Beyond Heaving Bosoms
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Osborn, Heather. Personal Interview. September 21, 2007.
Regis, Pamela. A Natural History of the Romance Novel. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.
Roberts, Nora. Personal interview. December 11, 2006.
———. “Fun Facts.” www.noraroberts.com/funfacts.htm/.
Romance Writers of America. Romance Literature Statistics 2006. www.rwanational.org/cs/the_romance_genre/romance_literature _statistics/.
———. RITA Award Category Descriptions. www.rwanational.org/cs/contests_and_awards/rita_awards/category_descriptions/.
Saintcrow, Lilith. “Half of Humanity Is Worth Less Than a Chair.” Nothing But Red. www.lulu.com/content/2323443/.
———. Personal interview. May 1, 2008.
Segal, Francesca. “M&B Writer Who Saved Jews from Hitler.” The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/jan/27/fiction.features. January 27, 2008. Accessed June 8, 2008.
Stone, Todd A. Novelist’s Boot Camp. New York: Writers Digest Books, 2006. (Used with permission.)
Vivanco, Laura. “Romance and Sex Education.” Teach Me Tonight. http://teachmetonight.blogspot.com/2006/08/romance-and-sex-education.html/. June 1, 2008.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Candy’s Acknowledgments
I’m not sure I would’ve been able to finish this book in one piece and with my sanity (largely) intact if it hadn’t been for the support of a whole lot of people. Here are the primary culprits, then:
Ben, thanks for plying me with silly dancing, food, and coffee when I needed it most. Also for taunting me hilariously when things got tough and hugging me tight when things got even tougher. You, more than anyone else (other than Sarah), ensured I made it through the first year of law school and the writing of this book more-or-less coherent.
Laurel and Michael, thank you so much for talking to me when things got scary-hairy and sending me off with a power inverter so I could work in the car during the road trip.
Many thanks to Ben Klusman at Enko Photography for the excellent author photos and for being an excellent person in general.
Carol Main: thank you for creating amazing illustrations on a tight deadline. You rock like a rocking thing who rocks a lot.
Schwern: Dude, thank you for proofreading the manuscript and helping to fix the flowchart. You’re the best fuzzy boy in all of Portland.
To all my friends: thanks for not allowing me to forget about you when I went into full-on hermit mode.
Dan, Sulay, and Shawna: I’ve never published a book before, but you guys have made the process remarkably painless. If I were a Care Bear, I’d be showering you with warm, rainbow-colored love right now.
I also want to point out that this book never would’ve existed if Rose Hilliard hadn’t e-mailed us and said “Hey, are you guys interested in writing a book about romance novels?”
To the amazing community of romance readers and authors we’ve connected with thanks to Smart Bitches: hot damn, I had no idea I’d have so much fun or meet so many amazing people when we started the site. Jane and Robin, in particular, deserve extra special gold stars and pretty ponies.
And most of all, to my coauthor, Sarah, without whom this wouldn’t have been possible. Dude, you’re a motherfuckin’ force of motherfuckin’ nature. High fives!
Oh, and just so you know: my good friends Jess and Schwern concocted the greeting card idea with me a couple of years ago, over an epic session of Thai food. Pad kee mao and rape: two great tastes that taste great together.
Sarah’s Acknowledgments
(I should not have let Candy go first. Dammit).
This book was made possible by the letters S and B, and by the number 2, with special thanks to the following people:
All the writers of romance who have given me endless happy reading: thank you for continuing to do what you do.
The authors of romance who gave us their thoughts to include in this book: thank you. Seriously, every time I got an e-mail back from one of you, I squeed like I was ten.
All the readers of romance who visit our site and who love the genre as much as we do: thank you. Neither of us knew when we started the site that we’d find so many women who loved romance novels and who were so clever and wickedly funny we want to have a beer with all of you. We are profoundly glad we’ve met you.
Kate Duffy, for meals, commiseration, and making me snort pasta up my nose from laughing too hard. Thank you for your encouragement, advice, and support.
Jane, Robin, and the crew from Dear Author: thank you for making the Internet a better place for all us romance readers. You guys are awesome.
Joanne Renaud: for the amazing illustrations, and particularly for the creation of Mavis.
Secret Agent Dan, his Super Awesome Assistant Stephen, the Superbly Excellent Maja Nikolic, and the folks at Writer’s House: thank you. And Candy is right: Rose Hilliard is to blame. It is all her fault.
Sulay Hernandez and Shawna Lietzke: thank you for patiently decoding the mysterious process of publication. I still don’t understand it, but that’s probably a good thing. Also, many thanks and piles of sparkly brilliantly colored pencils to the proofreading and copyediting team at Simon & Schuster. You’re so good I’m embarrassed to read over what I’m writing this minute.
Candy for being smart and bitchy: thank you. I had no idea any of this was going to happen, but I am so glad it did. You’re amazing.
My family, who made time for me to write this: thank you. Biggest thanks go to my husband and children, who make every day a happily ever after.
* The answer: many.
*And we think you do.
*Yes, Jung. Jungian analysis is hawt, and the word “Jung” doubles as a delicious metaphor for man junk.
*Also known as the “omega” hero, which we think sounds like a multivitamin.
*Literally and figuratively.
*Pun intended.
*By the way, we’re not kidding about the birds and beetles, leaving aside the rather problematic usage of the term “rape” to describe animal behavior. Ducks are known to engage in coercive sexual behavior, up to and including necrophiliac homosexual rape, as documented by an enterprising Dutch researcher in a paper entitled, appropriately enough, “The First Case of Homosexual Necrophilia in the Mallard Anas platyrhynchos”; the males of several different species of diving beetle systematically hunt down and submerge the females underwater to weaken their resistance and prevent them from mating with other males. Mother Nature: more fucked-up than a Rosemary Rogers hero!
*The women who do wield their sexuality for their own ends are villainesses in much of fiction, not merely romance novels.
*No pun intended.
† Pun totally intended.
*We’ll let you decide if we meant that pun.
*Cue Marvin Gaye, please. Perfect musical sound track to this chapter.
*Candy still dreams of the day when she can shake Stuart’s hand while telling her that—hopefully, without Stuart asking for some sort of restraining order.
*Ew. Germs.
*If your name is anal and you write erotic romance, you are automatically full of win.
* Pun intended.
* Sarah: “No, no, not ill. Not ill at all.”
* Female, not pastry.
* Heroines all have their mouths open. It’s called “O-face.”
* Which we’ve seen on four covers in various Photoshopped forms, and on an ad for a New Jersey leg vein specialist.
† As opposed to the Days of Yore.
* Insert “more open” joke here…insert joke about “insert” here…oh, never mind.
* No, not that head, the other one.
* Wait, you mean that isn’t how all business decisions are made?
* By that time, our Web host, Esosoft, Inc., had moved our site from one server, where we shared space with about eight or nine other Web sites, to a dedicated span of ten servers, each sharing the load for our site, and barely managing to keep it online.