Dita Parker

Monday, September 16, 2013

For the Love of Romance

From Publishers Weekly contributing editor and PW Beyond Her Book blogger Barbara Vey:

Dear Friends in Publishing,

 
Over the past 6 1/2 years, I have listened carefully to what you've had to say. The one thing I heard over and over again was how romance never received any respect. Many of you were thrilled when I started writing my blog because it seemed to make your genre more credible in PW's eyes.

 
Well, I finally have managed to get a PW Romance Webcast off the ground. In the past, PW has done every other genre and even webcasts on Faith and Yarn that were highly successful. 

 
The time has come for everyone to help support the romance genre. I really need everybody to sign up for the webcast (Sept. 17th Noon EST). Signing up does not obligate you to listen to the webcast. You can either listen live or later on iTunes if you'd like. It is absolutely free and listeners have a chance to win giveaways (because Romance is best at that!).

 
As you all know, everything is a numbers game, so we need the numbers. Here's the link: http://bit.ly/13M3XeT
 

Please help me show everyone why romance is number one by registering for webcast and feel free to forward this email. It's kind of like an election. Every single registration counts.
 
Thanks so much for your support over the years and please let me know if you have any questions.

 
Barbara

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Written on the wind

Temperature: a sunny 20/68 degrees

Eating: trying to perfect the art of smushi, aprés le Royal Café of Copenhagen

Drinking: hmm, what's the perfect smushi companion? Aquavit? Hate it. Beer? This ain't your average smørrebrød. I'm going with C, champagne. There's a champagne for every food and occasion. Yes. I have smushi and champagne for lunch all the time. Not. Just messing around making a mess in the kitchen planning a tasty weekend treat. Shh. It's a surprise.

Watching: in the mood for something massive, dramatic, melodramatic, painting-with-picturish. Luhrmann or Malick. Sirk?

Listening: like I said, in the mood for something massive, dramatic, melodramatic, wall-of-soundesque. 30 Seconds to Mars? “Honest to God, I will break your heart / Tear you to pieces and rip you apart.”  
And dancing to Jessie J! It's all in the hips, sweetie darlings. Press yours to mine, look me in the eye, lemme take the lead, and let go. “If this is a dream, won't open my eyes / Am I asleep? No, I'm alive.”

Reading: something so good, it almost made me stop writing. You know, “This is it. Nothing to add, nothing to subtract. This is perfection.” (Not available in English. Sorry. Ooh, would looove to translate it. Would the mastery somehow magically rub off on me by association, do you think?)

Writing: just tossed I won't say how many Ks worth of words for obstruction of story.

Feeling: energized by the summer. No living thing thrives without warmth and light. OK, maybe some deep-sea creature. Ocean's daughters? Not so much.