Smart Bitches stop in for a chat

Today, we are pleased as punch, tickled pink, squeeing with delight, (pick the cliché of your choice), to welcome Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan, of the popular romance review blog, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, to Drunk Writer Talk. They're here to celebrate the release of their book BEYOND HEAVING BOSOMS: THE SMART BITCHES' GUIDE TO ROMANCE NOVELS that hits the shelves tomorrow -- April 14, 2009.

DWT: Candy and Sarah, thanks for stopping by. Before we get started, what can we get you to drink?

Candy: I'm allergic to alcohol, sadly enough, so a tall glass of cold water is awesome for me.

Sarah: Wine. Love wine. Not so much a fan of hard liquor but red, white, rose and even green? Bring it on.

DWT: Hey, we don't discriminate against non-drinkers (green wine drinkers, maybe). A water and wine coming up.
What sparked you to start a romance review site?

Candy: Honestly? There weren't enough romance review sites out there that were uncensored. I'm not just talking honest, because sites like The Romance Reader and All About Romance existed, and they were fair and honest, but there was this air of constraint and politeness. I wanted a site where I was free to talk the way I normally do, which includes creative profanity (usually for the sake of comedy), and where I could air my unvarnished opinions without fear of offending an editor or website owner. And it turned out that Sarah was in favor of the same thing, too, so lo, Smart Bitches was born.

Sarah: See above re: cussing, and unvarnished opinion. Plus, the two of us approach romances from very different perspectives, and our writing styles are very different. On top of that, we crack each other up like holy cow. It ended up being a kind of perfect storm of fun.

DWT: It's a perfect storm of fun reading, too. Did you anticipate the popularity of your site? The book deal?

Candy: Hell, no. And HELL, NO. It always astounds me that we became as popular as we did, as fast as we did, because neither Sarah nor I advertised. Behold the power of word-of-mouth! We figured we'd be a two-bit blog with a small audience consisting of a couple of friends and family members, but six months after we'd started, we were smack dab in the middle of this insanely active, smart, funny community.

Sarah: NEVER did I think it would be as big as it is. Never. Not a chance. I remember it was me, Candy, her friend in Singapore and my husband reading in the first month. Then, word spread – mostly from the cover snark and the reviews using creative cussing a la Candy.

DWT: We're not averse to creative cussing, here, either. ;-) At times, your site has been a lightning rod for controversy. Do you ever find you need to rein in the comments or get people back on track?

Candy: I'm really hesitant to rein in comments unless people really start to go over the line, because I really think that fostering healthy debate means people should be allowed the space to be assholes. Mostly, however, I think our commenters do a great job of self-policing. For a site known for being bitchy, our commenters are some of the most polite and reasonable around.

Sarah: Our commenters value the community as much as we do, and often they shut down the more obnoxious and awful attacks before I even get to the keyboard to say a word about it. We definitely have contentious debates but most of the time, there are two major points of which I am most proud. One: saying “I disagree with you” very rarely means “I don’t like you,” nor does it mean “You’re wrong and I’m right.” “I disagree” are not words upon which to detonate massive bombs and shit. Two: “I didn’t enjoy your book” does not mean “I deplore the fact that you’re breathing.” There are plenty of people who do the exact opposite of what I recommend – they love what I don’t like, and they don’t like what I adore. I’m as full of shit as anybody. I stick up for my opinion but unless it’s truly, awfully egregiously shitful, I don’t discount your right to your own opinion.

DWT: So, speaking of opinions, here's a more in-depth topic. Clinch covers: for or against?

Candy: By and large, I'm against them, because they're so hard to do well, and they send entirely the wrong message about the genre. They scream: "HEY LOOK AT THE OILED TITTY ISN'T IT GREAT GET YOUR BODICES RIPPED AND PRESSED UP AGAINST THE OILED TITTY RIGHT HERE FOLKS." I do have a sneaking personal fondness for them, though—they're so bad, they're kind of good. I love them the way I love bad reality TV, or schlocky horror movies.

Sarah: Depends. Sometimes, they’re creative and evocative and visually stunning. But that doesn’t change the fact that, as Candy said, it’s shorthand for ROMANCE AHOY AND SEXXING INSIDE, MATEYS. It’s become a conundrum: do the clinch covers sell because they represent romance, or is romance so often represented by the clinch that it can’t help but sell?

DWT: Ah! The chicken and egg question--only with arched backs, bosoms and man-titty. What are your favorite romances of all time?

Candy: The Windflower by Laura London (a.k.a. Sharon and Tom Curtis), because it's a very traditional romance done really, really well—it's a coming-of-age story for the heroine, and she's kidnapped by pirates, oh noes, but never fear, she charms every damn thing she comes in contact with, up to and including the pet pig on the ship. But the authors never let you lose sight that Merry, despite being a bit Mary Sue-ish, is also this awkward, dorky girl in a difficult situation. A few other notable titles are Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase, To Love and to Cherish by Patricia Gaffney (I have a bit of a Thing about forbidden sex with the hot young pastor, and Anne is an agnostic, which makes it all even more fun) and The Shadow and the Star by Laura Kinsale. As for contemporaries, Jennifer Crusie's solo work reigns supreme in my heart and on my bookshelf—I've read everything she's published so far, and only a couple of titles aren't on my keeper shelves.

