R.I.P. Charles Brown

I started going to Horror, Fantasy and sci-fi conventions two decades ago, and every time I went, Charles Brown, the founding editor of Locus, was there. He was everywhere and knew everyone. I guess I thought he'd be there forever, because I was certainly a bit shocked to learn that he had died.

When I read his obit, I was even more impressed. He had started Locus as a means to secure Boston as the site of the annual World Science Fiction convention and then continued publishing it, turning it into a major voice for a genre. As someone who has started her own share of niche publications, that was quite a feat.

He'll be missed.

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Trend Spotting, and Bosom Heaving

I love it when I can read the New York Times Book Review when I get it (instead of the middle of the next week). This issue is also very thin, but interesting. Professor Christopher Benfey reviewed 4 lit bio novels and declared that "if these books are any indication, the biographical fever in current fiction has yet to run its course." And that statement ran three pages after a review of a novel based on the life of Charles Dickens' wife. So dust off your notes for that novel about Bram Stoker's mistress or Mae West's Secret Diaries.

The reason I was able to read the NYTBR was because I was at finally at the pool this weekend, where I was also reading BEYOND HEAVING BOSOMS. A friend came by and asked, "Is that your autobiography?" Makes me wonder what people think about me?

So Much has Happened

So I go away for a week (to a cabin in Maine where I'm promised both TV and Internet and there is neither!!! The guy I rented the place from tells me I can use his next door neighbor's computer, but I'm in the midst of editing a Threesomes anthology for Ravenous Romance, and I don't feel like explaining why I've downloaded 13 menage stories to some guy's desktop) and so much has happened - and I don't mean the MJ funeral.

Editors are being fired again in droves (a bunch at Perseus, 100 people at Penguin UK), but the saddest firing for me was the closing of Black Lace/Nexxus and the "making redundant" of its editor, Adam Neville, a pretty brilliant guy who could appreciate both creative horror and erotica, two of my passions. I hope someone in England (or here) will scoop him up, but print publishing looks pretty dismal these days.

RWAchange seems to be gathering steam. If you don't know what this is, you must not be a romance writer.

At least 500 members of RWA have joined forces to get the national romance writers organization to recognize epublished romance writers as peers to their print colleagues. The times they are a changing.

New York Times Book Review Awfully Thin Lately

Has anyone else noticed how thin the New York Times Book Review has become? It still seems to have a lot of ads, but many less reviews. And it's not even dead of summer yet, when all the journalists go to Cape Cod. That worries me.

While we're on the subject, I would love someone to start a credible stand-alone book review for commercial fiction and nonfiction. You know, a book review for books we actually read, and not ones we want to pretend we're reading as cocktail party conversation. And not genre centric. I want to know what (and why) everyone's reading what they're reading.

Sandy Lu Looking for Romantic Suspense

Sandy Lu, one of my associate agents here, has announced that she is earnestly looking for romantic suspense, so send her your stuff. Tell your friends.

Sandy at lperkinsagency dot com.