RWA Keynote address – Kate Cuthbert: Consenting adults

The romance novel and representations of sexuality after #MeToo Kate Cuthbert, at the time still managing editor for Escape Publishing (and now at Writers Victoria) presented this on the first morning of the conference. I had a severe migraine and unfortunately missed it. I say unfortunate because it was by all accounts a showstopper, and […]

Ross Grayson Bell – Writing for a Screenplay versus a Novel (pt 3)

The Hero’s Journey One way of telling a story. Stage 1 – The Ordinary World  Stage 2 – Call to adventure  What is the call to adventure?  What new force appears to challenge hero?  How is hero’s flaw tested?  Stage 3 – Refusal of the call  Heroes initially reject the call to adventure  Stage 4 […]

History Ever After: Fabricated historical chronotopes in romance genre fictions

Jennifer Hallock Session 5.2: History and Romance Abstract:  Over 80% of bestselling historical romance books published in the first half of 2018 were set in Britain, either during the 19th century or the mediaeval period.  These two fabricated chronotopes are selectively accurate to history and narrowly focused on high ranks of the nobility – in […]

Think Globally, Love Locally? – Popular Romance Studies comes to Sydney

Recently I was fortunate to attend some sessions the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance (aka IASPR) Conference with the theme ‘Think Globally, Love Locally?’ held in Sydney. Due to a combination of illness and other commitments I was unable to attend all the sessions.  I also apologise profusely to all those who […]

Angela Ackerman, Larger than Life characters Pt 1

Building a hero / heroine from the ground up  – What makes a reader fall in love with a character? – How can we create these types of characters ourselves? – How to create deep compelling characters that stick with a reader.   Elements:  Reader fascination: Offer a view into the characters and his world […]

Through the Looking Glass

Recently two of my friends had a joint birthday party, fancy dress theme.  (ok the theme was Game of thrones but I wasn’t feeling it).  I had these gorgeous papers by KaiserCraft from their ‘Through the Looking-Glass’ paper set.  They are very floral and vibrant, but there are also the classic illustrations by Tenniel throughout […]