Not so guilty pleasure

Did you listen to Radio 4's programme?

I'm breathing a sigh of relief. All told I think it was a fair and balanced programme. Within the first minute or so I was laughing as my fellow PHS editor, Nicola Marsh, had her book, 'Two Week Mistress', picked off the stand in the foyer and the blurb read out. Nice that the inclusion of a wombat made it sound fun.

Presents/Modern author Sharon Kendrick did a great job countering some very silly arguments. As did the editors. And really what's to defend? M&B is a global brand and our books sell in millions. One look at the figures should surely silence most critics.

I listened politely to Mary Evans criticisms of the genre and my considered response is that she has a staggeringly low opinion of the intelligence of women. She's just rude. We know, of course we know, that our lives will not be perfect ever more if we only meet the right man. For a start there just aren't enough 6ft 2" Greek billionaires going around! (Incidentally I have never written a hero like that although I thoroughly enjoy reading them when other authors do. And if you'd like to buy my latest release, 'The Tycoon's Princess Bride' you'll discover a disfigured hero. Just thought I'd mention that since the implication was you wouldn't find him.) That's the point though. It's fantasy. It's life as we wish it was.

The year I've just lived through has been my bleakest yet. My mum died of ovarian cancer. My husband was rediagnosed with his cancer and we are currently mid chemo. Horrendous timing because he's also been made redundant. And I have five dependent children who are firmly looking at me to keep things steady for them. It's not fun.

The thing is I know I'm not alone. I know there'll be people reading this who are experiencing similar life issues. Some of you will be coming out of dark times and others of you slipping into them. That's life. Real life. And I don't want to write about that. I don't want to read it either. Nor do I want to see movies, however clever, that make me feel miserable.

Other people are welcome to read and write what they like but I'm tired of apologising for wanting a happy ending. I want to escape into something 'safe'. I want to believe my life can change for the better in a moment.

Does that make me a 'rather miserable, rather disappointed, rather jaundiced' person? According to Mary Evans it would seem it does. But I disagree. You know, I'm standing upright, I'm holding things together, I'm managing to do all that without medication AND I enjoy what I'm writing. Most days. :) What's more my books have hit the Waldenbook Bestseller Lists.

I think I'm going to go have a coffee and get back to work. If you missed the programme, and it's really entertaining listening, you can catch it here. It's called Guilty Pleasure.

Guilty Pleasure

It's all beginning. With Mills and Boon turning 100 years old in 2008 there will undoubtedly be an upsurge of media attention. Here's a programme not to miss if you've got access to BBC Radio 4 at 11.30am UK time. (www.bbc.co.uk/radio4)

Guilty Pleasure: a Hundred Years of Mills and Boon.

Here's what Jane Anderson says about the programme in the Radio Times:

"Comedian Lucy Porter admits to feeling a sense of shame in being caught reading a Mills and Boon romance on public transport. But, as she finds out on visiting Romance HQ, aka the Mills and Boon offices in the aptly named Paradise Road in Surrey, these works of fiction shift 200 million copies each year. There's a strong feminist contention that Mills and Boon encourages women to settle for less than they're worth, but Fay Weldon argues back that we should let writers write what they want and readers read what they want."

Chris Campling writes:

"Someone you know has read, possibly even written, a Mills and Boon romantic novel. There is no shame in this. In fact, so little shame is there that people pour out of the woodwork to talk to comedian Lucy Porter for Guilty Pleasure - a Hundred Years of Mills and Boon (Radio 4, Thursday, 11.30am).

Some of them are successful M and B writers, including Roger Sanderson, the imprint's only male novelist. The only one to admit to it, perhaps. Others are not so fortunate. One failed contributor to the oeuvre tells Porter that having her contribution, the intriguingly titled Fires of Zanzibar, knocked back so damaged her confidence that she was put off writing for six years. Luckily when Helen Fielding did get her nerve back she came up with Bridget Jones, so it all worked out in the end.

Porter's programme is full of nuggets like that, as she talks to editors and executives and roots through the company's enormous archives - 100 years of slim volumes full of bursting bodices takes up a lot of space.

In the interests of balance, though, she also talks to those critics who argue that the novels are formulaic, badly written, sexist and for people who are unhappy. One can see the truth of the first three gripes, but the fourth? What's wrong with writing and publishing books that make unhappy people happy?"

Okay, I'm braced. I have no doubt parts of the programme will irritate me greatly - as has some of the above. We'll see ......