<!--[endif:]-->I was one of two males in the audience of this lecture and to that I say 'hurrah!', less competition out there. Why? Because I'm a firm believer in a couple of things. One, women represent 70% of the reading market. Two, women like relationships in their books. Now why would that be? Because we're human. So a novel without a dash of romance is a world without humanity.

Joan has some other reasons too:

Relationships create stakes. If the love interest is in danger, then there is tension and...