The Legend in a Towel

While Eamon is quickly becoming legend of sorts here, the first LEGEND I've been part of is the story of Kate Walker's and my talks at the RW New Zealand (they say RWNZed) and RWAustralia (they said RWA and pay no attention to the one across the sea) which were punctuated by the appearance of a certain man in a certain towel whenever we needed to make a point.

It's amazing how often we needed to make a point.

Hugh-in-a-towel's appearance at our talks became noteworthy. I'm fairly sure that if the Christchurch journalist who interviewed Kate and me had known about H-I-A-T, he would have been scandalized and even more dismayed than he already was. He thought we were "condescending" to write for "stupid women" and should be ashamed of ourselves for taking advantage of them.

I'm not quite sure how we were taking advantage or why these women were "stupid" (anyone who finds Hugh-in-a-towel appealing and believes in a happy ending is not stupid at all in my book!). And I am quite sure I've never ever condescended to anyone in my romance novels because I love writing them and love writing about relationships and I would write them even if no one published them or paid me (but you don't need to tell Harlequin that).

But I'm sure he would have Disapproved. Too bad.

I doubt Hugh would disapprove. And his being there -- albeit two-dimensionally -- made the talks more fun. Not to mention memorable -- as they are continuing to be a point of reference three years later.

Actually the talks aren't, but Hugh definitely is. And RNA (that's UK for RWUK. Well, not really, but there are similarities) have invited me to speak next year on the Myers-Briggs Temperament Indicator. That's what I talked about (theoretically) Down Under, so maybe they are hoping for an appearance of Hugh-in-a-towel as well.

Anyway, the point of this is to say that the Powers That Be at the Pink Heart asked me to write about the Legend of Hugh-in-a-towel -- how it began and what it all means -- and so I have. And it's up on the Pink Heart blog tomorrow (which is already today in Australia and UK so it's already up there, which is why I'm writing about it here now).

So if you have not yet had your fill of the Hugh-in-a-towel Legend, please drop by. Find out why a picture is worth a 1000 words -- and what those thousand words are.