Intro: Why is a Feminist Poet Writing About Romance?

Romance. The genre everyone loves to hate. Or at least to disparage. Feminists, in particular, often struggle to come to terms with it. I know I do. What’s not to love about strong, intelligent heroines finding love, commitment, family, and happy-ever-after endings? Except maybe how it has more in common with fairytales and fantasy than it does with real-life outcomes. Or how it tends to prop up traditional patriarchy even while espousing sexual, and professional liberation. Or how its heroines are mostly straight, white women falling in love with straight, white guys, while people of color or LGBTQBIA+ folks are merely supporting characters — if they appear at all. Or how the genre’s overall message can be summed up: Women can have it all; but since they really can’t, they should make sure to choose the handsome, hard-working, middle-or-upper class guy (and his kids, or desire for kids) if they don’t want to be miserably alone at the end of their lives.

Don’t let that last sentence persuade you for even one minute that I don’t read romance or watch it on TV. Or even that I don’t enjoy it. I’m currently immersing myself in Spanish one hour a day by watching Hallmark En Espanol on my Roku TV. And it’s not torture. It’s my immersion experience of choice. When I embark on my annual 10 day fishing trip up north, I load up on chick-lit and rom-coms in case it rains hard enough to confine me to the cabin. And I grew up on a diet of Austen, Alcott, and Bronte, along with those classics of contemporary romance: Georgette Heyer and Barbara Cartland. I even followed the formula: marrying after college graduation, having 2 kids, 2 dogs, a house in the suburbs, and a Volvo station wagon.

Yet somehow I considered myself then, and consider myself now, to be a feminist. I was an original subscriber to MS Magazine, and treasured my copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves until the day it perished in a basement flood. I burned my bra (metaphorically) and marched to Take Back the Night. I was a wife and mother, but I also became a divorced, single mother who didn't remarry for 15 years. I went back to grad school, and I worked in male-dominated fields: first computers, then 35 years in legal metrology. (Weights & Measures)

So why share this with you all now? Well, because in the last half of my life, I have suddenly found myself wanting to actually do something with my lifelong fantasy of writing and publishing. And for better or worse, one of the most popular, and prolific romance writers of our time, uses a close analog of my name as her pen name. On Amazon, and most other platforms, you can’t get to Julie Quinn, author of the poetry chapbooks Resting Bitch Face, and Daughter,Lover, Mother, Crone, without wading through pages of book listings for Julia Quinn, author of the Bridgerton series. (But you can find direct links on my web page juliequinnbooks.com - just saying!)

That wasn’t a big deal when I self-published two chapbooks of poetry. Poetry chapbooks are pretty much a vanity project no matter what your name is. Few people buy poetry at all, especially not self-published poetry. You just put it out there to share with your friends and family, and to have the satisfaction of having your creative expression physically manifest in the real world. It not only didn’t matter that Julie Pottinger was using a form of my name as her pen name; it came in handy when I had to come up with an author bio. Instead of listing my meager publication credits, and an unfinished Masters in Creative Writing from Hamline University, I wrote a funny disclaimer to ensure that I was not confused with THE Julia Quinn, famous romance author, and to notify Shonda Rhimes that she is welcome to make a Netflix series out of anything I’ve ever written. (So far, she has not called.)

But now…well, now is a different story. I’ve been sitting on an idea for two non-fiction books (What We Say to Bob, and What We Say To Sue) for about 3 years now. As soon as I mentally committed to editing and printing them in 2026, the flood gates of my dormant creativity flew open. In the last month, I’ve already written the first draft of a children’s picture book (I am Not a Sweetpea) and outlined a novel (working title: On the Day She Died.) Now the question is, will being forever associated with the famous Romance author, help find an audience for these books, help or hurt me? Do I need to find my own pen name in order to win audiences and gain credibility?

The next 12 blogs will look at both the things I love and hate about the romance genre. If I have my SEO words optimized, and the algorithms do their jobs, I’ll find romance readers, who also might also consider themselves to be readers who are woke. Or not. We will see. Let the adventure begin!