Just a heads up that my interview with Laurie Kahn for the Popular Romance Project has gone live. This is an amazing scholarly project discussing the role of romance fiction in popular culture and women’s lives. I’m so proud to have a small part in this project, and hope to work with them more in future.

Here’s a link to the interview and here’s one to the project. Thanks!

Hello Nicole! I’m so thrilled you invited me here to your blog.

Five random things about being an erotica writer…and a giveaway!

* 1 *

Way back in the mists of time I used to imagine that erotica writers must be really sexually adventurous in real life. Like super liberated and together in bed and possibly wild. I know this doesn’t make sense because, you know, Nora Roberts didn’t suddenly go around solving crimes when she started the In Death series. I’m sure you, Nicole, didn’t start swimming in icy water and boffing strange creatures when you began writing UF. (Or maybe you did!! Maybe that’s your secret!!)

However, as an erotica writer, I can report that the major difference is that you spend way more time dreaming up dirty scenarios than the average person, and that’s pretty much the big difference. Or at least, that’s been my experience! Actually, I believe erotica readers in general have better sex lives, but I don’t think it matters if you are an erotica reader or writer.

* 2 *

It’s totally weird to write erotic scenes in coffee shops!! And it never gets less weird for me. It’s just funny to be two feet away from a stranger, and they’re reading the paper with their morning coffee and you’re typing away:

He #$% her #$# and then he @$& and she growled, I’ll @#%$ your #%#* with a #$@!!

 And then you go up to the counter and order another lovely lemon scone.

* 3 *

Being an erotic romance writer is one of those things a person doesn’t tell many real life people, or at least, I don’t go around telling. So it’s this big secret. It’s kind of like being a secret agent with a secret agent life. A secret agent of sexy smut!

* 4 *

Do you remember the Chandra Levy case? The girl that disappeared in Washington DC? The police searched through her computer and read all her emails and followed her online trails extensively. At least that is my memory, that her computer life was totally picked apart and revealed to the world in excruciating detail. I felt bad for her. Sometimes I have this paranoid thought after I write a really dirty thing that, what if I die in questionable circumstances that night? What would news reports say?

I do some pretty odd research – not just sex research, but gun research and poison research and bank robbery research. Let’s face it, it doesn’t look good when taken out of context. I can totally imagine the newscasters warning the TV audience to turn off their sets if children are about while reveal what crazy dirty-minded Annika Martin was up to before she disappeared.

* 5 *

I would pay good money to get some of the old-fashioned words for vagina back in use, specifically quim and cunny. I am so tired of “her cleft” and “her sex,” and cunt seems to bug people, so it has to be used sparingly. Pussy bugs me. I use all of the above, but cripes, wouldn’t it be great to have quim and cunny back? The historical writers have it pretty easy with their quim sand their cunnies. Those are fabulous words. There are so, so many good historical sex part words. I wish we could have them back.

* A contest! *

Okay! There you have it, FIVE random things. And, to go with our five random things, we’re giving away a copy of HOSTAGE BARGAIN to a random commenter! This giveaway starts now and ends at a random time on the morning of Thursday the 10th, EST.

Nicole again. To up the ante I’ve convinced Denise Townsend to ALSO donate a copy of Ocean’s Touch. So basically if you win, you get a smut twofer. NICE.

Rules:

Tell us who YOU would love to be the bread in your sandwich OR come up with the most ridiculous premise for an erotic romance you can think of. Be sure to leave your email address, or else your email should be available through us clicking your name. That’s  it! We’ll choose a winner the morning of FRIDAY, MAY 18th. This is an ebook; open internationally.

About THE HOSTAGE BARGAIN:
This is a book of erotic romance, or more, erotic romantic suspense. It’s a category-length novel (56k words).

BLURB:

When small town girl Melinda Prescott is taken hostage by three hot bank robbers, she quickly discovers that a life of bank heists, luxury hotels, and kinky menages is way more exciting than working on the family sheep farm. She should be scared of her dominating, fierce captors…but there’s something wicked inside her that’s craving to obey their every dark desire.

Melinda’s an all-too willing captive to three smoldering sex maniacs…but is it all too good to be true? Will her delicious captors overcome their own demons enough to let her in…or is she going to end up a victim of the world’s sexiest crime spree?

Warning: This book contains a sexy bank-robbers-and-their-captive sandwich, light bondage, spanking, teasing hints of domination, and a little play-time in a hot tub. Oh, and some all too delicious, villainous alpha heroes who bend the heroine to their will.

