erastes

I’ve got an odd book from the library. I don’t remember reserving it, and it’s a title and author I’ve never heard of – I think they must have given me the wrong title. Did anyone here recommend this? ~~Glass books of the dream eaters~~ ~~by By Dahlquist, G.W.~~

~~Baffled.~~ ETA: Mystery solved! Chris Smith recced it!

There’s a pretty good rant by one of the Janes over at Dear Author—aimed squarely at RWA asking why erotic romance is denied an entry into the RITAs. Looking at their self-proclaimed Bible of What the RWA Considers to Qualify as Romance it’s very carefully worded now as to not exclude the “alternative lifestyle” (amazing how that sounds like the word nigger when said by some people isn’t it?).

However, as you can see by Jane’s post – each judge has a power of veto, so it’s all too easy to vote a gay romance out as

Any entry receiving 3 NR (not a romance), 3 NSRE (no strong romantic elements), 3 NPF (not properly formatted, for entries in the Golden Heart contest) or 3 WC (wrong category) scores shall not be eligible to advance to the finals even if the scores would otherwise qualify it as a finalist

Many romance fans (and I’m not accusing the judges of this, as I have no idea who they are) don’t consider that gay fiction CAN be romance. Until a few years ago

it was a rare enough beestie, Gay Fiction could generally be divided into Literature and/or Porn. When I realised what I was writing was basically gay historical Romance I went online to find out where I could sell it. and found that no-one was publishing it (other than under the guise of L or P). I got in touch with the only people I could find who WERE publishing it, Scott and Scott of Romentics fame, and they said they’d had the same problem, which is why they had set up their own press.

A few years back there was massive wank when someone (can’t remember who) attempted to specify Romance as only between a man and a woman and they were forced to retract that. But sadly, despite the categories being beautifully accepting, we all know that if one sent up the best written GLBTQ romance ever written it would probably get voted off. Sadly, I am often reminded of Betsey Trotwood in David Copperfield, rushing out to chase the donkeys off her lawn.

There’s a lovely phrase in this article, written in 2001, which says