I WRITE ABOUT LOVE

I’m feeling impassioned this morning.
I write about love. I write about romance. I write about strong people prevailing over circumstance. And I’m PROUD of it!
In this day and age, though romance novels represent almost half of all fiction sold, volume for volume, there is still a snide, psuedo-intellectual attitude out there. It’s not ‘literary’ to write–or read–about love. Is that crazy, or what?
Violence is all right.
Torture is all right.
Murder and every kind of depravity are all right.
But romance is suspect? (And this determination is made, 99 percent of the time, by pompous asses who’ve never actually READ a romance. They just think it makes them look smart to pan them.)
Here’s what I think–as if you hadn’t already figured out that I’m on a real tear and I’m about to tell you. Romances are for women, by women. Ergo, they must be slight reading, with no redeeming social value at all! And it’s intellectual to take that stand? I submit that it’s more like sexism, and it’s worse when women do it, because that’s nothing but pandering–unless, and this is a BIG unless–they’ve actually read a book and honestly not liked it. That’s different. But it’s rarely the case.
Even Oprah, whom I admire in every other respect, seems to take this position, and that amazes me, because she’s so smart and she’s so generous and she’s so all about empowering women. Well, DUH. You won’t find many more powerful women than in today’s romance novels!
Now, I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but nonetheless, I want the world to know this: I WRITE ABOUT LOVE. I’M PROUD OF THAT. AND I NOT ONLY PLAN TO CONTINUE, I PLAN TO DO IT MORE AND MORE POWERFULLY.
There’s a reason my heroines are strong.
I’M STRONG.
I won’t apologize for writing about love.
I won’t apologize for who I am, what I weigh, the size of my jeans, or the way I voted, and I DEFINITELY won’t apologize for being an American. Which is another subject, for another day.
Cowgirl UP!