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A very excellent friend of mine, who happens to be Australia's internationally famous romance writer Valerie Parv, invited me to launch her latest book in Canberra.

Valerie has sold 25 million copies of her romance books and this book, Desert Justice, is clearly another winner. Now I am not a romance reader, at least in recent years. But I admit to reading them in my early teens in my hungry search to satisfy my hormonal imbalance. Was I the only one who was driven to distraction by sex and more sex?

You need to get a copy of Valerie's book, and you need to read it. It is a very good example (for budding writers) of how to frame a plot and characters. And you need to realise, this is the toughest market of all.

Anyway, here is the talk I gave - dressed as a Sheik by the way - to the gathering at Valerie's coffee shop in Civic, In2Coffee.

Desert Justice

Romance writing is not dead. It is alive and well and living inside each of us. It’s even hidden inside me.

Okay, it’s time for me to come clean. Just don’t tell my kids.

When I was 14, I decided I didn’t like school, so I began to hide around the corner in the drains until my mum went to work, and then I sneaked back in the house.

I would climb up into the roof and set up a mattress and a light. And I would spend large parts of every day reading as many copies of True Romance as I could get my hands on. I have never admitted this before, but while I might admit to being an occasional attic romance reader, I am certainly a closet romantic.

Some people look down their noses at romantic fiction. Yet romance writing is the world’s biggest fiction genre?

The market for romance novels is staggering. In 2002 sales of romance novels in the United States and Canada alone generated US$1.63 billion and comprised 34.6 per cent of all popular fiction sold.

By comparison, general fiction comprised 24.1 per cent. Mystery, detective and suspense fiction comprised 23.1 per cent. Over 2,000 romance novels were published, and there were 51.1 million romance novel readers.

In Australia, Harlequin Mills and Boon receives 20,000 unsolicited manuscripts a year.

Competition is fierce. In 2004, Harlequin published only 30 Australian and New Zealand authors. This same year, Melanie Milburne became the first Australian author for 10 years to be taken on by the publisher, for her book, His Inconvenient Wife.

According to Neilson Book Scan, in 2004 there was a 28.3 per cent increase in sales of romance novels in Australia.

To be accepted as romance genre a novel must

· focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people.

· it must have an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.

This is the world’s absolutely and unquestioned toughest market for writers. The formula seems simple enough. But stray from the formula, and you are gone. A romance novel averages around 350 to 400 pages with around 9,000 words. Most average novels are 6000 words.

Most romance writers don’t fool themselves with literary aspirations. They simply tell stories. This is how they see their role. They are in reality the bards of the 21st century.

"He kissed her until she was no longer herself but his, and it was so wonderful that it was impossible to think of anything except that she loved him and he filled her whole world, and she was no longer afraid." (from Barbara Cartland’s Love on the Wind, 1983).

In Australia, living in Canberra in fact, we have our own Barbara Cartland, Valerie Parv. Today, with the launch of her latest romance novel, Desert Justice, Valerie now has 70 romance titles to her credit. She has sold more than 25 million copies worldwide in 26 languages.

I met Valerie several years ago to write a story about her for The Canberra Times, and then we fell in love… sorry… I got carried away with all the romance, no we became firm friends.

The only thing about this is Valerie can’t be stopped. She is everywhere. One minute she is on the shelves in Woolworths Fresh magazine. She is in the bookshops. She is on the website. Google gives 22,300 hits in 11 seconds. She is on everyone’s lips. Mine sometimes.

Valerie is a master communicator and she is always willing to talk romance, on any web forum, at any time, at any conference, on any street corner. There’s one near you. She teaches romance writing. She revels in it. Valerie is up before Dawn day in day out and can’t rest until she has chalked up another 1000 words. She wrote the book on the subject, The Art of Romance Writing.

The 2006 RWA (Romance Writers of Australia) Conference was hel earlier this month at the Gold Coast, the 15th anniversary of RWA, which was created in 1991 with only 8 members.

It was no surprise that the major award was - the Valerie Parv Award 2006, for You Don’t Gnome Me by Rachel Robinson (for writers unpublished in book-length romance fiction).

Valerie and I share more than just friendship; we share the same agent, Linda Tate, who is here tonight.

However, the chief reason for this evening’s gathering is to acknowledge one more milestone in Valerie’s stellar writing career, her newest and some might say newsiest romance novel.

It is a suspense romance, in which Valerie has cleverly weaved an intriguing romantic theme against the backdrop of Middle Eastern conflict. The heroine is forced to take refuge in Sheikh Markaz’s harem after she witnesses a politically motivated murder and then becomes a target herself.

I am very honoured and excited to be invited by Valerie to launch her 70^th romance novel, Desert Justice, published by Silhouette, an arm of Harlequin Mills and Boon. Remember, that only 30 Australian and New Zealand authors were published in 2004 from thousands of manuscripts and you will appreciate Valerie’s talent.

For those who have seen Romancing the Stone - starring Kathleen Turner as the romantic heroine – you will know that apart from being hilarious, this film is a modern epic about romance writing, featuring a romance writer who finds her own Prince Charming in real life.

And before I finish I think I should say to you Valerie, you are my own real life Joan Wilder. I would like to declare the book launched.

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