Shelf Love: Romance Novel Discourse

Learn more about a new podcast that is an oral history project for Black Romance: "The Black Romance Podcast features weekly conversations with Black writers, editors, and scholars of historical and contemporary popular romance fiction. Julie Moody-Freeman and guests talk about a range of experiences: their difficulties trying to publish love stories with Black characters; their favorite books; writing and teaching about black romance fiction; traditional vs self-publishing; publishing queer romance fiction; and their recently released books."

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Show Notes:

Guest: Black Romance Podcast

Website | Twitter | Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Notes:

• Texas Monthly: *Vivian Stephens Helped Turn Romance Writing Into a Billion-Dollar Industry. Then She Got Pushed Out.* by Mimi Swartz
• Sandra Kitt's website

Shelf Love:

• Sign up for the email newsletter list | Website | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads | Email: [email protected]
• 58 Romance Novellas For A Quick Hit of Hope
• Check out Shelf Love’s updated website including the transcript for this episode
• Shelf Love episodes with transcripts

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

I Think I Might Love You by Christina C. Jones is the Romcom Novella that will have you laughing out loud and wondering what DOD stands for. Highly irreverent, wholly lovable Nicole Falls is back for part 2 to discuss this romance novel worth reading.

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Show Notes:

Shelf Love:

• Sign up for the email newsletter list | Website | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads | Email: [email protected]
• 58 Romance Novellas For A Quick Hit of Hope
• Check out Shelf Love’s updated website including the transcript for this episode
• Bookstore Romance Day - Giveaways! Discounts! | [Q&A with Copper Dog Books co-owner Julie Karaganis](- Bookstore Romance Day - Giveaways! Discounts! | Q&A with Copper Dog Books co-owner Julie Karaganis)
• Shelf Love episodes with transcripts

Guest: Nicole Falls

Twitter | Website | #fallsonlove podcast | Buy Nicole's books - includes KU options

We Discussed:

I Think I Might Love You by Christina C. Jones

Notes:

• Why So Many Novellas, CCJ?

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

Highly irreverent, wholly lovable Nicole Falls joins me to discuss imposter syndrome, how gifted and talented programs destroyed us, having the privilege to explore creative, personally fulfilling projects and the concessions we make to prioritize those projects, Danielle Steel's desk, incorporating the pandemic into contemporary romance, plant puns and plant bae, and how quickly and often people forget that not everyone has their worldview.

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Show Notes:

Shelf Love:

• Sign up for the email newsletter list | Website | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads | Email: [email protected]
• 58 Romance Novellas For A Quick Hit of Hope
• Check out Shelf Love’s updated website including the transcript for this episode
• Bookstore Romance Day - Giveaways! Discounts! | [Q&A with Copper Dog Books co-owner Julie Karaganis](- Bookstore Romance Day - Giveaways! Discounts! | Q&A with Copper Dog Books co-owner Julie Karaganis)
• Shelf Love episodes with transcripts

Guest: Nicole Falls

Twitter | Website | #fallsonlove podcast | Buy Nicole's books - includes KU options

Modern Romance Canon Nomination: One Last Shot by Alexandra Warren

Notes:

• Imposter Syndrome: American Psychological Association article that goes over the basics and some actionable ways to address it.
• Gifted and Talented programs. Whoo boy.
  • Here's a study trying to prove if G&T programs have benefits for those in the programs using test scores. But what Nicole and I talk about is more about the long-term psychological impact of G&T expectations.
  • This Bustle article does a good job summarizing various studies, and links to them if you want to dig deeper.
  • It's also important to note that the way G&T programs are implemented often promote inequality. This is a topic that was covered in episode 03 of Nice White Parents, an excellent new podcast focused on inequality in public education using New York City public schools as case studies.
• Here's a completely unscientific article about using the bathroom in front of your partner. I tried to find some quantitative data on this, but mostly found message board questions and shamey listicles. Someone please get the social scientists on this important topic, stat. Romancelandia needs to know.
• I used $50/hour as a high example to illustrate how when one CAN do something obviously more profitable, it can be logically hard to prioritize something that's relatively unprofitable. Unfortunately that's not the option most people are weighing against.
• The Change Up by Nicole Falls
• Danielle Steel's Desk
• Love Under Quarantine by Nicole Falls - short story

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

A Duke by Default by Alyssa Cole is our romance worth reading, and Tasha L. Harrison joins me once again to drop wisdom faster than a sword-making Scottish Duke can make our heroine forget that she definitely should not be making out with her boss. Our conversation is far-ranging - friends who aren't friends, parents who suck, figuring out how your brain works, and the horse your man smells like. Enjoy!

