The XO Interview: Steve Ammidown

Talking with a romance novel historian about men in romance, HEAs and where the genre should go next

One of the reasons I think the romance genre hasn’t enjoyed much of a critical reception is because of a lack of formal study of the genre. Fortunately, that’s changing and academia is embracing romance. People like romance historian Steve Ammidown are helping to drive this change. I highly recommend following him on Instagram or Twitter to learn more about the history of the genre in the last 50-ish years. Or check out his website and join me in falling down lots of romance history rabbit holes. I’m thrilled I had the chance to ask him about men in romance, what being a romance historian entails and how the happy ever after has changed.

How did you first discover the romance genre? Was there a particular book that was The One for you?

It’s not the sexiest answer, but it was actually because of work! In 2016 I started a job at Bowling Green State University working with their amazing popular culture collections. Their romance collection is second to none, and I immediately realized that I needed to understand it better. I was always a genre reader growing up, so diving into a new area struck me as exciting. I asked my wife, who has long been a voracious romance reader, for some recommendations and she pointed me toward Courtney Milan’s Brothers Sinister series. I was hooked almost immediately, particularly by The Suffragette Scandal. Courtney’s writing style, worldbuilding, and ability to fully flesh out her main characters sucked me in and I was off to the races!

How do romance novels bring you joy?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as I try to make my way out of a reading slump. Maybe it’s because I’m old and married, but to my mind, romances at their best give us an opportunity to see people coming together to find love and then deepen that love while facing a world that is hostile to them in some way. Those books, the ones that mix love with partnership, give me a sense of optimism about life that can be hard to reach otherwise.

You’re a romance archivist. Cool! Can you tell us about what that entails? And more importantly, why does it matter especially for a genre like romance?

These days I think of myself as more of a romance historian than archivist for the genre. I left my job at Bowling Green in 2020, and since then I’ve found myself focusing more on the little details of the genre’s history in my own writing as well as what I share on social media. That has come out of watching the scholarship about the genre grow in a direction that is more literary in nature. Examining romance from a literature perspective is definitely important, but I think we skipped over a step- building an understanding of the history of the genre.

The example I always use is the case of Janet Dailey’s first book. The accepted wisdom is that Janet Dailey became Harlequin’s first American author when her first book was published in 1976. But neither of the elements of that statement are true. Harlequin printed many American authors prior to 1957, when they became exclusively a reprinter of English Mills & Boon titles. Add to that the fact that Dailey’s first book, No Quarter Asked, was actually first printed by Mills & Boon in the UK in 1974. But for reasons unknown, Dailey herself propagated the 1976 date, which romance academics have accepted because it’s not been easy to find other information. It’s a little thing, but becomes a hurdle to understanding the broader impact of Dailey if we don’t acknowledge her as the first American woman in Mills & Boon’s stable of authors.

Like every genre, romance is never just the words on the page- it’s the politics, the people, the cover and packaging, the promotional approaches, the publishers, etc. So I see my role now as seeding a curiosity about those elements to encourage others to work with me to build a better understanding of that history. Doing that requires a fair bit of digging and a solid dose of luck. In addition to tracking down hard to find books, I’m also always digging through the internet trying to track down press releases and interviews that shed light on otherwise overlooked details. It’s a bit like archaeology! And just like archaeology, the overwhelming goal of this work is to show the world that people who’ve contributed to this genre are important and worthy of study.

I often get asked if there are “romance novels for men” particularly straight men. What is your perspective on that, as a man and expert on the genre?

I think there are romance novels out there for everyone, including straight men, and it just takes a bit of curiosity and willingness to read broadly to find them. Especially right now, there are so many subgenres and sub-subgenres that everyone who enjoys reading can find a story that will appeal to them in a romance.

At the same time, I’ve certainly come across romances where the male main character is about as complex as a cardboard cutout, or represents the worst aspects of masculinity, which turned me off and I’m sure would do the same for most other male readers. I don’t necessarily think that authors should write heterosexual romance with men in mind, but we also should acknowledge that some characterizations do more harm than good.

