EVERY HOLIDAY SEASON comes fully equipped with traditions that mix history, food, ritual, food, celebratory music and decorations, and also, if you missed it, food. Lots of food.
And I don’t know if you know this, but Chanukah is awesome. I mean, just about any holiday in any culture that involves food is automatically awesome, but Chanukah is particularly excellent—and I don’t just say that merely because I celebrate it. And it’s not merely the culinary awesomesauce that makes Chanukah so fun.
First, because it’s a transliterated word from Hebrew, there are about 36 different ways to spell it. It’s hard to misspell, really, unless you throw a stray Z in there or something. Chanukka! Making copyeditors gnash their teeth for over 5000 years!
Second, part of the tradition of Chanukah is to enjoy fried foods to commemorate the oil in the temple that lasted eight nights instead of one. You might be familiar with latkes, which are fried potato pancakes. I make both white and sweet potato curry latkes each year, but really, let’s be honest, that is nowhere near enough fried food. So how about some sufganiyot, which you might recognize as a jelly doughnut. I’ll let you in on a secret—I don’t like jelly doughnuts, but I think glazed doughnuts, or even the ones filled with icing totally fit the fried-food requirement. Deep fried doughnuts on a stick with a side of latkes? Now we’re talking!
Third, the lights of the menorah grow brighter as a candle is added for each successive night. With a group of four or more, you can probably toast marshmallows over your Chanukah candles. I refuse to confirm whether I have personally done this. (Of course I have.)
Most important, however, is that every culture celebrates light and warmth in the darkness of winter. Our traditions vary in the details, but when everyone is included in the welcoming light and in the warmth of family and friends, there’s much to celebrate.
In a sense, the romance genre and the women who love it form a family—a loud, geographically scattered but very passionate family. Any reader can likely think of at least eight reasons why romance is important, and why the genre is important. And with readers connecting online and off in greater numbers, each change of season brings a new discussion about how we can help create a romance genre which reflects the lives and experiences of every woman who reads and writes it.
So on behalf of the authors included in this anthology, I invite you to find a cozy and welcoming place, and some doughnuts or latkes, or both, because calories consumed in the observation of a holiday tradition do not count. Welcome to Burning Bright, a Chanukah romance anthology. We invite you to share in this tradition: reading romance, embracing warmth and light, and celebrating joy and love together.
Sarah Wendell