Page Created: 09/25/20. Last Updated: 01/23/21.
MARYJANICE DAVIDSON
Official Site: https://www.maryjanicedavidson.org/
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/maryjanicedavidson
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaryJaniceD
Meeting Date: December 12, 2020.
Meeting Site: Zoom Video Conference.
Attendance: 37.
Meeting Program: Talk / Q & A with Paranormal Romance Author.
Notes:
The following items did not make it into the newsletter account:
Some of MaryJanice Davidson's favorite books and movies are DUNE by Frank Herbert, THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson, and old Hammer Films horror movies.
She is currently re-reading THE ROYALS by Kitty Kelley.
Ms Davidson was a fan of Lindsay Wagner in THE BIONIC WOMAN. The show inspired her Gorgeous cyborg books.
When she commented on some of the Betsy fan fiction on An Archive of Our Own, fans were skeptical that it was indeed the author. MaryJanice commented, "C'mon guys, you think there's really going to be someone going around pretending to be me?"
Fred the Mermaid is intensely grouchy. Another Fred note -- because of writing the trilogy, MaryJanice found herself treated as an unofficial spokesman for mermaids.
The author attributes her success to her rampant Immaturity.
A CONTEMPORARY ASSHAT AT THE COURT OF HENRY VIII is her time travel romance. She is at work on a sequel.
Because they both became popular writing vampire novels around the same time, MaryJanice was continually misidentified as the author of the Twilight series in the media.
The Betsy books are humorous romances, but when Betsy encountered the zombie in her attic, MaryJanice played it as straight horror. There was none of Betsy's trademark snark. She was terrified.
The author works on multiple projects at the same time.
The Wyndham Wetewolf Series put her husband through Harvard.
Ms Davidson wrote a humor column for USA TODAY. Here are links to some of her articles:
My Characters React to Bowie & Rickman...http://maryjanicedavidson.blogspot.com/2016/01/my-book-characters-react-to-bowie-and.html
Airport Snacks & Dishwashers.....................https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/25763787
Ex Machina Is Ick Machina...........................https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/27176719
Inside Out......................................................https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/29819329
Magic: The Teenaging..................................https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/27967207
Marching Band Hair Highlights......................https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/28745899
My Refrigerator Tried to Kill Me....................https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/29165337
Wastin' Away in Geezerville..........................https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/26516623
Newsletter Account:
The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2021 Philip J De Parto:
Best-Selling Paranormal Romance writer MaryJanice Davidson spoke at the meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County on Saturday, December 12, 2020. The meeting was conducted through Zoom Video Conference. We had a good turnout, despite the absence of some of our regulars who skipped it for fear of contracting "romance cooties."
Ms Davidson's books feature cyborgs, ghosts, mermaids, psychics, werebears werewolves, vampires, and even weredragons. The mermaid, werewolf, and vampire books exist in the same shared universe with occasional crossovers.
Our speaker grew up an Air Force brat and was constantly on the move as a child. After her 9th or 10th move she gave up bothering to make friends and retreated into books. She started making up her own stories when sge was 13 and wrote them in a notebook she brought to school The other children became her first audience.
MaryJanice was an indifferent student and had no plans for continuing her education after high school. She became a model, a medical test subject, and an egg donor, all at the same time ("you'd be surprised how much the jobs have in common'). The coolest part about being a model is telling people what you do. The worst is being just a piece of meat and not a person at cattle calls.
Our guest collected ten years of rejections slips before she sold her first book, UNDEAD AND UNWED, to a small ebook publisher. Editor Cindy Hwang of Berkley Books bought the paperback rights. The time was perfect. UNDEAD came out one month after TWILIGHT by Stephenie Meyer and in the same general time frame as the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris. The three authors and Laurel "Anita Blake" Hamilton constantly crisscrossed paths on the bookstore and convention circuit. MaryJanice stated that the more established Hamilton was incredibly gracious--though a little concerned when MaryJanice brought her children with her to the signing table next to Laurel as the latter has very kinky fans.
Ms Davidson believes that being a writer is the most wonderful job ever, but she became concerned when the third book in the series, UNDEAD AND UNAPPRECIATED, became a Best-Seller. ("Don't they know that I'm trailer park trash who barely finished high school?") She was afraid the Book Police would show up at her door with a warrant saying: "You have not business being a writer." Writing has become the family business. Her 25-year-old daughter has a number of books out while her (our speaker's) husband is the co-author of the six book Jennifer Scales series. Tese books were originally issued as Young Adult but have been re-released as adult fantasy.
Our speaker is best-know for her Betsy, the Vampire Queen series, whose titles all begin with "Undead and." Shortly after consuming a prodigious amount of garlic-laced food from a Mongolian Barbecue, Betsy is attacked by a group of feral vampires, but the concentrated garlic (and perhaps something innate about her biology) transforms her into the prophesied Queen of the Vampires, with powers and abilities beyond those of ordinary vamps. Betsy is a 30-year-old former model with a good heart, a sassy attitued, and a worship of high-end footwear. She is not, however, the brightest light bulb in the box. She has an oddball collection of human, undead, and otherwise supernatural friends in her orbit. He stepsister, Laura, is the anti-Christ. Her stepmother is so nasty that when stepmom is possessed by the Devil to spawn Laura, no one noticed anything unusual about her behavior. one of Betsy's pals is a depressed gay surgeon and MaryJanice received a lot of mail praising her depiction of a gay character as a dedicated professional.
The covers of the first Betsy books marketed them as chick-lit vampire books. While the books are not nearly as raunchy as seamy romances, there is sex in them and the author was concerned to be receiving fan mail from 9-year-old girls. She would write back asking if their mothers knew they were reading these books.
Our speaker had two encounters with Disney. Disney representatives are very imperious. No one gainsays the Kingdom of the Mouse. They were shocked when MaryJanice refused to license Betsy (her agent had warned here that if she signed their contract she would see Betsy, the Vampire Queen towels, beach umbrellas, swimsuits, etc and never see a penny of compensation beyond the initial payment). She was perfectly happy to do a deal for her Fred the Mermaid books, however. Disbey was buting up the rights of as many mermaid-related titles as they could to prevent a studio rival from making a mermaid movie which could undercut The Little Mermaid. As Ms Davidson had no further plans beyond the trilogy, she was more than happy to sell three one-year / $ 10,000.00 options to the Mouse.
Romance is a genre with an implicit contract for the writer to deliver a happy (or at the possibility of a happy) ending. Two of the Betsy books had extremely unhappy endings, and did MaryJanice hear from her readership about them! She had to make it clear that she also believed in happy endings and to trust her. The resolution off the problem included time travel and changing the past, but that does not in any way diminish the impact of the finales of those two books.
Publishing is very much a matter of timing and luck. Our speaker had the idea for a zombie romance, but no one would touch it. She later self-published it. The WARM BODIES by Isaac Marion became a hit. They were later on a panel together. She commented that Isaac was very nice, but he was lucky to exit the panel alive.
In addition to the works mentioned (or alluded to), Ms Davidson also writes contemporary, time-travel, historical, and alternate-world romance. Additional notes appear at the 2020 - 12/2020 Meeting on the club website. Our thanks to Carol Gyzander, to Kathy Cannarozzi, and to everyone who helped make this meeting a success.