Posted September 14, 2009 to Personal Appearances
I was at the Brooklyn Book Festival, the largest book fair in the New York area on Sunday 13 September 2009, moderating a panel with romance authors Donna Hill, Anna DePalo, and Rochelle Alers. The panel was titled “Love: The Unstoppable Bestseller,” and despite my being stuck in traffic for 2.5 hours and arriving in the middle of the panel in progress (OH the EMBARRASSMENT) it went off very well.
Rochelle Alers said something to me afterward that was very wise, and I’m still thinking about it: she never worries about the romance genre not receiving respect. She respects herself and she respects her work, and she doesn’t worry what anyone else says. Me personally, I spend a lot of time being asked why romance, aren’t I too smart to read romance, and (my favorite) “don’t you read… other things?” I’ve long stopped being embarrassed about romance reading, and while I meet many authors and readers who are still shy of speaking out about it, it’s refreshingly awesome to meet a savvy successful author who thinks so differently.
