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Tag: manga

Call for M/M Romance and Yaoi Bloggers

Christie Gordon 0 Comments
Picture from www.homotography.com

As most of you may have heard, I put out a call last week for authors and readers of M/M Romance and Yaoi to be guest bloggers right here. There was a really great response and I’m pleased to say that for the next few months, there should be some fun discussion from avid readers and authors alike about the subject. I’ve asked the bloggers to talk about things like:

  • Why they write M/M Romance or Yaoi
  • What funny or interesting things they have come across in the M/M Romance and Yaoi genres
  • Purple Prose (you know, those wacky ways us authors like to describe sex)
  • Why do they think women like M/M Romance and Yaoi
  • Any funny quirks of the genre and so on.

Some of the authors I’ve already booked are (in order of appearance):

  • ZA Maxfield
  • Amber Kell
  • Belinda McBride
  • Louisa Brown
  • Julie Hayes
  • Laura Tolemei

Plus I’ve got a few readers to blog as well. If anyone reading this wants to join in and guest blog, please contact me at: Contact

All in all, it should be a fun couple of months here, so please check by often to see what’s up. Of course, I’ll be announcing the guest bloggers at all my usual places, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace (Links and follow info to the right there).

And that picture at the top, holy cow – I swear that is exactly what I picture Logan to look like in my next full-length novel, “Secrets“.

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Yaoi versus M/M Romance: What’s the difference? Is there a difference?

Christie Gordon 8 Comments
*Pic courtesy of Homotography

So before I begin this discussion, I suppose I need to define what constitutes “M/M Romance” and “Yaoi”. Of course, by setting a definition I may very well answer my original question;) But here goes:

M/M Romance: This is usually defined as women writing homoerotic romances for women. It usually comes in book form – short stories, novellas or novels. The covers of the books are made up of largely  half nude, buffed men. The covers are also done with photo-manipulation. They are usually like hetero romances in there are genre’s like historical, paranormal with werewolves and vampires, contemporary, fantasy, steampunk, whatever. The main characters are everything from cops to cowboys to wealthy business men to military men and all in-between.

Yaoi: This is also usually defined as women writing homoerotic romances for women. It most widely comes in manga or comic form, although there seems to be a trend outside of Asia to produce it in regular book form. Many of them are also made into anime. The genres pretty much run the gamut of paranormal, contemporary and fantasy, except that many of the main characters are high school or college students and many are what we’d consider “underage” in the USA. A very popular theme in Yaoi is the older man/underage man.

I suppose if you look at my definitions (they are by no means all encompassing or exactly right;) ), I think there are some clear differences. In my experience, M/M romance tends to try and stick to real issues involving gay relationships way more than Yaoi does. But since it’s written by and for women  (and yes, I understand many men read it, but it’s still written for a female audience. Football ads target young men and I still watch them and find them amusing – sheesh) there is an element of romantic emotion between the two men that isn’t quite realistic and you probably won’t find written in a real, bona fide Gay Romance novel (written by and for gay men).

I tend to think Yaoi takes this romantic emotion thing a bit further. Maybe the men don’t really act like real men – but dang, we’re surrounded by real men all the time, can’t we just have some made up men that act how we’d like them to act for once? But the trick here is not to make them so farfetched that they’re completely unbelievable. It’s all about what we want, right? I think I’m off on a bit of a tangent, LOL.

Of course, there is what I write, a mixture of Yaoi and M/M romance. I take the sort of characters and situations you’d find in a M/M romance and give it a bit more of that Yaoi romantic emotion. At least, that’s what I try to do:) There are others like me who write normal books (not manga) and have anime-style, hand-drawn covers. Maybe if some of you other authors come across my ramblings you can pipe in:)

Anyhow, in my very short analysis, I think I’ve determined that yes, there is a difference between Yaoi and M/M Romance. But I believe the lines between the two are being fudged into gray and morphed the more popular these genre’s get outside of Asia. And I also believe it’s great for us women (and men) who love both genres.

What do you prefer and what do you want to see more of?

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Harlequin at Yaoi Con – Really?

Christie Gordon 6 Comments

I don’t know what I have against this company, except that they’re known for producing sappy romance novels involving happy endings with heterosexual couples getting married and having babies. There’s always the stereotypical alpha male hero and the blushing – OMG, I hate him, but I love him, but I can’t have sex with him – heroine. I…HATE…THAT. In fact, I think this type of romance novel is the very reason I’ve never read one before I started writing fanfiction and the only type of romance novel I’ve ever read is M/M or Yaoi.

I don’t know, maybe I’m a bit jaded and I’m going to get a bit personal here. After two failed attempts at marriage and four miscarriages I just see this fairy tale as being a complete farce in today’s society. Now that I’m settled with my two boys, one adopted from Russia, and NOT tied down in a marriage anymore, I’m happier than I’ve ever been. And I know I’m not alone here. My therapist (think I haven’t had therapy with what I went through? LOL) said the average number of marriages today are three.

So this sort of thing doesn’t seem real to me and I don’t see it being real to the majority of younger readers – I’m talking Generation X or Y or whatever the heck anyone under the age of 40 or so is being called these days.

Now back to Harlequin, the book mecca of all things neat and orderly and in their place (love before sex, marriage before sex, marriage before baby, all babies and husbands are perfect, a woman can’t be happy without a husband and gay people don’t exist – oh, I could just scream). So I hear they have a manga line. I hear they’ve even hired mangakas to do the artwork for their manga line. And they even showed them off at Yaoi Con in San Francisco. BUT THEY STILL HAVE THE REDICULOUS STORIES ABOUT LITTLE BO PEEP FINDING HER PRINCE CHARMING IN THE LATE 1880’S.  *falls over with a seizure*

Okay, I’m better now.What retarded impulse led them to think women who like to see two beautiful, androgynous guys engage in ass-play would want to read that garbage? That sort of thing is like the anti-christ for a Yaoi fan! I mean, being in the industry, I’ve heard all sorts of things about not having any women at all on the book covers of M/M books (not even really tiny and in the background) or the girl-cooties will make it unsellable to M/M readers. AND THEY BRING THESE THINGS TO YAOI CON??? *falls over again*

Okay, I’m back. I think I’ve had too much coffee, LOL. I was thinking I should post an image here to prove my point of how stupid these things are, but I can’t stand the thought even having one of the book covers on my blog. So you’ll have to go look for yourself: http://manga.about.com/b/2009/12/14/8-harlequin-romance-comics-debut-on-emanga-com.htm

And yes, I know that by posting this I’m giving them publicity and even negative publicity is good publicity, but I just can’t help myself. If you find you like that sort of thing, have at it. I won’t judge you (okay, maybe a bit 😉 )

So what do you all think about this? Should Harlequin finally break out of their tiny little mold and face reality and make some real Yaoi titles? How about opening the door to the M/M genre? Just to combat all this hetero romance stuff, I need a Yoai pic (I love this pic, BTW):

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