I’m sitting on my sofa humming along to
Hawaii Five-O. Next to me the doggy is
snoring. The kids are in bed. And I’m rambling because I have to discuss
whether men can write romance.
Yes.
There we go.
Of course men can blinking well write
romance. Are you insane?
Okay, well, what am I going to write for
the next 450 words?
Look, if you know me at all you’ll know
that I get really cheesed off when people say you can’t do something because of
your gender. Women can’t serve on the frontline, men can’t be nannies, women can’t
write m/m, and men can’t write romance. It’s all tosh. Gender
discrimination works both ways and it’s just as wrong whichever way it is
applied.
Have you ever read something so beautiful
that your heart feels like it’s been torn in two? No wait, that sounds wrong.
It doesn’t sound romantic. But it was poetry to my soul. I wish I could have
written it but my soul is not that romantic.
“I looked through your eyes with
you, Dustin. Tried, from my
perpendicular perspective, to capture the same images
you caught.
And I wondered as I looked with you, could I see from
your
perspective? Could I abandon the passion that you
have and still
nourish myself on the pain of that forfeiture? Could
I hold my fear as
the highest of my emotions and line all others up
behind it?
I could not, and when I realized that, you were gone.
The cup
half empty, the croissant broken but otherwise
untouched. Only the
motes showed me the trail of your passage.
And yet, here I am, still so desperately in love with
you.”
Do you think that
men can’t write romance? They’ve been doing it a while.
“Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.” (Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, Shall
I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day)
Do you still think men
can’t write romance?
You see, I could talk until
I’m blue in the face, but then you won’t see for yourself. Lee Brazil *Hi,
Lee*, Andrew Grey, John Goode and Christopher Koehler, are guys who write
gorgeous romances. The range and depth of feeling in their books makes this
girl’s (what! I can be a girl) toes curl. I could pick quotes from all of their
books. But then I’d be rereading their books til midnight and I want to get
some sleep. Sure, men write thrillers and crime, sci-fi and fantasy. But they
can write romance as well and don’t let anybody tell you any different.
Sue’s Bio: Sue Brown is
owned by her dog and two children. When she isn't following their orders, she
can be found at university listening to lecturers discuss long-dead
theologians. In her head, however, she's plotting how to get her cowboys into
bed together; she just hopes the lecturer doesn't ask her any questions.
Sue discovered M/M erotica at the time she woke up to find two men kissing on
her favorite television series. The series was boring; the kissing was not. She
may be late to the party, but she's made up for it since, writing fan fiction
until she was brave enough to venture out into the world of original fiction.
For Tommy Bradley, a hand working on the Lost Cow Ranch in rural
Texas, admitting his sexuality is impossible, even if his bosses, Luke and
Simon, are gay—Tommy has spent his entire life hiding the truth from his
homophobic parents. Then Tommy meets pastor Noah Taylor in Luke’s father’s
hospital room, and his difficult secret becomes that much harder to keep.
Noah is unlike any man of God—or any man—Tommy’s ever met. For
one thing, his congregation is made up primarily of GLBT individuals and their
families. For another, he isn’t afraid of the attraction
he feels toward Tommy, and he makes his intentions very clear. But Noah won’t
hide his sexuality or his love from the world, and he won’t start a
relationship with Tommy while Tommy hides his, either. Faced with the choice of
losing Noah or coming out to his parents, Tommy takes his first steps out of
the closet.
But Tommy isn’t the only one facing challenges. Thanks to
an outpouring of hatred from Pastor Jackson and a group of ranch owners, Noah
must cope with the possible loss of his church and his livelihood.
