Swashbuckling girls and foppish men: the unusual pleasures of Georgette Heyer’s Regency Romances

Jade Armstrong (Curtain University) –  Swashbuckling girls and foppish men:  the unusual pleasures of Georgette Heyer’s Regency Romances Jane is a lecturer at Curtain University.  Her PhD thesis and research interests focus on adolescent femininity and popular culture, and one of the things that interests her about Heyer books is how they belong to the […]

Exploring women and modalities of power in fiction: escaping the straightjacket of genre into digital space

Dr Lynn Allen  – Exploring women and modalities of power in fiction:  escaping the straightjacket of genre into digital space – when a subject is highly controvertial, one cannot hope to tell the truth.  One can only hope to show how one came to hold one’s own opinion – Virginia Woolf Modalities of Power – […]

The Distance Between: Romance readers, authors, publishers and the book industry in Australia

Bronwyn Parry / Bronwyn Clarke – The Distance Between:  Romance readers, authors, publishers and the book industry in Australia Context – Rapid change – readers’ social connections – readers’ book-buying patterns – shifts in book retailing – digital books, paper books and distributors – territorial rights – authors publications choices Reading is individual, but has […]

Romancing Feminism: From Women’s Studies to Women’s Fiction

Dr Elizabeth Reid Boyd (Edith Cowan University)- Romancing Feminism:  From Women’s Studies to Women’s Fiction After the keynote address, the rest of the day was 30 minute panel discussions. The first of these that I attended was by Dr Elizabeth Reid Boyd, from the School of Psychology and Social Science at Edith Cowan University.  I […]

EJC Keynote speaker – Professor Imelda Whelehan

Meaningful encounters – 40 years of feminists reading romance This was a session that was very interesting, but it was also a little disappointing for reasons I will go into at the end. Professor Whelehan looked at how feminists have viewed romance literature – usually in a negative way – yet at the same time […]

Inaugural Elizabeth Jolley Conference

I haven’t really read much of Elizabeth Jolley’s work, however I thought that this would be a great way to see how romance is currently being looked at in the academic world. Welcome by Helen Merrick Welcome to country by Mrs McGuire Address by Caroline Lurie, Literary Executor for Elizabeth Jolley friend of Elizabeth gave […]

Cocktail function #1 – Penguin Destiny Romance 1st birthday

I went to the launch of the Destiny imprint last year on the Gold Coast.  This year Penguin held a party to celebrate the first birthday. There were some speeches (I arrived late and missed most of these), canapes, lots of gorgeous cupcakes, purple balloons some of which are now bobbing around in my room.  […]

RWA Conference 2013 – Riding the Waves

I have arrived in Western Australia for the 2013 Romance Writers of Australia conference.  I landed in Perth where I met up with one of the local members, we waited for two others to fly in, and then drove to Fremantle where the conference is being held. Tomorrow, instead of going to the writing workshop […]

RWA Conference 2013

I know I have a few panels to catch up on, but the launch for 2013 Conference has just been announced. Fremantle 2013:  Riding the Waves Featuring: Julia Quinn – keynote speaker, NY Times best selling romance author Kim Hudson – workshop presenter Nina Bruhns – mystery and erotic thriller writer Sarah Wendell – author […]