It’s Valentine’s Day weekend, and love is in the air on The Archive Project. We are featuring two conversations from the 2024 Portland Book Festival with bestselling contemporary romance writers.    

In the last few decades, writing romance has become big business. From the Fabio-adorned mass market paperbacks of the 90s to self-published ebooks like Fifty Shades of Gray in the early 2000s, to now, when we are amidst an explosion of the genre with more than 39 million print copies of romance novels sold in 2023 alone. Even local libraries in Portland have said they’ve seen the number of romance novels checked out double since 2018.  

Readers are officially hot and bothered by this genre, and today we have conversations with some of the best contemporary romance writers. Later in the episode we’ll hear from Red, White & Royal Blue megastar author Casey McQuiston, discussing their latest book, The Pairing, with Kristen Arnett, author of With Teeth.  

 But first up, OPB’s own Crystal Ligori, host of All Things Considered, is in conversation with Lily Chu, author of The Takedown and Katelyn Doyle, author of Just Some Stupid Love Story.  

Lily Chu loves ordering the second-cheapest wine, wearing perfume all the time, and staying up far too late reading a good book. She writes uplit fiction set in Toronto with strong Asian characters. Her latest novel is titled The Takedown.

Katelyn Doyle is a writer based in Los Angeles. Just Some Stupid Love Story is her debut rom-com. She also writes as the USA Today bestselling historical romance novelist Scarlett Peckham.

Casey McQuiston is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of romantic comedies, including One Last Stop, I Kissed Shara Wheeler, and Red, White & Royal Blue, whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Bon Appetit. Born and raised in southern Louisiana, Casey now lives in New York City with a poodle mix named Pepper. Their latest novel is The Pairing.