Men Writing Romance?

Do Men write romance novels? Do many men read them? — **Do men write romance novels? Do men read them?**

When I was preparing to have my first romance novel published, several writer colleagues and my publisher suggested that I have a woman’s pen name or at least something androgynous. I was told more than eighty percent of romance readers are women, and many won’t read male romance authors. Having been a member of several romance writers’ groups for more than two decades, I have been told a few times, “I’d never read a romance written by a man,” but overwhelmingly, I have received wonderful support from women writers.

The question about the gender of my nom-de-plume got me to thinking as I struggled with how to present myself as an author. This isn’t a new problem with men writing romance. For instance, Jennifer Wilde was really Tom Huff writing the very popular romances in the 1960s and 1970s. Jessica Blair’s historical romances were written by Bill Spence. Long-time author, Leigh Greenwood didn’t have to chance his name to remain gender neutral. Dean Koontz writes romances under the names Deanna Dwyer and Leigh Nichols. The author of the children series Captain Underpants also writes romances under the pen name Sue Denim. Woman authors have faced the same issue writing in men’s genres such as westerns, war stories and science fiction, often disguising their authorship for the same reasons. Science fiction is a good example.

Women Writing Science Fiction

When I was eleven, I discovered Andre Norton’s science fiction novels, beginning with Cat’s-eye. This led to Witchworld and The Time Trader, and I became an avid fan. It was only many years later that I learned Andre Norton was really Alice Mary Norton. She legally changed her name to Andre. Why? Because the publishing world believed almost all sf readers were young men or teenage boys who wouldn’t read anything written by a woman author. Norton wrote over 300 novels and is now considered the “Grand Dame of Science Fiction.” Of course, the idea that women didn’t read science fiction wasn’t ever established. It was just assumed.

The notion that nearly all sf readers were male has never been true. For instance, Hugo Gernsback, considered the father of the science fiction genre, which the Hugo award is named after, wrote that there were as many female as male subscribers of his Amazing Stories magazine in the 1930s.

Most all literature surveys report that the vast majority of romance readers are woman, but what about science fiction? From the looks of it,

“…reading polls suggest that 40 to 50 percent of the readers were women. So there were always a lot of women in the genre.”

So writes Dr. Lisa Yaszek, who teaches science fiction studies at Georgia Tech. Article

Yet the impression of a male-dominated sf readership persisted, leading any number of woman sf authors to choose male or androgynous pen names, well-respected sf authors like Leslie F. Stone, C.L. Moore, C.J. Cherryh, and Leigh Brackett. Probably the most famous woman SF author using a man’s nom-de-plume was James Tiptree, Jr., writing during the 1960s-70s.

In 1977 the science fiction world found out that Tiptree was actually Alice Sheldon. After that, she continued to write under her real name. Alice lived an amazing, colorful life. There is a terrific biography of her by Julie Phillips that I can recommend: James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon.

By the end of the 1970s, more and more women were writing under their real names, many exploring gender issues, chronicled in such books as Brian Attebery’s Decoding Gender in Science Fiction and Justine Larbalestler’s The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction. Currently, there are several women winning Nebula and Hugo awards in science fiction. Some are recipients of multiple writing awards: the women Hugo Award winners for Best Novel in just the last twenty years.

· J.K. Rowling (2001)

· Ursula K. Le Guin (2003)

· Lois McMaster Bujold (2004)

· Susanna Clarke (2005)

· Connie Willis (2011)

· Jo Walton (2012)

· Ann Leckie (2014)

· N.K. Jemisin (2016)

· N.K. Jemisin (2017)

· N.K. Jemisin (2018)

· Mary Robinette Kowal (2019)

· Arkady Martine (2020)

· Martha Wells (2021)

Connie Willis has won more Hugo Awards in all categories than any other author. Ursula is the only sf author to receive the National Book Award.

While women have become an open staple of science fiction, whose novels have dominated the Hugo Awards in the last decade, the myth of only male sf readership persists. Author and sf historian Gary K. Wolfe reports that currently women sf writers he knows on both sides of the Atlantic say it remains harder for women to get published in sf compared to fantasy. Editors often try to steer women sf writers into writing fantasy.

Some Irony Involved

The notion that romances were and remain a women’s genre, whereas science fiction has always been a genre dominated by male writers and readers, does contain some irony. Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded is an epistolary novel published in 1740 by English writer Samuel Richardson, considered the first modern romance novel. A decade later, the most popular romance novel of that era, The Sorrows of Young Werther was also written by a man, Wolfgang Goethe. He has been critically acclaimed for initiating romantic literature in all its forms. However, Margaret Cavandish’s 1666 work, The Blazing World is seen by many as an early or proto-science fiction novel. What is considered by most as the first true novel of science fiction, Frankenstein, was written in 1816 by a woman, Mary Shelley.