Show Notes:

Shelf Love:

• Sign up for the email newsletter list | Website | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads | Email: [email protected]
• 58 Romance Novellas For A Quick Hit of Hope
• Check out Shelf Love’s updated website including the transcript for this episode
• Bookstore Romance Day - Giveaways! Discounts! | [Q&A with Copper Dog Books co-owner Julie Karaganis](- Bookstore Romance Day - Giveaways! Discounts! | Q&A with Copper Dog Books co-owner Julie Karaganis)

Guest: Tasha L. Harrison

Twitter | Tasha's website | Buy Liquor & Laundry

*We Read: A Duke by Default* by Alyssa Cole

Notes:

Don't miss episode 053, in which Tasha joined me to discuss why Amazon's algorithm is racist, the pervasive white gaze of publishing, and what you can do to be an anti-racist romance reader.

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

Tasha L. Harrison, romance author, editor, and lady about Twitter is my guest, and we discuss how Amazon's algorithm encourages the idea of "take and toss" literature, the white gaze in the romance publishing ecosystem, and why Tasha writes romance for Black people. 

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Show Notes:

Shelf Love:

• Sign up for the email newsletter list | Website | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads | Email: [email protected]
• 58 Romance Novellas For A Quick Hit of Hope
• Check out Shelf Love’s updated website including the transcript for this episode

Guest: Tasha L. Harrison

• Twitter | Tasha's website | Buy Liquor & Laundry

Tasha's Modern Romance Canon Nomination:

• I Think I Might Love You by Christina C. Jones

Notes:

• A Taste of Her Own Medicine by Tasha L. Harrison
• 20k in 5 Days
• EE Ottoman's episode: Any Old Diamonds by KJ Charles
• Christina C. Jones - Why So Many Novellas, CCJ?

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

Who among us hasn't started a project and then realized that you've inadvertently wandered into a longstanding and contentious debate? I enlist the help of two experts to unravel why I started the Shelf Love Modern Romance Canon project. First, Katrina Jackson helps me unravel some of the ways my professional and educational background made me think this was a logical thing to do. Then, Eric Selinger gives some backstory into the academic and institutional reasons canons exist, and why those who study, read, and write the popular romance genre have been circling this question for decades and will continue into the future.

It's a story of nostalgia, red tape, gatekeeping, search engine optimization, and my unquenchable thirst for knowledge.

Show Notes:

Shelf Love:

• Sign up for the email newsletter list | Website | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads | Email: [email protected]
• 58 Romance Novellas For A Quick Hit of Hope
• Check out Shelf Love’s updated website including the transcript for this episode
• Low-Cost Mental Health Resources & Alternatives recommended by Hannah Hearts Romance - link to blog post

Guest: Katrina Jackson

Twitter | Instagram | Kat’s Email newsletter | Beautiful & Dirty

Kat's other episodes: An Unconditional Freedom | Polyamory/Financial Conversations | Kink | Angst | Religion | History | Blind Date With A Book Boyfriend by Lucy Eden

Guest: Eric Selinger

Twitter | JPRStudies.org | The Routledge Research Companion to Popular Romance Fiction

The Current (and growing) Shelf Love Modern Romance Canon Nomination List (Whoa, watch out controversy)

Notes:

Notes from Katrina's section

• Beverly Jenkins on The Turn On Pod
• EH Carr's What is History - a commonly-used text to introduce students to history
• Alisha Rai's Serving Pleasure
• Kit Rocha's Beyond Series
• Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart
• Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina

Notes from Eric's Section:

• EM Hull's The Sheik
• The Rosary by Florence L. Barclay
• affective reasoning - I looked it up
• "How can you talk about contemporary fantasy if you don't know The Silmarillion?
• Noah Berlatsky - There is no Romance Canon (Well that's just your opinion, man.)
• Jodi McAlister - down (under) in Australia (it's a tired joke, but sorry, I'm tired.)
• Len Barot, the publisher of Bold Strokes Books, who publishes lesbian romance as Radclyffe.

