Pam Rosenthal's Blog: Passions and Provocations, Even Now, page 7

Words Fail Me

..in trying to describe how it felt last night when The Edge of Impropriety won the RITA for Best Historical Romance at the Romance Writers of America's Annual Awards Ceremony, the culminating event of our National Conference.

So I just keep saying yes — yes, thanks — yes, it's amazing, overwhelming, [image error]awesome, thrilling.

No hold-the-presses stuff, I'm afraid, and I know it's a list of words a writer ought not to lean on.

But true, nonetheless, and will have to serve, in partnership with a picture of

Big Days Coming Up in Cyberspace and in Washington DC

Tomorrow, Friday the 10th, I'll have a post at History Hoydens that I particularly enjoyed writing.

It's called "Umberto Eco, Barbara Cartland, and Me: Saying I Love You in Historical Romance." And it's about how, as a romance reader, it's exclusively historicals for me (well, almost exclusively — sometime I'll write about the exception cases). Which is to say it's another stab at how and why I think historical romance does what it does. And how I started to think in this vein, particularly after

Thanks So Much…

…reviewers and bloggers, for some recent notice to warm my heart.

First to Marilyn Rondeau at CK2S Kwips and Kritiques, who said many lovely things about The Edge of Impropriety, but who especially warmed my heart by saying "I really liked that about this heroine — she actually has to diet!  Bless you Ms. Rosenthal for creating a real woman!"

And bless you, Ms. Rondeau, for writing that line, which I read on a day when I was doing my own real woman act, my Weight Watchers daily points threatening

Just Another Wedding

My last post at History Hoydens was about my East Coast trip, where I mentioned that I'd been to my sister's wedding.

And my prior Hoyden post featured this joyous photo of my sister Robin and her partner — now wife! — Barb, last November when they were the first same-sex couple in Connecticut to receive a marriage license (it appeared on the front page of the New York Times — and if you think the picture itself wasn't a big event for my extended East Coast Jewish family, well, maybe there's a br

Could This be Good for My Mental Health?

…to be called "the scarily brilliant and incomparable Pam Rosenthal"? As erotic romance author, web designer, and blogger Emma Petersen does today upon introducing me to her readers.

Probably not, but certainly fun. And who knows, maybe someday they'll discover that[image error] egregious over-the-top compliments are as good for the heart as an ounce of of Dagoba Eclipse 87% Cacao Extra Bittersweet Dark Chocolate (or at least before the prevailing medical wisdom takes another tack left or right).

Disclaimers a

The Writer as Reader: the Colors of the World

In almost all my fiction, the heroine is a reader. Mostly, I think, because I don't know how to imagine a non-reading consciousness…

I mean, can you imagine yourself illiterate? I can't. It feels as though I've always made my way through the world by peering at it through the lens of other people's written perceptions — even before I could read, in the books I memorized and pretended to read aloud, like some very early favorite Little Golden Books, Circus Time (text by Marian Conger, ill. by Tibo

On the Road (and on my desktop): How to Get Things Done

Just back a week ago from the Popular Culture Association Conference in New Orleans, where I gave a talk, hung with scholars of the romance genre, and ate more wonderful food in a short time than I would have thought possible (or certainly advisable).

You can find out more from my recent post at History Hoydens while I try to get back into my life…

Because you know how that goes, don't you? Being away for even a short time (when it's really away, like New Orleans) really wrecks your routine, and I

Party On; Simple Gifts; Modalities of Cool

Some neat things I did to celebrate the RITA nod were:

– Got my shoes shined by Famous Wayne in front of the Hyatt Regency at the Embarcadero in San Francisco. Yes, Wayne really is as cool as he looks — even cooler in the pinstripes he sometimes wears.

And the shine's the best I've ever had. Made me feel like Sam Spade, only, you know, in a girly kinda way…

– Ordered two bottles of sherry (Gonzalez Byass Solera 1847-1984), not because it's so expensive but because it's so yummy and I couldn't find

What Do You Do the Day You Get a RITA Nomination?

Well, if you're really lucky (as I was) you wake up having forgotten it's the day they [image error]phone the nominees for the RITA awards, which (if you don't know) are Romance Writers' of America's Oscars, chosen every year by fellow romance writers, statues awarded at a bigtime dress-up ceremony at our national conference in July.

So I sat down at my desk this morning (well, yesterday morning by now) and started working on the most pressing of my projects — which in my case, is a presentation for the Popul