More positive journalism

Because I hate lazy and prejudiced reporting about romatic fiction writers/readers or romance writers/ romance readers (they're not quite the same thing though they do touch and blend at many points) - I'm always happy to publicise the moments when the genre gets a fair or even a positive press. There was one such article in the Bookseller/Book Standard article this week and I'm happy to be able to point you in the direction of another today.

This week the RNA held their annual winter party. Unfortunately I wasn't able to be there - I've used up too much of my laughably termed 'free time' going off to teach on Writing Weekends in Wales and such and my editor is starting to twirl her whip menacingly. So Andreas and I have a long weekend ahead of us.

But back to journalists - the Winter Party was attended by journalist Danuta Kean and she reported on it in her blog. Danuta Kean is one of the few journalists who really'gets' romance/romatic fiction and whose comments are fair and backed up with plenty of knowledge, unlike others who simply perpetuate the wizened old moth eaten myths because
a. they don't take the time to check their facts
b. They know they will get a cheap laugh - and those romance writers are fair game - and too stupid to understand or mind.

So it's wonderful to read a balanced and common sense approach like this -

"Romance gets such a dirty reputation among the literati. Only science fiction gets the same treatment. It is something I have commented upon before, but I mention it now because the subject came up last night at the Romantic Novelists Association’s annual winter party. Personally I don’t care what people read, as long as they read. Each book is not just a portal to the world created by the author but to a whole universe of literature, which will hopefully lead on to a lifetime of reading - and may even develop reading habits of which literary snobs approve."

You can read the rest on Danuta's blog - it 's well worth the visit. Lots of interesting entries there.

There's also a wonderful quote by brilliant novelists Sara Craven and Jenny Haddon Chairman of the RNA (who writes as Sophie Weston for HMB)

Author Sara Craven said at a recent Romantic Novelists’ Association
meeting, “Falling in love addles your brain.” It also makes you vulnerable. The
moment you fall in love, you load a gun and hand it someone else. What’s more,
you probably don’t know them nor have any reason to trust them, certainly not
with your heart, to say nothing of your self respect

Just the sort of thing to send me back to Andreas re-inspired. Right now, he's the one holding the loaded gun but . . .