Home FAQs Booklist Calendar About Laura Articles Press/Info Cue Lu	Why I Write Romance | Essence Magazine "Reflections of an Invisible Sister" Why I Write Romance Who and What inspires the Writer of Romance? I can tell you who and what inspired me to write romance. Rafael Sabatini who wrote CAPTAIN BLOOD among many, Frank Yerby who PENNED A WOMAN CALLED FANCY and THE SARACEN BLADE, and Kathleen Woodiwiss whose THE FLAME AND THE FLOWER finally moved me to put pen to paper. Sabatini's swashbuckling larger-than-life roles in THE BLACK SWAN and Captain Blood were men of purpose, strong, resolute, fighting for right, and falling in love along the way. I like them better than their modern incarnations such as The Terminator, Rambo and Dirty Harry. Why? Because Sabatini's heroes found laughter in the midst of life's grim realities. They didn't take themselves so seriously, and they preferred to avoid violence and win by their wits. This did not mean they could not, when pushed, be as deadly as any Road Warrior. Yet they revered life and felt the pain of even an enemy's death. Sabatini's heroes observe life lessons that I believe in -- That in order to be happy in this world; you must seek to be worthy of it. Otherwise, you are doomed to misery even if your heart's desire is achieved. Sometimes Sabatini's heroes were dragged from unworthiness reluctantly, as in FORTUNE'S FOOL where a soldier of fortune who believes he is condemned to hell for the many butcheries he has committed is redeemed by falling in love. That is, his love of a beautiful brave lady keeps him in a London during an outbreak of by the plague. As they struggle to survive that conflagration, the hero earns the right to be loved by his selfless and dangerous acts. Great struggles make great stories, Frank Yerby's tales, many with historical backgrounds, were about men and women with strong desires and purposes who triumphed over incredible odds. My favorite is THE DEVIL'S LAUGHTER in which the hero is betrayed by a friend, loses the woman he loves, is captured, beaten, horribly disfigured and imprisoned in a ghastly French work camp--all BEFORE Chapter Five. Then comes the beginning of the French Revolution, during which he exacts revenge, becomes a hero, and falls in love with a blind woman worthy to be called a heroine. Yet Mr. Yerby's affect on my writing came from more than his rousing stories. As an African -American man writing in the '40s and '50s, what some have the audacity to call "White" stories, his work provided many positive lessons for a writer. I did not have to live what I wrote about. One's heritage didn't give one the corner on the market for writing certain kinds of stories. Everyone must go to the same place for his or her knowledge of history--the library. As for the quality of storytelling, that depends solely on the imagination and creativity of the writer. In other words: I COULD LEARN WHAT I NEEDED IN ORDER TO WRITE ABOUT ANYTHING THAT INTERESTS ME. Until Kathleen Woodiwiss came along in 1972, no one had thought to add spicy sensuality to women's fiction. Oh, bosoms heaved and heroines inevitably cried things like, "Unhand me, you cad!" But virtue was all. A "LADY" might flutter or stutter but certainly no heroine ever lusted after the man of her dreams. Admire, adore, and exalt the hero, of course. Men were braver, stronger, wiser, in a word BETTER than the FRAIL, SWEET, WEAK, and WEAK-WILLED creatures they were destined to love. Phooey! It took female writers like Woodiwiss to take men off their superior pedestals and put them in the bedroom where women knew they belonged! Heroines became the Heroes of romance novels and women's fiction joined THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION. That was over two decades ago. While Woodiwiss's hero "flamed with passion" and "male macho swagger," her heroine still "dipped her flower-like head" until he had burned himself out. She still sometimes won by DEFAULT, not by a show of EQUALITY OF SPIRIT, PRIDE OR PASSION. DON'T GET ME WRONG. I loved many things about the book, including its floral language and sexiness, but it left me unsatisfied. Where was the Heroine worthy of the Hero--or vice versa? AND THEREBY HANGS A TALE. . . . Haven't you ever wondered how IVANHOE could ever be happy with his beautiful but insipid bride after he had known and been save by the strong and powerful love of REBEKAH? I wanted to see the Rebekahs of the world win. And though I didn't realize it at the time--I was not alone. English authors such as MARY STEWARD, DAPHNE DU MAURIER AND PAULA ALLARDYCE gave me an appreciation for language for wit, for passion that did not turn purple and ooze from the page, as was stronger because of it. Stewart's NINE COACHES WAITING and MY BROTHER MICHAEL are still two of my favorite books because the heroine has the adventure of which the hero is part. Du Maurier's JAMAICA INN boasted a heroine named Mary Yellen who is the equal of not one but two tough and savvy villains and who still posses enough feminine spunk to win the man of her dreams. Thanks to these and many other fine contemporary writers, I am inspired to give my best each time I sit down to write. One day, just maybe, someone will be able to say I inspired her. Question: Why Romance? Romance writers take a lot of cheap shots because of our subject. You hear such things such as: "Oh, you write those TRASHY books." And "Isn't it nice. You don't have to work for a living." Or, "If you can write well enough to be published, why don't you write something important like a REAL novel?" My Answers: I don't write "trash". I love stories for mature adults. I work very hard for my living and, yes, it pays well. I write real novels, the definition of which is character-oriented fiction. I've never deliberately written a book where the conventions of the plot took precedence over the characters. I'm proud to be a writer of romance fiction. I find great pleasure in writing about the emotional lives of interesting men and women and discovering what it is they find necessary to fulfill the human need for love. Love is the strongest, most POSITIVE emotion in the world. It gives meaning to life; it sustains us in need, and lasts past the grave. Anyone who would prefer to be remembered as an enemy or live his/her life motivated by hate instead of love is someone I do not care to know. In every era, the word ROMANCE has involved different images. Romance, 150 years ago, might have been being a pioneer, a cowboy, a riverboat gambler, or a gold miner. 