On that same note, I think we need to avoid the mentality of “men should read romance, they might learn something!” Romance novels are not medicine. They’re fantasies that everyone should be able to enjoy without being made to feel like they ought to be taking notes.

You profile men who write romance on your website—often writing under female pseudonyms (like Tom Huff or David Wind). You also have a lot on the history of Black romance, the authors, editors, and their books. To me, this changes the perception of the genre—in a good way!—about who romance is by and for and about. What else do you want people to know about the history of the romance genre?

I’ve always been drawn to hidden and obfuscated pieces of history, because I think they’re essential to better understand how we got to where we are today. The genre is so much bigger and more interesting than the big names of the past 50 years that we all know!

And in the case of the romance genre since the late 1970s, we’re incredibly lucky because a lot of those people are still with us. More than once I’ve talked about a figure from romance’s past and had people be shocked that the person is still alive. We’re talking about living history! Especially when it comes to Black romance- I think it’s important to talk to and about those folks now because they got so little coverage in their 80s and 90s heyday, even in places like Romantic Times. There is so much work to be done, and we can all play a part.

I was reading your article on Rubie Saunders, who wrote “Nurse Romances” in the 1960s and 1970s and I was struck by this line:  “The Nurse Morgan books are not romances as we recognize them today. Marilyn usually has several paramours through the course of the book, but always chooses her career in the end. Atypical for now, but not necessarily for 1969.” Can you talk about how the happy ever after has changed (or not?) over the years .

Having recently taken a fair bit of guff for my opinions on the happily ever after, I’m hesitant to rehash it, but here goes.

If I was writing that entry about Rubie now, I might add a little more nuance to that statement. The Nurse Morgan books were definitely outliers in the “career girl” romance subgenre they were a part of at the time by using “happy for now” endings, but they also represented a societal shift that was starting to take place in the late 60s and early 70s. And that’s been the story of romance for much of the past 50 years, with the genre mostly presenting a model of romance -> -> marriage -> kids- a set of eurocentric and heteronormative assumptions that don’t reflect everyone’s experience.

In the 2020s, we can find a broader representation of experiences. There are major publisher queer romances, and Black and Asian and Latinx authors now get a fairer shake than they did in even the 1990s. We see more found families and more books that don’t end with marriage or kids, though those more traditional stories are still plentiful. With rare exception, you still won’t find trans romances, or polyamorous romance, unless you turn to independent authors. That’s where the real innovation is coming from now, and the growth of that sector can be nothing but positive for the genre as a whole.

Where would you like to see the genre go next? Where do you think it will go next?

I would love to see the genre continue to evolve in its inclusiveness of all types of love stories. We’ve come a long way, but there’s still much work to do. Like I said, a lot of authors outside of the traditional publishing world are writing new and different types of love stories that deserve to be embraced, and those authors deserve their pay days.

While I’m overall feeling positive about the genre, I do worry about the direction traditional publishers are going. For example, I’m writing this on the 51st day of the HarperCollins Union strike. The fact that the company hasn’t come to the table in over a month is a troubling sign and a reminder that companies like News Corp. are so big that they could eliminate entire divisions and barely blink at the change in their financials. HarperCollins controls a huge share of the romance market right now, including Avon and Harlequin (though Harlequin isn’t part of the strike from what I understand), and the parent company’s seeming lack of interest in treating their workers well should set off alarm bells for readers and authors alike. Every one of those union members is an essential part of putting books in our hands and deserves a living wage for doing so.

The other publishers are paying attention here, and I worry that if HarperCollins gets away with acting like this, the whole genre will suffer as they cut corners in the name of profit. The whole romance community needs to stand strong with the HCP Union, for all of our sakes.

Note from XO: If you want to learn more about the HarperCollins Union Strike and how to to support them, click here.

Any questions or comments for Steve?