Judith Ivory: The Judith Ivory books have all had the same editor (Carrie Feron of Avon Books/Harper Collins), and her influence, to me at least, is pronounced in them. Carrie has a particularly good understanding of my writing, my strengths and weakness, while she has a simply brilliant understanding of the romance market. She's a powerhouse of a romance editor -- a rare combination of someone who understands the common denominator aspects of the market while having the highest regard for its readers.  

How has this translated in my work? The Judith Ivory books are more commercial, while still being absolutely works of my heart. This is a very hard line to walk, but Carrie and I have walked it in a particularly satisfying way to me -- and I think to her, too, though it might be presumptuous to speak for her. Anyway, I am enjoying increased sales, yet I don't feel compromised in what I'm writing. Any writer will tell you this is a near-impossible ideal to find in commercial publishing: quite a gift when it arrives.

Crescent Blues: What was the reaction of "Judy Cuevas" fans to "Judith Ivory?" 

Judith Ivory: Confusion. I have to say, though, the confused group was very small. [Grins.] Judy Cuevas didn't have huge numbers of readers. That was the problem. 

Crescent Blues: Beyond the willingness of bookstores to purchase more "Judith Ivorys" than "Judy Cuevas," how has the name change affected you, particularly as a writer? Do you find yourself gravitating towards different kinds of stories, for example? 

Judith Ivory: No. I can't say it affects me one way or another that I am aware of. I like the placement better when I go to the bookstore, because alphabetically Judith Ivory isn't shelved at the far end and down like Judy Cuevas was. Mostly though, I don't even think about it. I just write my book. 

Crescent Blues: Were the books, Beast, Sleeping Beauty, and The Proposition, intentionally developed with a fairy tale/legend theme? How did the theme arise? 

Judith Ivory: It arose really by chance. Or by subconscious or Muse or whatever. I certainly didn't intend to write "fairy tales for grown ups." I was doing, in my mind, "flawed" heroes, and I thought, What would be the worst flaw for a historical romance hero to have to overcome? Being ugly, I answered myself. Monstrously ugly. And voilà, Beast was born. Then Beast did so well, I thought well, let's do Beauty, but that somehow became Sleeping Beauty.  

The Proposition was born on its own. I didn't feel there was any agenda that had to be. But, lo, it was so Pygmalion from the start, then even a bit of Cinderella slipped in. I was raised on fairy tales, loved them, so it's natural for me to reexamine -- and rewrite -- them as I "grow up" myself, I suppose. 

Crescent Blues: Will your next book for Avon also have a fairy tale/legendary focus? 

Judith Ivory: Hmm. I don't know. It doesn't seem to be at this point. But then neither did some of the others. It is something that happens in final rewrites. Or doesn't. The next one is about an American cattle baron and an English heiress who get lost together out on the Dartmoor for half the book, then spend the next half trying to untangle what went on out there between them. It's fun. A bit of African Queen in it. I never know what I've written, though, till it's in. Things change and develop right till the end. 

Crescent Blues: Is there any special significance to the fact that the covers of both Beast and The Proposition feature a single, red rose? 

Judith Ivory: Probably. I know Avon has tried to link all three books -- Beast, Sleeping Beauty, and The Proposition -- together cover-wise, so readers will recognize a look and want them all. Also, I believe Beast enjoyed an unusual early velocity of sales -- Avon couldn't keep it on shelves in the first weeks of its release. Marketing may be hoping for an association there, hoping that will translate into bestseller lists. Or this could be the author's wishful thinking, too. [Grins.] 

Crescent Blues: Sleeping Beauty included fond references to Patricia Gaffney's Vicar of Wyckerly (To Love and Cherish). The Proposition openly refers to G. B. Shaw and the later incarnations of his Pygmalion. Can we take it as a given that there are references to friends' romances in The Proposition too? 

Judith Ivory: I always like to think I build on the rich tradition of our literary heritage. Which is an inscrutable way of saying, I forget. I truly do. I only remember my little games like that when I happen to reread them. 

Crescent Blues: Any chance you could let us in on the references included in earlier books? 

Judith Ivory: If there are any, I forget them, honestly. I know Sleeping Beauty had a lot of little "love letters" to Gaffney. I adore her work, and she and I are friends, so it was fun to plant private jokes in the book. Jenny Crusie and I have a similar relationship, lots and lots of email and the occasional, face-to-face visit. It's marvelous to have friends whose work you admire. (I just read Jenny's newest Welcome to Temptation, and it is her very best, so hilariously fine!) And almost inevitable, for me at least, is that little nose-tweaks and fond kisses slip into my work. I don't fight it, though I do ask for permission if I use a character by name, which I did with the vicar. I have it in writing that I'm allowed to have done that. 

Crescent Blues: Any chance your older romances will be reprinted shortly? 

Judith Ivory: I own all but one again. I'm sitting on them for now, because I want a lot of money for them. [Grins evilly.] And also because so far no one wants them. [Grins again.] 

Crescent Blues: If you were writing, say, Starlit Surrender or Black Silk today, how would you change them? 

Judith Ivory: I'd fix the historical error in Starlit Surrender, which I will not point out. I'd smooth out the style of Black Silk. Not much else. I'm done with them. I've moved on. I like them as they are, like children you've raised and sent out into the world. They have to fend for themselves now. 

