Here's a disturbing story that was posted on the blog Daily Kos:

Lauren Baumbach, an award-winning writer of MM romance novels and a member of the Romance Writers of America (which accepts MM romance as a category, although their magazine, Romantic Times, doesn't review it), had her promotional materials confiscated by the Hyatt hotel where the RWA was holding its conference. The management claimed that Baumbach's material was too explicit, although she collected material from several of the featured MF romances that was far more explicit.

If MM romance is considered so risque, imagine how brilliantly cutting-edge I feel, writing bisexual romance! Of course, MM romance is "risque" only to backwards-thinking organizations like RWA and their publication, Romantic Times. Or is that ass-backwards...

To read the full account:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/2/193733/9240

Back in June I was interviewed on Queery, Madison, Wisconsin’s longest-running LGBT radio show, to talk about my bisexual historical novel, Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander: a bisexual Regency romance.

Here’s the link to the page on my Web site with the audio and a transcript.

http://www.annherendeen.com/Interview.html

Since this was my first live on-air interview, I have to admit I wasn’t as sharp as I wish I'd been. The interviewers, Sharon Osterloh and Shawn Neal, were excellent—kind and gentle, guiding me to present my book in the best light possible—but there were some points I should have made and didn’t. If you’re interested, they follow the cut.
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For those of you who don't like to buy online, my book, Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander: a bisexual Regency romance, is now available at an actual store in New York City:

Bluestockings
172 Allen St. (between Stanton and Rivington sts.)
Phone: 212-777-6028
Price: $19.95.

Anybody who lives in or near NYC, or is visiting, check it out. Bluestockings is an activist center and a café as well as a bookstore. Something interesting is always going on there.

To get to Bluestockings by subway: take the F train to the 2nd Ave. stop and exit from the 1st Ave. end of the platform. There's an exit directly onto Allen Street. Walk down one block.
2nd Ave. is also the last stop on the downtown V train.

In my last posts I was discussing the idea of “selling myself,” that is, talking about personal issues unrelated to my writing in an attempt to sell my book. After all, a work of fiction by an unknown author just isn’t going to sell, is it? So why not talk about issues unique to me, in an attempt to generate interest in me, the author, since there can be only limited interest in my book?
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At the age of 51 I sold myself for the first time. Not sexually—no, much worse than that. In an interview about me and my book, “Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander: a Bisexual Regency Romance,” I answered questions about a deformity/disability of my hands. Yes, I am now officially a member of the club of those who paint with their feet and play the piano with their nose. From now on, my book won't be funny or sexy, exciting, well written, witty or outrageous. Now it’s just “inspirational.” (Pardon me while I puke.) “Isn’t it wonderful, she typed 500-some pages with no fingers!”

But I chose to do this. I could have decided not to discuss it. So I’m a whore, a bisexual-romance-writing, bookselling whore. With no fingers.
How did this happen?
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