A Houston, Texas, native and graduate of Texas Southern University, Vivian Lorraine Stephens (1932-) has been a romance aficionado since her teens. In the 1940s,…
Comments closedJournal of Popular Romance Studies Posts
How It Began Introductions are, by their nature, signposts. Signposts that guide readers, provide informational cadences, and justify what falls between page one and page…
Comments closedGeorgette Heyer, History and Historical Fiction (2021), edited by Samantha J. Rayner and Kim Wilkins, is a varied and pleasant read: the approaches are sometimes…
Comments closedFrom the title to the overall framing of the collection, Teaching Tainted Lit: Popular American Fiction in Today’s Classroom (2015) leans into the contested status…
Comments closedIt’s not often that an academic research project successfully and meaningfully combines literary analysis, creative writing, and sociological research. These two publications – one a…
Comments closedA prolific Welsh romance novelist of the early and mid-twentieth century, Berta Ruck wrote approximately a hundred novels between 1915 and 1970. Although her novels…
Comments closedIf these Editor’s Notes had titles, I’d be tempted to call this one “The Great Slowdown.” After the bumper crop of essays, reviews, and other…
Comments closedIn recent years, there has been a considerable increase in critical questions on the lack of diversity in and the pervasive whiteness of popular romance…
Comments closedUniversity of Basel Although some of the most commercially successful and/or critically acclaimed works of literary fiction of the current century feature dominant romantic storylines,…
Comments closed“Doormat” (31). “Airhead” (32). “Too Stupid to Live” (35). These are some of the categories of romance heroine Candy Tan and Sarah Wendell introduce in…
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