On Friday I came across a post by Jana DeLeon in which she mentioned that she'd written a "gothic-lite" for Harlequin's Intrigue line:
Since the book’s release, a lot of writers have asked me how I “got away” with writing a ghost story for Intrigue, which is a contemporary romance line and not a paranormal line. The answer is that I didn’t “get away” with anything. Despite the gothic sound and haunted mansion, my story is not a true paranormal, which is why it works for the line. [...]By coincidence (spooky or otherwise), Clues: A Journal of Detection has just put out a call for papers for a themed issue on paranormal mysteries:
The house is reputed haunted. It’s isolated. It’s old and empty and has a history of tragic death. The heroine and hero see things they can’t explain. Sure, some of it turns out to be the villain, but not everything. The rest is unexplained. Was the white figure they saw out in the storm debris blowing in the inky black night or was it something else? That question remains unanswered.
Paranormal mysteries often feature the usual suspects (ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and so forth) but also branch into the gothic, spirituality (as in Tony Hillerman's skinwalkers, Michael Gruber’s shaman trilogy), and other magic realism, as well as biochemical transformation (as in the Relic series) and a wide variety of mystery hybrids with horror and dark fantasy. For this theme issue of Clues, potential contributors are urged to think outside the normal boxes. Thematic analysis might include (but is not limited to):I put the bit about romance in bold and left out some of the suggested topics. More details can be found here. The deadline for submissions is 29 December 2011.
• the paranormal as red herring (explained away by the end, as in Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles)
• minority culture treated as paranormal (as in depictions of voodoo as horror) in mystery texts
• whether horror/dark fantasy in general requires detection
• the paranormal dialogue with subcategories of mystery: clue-puzzle/hard-boiled/noir/private eye/spy/police procedural/etc.
• paranormal romance in relation to romantic suspense
• the mystery ingredients most affected by paranormal hybridity
• women characters as detectives and/or monsters and/or victims in paranormal mysteries
• use and/or overuse of providence and other supernatural means for mystery resolution
• the dialogue between literary and popular gothic texts
• paranormal mysteries as reading tools/pedagogical resources
There's a much shorter deadline for anyone wanting to present a paper to the GLBTQ Studies Area of this year's Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association conference. They "must be received by June 30, 2011":
Proposals of interest for this year's conference might include:The use of bold is, once again, mine. Some inspiration, should it be required, may be found at Dear Author, which is celebrating Pride Week. Today's post, written by Sarah, is on the topic of "Book Awards and GLBT Books."
*HIV/AIDS in Erotic Culture
*GLBTQ Romance Novels
*HIV/AIDS in Popular Culture
*GLBTQ Television Representation
*The Violet Quill writers
*Popular GLBTQ romance novels/novelists
*GLBTQ comics/graphic novels