200 years ago, there was romance in the American Revolution, in the French Revolution, and in exploring unknown lands. In the Middle Ages, knights went searching for romance by following a quest. Romance was not found in a woman's arms, but in winning acclaim in battle. Before that, there were troubadours who told tales of mythic-making kings, fairytale kingdoms, magical druids, and roving bands of Vikings. The word ROMANCE derives from the Middle English and the Old French word romanz, which means, "to write." Until recent times, it was used to describe any long narrative extolling tales of chivalry, of adventure, love, and the supernatural. Everything from THE CANTERBURY TALES, to THE LEATHERSTOCKING TALES to THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER was included. Today, that focus has narrowed to mean, in most cases, novels and stories in which the love story is central to the motivation and conflict of the main characters in the story--and one which has A HAPPY ENDING. And that's what I write about. My job as a romance writer is to make the reader's journey from "Once upon a time" to "And they lived happily ever after" as unique and entertaining and rewarding as I can. Thank you for the many opportunities I've had to do so. I look forward to many more. Back to top... Reflections of an Invisible Sister Essence Magazine, April 1997 My mother tells the story of what happened when visitors came to my Negro-college-based elementary school in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, in the late 1950's. The visitors spied me and another student, a boy, and remarked in surprise, "Oh, you're integrated." The may be forgiven their mistake. I was naturally blond with green eyes and freckles, while the boy had blue eyes and what we used to call "nice" hair. We were both so fair we burned in the sun. Yet we were "colored", as our birth certificates read. I grew up in the segregated South, in a town where three generations of my father's family had lived, and everyone knew me as Dr. Parker's daughter. My father was a dentist and a leader in the AME church and the Boy Scouts. As one-time state president of the Arkansas branch of the NAACP, he organized civil-rights boycotts and rallies in our hometown. I didn't have to wonder what I was. I knew what I was, and I'd always been proud of it. When desegregation came, things changed. Patronizing places formerly closed to us, such as the main floor of the movie theater or the soda fountain and Woolworth, made me conspicuous to Whites who hadn't known I existed. They would stare uncomprehendingly at me and my friends. I later learned that one reason I wasn't asked out much was because Black male friends were afraid they'd have to deal with ignorant Whites assuming some uppity nigger was trying to date one of their own. In 1966 I went to Howard University on a scholarship, convinced that here, at last, would be people who understood my situation and thought nothing of it. But Black Power reached campus the same year, and reverse prejudice came into full bloom. I was again an outsider-this time among my own. I met and married my husband while at Howard. He is a second-generation Italian-American. As I tell people crass enough to ask why I married White, I didn't. I married a man with no racial agenda. But marrying Chris did plunge me for the first time into the White world. From my new vantage point, I learned that nearly every White person carries innate prejudices about my people. For instance, many Whites can't accept Black as a label for me. They believe that I should "pass". I always ask them why I should be ashamed of who I am. To pass would mean giving up my family-because we run the gamut of the color spectrum. It embarrasses Whites to confront the truth that it is their attitudes that make it a liability to be Black. That word again: Black. Applied to me it's confusing, yet both my parents and all my grandparents are African-American, though there is also Native American and European blood in our lineage. People who know my heritage are careful of what they say around me. But there have been lots of opportunities to observe people with their guard down. Whites, not knowing what I am, have repeatedly told demeaning jokes about Blacks in my presence. On the other hand, I've also been snubbed, ignored and made the object of crude remarks behind my back by African-Americans who thought I was White. When I was younger, I railed against such arrogant stupidity. Now I pick my fights. But I can still speak up when pushed too far. Last summer my husband and I were at a party where a White friend of the host spent most of the evening proving he was an equal-opportunity bigot. As he drank steadily, he insulted every race, creed and color, every religious and political view. At first I kept my opinions to myself. But late in the evening, he announced that White Americans are at the top of the heap and that's just where "we" belong. I decided to set him up. I asked sweetly, "You can't mean we deserve everything we have simply because we are White?" "Yes, you and me," he boasted through his fog of liquor. "You're successful because you're superior." "Excuse me," I said, "but I'm an African-American. Yes, I am as successful as you are. I earned it through education and hard work, just like the rest of my family." As I launched into a recital of my family's background, the bewildered man turned to my husband and said accusingly, "Is she really Black? She doesn't look Black." Chris smiled and answered, "She can't help that." Back to top...	Order it at Barnes and Noble

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