Crescent Blues: Do you feel the itch to rewrite your books? 

Judith Ivory: I don't feel this itch. Maybe other writers do. Once I'm done, I'm done. I could rewrite the same book forever, while I'm doing it. You have to pry it from my fingers. But once I've let go, I've let go. I always have half a dozen writing projects going, so picking up an old one isn't that appealing. Too much cooking that is new. 

Crescent Blues: What other directions would you like to pursue in your writing? For example, the intensity of your style would seem to lend itself to suspense. Do you have any ambitions in that area or other contemporary genres? 

Judith Ivory: I have a story in the first person set in the beginning of this century I'd like to finish one day. I'd like to do a contemporary, I think. I don't rule anything out. Mostly, though, I'm pretty happy doing what I'm doing for now. 

Crescent Blues: You recently wrote an essay for Kay Mussell's anthology, North American Romance Writers. How did it feel to return to writing non-fiction? What was it like to engage in literary criticism of a genre you've said should not take itself too seriously? 

Judith Ivory: It was very familiar. I studied literature in college, did post-graduate work in it. I've written reams about "proper" literature and always enjoyed it, so it wasn't a new or a particularly difficult task to write about romance from a "serious" perspective.  

As to taking itself too seriously, romance, I would think, strives for the same balance we all do in our maturity. To take yourself too seriously will make you self-important. But to treat yourself lightly, self-deprecatingly, is not realistic either.  

Romance must respect itself before it will get the respect it so longs for. Part of self-respect is simply speaking your mind -- as I and so many other romance writers did in those articles -- knowing it is only your opinion, but that your opinion is as valid as anyone's. The distinction I would make, I suppose, is between taking yourself too seriously (i.e., thinking you speak for all readers' tastes and all that is good in writing) and treating yourself with too little respect (i.e., imagining that none of your ideas are worth expressing). One strives for balance, for reality. 

Crescent Blues: Why do you feel it important for romance to remain outside the literary mainstream? 

Judith Ivory: Hmm. I'm not sure I think that now, if I ever did.  

Years ago now, Julie Tetel told me that the day romance loses its outsider status is the day it loses its vim and vigor. I think there may be some truth to this. We have some incredible energy going right now in the genre. That energy is the reason, I think, romance is topping all the bestseller lists, literally supporting the publishing industry, while it has begun to produce break-out writers of such a high caliber our critics are left scrambling for explanations.  

Some of this driving energy, I suspect, comes from our sense of outrage over having been dismissed, put-down -- from the intellectual dishonesty leveled at us that says romance can't be good, when we in fact know it can be. It can be good, it can be mediocre, it can be egregious, just like anything else.  

We continue to evolve as a genre, and I wouldn't presume to say what will be good five years from now for us as readers and writers of romance. All is flux. Nothing "remains" forever. So, no, I wouldn't say it is important we "remain" anything. In fact, it is probably important that we adapt, that we change. 

Crescent Blues: Won't that kind of adaptation and growth ultimately strip romance of its outsider status and lead to its consideration as "literature?" After all, it happened to Jane Austen. 

Judith Ivory: Oh, we are literature, always have been, since Woodiwiss and Rogers first put their pen to paper. We just don't get credit for it, and that keeps us humble. Too humble sometimes. Again, I'd make the distinction between being self-important and being self-respectful.  

Just because I or any other writer strive for well-rounded characters, lucid plots, or intelligent writing doesn't mean I achieve these things at every turn. These are ideals. Meanwhile humility is extremely important if one is to grow and see the world realistically. Every writer is striving to do her best, by and large. I especially like romance right now because there is less vanity -- less of an assumption that we have written something for all time, for posterity -- than in literary fiction. It's balance I want, in my writing and in my life. 

Crescent Blues: What is the most insightful thing anyone has ever said or asked about your writing? 

Judith Ivory: Oh, everyone gets different things from my writing, and I never worry about it. It takes two imaginations, so I figure it's up to [the readers] to do their part once I finish a book; get what you will from it.

Still, someone once wrote to me with a comment that I loved. It made me laugh and made me flush with pleasure. A lady said she read one of my books and just wasn't expecting it to be "so much to read." At first, she decided it was too much to read, not what she'd thought she'd bought.  

She came to the conclusion that she hated it. She then explained at some length why she'd hated my book, how the characters' thinking wasn't good enough or noble enough or right enough somehow. She put the book down, she told me. But then, she said, it wouldn't leave her alone. She kept thinking about it till she had to go back to it. Eventually, she read every word "and thought and thought about it." All this thinking, she said.  

She decided she loved it by the end, that the characters made mistakes but they were good, and she forgave them like real people she loved. But she added at the end of her letter that she was glad I didn't write more than one book a year, because she couldn't take more than one a year. Which made me burst out laughing.  

In any event, I love that I made her think. It's wonderful to imagine you affect people. In a good way. In my fantasies I always imagine that I write and by doing so I somehow make someone's life better, more meaningful, more authentic somehow -- more content. That's what good fiction does for me. It's what I strive for -- and miss the mark on a lot. But it's such a wonderful goal to live with.  

Jean Marie Ward 

To learn more about Judith Ivory and her books, check out her Web site and her page at Book Talk . Ivory also maintains a bulletin board for "The Avon Ladies," Avon Books' premier romance writers.

Click here for the Crescent Blues review of The Proposition.