Learn more about Annika Martin and all of her projects at www.annikamartinbooks.com.

That said, moderating is not easy. I’m lucky to have lots of experience in other types of moderating that I can apply to my panel moderation. I’ve also been in the audience for a lot of panels, not only for fiction conventions but for academic conferences. Through these experiences of moderating and watching moderation, I’ve picked up some valuable tips I thought I’d share with you. After all, moderating is a skill, it’s not just something you should jump into. Not least because if a panel isn’t that great, oftentimes (and sometimes unfairly) it’s the moderator who gets blamed. So here are some things to think about as you accept a position as a moderator:

1) Your Energy Defines the Space: For anyone with theater or classroom experience, the exact same actor-to-audience energy exchange that occurs during a performance occurs in moderating. Only it’s even more important for moderators to have a good energy, because they also have their panel to think of. In other words, a moderator’s energy will “infect” both the panel they’re working with and the audience, itself. Then, in that great reciprocal exchange actors understand, the audience feeds energy back to the panel and the moderator, thus creating an ideal synergy. What this means, as a moderator, is that your energy sets the tone: do not be too low key, but don’t be hyper, either. If you’re too low key, the panelists will respond in kind, giving out only a little energy to the audience. The audience, in turn, will not be able to work up much energy to return. Synergy will not be achieved.

On the other hand, if the moderator takes off like a rocket, I’ve seen many panelists react by trying to calm a hyper moderator’s energy, knowing they can’t keep up with it. So they end up as low key as they would have if their moderator had taken a Valium beforehand. Again, the audience has nothing to work with, plus they have the weird situation of an overly excited moderator and a dull panel, which makes the moderator appear definitely ineffective and possibly crazy.

2) You are NOT the Star:  This is the hardest thing for amateur moderators to overcome: the idea that the audience is NOT there to see them. Even if one does have fans in the audience, one signs a contract by agreeing to be the moderator that stipulates one takes the back seat. A moderator is there to facilitate the panelists discussion, and THAT IS ALL.

Now that I’ve said that, however, let me share the benefits of being the good moderator who sticks to the contract. If moderators do a great job, they come out looking like a star. Partially this is because there are so many bad moderators out there, but it’s also because people recognize a skilled moderation when they see one, and they respect the person who did a good job. After all, they’re there to see an interesting panel, and often it’s the MODERATOR WHO MAKES IT INTERESTING by asking good questions and raising the energy of the room. Obviously, panels sometimes have one or two “dud” panelists–usually people who won’t talk or who hog the microphone–but part of a good moderator’s job is to prod some decent responses out of the quiet ones and get the talkers to share their space. So we do have a lot of power to lead, as a moderator, and people respect when we get that done.

We also have a different format to show off our brilliance: by asking good questions, by summarizing responses in a way that sparkles, or by joking with the panelists in a way that doesn’t hog the spotlight. In other words, we actually get a lot of time to shine, as moderators, one just has to shine AS A MODERATOR rather than trying to shine as a panelist.

3) Let them Introduce Themselves: This is sort of a segue idea between 2 & 4, but I think it’s important enough to list on its own. I’ve seen a lot of moderators introduce the panelists themselves, and it’s a bad idea. I think part of the reason moderators do this is because they think it’s a way to have more of their own “air-time”–and it comes across that way. I sat in on a panel once where the moderator introduced every single person with at least five minutes of individual introduction. On the one hand, the woman was funny and energetic, and she obviously had done her research and enjoyed the authors’ works. On the other hand, no one was there to see her. So when the moderator finally said, “And now I’ll turn the panel over to our wonderful panelists,” the woman behind me mumbled, “it’s about time.” It’s not that the moderator wasn’t entertaining–she was! But she’d broken her contract by hogging the stage, and the audience was obviously (at least from where I was sitting) pretty pissed off about the fact.

Rule of thumb, then, is to let the people introduce themselves, and–even more importantly!–make a note for yourself where everyone is sitting. Then keep referring to this seating chart, even if you’re confident with who is sitting where. I’ve seen so many panels where the moderator flubs a name, and it’s always awkward, no matter how well they handle it or how gracious are the panelists. Just jot the names down in order of where everyone is sitting, and make yourself refer back to it.

