Write up of ARRC 2009

Laura Vivanco

Last year I mentioned that some of the sessions at the Australian Romance Readers Convention (Melbourne 20-22 February 2009 ) would include input from romance scholars. On the programme there was the following:

Saturday 21 February (10.00 am - 10.30am) - Panel discussion: What academics really think about romance fiction— Glen Thomas, Toni Johnson-Woods, Jenny Brassel

Sunday 22 February — Future of romance: Where to from here? Bronwyn Parry, Glen Thomas, Christina Lee (Harlequin Mills And Boon Australia)

Thanks to BookThingo I've now found write-ups of the panel on "what academics really think about romance fiction" and the one about the future of romance.

Australian Romance Readers Convention 2009

The Australian Romance Readers Convention is going to be held in Melbourne from the 20th to the 22nd of February 2009 and as the title suggests, it's for romance readers. There will be an academic presence at the convention because on the programme there's the following:

Saturday 21 February (10.00 am - 10.30am) - Panel discussion: What academics really think about romance fiction— Glen Thomas, Toni Johnson-Woods, Jenny Brassel

Sunday 22 February - Concurrent session 3 (11.00am -12.00 pm) — Future of romance: Where to from here? Bronwyn Parry, Glen Thomas, Avon Romance representative, Other publisher reps tbc

2007 RITAs and Golden Hearts

Laura Vivanco

The list of RITA award winners is now up at the Romance Writers of America's newly revamped website.

The list of winners of Golden Heart awards (for authors of as yet unpublished manuscripts) is also up there and one of the winners is Bronwyn Clarke.

I'd like to congratulate all the winners, but I'm giving a special mention to Bron because she's a fellow romance scholar. She's completing a PhD at the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia and her 'research project will explore internet communities of romance readers and writers and their perspectives on the genre'. You can read more about her research here and if you'd like to help Bronwyn with her research please read this page and then fill out a response to her survey and comment on her research blog (not all of the posts are related to the research; some are more personal, so you may have to do a little bit of scrolling to find the questions).

The photo is from Wikipedia.