On 17 September the Center for Black Diaspora at DePaul University is hosting
Black Romance: Past, Present, and Future
Moderator: Dr. Margo Hendricks
Four panelists:
- Dr. Piper Huguley,
- Dr. Katrina (Nicole) Jackson,
- Tatianna Richardson,
- Dr. Yakini Etheridge,
This round-table brings together romance writers, scholars, editors,
readers, and podcasters to discuss their views on the past, present, and
future of Black Romance in the United States.
Sponsoring Institutions:
Center for Black Diaspora, DePaul University
Center for Contemporary Literature and Culture, University of Birmingham
International Association for the Study of Popular Romance.
You can sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/black-romance-past-present-and-future-tickets-167463563025
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Call for Papers: Concepts in Popular Genre Fiction
Deakin University, 6-8 December 2021
Convenors: Dr Jodi McAlister and Dr Helen Young
This virtual symposium, to be held 6-8 December through Deakin
University as part of the Literature and its Readers research network,
seeks to open up different sorts of questions, in order to consider
other ways of examining, analysing, and utilising popular genre fiction.
Specifically, we seek papers exploring concepts, ideas, and motifs, and
the role that they play in popular genre/s.
Submissions close on 31 August.
On Twitter it's been announced that:
The first of our keynote speakers will be Farah Mendlesohn (@effjayem). Farah is the author of several acclaimed books on popular genre fiction, including Rhetorics of Fantasy and Children’s Fantasy Literature: An Introduction. Our second keynote speaker will be Jayashree Kamble (@prof_romance). Jayashree is currently the vice-president of @IASPR and the author of Making Meaning in Popular Romance Fiction: An Epistemology. And finally, we will host a keynote panel by the research team from the Genre Worlds project, Lisa Fletcher (@lmfletcher72), Beth Driscoll (@Beth_driscoll) and Kim Wilkins. This fascinating project explores genre in 21st century Australian popular fiction.
More details here.
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Steve Ammidown's written an article titled “Romance Writers of America Rescind Award for LakotaGenocide Redemption Narrative” for Library
Journal.
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Mary Lynne Nielsen interviewed veteran romance cover artist James Griffin about his work and changes in the industry. The interview can be found here and also at AAR.
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Charlotte wrote a series of posts about "paratexts." This one is about the different ways that authors market the selling points of their novels on Twitter, as compared to what appears on the books themselves: https://closereadingromance.com/2021/06/22/paratexts-part-three-the-art-of-the-one-click/
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KJ Charles wrote a post about obstacles in romance, illustrated with references to Alexis Hall's For Real:
But there’s a lot more obstacles than the obvious headliners.
Power imbalance is a big one. Where there’s any sort of
difference between the characters there’s probably some sort of power
imbalance, which can lead to uncertainty, insecurity, misunderstanding,
resentment. Obvious areas for power imbalance are gender-related
(including in queer relationships), and disparities in wealth, health,
professional status, class, sexual experience, age, perceived
attractiveness, perceived value as a person. It’s always worth thinking
about these.
(For an entire book about power imbalance–across age, wealth, education, status, sexual experience, and class–Alexis Hall’s For Real
traces a relationship between an older, authoritative, wealthy sub and a
young, less secure, broke dom. It’s a masterclass in power imbalances
going both ways, and the complexities of how they shift and seesaw.)