4) Watch the Clock! Be sure to carry a watch or your phone with you, to check the time. If you’re like me and time sometimes gets away from you, set the timer for 15-20 minutes before the end of the session, to allow for questions. But don’t forget to set your phone to silent, especially if you’re using it as your watch.  The reason you want to be very careful to watch the time is so that you remember the following:

• Save Time for Questions: Fans are often there to ask questions. But as the moderator, I may feel it’s okay not to get to questions, because I’ve done so much work preparing my own amazing talking points that I want to get through. To the audience member who came because they wanted to ask something specific, however, not making time for them seems incredibly rude.  In fact, thinking of yourself as a “host” or “hostess” is a great way to define your role as moderator. You’re there to make sure everyone has a good time and always has a metaphorical drink in their hand: time to talk about the panel theme, time for questions, and time for the space to promote.
• Don’t Forget the Promo:  On that note, make sure you leave five minutes at the very end to let everyone say what their upcoming release will be. At the end of the day, no matter how interesting the panel is or how fun the convention is, the authors are there to sell books. Not to mention, this is a natural time, finally, to promote your own work. As the moderator, you should have the closing words, so it make sense that after all the other panelists have said what their upcoming release is, you share yours. But do not wax poetic–keep it simple. Then be sure to be gracious and thank the panel AND the audience. Lead all in a round of applause. Huzzah!

5) Hold a conversation: My final bit of advice, which will be the hardest for many to stomach and/or put into action, is to resist the urge to over-moderate. What I mean by over-moderation are any of the following activities: a flurry of emails in which you pester your panelists with questions, preparing a dozen questions you send to your panelists a month before the panel, insisting on meeting and/or talking to your panelists beforehand.

Now, these are all very common things for moderators to do, and some conventions encourage this behavior. The problem is, I’ve never seen any correlation between quality of panel and this form of “preparedness.” In fact, some of the worst panels I’ve seen have been moderated by people who were super prepared–but moderating isn’t really about being “prepared.” Think about the word, itself: it’s a noun that comes from a verb. Basically, then, it’s an action–we are moderators because we moderate, not because we think about moderating.

What happens when a moderator over-prepares can be one of two things: they a) inflate their role or b) they lead by a script. By inflating their role, I mean that they forget that the point of the panel is the panelists. We’re facilitators, as moderators, not the stars (see #2). I was just at a panel where the moderator had sent my friend that aformentioned flurry of emails (which my friend resented, being a busy woman with a lot of stuff on her plate already). The questions, however, my friend admitted were good. And come time for the panel, the moderator obviously thought they were good, too. Because she answered every single one, herself.

Don’t get me wrong: every once and a while, a moderator can insert something particularly clever he or she has come up with. But the moderator should not talk through 2/3rds of the panel, as this moderator did. And while her answers were clever and fun and she’d obviously thought long and hard about her questions, no one was there to see her, and the panelists weren’t there to be her wingmen as she talked. Meanwhile, there is nothing more painful than watching an hour of five bored or angry  authors flanking a blathering moderator.

As for leading by a script, this comes back to the idea of “conversation” that I started with. It’s great to have a question or two lined up. These should be used to:

• begin with
• fill any sudden gaps in conversation (often occurs when someone say something utterly batshit you can’t come back from)
• hit on a major issue you think definitely needs to be discussed

But if you only have a few questions lined up, what do you talk about? The answer is easy: you talk about what the panelists are talking about. In other words, you actually listen to their responses. You note down anything they say of interest. And then you riff off those answers. Let’s say the theme of your panel is the use of the Paranormal in contemporary cozy mysteries and your kick off question is, “What do you think the paranormal adds to your own work?” Let’s say someone says something about how escapist the paranormal is, so it makes an already escapist genre even more escapist. That’s exactly what happened at my panel at Malice, and that comment fit in so well with my thoughts about the issue. So my follow up question was basically, “Is all of this entirely escapist? After all, look at Charlaine Harris’s use of the metaphor ‘coming out of the closet’ for her vampires. Through this metaphor, the whole book becomes an exploration of the idea of tolerance in our society. How do you think this idea of metaphor works in paranormals?” We had a rousing discussion, in which I continued to ask them questions based on their responses, taking moments to summarize what I’d heard and apply it to the next issue they’d inadvertently raised that I wanted to explore more.

Doing this means that the conversation was fresh. They weren’t reading off the responses they’d written a month ago, to the questions I’d sent a month ago. And if they said something fascinating, I could linger on that idea and explore it more, rather than ignoring such gems to move onto the next question I’d written a month ago.

