Romance authors graduate from Harvard, too

I was pretty excited to see the following in USA Today.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2009-07-06-romance-novels_N.htm

Thirty years ago, “Ivy League romance writer” was like “jumbo shrimp” — an oxymoron.

Back then, nobody could have predicted that in April 2009, Princeton University would host a scholarly conference featuring romance writer Eloisa James, author of Desperate Duchesses and Potent Pleasures.

Or that a Harvard grad named Julia Quinn would drop out of Yale Medical School to scale the best-seller lists with titles like The Viscount Who Loved Me and How to Marry a Marquis.

Any regrets? “None! I’m married to a physician,” says Quinn, 39, whose historical romance, What Happens in London, went on sale last week. “I have a way better deal as a romance writer.”

Like the overflowing bosoms on their paperback jackets, romance novelists have burst out — bold and unashamed — led by writers like James. James is the pseudonym of Shakespeare scholar Mary Bly, a tenured professor at Fordham University whose résumé includes Harvard, Oxford and a Yale Ph.D. cherry on top. Last month, the highbrow The New Yorker ran an admiring profile of Nora Roberts.

Romance Writers of America’s national conference starts next week in Washington, DC. I’m staying home this year, but the past three years, I spent a week with some amazing women — and a few men. (Bob Mayer, I’m looking at you.) Romance authors come from all walks of life. I’ve met everyone from an opera diva, to a former TV journalist, to an anthropologist who was collecting business cards at our luncheon table. She was interviewing authors for a paper she was doing.

It is sweet, though, to tell someone who’s sneering at my choice of career or reading material that there are romance authors currently topping the best-seller lists who graduated from the most prestigious schools in the country. They don’t quite know what to say about this. If that’s not enough, imagine how thunderstruck they are to learn that Nora Roberts sells a book every three minutes somewhere in the world, for instance.

It takes awhile to get there, (and lots of persistence!)  but once you’re there, the financial rewards can be substantial. Janet Evanovich is another speaker at this year’s conference. According to others in the industry, she received an eight-figure advance for her most recent novel. There’s also the intangible, priceless fact you’re doing something you love for a living.

In the meantime, I have to get back to work.

-S

p.s. I just finished Julia Quinn’s latest. It’s excellent! Congratulations, Julia!