What Happened on November 14?

History has always been fascinating to me. It's fun to look back and see what interesting things have happened in history on any given date. Some of them are good and some are bad. Here are few things that have happened in history on November 14.

In 1732 the first professional librarian in the US, Louis Timothee, was hired in Philadelphia. I found this interesting since my older daughter is an academic librarian.

For all of us book lovers, Moby Dick was published on November 14, 1851, and reporter Nellie Bly, aka Elizabeth Cochrane, set out to beat the fictional conquest of going around the world in 80 days. She completed the task in 72 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes.

I was reminded of two of the bad things from this date while we were traveling in Europe in recent years. On November 14, 1935, the Nazi's took away German citizenship from the Jews. Here is a photo of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, Germany.

 

 The other tragedy occurred on November 14, 1956, when the USSR squelched the Hungarian revolt. This is a photo taken in Budapest, Hungary. The photo below is a Soviet era car that is made mostly of cardboard and is left on the street as a reminder of the occupation.

 

Now let's move on to some more pleasant happenings for November 14. 

In 1968, Yale became a coed university.

In 1972, the Dow Jones closed above 1,000 for the first time.

In 1994, the first public trains ran in the English Channel Tunnel.

In 1997, the Lion King sets a daily Broadway sales record of $2,700,000.

In 2012, the smartphones app for Candy Crush Saga was released.

In 2013, a picture of one of the rarest mammals, the saola, an Asian unicorn, is released. 

Which one of these events is the most surprising or interesting to you? 

I will be giving away a print copy of my book Montana Match to someone who leaves a comment. If you live outside the US, I will send an e-book copy of another one of my books. I will draw the winner on November 15, 2016, at 9PM MST. 

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Merrillee Whren is the winner of the 2003 Golden Heart Award presented by Romance Writers of American. She is married to her own personal hero, her husband of  thirty-five plus years, and has two grown daughters. Connect with her on her Facebook page and sign up for her newsletter.

 

Branching out with the kids

Recently, in my day job as a librarian, I decided to do some blog posts on kids fiction for one of the blogs I contribute to. This particular one is about family history, and given that the library runs a holiday reading programme, I decided to read some of the titles taken from one of the brochures on young adult family history novels. It seemed like a fun thing to do - plus we needed new and hopefully exciting content for the blog. Much as we work in family history, there are only so many posts about shipping lists and tracking down dead relatives one can do.
Well!

I just discovered a whole bunch of new authors.
I don't read much kids literature - I don't work with teens beyond the odd school visit to our research centre - but wow, I just loved reading these books. It turns out there is some pretty neat teen fiction being published, and while we all love our sweet romance, I imagine most of us also read outside the genre, whether it be fantasy, science fiction, crime or more literary fiction. Teen novels aren't something I'd considered beyond the odd, random book I'd occasionally read. Interestingly, adults reading teen books created some controversy last year in an op-ed piece, following the success of YA books being turned into movies. True, it probably isn't good for any adult to just read YA - but variety is surely a good thing.
The books I read for the blog were smart and funny, with amazing characters and plots and were just so well written. Teen fiction? As they say... who knew...
Are there any other genres you're tried - and discovered to your surprise, you really quite liked?

Joanne's latest book is Dating Daisy, a romantic comedy set in New Zealand. You can follow Jo on Twitter https://twitter.com/joanneauthor and check out the website at www.joannehill.com

It's all about story by Joanne Hill

Last week I gave a presentation at a Library Association conference to fellow librarians and no surprises, it was on romance novels.  Boy, can I talk about that subject. Not just on romance, though, but on the evolving world of publishing as we go more and more digital. Naturally, there were lots of pretty retro pictures in the powerpoint!

 

One of the things I touched on was how even a couple of years ago I'd never have imagined I could possibly read a novel on my phone. (Seriously, a phone??!) I have a Kindle and of course there's the laptop but I really don't mind the tinsy screen as much as I thought I might.

Recently a friend who ran a book store for several decades said that she never, ever believed she would read ebooks. She sold books, worked in the industry for many years, and like all of us she just loved the smell and the feel of holding a brand new book in her hand.  There is something magical about that. But now she's a convert to digital. As she says, she never loses a book anymore. Ten years ago the idea we might not even have print books was enough to make me hyperventilate but now it's like, if that happens then yes, it would be sad, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. Not like I once thought it would be. 

 

That's because in the end it's all about the story.  About the plot and the characters and of course with our genre, the HEA. The method to read the story might change over time, but it doesn't really matter because when you want to wallow in a good story,  its the contentment of reading that compelling story that counts - whether its in print,  digital, an audio book - or some other format no one's even invented yet! What about you? What formats do you read in?

 Joanne's newest book is "The Return of Gabe McLeod", a sweet romance set in small town New Zealand and now on Amazon.

 

 

Library Cards by Merrillee Whren

Did you know that September is Library Card Sign-up Month? I have a daughter who is an academic librarian, so she works with college students, but students of all ages, as well as adults, benefit from having a library card. Libraries are important because they encourage reading and help people discover authors and books.

I belong to Romance Writers of America, and every year at the national conference we honor a librarian who has championed the romance genre in his or her library. As romance writers, we want to recognize people who help others discover our books. Although writers can do a lot of research on the Internet, libraries and librarians can be an invaluable resource when getting information for our books. 

Here's my library card.

Do you have a library card? How often do you use the library?


 
Merrillee Whren is the winner of the 2003 Golden Heart Award presented by Romance Writers of American. She is married to her own personal hero, her husband of thirty-five plus year, and has two grown daughters. Her latest book, A PLACE TO CALL HOME, is available at all major ebook retailers.You can find the buy links at her website. Connect with her on Facebook page.

Give 'em what they want

A blog post from a fellow Sweet Romance Reads author a few weeks back got me thinking about romance and how while we think it’s a great genre, not everyone does. It’s a great irony that some of the folk who work with romance, often don’t like it one bit. Case in point – libraries. A few years back I was researching reader’s advisory and category romance for my masters degree and it was an eye opener.

One of the themes running through the research was a dilemma going back to the early days of romance and it’s still around. Do you give your library users what they want or do you try and “educate” them to read so called “better” fiction? I discovered a lot in my research.

That at one time some libraries actually refused to have romance novels in their collections – as recently as the 1970s. One librarian I interviewed actually said to me she felt sorry for the writers and the readers. (Yep, I had to ask her to repeat it, I couldn’t believe what she was saying.) Other librarians had no idea who local authors were, even though their books were in the collections, were well borrowed, and were even set in the same city.

In your public library you’ll generally find the library manager will have strong ideas on the best way to place romance. Do you put the romances on their own shelves so readers can find them easily? Or do you shelve them in with the general fiction so your romance reader might pick up some ‘better’ books as well. The implication being that romance readers won’t read anything other than romance. My local libraries have the romance separated out but at a library I used to work at, they were interspersed with the fiction. I can see pros for both – it’s good to read widely, after all – but my preference? To have the romances in their own shelves.

What about you? If you’re a library user, what is your preference for shelving romance novels? (And check out my staged "library" pic in my lounge, above, featuring a fellow Sweet Romance Readers author. I even alphabetised for the camera!)

Joanne Hill’s new book “Return to Frazier Bay” is a sweet romance set in the South Island of New Zealand. It is available now on pre-order exclusively to the iBooksStore. It will be released on May 3rd. You can follow Jo on Twitter at @joanneauthor and also like her Facebook page.