On a Machiavellian note, I think this format also keeps the panelists on their toes. They’re responsible for some of the energy in that room as well, obviously, so you don’t want them staring at pre-prepared notes and reading their responses in dull voices. You want them paying attention and engaging with their fellows’ responses, and this helps keep them actively participating.

This is not to say one doesn’t prepare. I thought about the issue of the paranormal a lot since I learned I was moderating that panel, I read or at least skimmed over the books my panelists sent me, and I prepared those couple of kick-off questions. I also had a general idea of major themes I wanted to hit upon. And then I held a conversation, which everyone seemed to enjoy, at least from comments from both panelists and audience afterward.

So those are my tricks to moderating. I think most of being a good moderator is having the right mindset and acknowledging your true role. Doing so means that you can really shine as a moderator, a paradoxically bright spotlight. For if you do it well, people will really take note.

I hope these ideas help you go forth and moderate with more confidence and more panache. Do let me know if you have any questions.

The best part was seeing my good friends Juliet Blackwell and Sophie Littlefield. We gossiped, kvetched, gave sage advice (well, they gave sage advice to me), drank bourbon and KEPT DRESSING ALIKE:

It was totally on accident, but the best part was how we not only didn’t care, but secretly loved it. Which brings me back to why I adore these ladies: despite everything we’ve done, we’re still basically fourteen. AWESOME.

The above picture, by the way, was taken by Kate Carlisle, who writes one of my absolutely favorite cozy mystery series, the Bibliophile Mysteries. They’re about a book binder, and they’re not only super smart and fun, but they also have this great edge I adore. Anyway, long story short, this very nice lady whom Juliet and Sophie knew was being very nice and very smart, and I very much liked her. Then I bothered to pay attention to her name tag, and I was like, “Wait a minute.” I asked her what she wrote, and then I totally fangrrrrled on her. We’re talking full on squeal as I yelled “I LOVE YER BOOKS!” She was very gracious. Also INCREDIBLY smart, and of the very smart things she said over the course of our conversations was this gem about paranormal romance: (to paraphrase) “Paranormal romance allows contemporary novelists to recreate the unreconstructed alpha heroes of yore.” BRILLIANT! And so true! “Yes, I’m a bit of an alpha asshole who orders you around, but it’s because I’m OLD. That’s WHAT WE DID.”

Obviously, many romance writers are aware of this convention and openly engage with it, using heroines who say, “Listen, buddy, that might be how they did in Wallachia, but…….”

Anyway, BRILLIANT. And she was brilliant. And I continued to squeal at her at various inopportune moments and she was very gracious about it. And I bought her next book and I’m really excited to read it and GAH. I love loving books!

And speaking of fangrrrrling, then there was ELIZABETH PETERS. I saw her! She spoke! Not enough, but she spoke! And she is adorable and tiny and kept talking about her facilitation of camel related shenanigans when guests would visit her in Egypt, and so basically she became Amelia Peabody in my (already addled) brain. But yes, she’s amazing and it was a total kick to see her in person and see the love pouring out at her from the room. I was sitting a few rows behind Charlaine Harris (who was, of course, as kind, generous, and wonderful as always), and it was such a treat to see someone of her stature ALSO fangrrrrling over Elizabeth. It was a great reminder that we all got into this biz because we love books, and never to forget that fact because it’s that love that keeps us fresh.

In many ways, that’s what Malice was to me–a giant love fest. Granted, I was running on finals exhaustion and Bourbon (“I love you guys!”), but there was just a lot of appreciation floating around Malice. Paradoxical, considering the name, as this was the least malicious con I’d ever been to. It renewed me in so many ways, and was just the thing I needed to kick start my summer.

I also had a fab time moderating my panel, and I received a lot of compliments for my moderation skillz. I obviously have quite the leg up due to  my teaching, but I’ll be sharing with you some of my tips on moderating in a blog post for Friday. So stay tuned if you’re interested in that subject.

But right now it’s back to grading research papers. I hope you all have a great week and see you back here soon.

But for reals, crazy times and I’m definitely a prisoner to finals. I came home from RT sick as a dog, but had to slog through the week of school. Then came a weekend of SUCH GRADING AS HAS NEVER BEEN GRADED BEFORE (except for every other end-of-semester, of course). Now this week is more grading, senior exit portfolios, a day and a half of meta-assessment in which we have an outside assessor assess our assessment process (!?!?!?!?!), and in between lots of meetings where either brilliant students come in to get that extra bit of help they need to make their final papers/projects even better OR failing students come in to try to convince me that their zeroes deserve to be decorated with other numbers in front of them. Those meetings are less fun, and don’t work.