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

Hannah Hearts Romance joins me to discuss The Rakess by Scarlett Peckham, a historical romance that asks the question: can women be rakes? And what would a rakess look like? Content warnings for this book are lengthy, and so I called in a mental health professional to help me unpack the brilliance of Seraphina Arden.

I think this book is brilliant and important - but it might not be for everyone:

Content Warnings Provided by B. And Her Books, used with permission:

Past miscarriage described on page, past death from pregnancy and a bad delivery, grief, alcoholism, addiction, gas lighting (not by hero or heroine), animal cruelty (birds killed and maimed and left for heroine to find to scare her), forced kidnapping and imprisonment of a secondary female character in an asylum, described torture in said asylum

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Show Notes:

Shelf Love:

• Sign up for the email newsletter list | Website | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads | Email: [email protected]
• 58 Romance Novellas For A Quick Hit of Hope
• Check out Shelf Love’s updated website including the transcript for this episode
• Low-Cost Mental Health Resources & Alternatives recommended by Hannah Hearts Romance - link to blog post

Guest: Hannah Hearts Romance

• Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads

We Read:

The Rakess by Scarlett Peckham

Notes:

• Hannah's Previous Appearances:
  • Purim-related Write This Book, which led to an exciting opportunity: 028. Emergency Contact by Mary HK Choi with Kennedy Ryan
  • Modern Romance Canon Nomination for Unclaimed by Courtney Milan in 038. A Week To Be Wicked by Tessa Dare with my BFF Becky
• Tea & Strumpets Episode with Scarlett Peckham - gives fantastic insight into the motivations and inspirations for this book. Tea & Strumpets - Interview with Scarlett Peckham
• Carl Rogers - Person-centered theory

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

Part 2! Romance novel authors and readers bust just some of the myths and misunderstandings about romance novels. Are romance novels easy to write, vapid, mommy porn? Um, no. If you’ve ever heard this podcast, definitely no. But listen on for responses from Tamara Lush, Charish Reid, Megan Erickson, and Rosie Danan. 

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Shelf Love:

• Sign up for the email newsletter list | Website | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads | Email: [email protected]
• 58 Romance Novellas For A Quick Hit of Hope
• 15 Romance Novel Audiobooks that Combine Swoony Words with Great Performances
• Check out Shelf Love’s updated website including the transcript for this episode

More Myths episodes:

• Myths and Misconceptions part 1 (Myths 1-5)
• Myth 6: Bree from Kit Rocha busts “They’re all the same.”
• Myth 7: EE Ottoman busts “They’re by women, for women.”
• Myth 8: Adriana Herrera busts “Feminists don’t read romance.”

The thread that started it all: Myths Twitter Thread from 12/11/19

Myth 9: They’re easy to write and anyone can do it because there’s a formula
Myth Buster: Tamara Lush

Tamara Lush:

• Website | Twitter | Instagram | Constant Craving on Wattpad

Related Episode: 

025. Wattpad - The Love Riots by Noora Zaroon with Tamara Lush

Myth 10: They’re unrealistic and vapid
Myth Buster: Charish Reid

Myth contributed by JL Peridot.

Charish Reid:

• Instagram | Twitter | Website | The Write Escape

Related Episode: 
031. White Whiskey Bargain by Jodie Slaughter with Charish Reid

Myth 11: Readers read romance just for sex.
Myth Buster: Megan Erickson

Myth contributed by Geri and Chelle de Notte.

Megan Erickson: 

• Instagram | Twitter | Website | Ella Maven

Related Episode: 
035. Megan Erickson, Hope in Dystopia: Guardian by Emmy Chandler

Myth 12: Romance Novels are Mommy Porn
Myth Buster: Rosie Danan

Rosie Danan:

• Twitter | Website

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

Katrina Jackson never actually left: we talk about Scandal, why impermanence and entropy are the root cause for readers' desire for a happily ever after - or at least according to my theory, and how Katrina's research on Black romance as liberation is coming along. We also discuss Blind Date with a Book Boyfriend by Lucy Eden, a true romcom novella that turns the one-day courtship trope on its head.

