RWA Research Grant!

--Eric Selinger

Hi, everyone!  A friendly reminder, here, that the application deadline for the Romance Writers of America academic research grant competition is coming up soon:  December 1, to be precise. 

The grant proposal can be for up to $5000 USD, and can be used for a number of things, including summer salary support, buying time to research and write.  

For me, receiving this grant it was a career-changing opportunity—and most departments consider outside funding, in the form of a competitive grant, to be a sign of the importance and significance, not only of your work, but of the field itself. 

Grants have been awarded in literary studies, sociology, translation research, ethnographic work…it’s a nice mix, showing how open the RWA is to new approaches to the genre.

You can find full details of the program here. 

As I wrote in an article for the Romance Writers Report a year or two ago, I think this program has had a profoundly transformational effect on the study of popular romance fiction, both directly and rippling outward through things like the RomanceScholar listserv, this blog, and ultimately the IASPR / JPRS complex.  You can be a part of that transformation, too!