This heart of stone does not bleed, no matter how hard one squeezes.

All this work and no play makes me very dull, yes, but I still managed somehow to finish book six and get it off to my lovely critique partner, Diana Rowland. Then I have to give it a super-speedy bashing and get it to my editor on May 1st, slam dunking another deadline.

I am author. Hear me roar.

(I wrote “here” just then, and giggled.)

My treat for all this insanity is that I’m off to another convention this weekend. This time I’ll be in Bethesda, MD, for Malice Domestic. My lovely, wonderful friends Juliet Blackwell and Sophie Littlefield will be there and I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE THEM. It makes me squirm inside, just the thought of their lovely faces and the bourbon we will consume.

So that will be a great weekend. And then we have one last week of school before finals. I only have to give one, but there will be final drafts of everything to grade.

But then summer is here! Yay! I’ll be editing book six and starting . . . whatever I start next. But in my future I do see:

Novellas set in Jane’s world (how would ya’ll like to read about the lady who captures Ryu’s heart, por ejemplo?)

For sure more Capitola, in whatever form that may be (and there is a VERY fun form I get to announce, shortly!)

More smutz (because more smutz is good smutz)

And . . . . . . . . . .Super Sekrit Project M.

M stands for?

MOESHA?

Maybe.

Have a great weekend, y’all, and if you’re in Maryland come see us!

Jaye and I had to be on relatively good behavior, as our Editrix, Devi, was in attendance. Here she is doing her Eye of Sauron impersonation, if Sauron got excited about his new (adorable) bag:

I of course found myself wearing another mustache:

And Suzanne and Jaye ended up in the pokey:

Not least because Jaye nearly threw herself at Anne Rice. Here she is vaklempt at signing next to Anne on someone’s tote:

Meanwhile, I’m all professional, and shit:

Not least as I was on Sheriff duties the Samhain Stampede:

For all our hard work, Zombie Joe brought us cupcakes:

And all in all we had a brilliant time. Here’s me, Richelle Mead, Jeanne C. Stein, and Heather Osborn. We spent a lot of time in Heather’s room, watching Ambient Videos and doing dramatic readings of amazing smut. It’s how RT is supposed to be spent, really.

Can’t wait to see you guys next year. Thanks for the laughs!!!!

It’s in Chicago this year, and I’ll be busy. Here’s my schedule for those of you interested in coming to see me. Remember, too, that the big book fair on Saturday is open to the public!

Thursday, April 12:

10-11 AM

URBAN FANTASY: TRENDS — WHAT’S HOT, WHAT’S NOT & WHAT’S NEXT IN UF PANELISTS: Kelley Armstrong, Jennifer Estep, Melissa Marr, Nicole Peeler, Jaye Wells MODERATOR: Lucienne Diver (The Knight Agency)

Location: Florence

4-6 PM

E-Book Expo — Denise Townsend will be signing!

Location: Entry Level, Grand Ballroom A, B, C

Friday, April 13

1:30-2:30 PM

SEVEN MINUTES IN URBAN FANTASY HEAVEN HOSTS: Richelle Mead, Suzanne McLeod, Kristin Painter, Nicole Peeler, Jeanne Stein, Jaye Wells

Location: International 5

2:45-3:45 PM

BOOKS, BODS AND BREWS HOSTS: Dana Marie Bell, Stephanie Draven (AKA Stephanie Dray), Nicole Peeler, PJ Schnyder

Location: International D

Saturday, April 14

10:45 AM – 2 PM

GIANT BOOK FAIR (open to the public!)

Location: Entry Level, Grand Ballroom

You can download a copy of the Convention schedule by clicking here, and that also contains instructions for those of you who want to visit just for the book fair. The book fair is free to registrants and $5 for the general public.

Besides these events I have meetings with my publishers and my friends and my readers and my friends AND my family, since I’m from outside of Chicago, originally. So it should be a great con, personally as well as professionally, and I’m really looking forward to being (sort of near) Chicago for the week.