• 03:05 - What Kat’s been up to. Scandal. Contagion. Growing jalapenos.
• 14:21 - Kat’s Research: Black Romance as Liberation
• 41:53 - HEA, HFN, Andrea’s grand theory of romance
• 50:53 - The fantasy of resolution
• 59:16 - Blind Date With A Book Boyfriend

Shelf Love:

• Sign up for the email newsletter list | Website | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads | Email: [email protected]
• 58 Romance Novellas For A Quick Hit of Hope
• Check out Shelf Love’s updated website including the transcript for this episode

Guest: Katrina Jackson

Twitter | Instagram | Kat’s Email newsletter | Beautiful & Dirty

We Read:

Blind Date With A Book Boyfriend by Lucy Eden

Notes:

03:05 - What Kat’s been up to. Scandal. Contagion. Growing jalapenos.

• Shelf Love Episode 017 - An Unconditional Freedom by Alyssa Cole with Katrina Jackson
• Shelf Love Episode 023. Katrina Jackson: Communication, Polyamory + Financial Conversations
• Ice Planet Podcast
  • Andrea’s episode of Ice Planet Podcast
  • Katrina’s episode coming soon!
• American Queen by Sierra Simone
• The Kingmaker by Kennedy Ryan

14:21 - Kat’s Research: Black Romance as Liberation

• Researching the Romance Conference - Kat’s Presentation
• Shelf Love Episode 013. The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams with Steve Ammidown (Steve is the archivist at the Browne Pop Culture Library at BGSU and was organizing the Researching the Romance Conference)
• Beverly Jenkins
• bell hooks All About Love
• Be Not Afraid by Alyssa Cole
• That Could be Enough by Alyssa Cole
• Let Us Dream by Alyssa Cole
• Shelf Love Episode 041. The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang with Dr. Maria DeBlassie - we discussed “bodice rippers” and the origins of the romance genre, problematic warts and all
• Georgette Heyer was an Antisemite and Her Work is Not Foundational Historical Romance by Felicia Grossman on Romance Daily News
  • Felicia was also on the podcast and discussed this in the episode about History
• “The dynamacy” - Shelf Love Episode 014. Equivalent Exchange by Christina C. Jones with Funmi B. - Black Indie Romance
• Shelf Love Episode about Rose Lerner’s Work

41:53 - HEA, HFN, Andrea’s grand theory of romance

• What are Romances About? Twitter Survey with responses
• Andrea’s Venn Diagram - scroll to the bottom of the page

50:53 - The fantasy of resolution

• Happier with Gretchen Rubin with Dan Harris - the episode that got me thinking about entropy
• Kit Rocha’s Beyond Series

59:16 - Blind Date With A Book Boyfriend

• The Ripped Bodice
• Zaida Polanco
• Lucy Eden’s Newsletter
  • Sierra Simone’s Harvest of Sighs feature
  • Lydia San Andreas story
• Before movies
• Jodie Slaughter’s Just One More
• Jack Harbon’s Meet Cute Club
• Man at Work by Elaine Fox
• 58 Novellas for a Quick Hit of Hope
• Beautiful & Dirty by Katrina Jackson

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]

Friendship in romance with romance novel experts Ruby Lang, Mia Sosa, and Jessica Van Slooten. The many ways friendship is explored in romance: Intergenerational friendship, found family, introducing us to future love stories, and friendship relationship arcs.

This is the final Decameron Quarantine Romance Book Club episode that was recorded back in March 2020, at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

Stay safe, stay mad, and keep reading romance. 

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Shelf Love:

• Sign up for the email newsletter list
• Website
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Email: [email protected]

Sign up for the Shelf Love newsletter for bonus content!

Guests

• Ruby Lang

Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Website | Buy House Rules by Ruby Lang

• Mia Sosa
  Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Website | Buy The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa
• Jessica Van Slooten
  Twitter | Instagram | Website | Listen to Jessica’s Ted Talk “Romance Novels are Feminist”

Book Recommendations

• American Dreamer by Adriana Herrera
• A Cowboy to Remember by Rebekah Weatherspoon
• Luck of the Draw by Kate Clayborn
• A Taste of Sage by Yaffa S. Santos

Mentioned:

• The Bechdel Test

(I'd recommend listening to the episode for full content warnings, and please do your own research as well.)

Shelf Love:

• NEW! Substack for original writing and stuff | Website | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube
• Email: [email protected]