died today. My first editor in romance fiction, Kate Duffy was the fierce intelligence and guiding spirit behind Kensington's Brava line.

Of course, lots of publishers do erotic romance now. But Kensington did it early and they did it big, with a confidence and clarity of purpose and imagination that was all Kate.

She was tough and smart and we had our disagreements. But (see Smart Bitch Sarah's lovely personal reminiscence

Be My Baby Now, Part II

I had to leave off this argument to go post at the Hoydens about Sex and the Historical Sensibility. But I promised to come back and finish it off with "subtleties, shades, differences." To ask — of a genre that guarantees its readers a happy-ever-after ending every time — whether it's possible to mix things up a little.

And to say something more (in clarification of my comments to Laura Vivanco at Teach Me Tonight) of what I think of the politics implicit in claiming total innocence for your ...

Sex and (the historical) Sensibility

That's what my latest post at History Hoydens is about. The whole title being Sex and (the historical) Sensibility: Sickness, Seaside, Seduction.

Plus a lot of interesting comments… Do you think Jane Austen wrote romances, novels or both? Let me know.

A very Pam-ish post, I think, replete with fact, fetishism, and all the other good stuff that makes historical romance writing hot geeky fun for me.

Come on by, if you're of a mind to, and give us hoydens a piece of your mind by leaving a comment.

A...

Innocence and Experience: Be My Baby Now, Part I

Beneath my writers' uniform of flannel pajamas, I harbor two raging alter-egos in spandex, the dynamic duo of TheoryGirl and SuperEgoGirl. The first thinks the big fancy thoughts, the second (and more beleaguered) gets it onto paper (or into the ether), but only after I've promised to do so.

Which is why, in my last post, I announced that I'd be pulling together some of the thoughts I've been having about these issues, in response to Laura Vivanco's brief provocative post at Teach Me Tonight, ca

Am I Having Fun Yet?

Actually, I am today — blogging away at History Hoydens about the research I'm doing, about the clothing Regency fashion prescribed for sailing and what people most likely actually wore.

And (most important for a writer) how to describe all that.

With nods (of course) to Jane Austen, Shelley and his circle, and fashionistas everywhere.

Come on by, say hi, and tell me what you think.

©2009 Passions and Provocations. All Rights Reserved.

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Of Tough Love, Alter Egos, and New Friends: A Final RITA Post, I promise (with pix)

My favorite picture is probably this one (taken by Joanne Lockyer) of me up on the podium making my acceptance speech, seeming for all the world as though I knew what I was doing there, at least if you don't count the effect of my searching the ceiling for inspiration — much as one of my alter egos, Sydney in The Edge of Impropriety, does, "as if to consult some hidden text secreted up there."

I love the glamorous blue and purple backdrop, don't you?

But as for my knowing what I was doing, don't y

Giggle. Snort.

No, not over my winning the RITA, though that astonishing event still catapults me into spasms of giddy laughter, moments when I least expect it.

But this time over the wonderful racy LOL humor in my current contest prize, Janet Mullany's A Most Lamentable Comedy.

I've got my own copy now (I stayed with Janet at her house near DC during Romance Writers of America's National Conference last week). And on my last morning, I had the pleasure of waking up the author with my gasps and giggles.

Raucous,