Sarah: Bitten by Kelley Armstrong is absorbing and I can’t go near it without reading six or seven chapters. The Duke and I by Julia Quinn. I love Daphne because she’s smart and used to men and aware of their foibles having more male siblings than Celine Dion, and I love that the courtship is both angsty and funny, lighthearted and serious – and has some hilariously funny scenes. Born in Ice by Nora Roberts. I love that the heroine is good at making a home welcoming – a skill and art not nearly as appreciated as it should be, and that the hero doesn’t like people and is a curmudgeon. And since I started reading Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark series, I’ve found myself yearning to kick more ass than I ought to. The heroines are strong and carry sharp wits and even sharper weapons, and Cole’s narratives explore evil and power and aggression and strength in new and terribly subversive ways. And I’m unable to touch Instant Attraction by Jill Shalvis without reading more of it. It’s like Crazy Glue, that book.

DWT: Fabulous choices. I have a feeling your choices will spark some comment discussion. Also Kelley Armstrong is a friend here at DWT. (Although whether or not she'd admit in public to knowing us isn't clear.) What are your favorite movies and TV shows?

Candy: I love Pushing Daisies. Love love love. Love the premise, love the characters (I just about died when they revealed Emerson Cod loves to knit), love the storylines, love the camerawork and the gorgeous color saturation, love Chuck's wardrobe. Also: I want to hug Lee Pace, then lick him all over. I mean, damn. As for movies: Wes Anderson before he became kind of a parody of himself has a special place in my heart, because his movies focus on these incredibly brilliant, awkward, quirky characters.

Sarah: Movies: All incarnations of Pride & Prejudice. TV: Bones. Love the sexually unambiguous heroine and the smoldering attraction between the protagonists. I love the shifting definition of “intelligent” and “smart” and the manner in which the characters all care for one another. And this might make me a 60 year old on my Barcalounger, but I absolutely love NCIS. There’s a colleague of mine at my office with whom I have very, very little in common except a rabid crush on Mark Harmon. He brings all the girls to the yard.

DWT: I love, love, loved Pushing Daisies, too. (Not to mention P&P, and Mark Harmon...) What changes—good or bad—have you seen in the romance genre recently? What, if anything, are you hoping to see more of? Less of?

Candy: Y'know, in the past two years, I've had pretty much zero time left for leisure reading. I mean this quite literally. Between law school, the book and trying to maintain a healthy social life so I don't become too much of a hermit, my reading rate has plummeted. So I can't really speak about new trends. Although that's an incredibly boring answer, so let's see if I can make something up that's kind of convincing…. less demon tentacle rape, and more romance novels featuring gay, bisexual and generally queer characters. DOH, wait, that was only partially made-up.

Sarah: Jane from DearAuthor.com and I spoke about this in one of our early podcasts, but the lack of secure economy and profit in publishing means that we seem to be seeing more of the same repeated tropes and plots, with very little risk – which is why it’s so amazing when I see heroines doing it differently, like Maya Banks’ heroine in her May ’09 Silhouette The Tycoons Rebel Bride. She’s the sexual aggressor? RWOR. I love subversive heroines like Claudia Dain’s anchor character in the Courtesan Chronicles. I love explorations of what it really meant to be female in English history, like in Carolyn Jewel’s Scandal. I love, as I mentioned, Kresley Cole’s heroines who can and will be evil when the situation calls for it. That said, my cup of awesome is not nearly that of everyone else, so I fear the awesome subversion of expectations of female archetypes will be fewer and farther between. But I can still hope.

DWT: We love heroines who aren't so "perfect", too. What romance device(s) would you like to see die a painful death?

Candy: There's this tendency in genre fiction to use certain characteristics that serve as shorthand for how incredibly evil or virtuous or sexy a character must be. Some of the more popular uses in romance include homosexuality or a love of kinky sex in villains, or virginity in a heroine, or hypertrophied, shouty masculinity in a hero. I think over-reliance on this sort of shorthand is lazy, and it creates facile, uninteresting fiction. I'm much more interested in fiction that dares to take well-known tropes and forms, then inverts them or does something unexpected with them—or, if it uses the familiar forms, then does it really, really well.

Sarah: Shorthand blows. I would also like to see less reliance on the “I’m the hero; that’s why” and “I’m the heroine, that’s why” complacency. It’s related to shorthand but not quite the same, and shows up when motivation isn’t quite as clear as one might think, and the reader has to navigate nebulous plotslines by resting on the idea that the individual is the hero and therefore must have a shining glowy moral core of sternest golden strength. SHOW me the strength. Don’t just presume I know it because he’s the hero, that’s why.

DWT: Thanks so much for stopping by to chat! I'm hoping my copy of BEYOND HEAVING BOSOMS arrives today. Or tomorrow. It better.

Finally, some great news! Sarah and Candy are giving away a copy of their book to one random commenter! Let us know your answer to any of the above questions to enter the contest!

Thanks again to Candy and Sarah and here's hoping your book will bring some new smart-bitch readers to the romance genre!

**Update** D'oh! I just realized I failed to put a deadline for the contest... Leave a comment before midnight Wednesday April 15, 2009 to be eligible to win! Winner will be announced round about Friday. Drunk writers and smart bitches ineligible. Okay, you can still win if you're drunk... But Molly, Sinead and I can't win :-(