Ann Herendeen

Ann Herendeen is an American author of popular fiction. Herendeen's novels are notable for their queering of the traditional romance novel.

Background

A native New Yorker and lifelong Brooklyn resident, Herendeen graduated with high honors in English from Princeton University. She also holds a Master of Library Science degree from Pratt Institute.

''Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander''

Herendeen's first novel ''Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander'', was initially issued by a subsidy publisher with the subtitle ''A Bisexual Regency Romance'', in 2005. Harper Collins released a slightly altered version of the book in 2008 without that subtitle. Herendeen's atypical Regency Romance introduces a central same-sex love story into a Regency-set tale of a marriage of convenience which otherwise obeys many of the conventions of genre romance. The heroine Phyllida, an author, offers the hero a ''quid pro quo'' of "irregular" liberty in marriage - his sexual freedom for her literary and professional freedom. The novel delivers the generically required account of the development of the couple's erotic and tender bonds through trials to deep and permanent commitment, while Phyllida's authorship supplies Herendeen's text with a common metafictional feature of postmodern genre romance: a novel-within-the-novel, exploring forbidden sexuality in the fashionable manner of the era. Passages of Phyllida's fiction are rendered as pastiches of the great Gothic tradition (e.g. Charles Maturin, Ann Radcliffe, Matthew "Monk" Lewis, Clara Reeve, Mary Shelley) the language and conventions of which are at once mocked and relished.

According to Herendeen:

McDaniel College's Pamela Regis, author of ''A Natural History of the Romance Novel'', brings forward ''Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander'' as evidence against what she contends is the myth of the genre's fundamentally socially reactionary nature. In her article in the new edition of ''The Cambridge History of the American Novel'', Regis argues:

''Pride/Prejudice''

Herendeen's second novel ''Pride/Prejudice'' is a slash fiction contribution to the immense catalogue of mash-ups, sequels, fan fiction, retellings, updatings, spin-offs and homages to Jane Austen's celebrated novel. ''Pride/Prejudice'' narrates Austen's original story unearthing the "forbidden" intimacies between Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley and between Elizabeth Bennet and Charlotte Lucas. Salon's reviewer Laura Miller noted that Herendeen's language in ''Pride/Prejudice'' is the most successful of the Austen derivatives in "approximating Austen's style without aping it."

The novel was 2010 Lambda Literary Award finalist in the category ''"bisexual fiction"'' category.

''ECLIPSIS: Lady Amalie's Memoirs''

Herendeen is the author of a series of "sword-and-sorcery" fantasy novels. The first novel in the series, ''Recognition'', was self-published as an ebook in 2011.

Critical and scholarly work

Herendeen is one of a growing number of romance authors (e.g. Jennifer Crusie, Pam Rosenthal, Lauren Willig, Jayne Ann Krentz) and academics to take genre romance seriously as an object of study, and not only through the lens of sociology. Herendeen has delivered talks and participated in panels at conferences devoted to her genre. Her talk, "Having It Both Ways, or Writing From the Third Perspective: The Revolutionary M/M/F Ménage Romance Novel" was presented at Princeton University's 2009 conference: "Love as the Practice of Freedom? Romance Fiction and American Culture", an event which changed the status of research into genre romance. At the 2011 International Association for the Study of Popular Romance conference in NY, Herendeen participated in the panel "The Erotics of Property", delivering a paper entitled "The Upper-Class Bisexual Top as Romantic Hero: (Pre)Dominant In the Social Structure and in the Bedroom."

Bibliography

* 2008 ''Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander: A Novel'' Harper Paperbacks () (A slightly different version of the book, entitled ''Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander: A Bisexual Regency Romance'' was released by Herendeen in 2005 through a subsidy publisher.)
* 2010 ''Pride/Prejudice'' Harper Paperbacks ()
* 2011 ''Recognition'', the first volume of the fantasy series ''ECLIPSIS: Lady Amalie's Memoirs'', ebook
* 2011 "A Charming Menage," short story, in ''Gay City: Volume 4: At Second Glance'' CreateSpace ()

References

External links

Official website

Interview about ''Pride/Prejudice''

{{DEFAULTSORT:Herendeen, Ann
21st-century American novelists
American fantasy writers
American women novelists
Bisexual women writers
American feminist writers
Living people
Princeton University alumni
Writers from Brooklyn
Women science fiction and fantasy writers
Writers of historical romances
Year of birth missing (living people)
Pratt Institute alumni
American LGBT novelists
Women romantic fiction writers
21st-century American women writers
Women historical novelists
Novelists from New York (state)
21st-century American LGBT people
American bisexual writers