ANAHEIM — Harold Lowry never got around to seeing "As Good as It Gets," James L. Brooks' Oscar-winning romantic comedy. You'd think he would have, simply out of professional curiosity.
Like Jack Nicholson's misanthropic Melvin Udall character, Lowry is that rarity of the publishing industry: a man who writes romance novels.
But Lowry has been too busy writing romances to go to the movies. He wrote three last year. "I did an extra book for Silhouette, and it just tied me to the chair," said Lowry, 56, of Charlotte, N.C.
The former high school music teacher has written 20 historical and contemporary romances, but don't look under "Lowry" to find them. Lowry writes under the gender-neutral name Leigh Greenwood.
He is among 1,600 professional and aspiring writers, literary agents and publishing executives in Anaheim this week for the 18th annual Romance Writers of America National Conference.
Romance fiction now generates about $1 billion per year in sales in the United States, up from $855 million in 1992. Last year, 2,700 romance titles were published. And there's no lack of readers to gobble them up. Fifty-three percent of all mass market paperback books sold in the United States are romance fiction.
Nearly all of their readers are women, as are the writers. Of 300 romance writers signing books at the conference, only two were men.
The mega book-signing session came on the eve of the four-day conference, which began Thursday at the Anaheim Hilton & Towers. The session, which is raising money for national and local literacy programs, was promoted locally this week during afternoon television soap operas.
The result: More than 1,000 romance fans--virtually all of them women--filled a cavernous ballroom where row upon row of book-laden tables were set up.
With the exception of the husband-and-wife writing team of Jim and Nikoo McGoldrick of Philadelphia, who write as May McGoldrick, Lowry was the only male writer at the tables.
Lowry, conservatively dressed in a gray-green suit and with the dignified air of a church choir director (which he once was) was there for his fans--chatting it up and scrawling "Best wishes" or "Happy reading" in copies of "Buck" and "Ward," the latest in his "Cowboys" series of historical romances.
Some fans were surprised to discover that Leigh Greenwood is a lanky 6-foot-3 man with thinning hair and a trim mustache. Others knew.
