what she was 15 years ago." more tolerant of other things. No If she's less tolerant of rape, she's longer does a heroine have to be a virgin, or to kiss the hero by a certain page. "About five years ago, I used to hear things like, 'You need to have a love scene by page and I'm not sure how true it was, even says Teresa Warfield, president of the Northeast Ohio chapter of the Romance Writers of America. These days, she adds, there's more leeway, and not just on such matters as pacing. Almost no topic is off limits an idea heard again and again at the annual convention of the Romance Writers of America, which drew more than 1,500 people to St.
Louis this summer. "We still have books with the misogynistic heroes and the wimpy heroines, but you don't see lots of says Emilie Richards McGee, a Bay Village resident whose 36 novels have made her the supernova in the constellation of Cleveland-area romance writers. "There's something for everybody now." last decade, romance novelists have tackled a welter of gritty issues: incest, wife-beating, alcoholism, AIDS, illiteracy, child molesting, teen prostitution and Down syndrome. Lately, the pendulum seems to have started to swing away from such hard-edged subjects toward gentler topics such as single fatherhood, the subject of an immensely popular series that Bantam published last year under its "Loveswept" imprint. I Some of the changes show up in the novels of McGee, who specializes in what she calls "problem stories." A case in point is her new "Dragonslayer." McGee describes its heroine as "a product of the streets" who runs a maternal and child health-care cen- Have Questions About What To Do? How To Plan? Consult Jeane Dixon, the world's leading psychic astrologer, for your personal horoscope each day.
Based on your birth date, this service provides each individual with an action guide for today and for each today to come. Call 1-900-988-7788. It costs only per minute to find out from Jeane Dixon what is in store for you. You must be at least 18 years old to call. ter in a tough neighborhood of a large Midwestern city; the hero is a sexually impotent minister who has lost his faith in God.
Socially and gegraphically, the two are a long way from the haughty lords and bejeweled ladies created by Georgette Heyer, whose Regency romances captivated Americans in the decades following World War II. A strong trend toward cross-breeding with other genres emerged at the romance writers' convention, where dozens of workshops and exhibits bore witness to the burgeoning array of subspecialties: horror, paranormal, Western, young adult, and Gothic. One of the most popular hybrids is futuristic romance, which borrows elements such as time travel from science fiction and fantasy. That whitehot field encompasses such books as "Miranda's Viking." which Silhouette will publish next year. The hero is a frozen Viking who thaws out in contemporary Maine and falls in love with the heroine.
A tidal wave of the future may lie in multiculturalism. Three years ago, to fill a gap in the market, Leticia Peoples founded Odyssey Books in. Silver Spring, a small press specializing in romance with black characters; the firm can barely keep up with the demand for such books as Francis Ray's "Fallen Angel." That fact hasn't gone unnoticed by the larger publishers that once "A lot non white are now," spurned says Brenda Jackson, a Jacksonville, romance writer. She adds that, in the past several weeks, three of her friends have sold romance novels with black characters to Zebra Books, which has a particularly strong commitment to such fiction. The flurry of diversification has caused some publishers to launch or strengthen series keyed to special interests.
Among them: Berkley's "Wildflower" (Old West), Silhouette's "Shadows" (suspense), Zebra's "To Love Again" (heroines over 45) and. Topaz's "Dreamspun" (futuristic, including paranormal). The look of romance novels is different, too. Their hallmark used to consist of what the industry calls a "clinch" cover: typically, a picture of a bare-chested embracing a voluptuous and seemingly semicomatose woman. That began to change when women, particularly working.
women, demanded books they could read on the bus or at an office desk without embarrassment. Publishers responded by making more use of neutral cover motifs: flowers, shells, wallpaper patterns or unadorned metallic type on a pastel background. To side step the problem of how to depict a couple without appearing to have the hero dominate the heroine, they began showing sexy men alone. These often have been personified by such glamorous male models Steve Sandalis (who beckons smolderingly from Topaz paperbacks) and Fabio (who does the honors for Avon books). GOODTIME IlI DAILY CRUISES Once us not enough Steve Bencic's Original U.S.A.
Sponsored by Warsteiner Oktoberfest Cooks A Traditional Family Event A Harvest of International Food 1000 Entertainers 26 Dance Orchestras Nationality Dancers Amusem*nt Rides (216) 881-7773 WE WERE DOWN BY 5... LABOR DAY WEEKEND LAKE COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS PAINESVILLE, OHIO Sat. Sept. 4th from 2:00 Sun. Sepl.
5th from 12:00 Mon. Sept. 6th from 12:00 Admission: Adults $6.00 Golden Agers $5.00 Children under 14, FREE 98 YARDS I WIN THE OBVIOUSLY. I COULD TALK ABOUT THIS YOU PLAYED WITHOUT ALL A HELMET. HERE, LET ME SHOW YOU MY NEWS Tired Of The Same Old Games? Give Us A Call.
If you can't get a word in edgewise, why don't you see what Person-to-Personals has to say. PERSON TO PERSONALS To Place Your Ad Call 781-DATE Or 1-800-WE-DATE-2 To Hear Messages Call 1-900-737-3307 $1.79 per minute. You must be 18 years or older to call. PLAIN DEALER, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1993 THE Romance About 70 books a month are published by the industry standardbearer, Harlequin Enterprises under its Harlequin and Silhouette imprints; a Canadian production company is turning four of them into made-for-T'V movies scheduled to be aired next year. Some of Harlequin's strongest growth 1 is taking place in former Iron Curtain countries such as Hungary, where 18,000 of its books are sold each day.