Also, if you’re at RT and see me wandering around looking irritated (I often wander around looking irritated), feel free to stop me and say hello! I’m generally not actually irritated, although I’ve cultivated quite the scowl. In truth, I go to these cons to meet fans and readers, and I love it when people say hi. Do tell me who you are, and how I know you (tell me your Twitter handle, for example, if we tweet quite a bit). Or just say, “I read your books!” In my google stalkings of myself (so narcissistic!) I’ve come across people who said they saw me and wanted to say hi, but chickened out. But I’m very nice, and very approachable (scowl and all) and love to talk to readers. So please do stop me.

I look forward to meeting some of you, and for those of you who can’t be in Chicago, I might be near you soon. Check my appearances page to find out where I’ll be and when.

In other news, I finished the rough draft of book six. So I’ll be spending my mornings holed up in my hotel room, revising. I splurged on a big double room for just myself, on purpose, so that I do just that. I will hopefully have #6 banged into reasonable shape to send to my critique partner and my betas, soon. Crazy!

So all in all it should be a great trip and I can’t wait. Yay RT!

Thank you!

“I’m serious, you. I admit, my seduction skills are a little rusty. But I’m going to look forward to getting you alone whenever I can, and making you want me. Eventually I’ll get you to where you’re begging. And then, little girl, I’m going to show you what begging really means.”

With those words the barghest ran one big hand slowly down my back to cup my ass. He squeezed, the look in his eyes making me want to call out for a tarp.

Does this whet your whistle?

You can pre-order the paperback here, and the kindle version here, but I’d also love it if you could give both of them a “like.” You are all the best, thanks!

That said, I may be out near you this month! I’ll be at RT in Chicago and at Malice Domestic in Bethesda. Check my upcoming appearances for more info.

In between those travels my parents are coming to visit, and my friend from the UK is supposed to be coming too, at some point, for a week. Or two. He’ll let me know . . .

I just keep telling myself it’s allllll going to work out.

Cuz it is! I’m nearly done with book six, and although I know it’s a bit of a hot mess, I know that’s okay. Rough drafts are rough, right! It’s not till revisions they get pretty.

This is another thing I keep telling myself.

In other news, I saw The Hunger Games. I thought they did a good job casting, and they did some interesting things with all the child-killing. Lots of cutaways and camera effects. That said, still pretty awesomely horrifying! I loved seeing Lenny Kravitz, not because he was particularly good but because he’s beautiful. Especially with golden guyliner. He was made for golden guyliner.

In case you’ve been under a rock, here’s the trailer:

I did have one movie shock recently, though, and that was 21 Jump Street. I was OBSESSED with the TV show when I was a child. And I mean a child. I think it came out when I was seven? Anyway, looking back, it was absolute shite but at the time I could not get enough. Please enjoy this stunningly bad example of the original show that also stars Brad Pitt. Yes, Brad Pitt. It’s like Depp and Pitt sloughed off the vast majority of their bad acting on to the show, only to leave shining and clean to start their new careers. Here it is:

So it was with great trepidation that I went to see the new movie. I had read a glowing review by Roger Ebert, that shocked the hell out of me, but I thought maybe he was having a blind/deaf/dumb day and hadn’t actually seen the movie he was reviewing.

But the new 21 Jump Street was hilarious. A great, self-aware buddy comedy that mocks buddy comedies. And cop shows. And being self-aware. Basically it was a great big meta-ironic laughfest, and I adored it. Best of all was being so suprised at liking it at all–I sort of went feeling I had to pay homage to my younger self. But I left delighted, not least by the amazing cameos from the original stars of the TV show. Here’s the trailer:

It was great, and I highly recommend it.

And now, in the spirit of sharing, I’m going to expose my shameful secret. I was one of those weird kids who was never into boy bands, or whatever, and I never understood NKOTB or any of the other crushes all of my friends had. Then I saw 21 Jump Street, and fell in love with Johnny Depp. That’s not the shameful part. I think that was an eminently sensible choice.

The problem was when Dennis Booker was introduced onto the show. He stole my young heart. I think I wrote him a fan letter. Maybe two. That’s my shame.

I found this amazing montage on YouTube:

This footage might be from his own spinoff, Booker, which I watched assiduously, probably while penning said fan letters.

Anyway, I have to shake my head at my young self for that crush, not least as I blame it for a lifetime of fawning over unsuitable, slightly sketchy men who simply aren’t going to age well. And speaking of sketchy, and not aging well, this article makes Grieco sound so quietly desperate.

Maybe they will have you back, Dennis Booker. My inner seven-year-old would stand up and clap.

The rest of me would burn with quiet shame. And then blog about it.