Achieving the happily ever after
Romance fiction is wildly popular but still doesn't get its due in mainstream cultural media, finds Adam Minter.
It was on Saturday night, the fourth and final evening of the Romance Writers of America Annual Conference, that I finally faced feelings of inadequacy. In retrospect, it was an inevitable crisis, but not for the reasons I would have expected. It had nothing to do with that Friday workshop filled with more than 100 women discussing Alpha Heroes (strong, possessive men who love passionately) and why they, romance readers and writers, love them. Or with the tall, handsome cowboys at Amazon's party on Thursday night while I stood in a corner, nursing a bottle of water.
The conference, held last month in San Antonio, is a largely female affair. This year, it attracted more than 2,100 writers, editors, publishers, publicists and anyone else with an artistic and/or commercial interest in the popular book genre. According to RWA, 91 percent of those who buy romance books are women and so I, expecting to be marginalized to some degree, was not surprised when I was.
