CFP: International Women's Writing Online Conference

I got an email letting me know about this and since it mentions romance, I thought I'd share the call for papers:

 

International Women’s Writing Online Conference

Thursday 15^th to Friday 16^th January 2026

Online

 

This online conference will be an interdisciplinary, cross-period, and global exploration of the role and impact of women’s writing, which is dedicated to the discussion of a broad range of women’s writing from any time, period, and place. We will discuss the popular and the literary; bestsellers and genres; poetry and prose; screen and script; writing for games and digital spaces; creative non-fiction; life-writing, biography, and memoir; and journalism and other forms of cultural production.

We will be thinking and talking about the pasts, presents, and futures of women’s writing on a global scale. We will explore women’s voices and artistic practices; the changing landscape of and about women’s writing; forms and mediums; the archival and the digital; textual and sexual politics; resistance and re-imaginings; interventions and intersections; and all of this across a wide range of disciplines, time periods, and texts.

We hope you will join us for this exciting event, which will bring together scholars, researchers, students, and enthusiasts to share their research, insights, and perspectives in an open and inclusive atmosphere. We welcome submissions for individual twenty-minute papers as well as for full panels and workshops. And we are keen to explore women’s writing from any time period, as well as in any genre or form. Subjects can include (but are not bound by):

·       The portrayal and evolution of women’s writing across different periods and genres

·       Archives and memorialisation

·       Pasts, presents, and futures

·       Women’s writing on page, stage, and screen

·       The poetics of women’s writing

·       Creative practices and performance

·       Writing place and space

·       Bestsellers and the popular

·       Women writing for the screen

·       Cultural, historical, and social contexts

·       Reframing history and envisioning futures

·       Traditional and digital forms of women’s writing

·       The global and the local

·       Autoethnography and authorship; memory and memorialisation

·       The figure of the author: celebrity, fans, and representations

·       Race, class, gender, and resistance                     

·       Activism and protest; freedoms and oppression

·       Writing technologies

·       Women’s writing and pleasure

·       Intersectionality and dualities

·       Women’s literary canon

·       The speculative and the imaginary

·       Women in and writing games

·       Crime Fiction, the Gothic, and Horror

·       Bonkbusters, Romance, and Erotica

·       The pre- and post-#MeToo landscape

·       Multicultural approaches and practices

·       Women’s writing and form

·       Women’s writing and the market

·       The economics and politics of women’s writing

 

 

Submissions:

Proposals should include a title, an abstract of 250–300 words, a brief biographical note (up to 100 words), and contact details. Panel proposals are very welcome.

Please submit your proposals in a Word document to the team at womenswritingassociation@gmail.com by 12^th December 2025 making it clear that this is for the online conference. We encourage submissions from scholars at all stages of their careers, including early career researchers, and postgraduate students. Interdisciplinary approaches and innovative methodologies are welcome. 

Please note that this will be a small online conference and we will shortly have two CFPs out for in-person conferences, which will be held at Falmouth University in June 2026 and Pescara University, Italy in September 2026.

All participants will be given free membership of the International Women’s Writing Association for a year.

Call for doctoral proposals in the field of Romance and/or Erotica at Falmouth University

Thought I'd add an image from the Falmouth University website showing where Falmouth is i.e. towards the tip of Cornwall (i.e. the lower left-hand corner of the UK).

The study of Romance and Erotica in their broadest forms is now being given more prominence in the academic field, albeit through often disparate strands. This is surprising given their popularity. For example, Romantic Fiction has long been one of the most popular genres of writing, outselling most other forms. However, despite its wide readership, it faces questions about the lack of diverse representation, as well as frequent attention being drawn to, for example, racist tropes of the othered body in both Romance and Erotica. Debates about the blurred boundaries surrounding pornography and Erotica similarly rage, as questions of ethics and morality circle.  

How are narratives of Romance/Erotica mediated through history? How do other cultures and societies represent and interrogate Romance/Erotica? How are images, narratives, and notions of Romance/Erotica read and understood through time and place? How do we navigate questions of consent? Bodily boundaries? Morality? Race? How do they engage with issues such as class? Capitalism? Power/control? Sex and sexualities? How do they respond to and shape attitudes towards contemporary cultural concerns such as digital media; pornography; gender roles; sexual relationships; sex work; consent; ageing; mental health; sexual and physical health; the law; politics; and crime. How do they engage with celebrity culture, fashion, and place?  

We are seeking ground-breaking, innovative, and challenging practice-based and critical research proposals on Romance and/or Erotica in their widest sense, including, but not limited to, Bonkbusters and bestsellers, soap operas and mini-series, Gothic and Pulp Romances, melodrama and fantasy, popular magazines and literary Erotica, Hollywood and Bollywood, Romcoms and sitcoms, high and low culture, the sensational and the scandalous, digital depictions and heartwarming tales, the private and the public, Hallmark and Pornhub. 

Proposals on creative writing, literature, history, fashion, illustration, film, TV, popular culture, performance studies, games, and many other genres and mediums will be considered. 

More details here.