The Smart Bitches on Tour--Part 2

They're back! Yes, more from Smart Bitches Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan! More wit! More wisdom! More references to Heaving Bosoms! Enjoy Part 2 of their interview and, because it was just released yesterday (YAY!), let me remind you again that you can get your very own copy their book right now. You know you want it :-).

Sarah and Candy, are there any films or musical groups you find particularly inspiring? (or hot actors??)

Candy: My two favorite movies with a central romantic story are Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Harold and Maude. The former kind of depicted some of my darkest, most cynical beliefs about the nature of human desire and experience in beautiful, hilarious, heart-rending movie form. The latter basically shows us that there's somebody for everybody, even if you don't get to keep them forever.

As for musical groups: I think post-Pablo Honey and pre-Amnesiac Radiohead managed to express modern alienation in beautiful, and oftentimes eerie, music. Of Montreal is great because they're both incredibly brainy and incredibly silly, and listening to Kevin Barnes exorcise his mental demons in the last three albums is both fascinating and cathartic. And The Shins are great because they write these beautiful little story snippets and character studies; James Mercer knows how to turn a mean phrase. This is just the tip of the Musical Groups Who Turn My Crank iceberg, and nobody wants to read the 20,000 treatise on Bands Who Inspire Me.

Hot actors: I mostly watch TV shows on DVD nowadays, so I'm woefully behind the times and have only recently discovered Pushing Daisies. Man, Lee Pace. I want to climb him like a tree and lick him--not necessarily in that order.

Sarah: Alas, no, I haven't watched a movie in full that wasn't for the purposes of hilarious badness (i.e. Twilight) for over three years. I do love all versions of Pride & Prejudice, though. (Marilyn interjects: Yes, yes, yes!!! Excellent choice. :) And have a serious weakness for tv shows like SportsNight and Cupid, which base their strengths on sharp dialogue from even sharper characters.

Do many people in your day-to-day life know about your popular blog? Make comments to you personally about what they've read on it? Essentially, how much cross-over is there between your real and virtual worlds?

Candy: Just about all my friends and most of my family know about it, and a bunch of them have Smart Bitches on their RSS feeds, but we don't really talk about it. Very few of them are romance readers. However, a few of my friends, including my best buddy, had visited Smart Bitches before they ever met me, thanks to things like the Bill Napoli Googlebomb and the LOLPorn. That tickles me no end. It's, like, if you know of me before meeting me in person, you're either in the romance community, or you spend way too much time on the Internet.

Sarah: Depends on the venue! My family all know about the site, though we haven't told my children the proper name of the blog. I do have a full-time job, and they are also aware of the site, and think it's funny. But I try very deliberately to keep my family and work life separate from the site, and rarely mention them online. I adhere to what I call the Mafia Rule of Blogging: don't mention the Job. Don't mention the Family.

It is rare someone will meet me who has heard of SBTB, but has not put me + the site together. Candy, on the other hand, has met people who have heard of the site before they've met her, and says that the experience is way, WAY cool.

What I really, really enjoy is meeting people who read the site who are so happy that they have a venue through which to discuss romance with other savvy, intelligent women and men who are utterly unabashed about their love of romance novels. That's just awesome.

I know you've both been to the RWA National Conference--what is the experience like for you? Do you have conference goals? Have there been any lectures or workshops you attended that were especially interesting or valuable to you? Planning to be in D.C. this summer?

Sarah: We are indeed planning to be in DC this summer. I've been a member of RWA for a long time. I volunteer from them (check out the eNotes. It's the best digital publication from RWA! Seriously! It's so awesome!) and have a lot of respect for the organization as a whole. Attending RWA is awesomesauce for a number of reasons. First: you can't write romance if you're not a fan of the genre, and so the bar at RWA is like a giant meeting ground for like-minded fans of romance. Second: it is rare and wonderful and powerful and impressive that there is an organization where established best sellers actively mentor and teach aspiring writers in their chosen genre. This summer in DC I'm presenting on a panel and that's going to be tremendously fun: The Billionaire Tycoon's Secret Promotional Baby: Making the Most of Online Marketing. No really, swear. That's the title. I'm presenting with Jane from DearAuthor, Carrie Lofty, Barbara Ferrer and Ann Aguirre. (With Carrie! And Barb! Awesome!!)

Candy: Yes, we're definitely planning to be in D.C. For myself, I don't generally arrive at the Conference with goals, other than to spend some time with Sarah and making sure I have dinner with Heather Osborn, because she makes me laugh harder than anyone, ever. I've attended a grand total of two workshops so far: one on bad covers and one on plagiarism, and they were both tremendously informative. During the former, I managed to snag an Ellora's Cave novel that not only had an amazingly lurid cover, it had completely neglected to include the author's name.

Who are some authors you're currently raving about or feel romance lovers should read?

Sarah: I am loving Maya Banks' latest May 09 Silhouette, which features a brave and feisty heroine who is, in some ways, the sexual aggressor - quite a departure from the shrinking heroines I encounter! I also love Joanna Bourne, Kresley Cole, Victoria Dahl, Julia Spencer-Fleming, Erin McCarthy, Nora Roberts, Lisa Kleypas, Kelley Armstrong, Kathleen O'Reilly, Loretta Chase, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Jill Shalvis. If they were fruit and I was at a juice bar, that would be a hot mess of
awesome writing in the blender right there.

Candy: My leisure reading time nowadays runs between scant to OH JESUS WHEN IS THAT PAPER DUE, so no amazing new names have fallen on my lap. My tired old litany still holds true, though: Laura Kinsale, Patricia Gaffney, Loretta Chase, Sharon and Tom Curtis, just about everything Lisa Kleypas wrote in the 90s. Lois McMaster Bujold and Naomi Novik are also consistently excellent authors and storytellers, though neither are romance novelists in the usual sense.

In the years of running your site, what are some of the most memorable topics that've been discussed or hotly debated?

Candy: Easily the Cassie Edwards scandal. Holy whoa, that thing exploded in all kinds of unexpected ways. (Oh, yes...who could forget that? It was fascinating.)

Sarah: The most powerful threads are often the ones where people come out of the lurkdom to add something profound or eloquent, and there have been a ton of those. The most memorable in terms of total count of comments include our discussion of rape in romance, on costumes and cosplay at romance conferences, on plagiarism, and on how we as readers and authors support one another, even when we fiercely disagree on something.

But my favorites are when we help someone through romance. Recently I posted an update from a woman who is going through hellicious chemotherapy for a relapse of cancer, and she's been reading through a recommendation list compiled by the Bitchery of romances that are happy, light, friendly, and satisfying. I love picturing her in bed surrounded by the best of romance. (I read about this on your blog. Great novels are a huge life-affirming gift. Wishing her well...)

Thanks again, you two! It was wonderful to have you here. Congrats on the release of BEYOND HEAVING BOSOMS, and may you hold steady at #1 in "Movements & Periods." Way to stake out a worthy goal and reach it!