The soaring sales have blurred the distinction between the two main kinds of romance novels: "category" (generally consisting of under-200 4.11 series) and "mainstream" (comprispage paperbacks issued as part of a ing longer and more complex hardcovers that stand their own). Bestseller lists brim with the names of writers who crossed the line between the two: Nora Roberts, Sandra Brown. Jude Deveraux, LaVyrle Spencer, Amanda Quick. Who's buying? Market researchers for Harlequin have turned up some industrywide are women under 49 (average age: 39). have attended college.
work outside the home (average household income: buy at least one romance novel a month. These women aren't buying their mother's romance novels. They're reading books keyed to new social and sexual realities. Only a small fraction of today's romantic fiction consists of the historical novels known as bodice-rippers, which used to rule the market. In the late '70s, the heyday of titles such as Rosemary Rogers' "Sweet Savage Love," such books typically, had weak, submissive heroines remote, dominating men.
Rape was commonplace. No more. In the face of rising public outrage over the crime, rape has all but disappeared from the romantic fiction of Rogers' successors. "The reader will not tolerate rape that's called love," said Ginny R. Anikienko, a romance writer and former Clevelander who lives in York, Pa.
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Then, before you get the check, the publisher goes belly up. That's essentially what happened to Mary McGuinness, the 50-year-old widow of the late Euclid High School principal William McGuinness. She spent five years writing "Weave Me a Dream," a romance novel set in contemporary Cleveland, which drew on her years of experience as a weaver. McGuinness eventually sold her manuscript to Meteor books, a young imprint affiliated with a hosiery company that had hit on the idea of selling romance novels by mail to its customers. Not long afterward, her publisher went out of businesses and she was out the check she'd been promised.
But McGuinness hasn't given up. Encouraged by her three children, she's still trying to sell her book (which, at this writing, is under consideration by Silhouette). She has reason for believing she knows what publishers want: On a freelance basis, she screens unsolicited manuscripts for a Virginia literary agent who specializes in romance novels. And her sense of humor helps her keep her setbacks in perspective. McGuinness reports that, on hearing that she writes romance novels, men sometimes volunteer to help with her "research." Naturally, she adds, "Nobody from the Chippendales ever says, 'Let me help you with your Janice Harayda On a superficial level, the beefcake covers might seem to support the popular idea that romance novels give women a counterpart to maleoriented erotica a safe outlet for unfulfilled sexual urges.
Some of the steamier series, such as the Silhouette "Desire" and Harlequin "Temptation" lines, may fill that bill. But studies such as the Emory survey suggest that, as a whole, fans of the genre are more satisfied with their sex lives than many others. And the complicated psychosexual theories don't reflect a much simpler explanation for the popularity of romantic fiction: It's easy to read. "While you're making supper, waiting for the spaghetti water to boil, you can pick it up and read a little bit." says Janice McCreary, an Arnold, industrial designer, who appeared on a readers' panel at the RWA convention. You can't do that with Tom Clancy's books, she says, because the intricate descriptions of military hardware require too much attention.
McGee sees parallels between the emotional appeal of romance novels and that of John Grisham's "'The Firm," in which the hero goes to work for a rich law firm that promises to take care of him for life. It buys him a BMW, finances the purchase of his house and agrees to pay off student loans. Grisham's novel essentially begins where romance commonly ends -with the perfect union that appears to set its main character up for a plush life and its success may reflect the secret yearnings of many men for such things. Both sexes fantasize about being taken care of, and both like to read books that let them indulge their dreams from afar. McGee says; the difference is that male-oriented books don't take the abuse that romance novels do.
"If you read men's adventure fiction, a lot of can be sad*stic and offputting," McGee says. "But it doesn't have the lack of status that romance novels do." That's partly why romance novelists are fighting back. Some of their heaviest armor comes from "Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women" (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992), an essay collection in which 20 romance writers defend their craft. Several of its contributors implicitly support McGee's belief that a double standard exists in the realm of popular fiction. They include Jayne Ann Krentz, the editor of the collection, who writes best-sellers under the name of Amanda Quick.
She says that, when it comes to other forms of entertainment, critics give people credit for being able to tell the difference between reality and fantasy. When Stephen King wrote a book about a girl whose mental powers sent objects up in flames, he wasn't suspected of trying to create a nation of pyromaniacs. "But, for some reason, when it comes to romance novels critics worry about whether the women who read them can tell the difference between what is real and what i is not." Krentz says. She refrains from taking the next logical step of asking: Isn't this sort of thinking a little patronizing? But the idea that the world ought to cut fans of romance novels some slack recurs in another essay in "Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women." New Zealand writer Daphne Clair suggests that people ought to at least to admit that women read them for the same reason men read Robert Ludlum: for fun, not for vocational guidance or marriage counseling. She recalls that.
in Rosemary Rogers' heyday, some observers took high incidence of rape in romance novels to mean that women enjoy being brutalized. Why, she wonders, didn't anybody assume that male thriller-and-Western fans "enjoy being beaten up, tortured. shot. stabbed, dragged by galloping horses. and thrown out of moving RADIO SELECTIONS I Jewish Scene, 6:30 a.m.
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