Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Happy Birthday Lady Jane!

The delightful Barbara Vey of PW's Beyond Her Book featured my post about Lady Jane's Salon one year anniversary, so I wanted to make sure I posted it here at home base. :)


Monday marked the one year a
nniversary of New York’s only reading series devoted to Romance Fiction; Lady Jane’s Salon. Lady Jane’s was founded in late 2008 by myself, fellow romance authors Hope Tarr, Maya Rodale and internet guru Ron Hogan over drinks one night discussing why New York, in all its literary splendor, didn’t have a reading series for Romance Fiction. So it was up to us to start one. And we did, in the red-velvet-drenched upstairs of Madame X, with our first authors Cara Elliot and Lauren Willig- who because of their partnership at Lady Jane’s are now teaching romance in the big leagues (Yale).
While the night boasted champagne, corsages and cupcakes, the spirit of Lady Jane’s is always about great fiction and a good cause. Now New York Times bestselling author Lauren Willig returned to our stage to help us celebrate this landmark year with her latest hit, The Betrayal of the Blood Lily, along with guest emcee and fabulous Historical author Leslie Carrolland her Notorious Royal Marriages, and scintillating debut author Sara Lindsey with Promise Me Tonight.

And so a year later… thanks to the support of people like you, Barbara, and Romantic Times Magazine, our wonderful venue Madame X, a host of bloggers, newspaper articles, radio interviews, thanks to a slew of talented authors and an ardent crowd of loyal supporters, Lady Jane’s is one of the most vibrant forces in New York’s experience of fiction in real-time; a face to face opportunity for readers, authors, industry and fans to talk about and applaud (literally) the genre we love. And then, of course, to share the love, by donating money and gently used romance novels to women in need, as charity remains a core part of our Salon’s identity.

A ton has happened through the year, for the co-founders, our readers and authors. Our co-founders published new books, the year marked my dream-come-true with my debut; The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, we watched as our featured readers’ books hit lists and thrilled at the news of contracts for our some of our Lady Jane’s audience who will now be debut authors too, Ron Hogan got a cool new job ruling the interwebz for the very smart New York publishing house who snatched him up, and 2010 proves to be no less than spectacular. With featured readers returning to the Lady Jane’s stage unveiling new names and new initiatives, we’ll also have a host of debut authors take the stage. We’ll continue our mission to promote every single sub-genre within Romance. We’ll be expanding our charity options, we’ll have a Salon at the Romantic Times convention (please come!), and most importantly, we’ll get to see Barbara Vey again, our supporter from the beginning, and we can’t wait for it all to unfold. Keep in touch at Lady Jane's Salon and come see us!

Blessings, thanks and happy reading!

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