A weird thing about me: I’m always a bit ahead of my time. I don’t know why this is, but it’s been true all of my life. And it’s not nearly as cool as it sounds (if it does sound cool). In truth, it’s not a great thing at all, because it means I’m never in the full swing of the cultural zeitgeist. I’m the odd duck, the one not marching along with everyone else.
Many of you have heard these stories of my trajectory (which implies a straight course and steady momentum which would be entirely incorrect). In summary:
- No one knew how to market the weird cross-genre stuff I was writing, starting back in 2007ish.
- Catherine Asaro told me to keep going and just know that writing cross genre would be like wading through hip-deep snow.
- Agent at a conf in 2010 told me my work fell in the cracks between genres. I cried. Friends dubbed me “Crack Ho.”
- I didn’t know I was writing Fantasy Romance until Carina Press took a chance on a crazy, cross-genre kid and published my books under that genre label.
Fast forward to today and the coining of the term Romantasy.
A number of readers have contacted me recently, having just encountered the term, largely via the new Goodreads Choice Awards category. I’m not sure who coined the term, but the portmanteau of Romance + Fantasy has now come to encompass Fantasy Romance and Romantic Fantasy. This has been occurring first in the Indie spaces and now is moving into traditional publishing as they catch onto the trend. Just last February – on Valentine’s Day – Devi Pillai, Publisher at Tor, the notable publisher of science fiction and fantasy (SFF), announced that they’d created a new imprint: Bramble. Monique Patterson, Editorial Director at St. Martin’s Press, moved over to head up Bramble, which will be SFF + Romance.
In very cool news for me, Monique was featured in Publisher’s Weekly Notables of 2023 and namechecked me! (Along with my friend and colleague, Amanda Bouchet.) Monique said:
Romantasy may be the shiny new portmanteau on the block, but the fusing of speculative fiction and romance, Patterson notes, is nothing novel. She points to series by such authors as Amanda Bouchet and Jeffe Kennedy that would likely be categorized as romantasy now, but came out before the term was coined. It was tough putting out such books in years past, but they “would probably do wonderfully now,” she says.
Isn’t that cool? I was so pleased to be mentioned in this context. From Crack Ho to Trailblazer!
Ain’t that just the way it goes?