McDaniel College Receives $100,000 Grant from Nora Roberts Foundation

Laura Vivanco

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

February 7, 2012

McDANIEL COLLEGE RECEIVES $100,000 GRANT FROM NORA ROBERTS FOUNDATION

Grant to Help Advance Research and Study of Romance Literature

Second consecutive year that McDaniel has received funding from Nora Roberts, a best-selling author of more than 200 romance novels

WESTMINSTER, Md. – McDaniel College has been awarded a $100,000 grant from the Nora Roberts Foundation to help advance research and study of romance literature.

This is the second consecutive year that the college has received funding from Nora Roberts, a best-selling author of more than 200 romance novels.

The grant from the Nora Roberts Foundation supports McDaniel’s academic minor in romance fiction and an online creative writing course on the subject, in addition to the American romance collection in Hoover Library, which has established McDaniel as one of the few centers for the study of the romance genre.

McDaniel English professor Pam Regis, a nationally recognized expert on romance novels and author of “A Natural History of the Romance Novel,” organized an international conference in November 2011 at the college, which included presentations on popular romance in the new millennium.

About the grant, Roger Casey, president of McDaniel College, said, “This gift will allow the college to reinforce Ms. Roberts’ reputation in the academic and literary arenas as a master of and dedicated advocate for the romance genre. It will also raise the profile of the romance novel among scholars and the academic community.”

Nora Roberts is a best-selling author of more than 200 romance novels. Her first, “Irish Thoroughbred,” was published in 1981. More than 280 million copies of her books are in print, including 12 million copies sold in 2005 alone. McDaniel College awarded her an honorary Doctor of Letters degree in 2006.

For more information about McDaniel College, visit www.mcdaniel.edu or call 410-857-2290.