by SB Sarah • Tuesday, November 11, 2008 at 05:52 PM
From the Professors Brilliant comes a Call for Papers. Alas, I cannot participate, as it starts on the first night of Passover, and if I left RT early and skipped the PAGEANT OF MAN TITTY for Pesach, you can understand that New Orleans is not among my ports of breadless call either. Otherwise I’d be there with beads on.
But if you’re looking for a scholarly opportunity or a place to send a proposal last minute, have a look.
PCA / ACA National Conference: New Orleans, April 8-11, 2009
(Conference info: http://pcaaca.org/conference/national.php)
CALL FOR PAPERS: Romance Fiction
We are considering proposals for individual papers, sessions organized around a theme, and “special panels” featuring authors or editors. Sessions are scheduled in one-hour slots, ideally with four papers or speakers per standard session.
Should you or any of your colleagues be interested in submitting a proposal or have any questions, please contact one or both of the area chairs (see below). Please feel free to forward, cross-post, or link to this call for papers.
We are interested in any and all topics about or related to romance fiction: all genres, all kinds, and all eras.
Some possible topics (although we are not limited to these):
--Individual Novels or Authors
--New Directions in Romance Scholarship (historicist, formalist, post-colonial, queer-theoretical, etc.)
--Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Romance, and same-sex love within predominantly heterosexual texts
--Genre-Bending and Genre-Crossing authors and texts (erotic romance, SF romance, chick-lit, urban fantasy, highbrow / lowbrow crossover texts, etc.)
--African-American, Latina, Asian, and other Multicultural romance
--Young Adult Romance and Chick-lit (series, novels, authors, communities)
--Category Romance (its past history, recent and forthcoming lines, changing demographics, etc.)
--History of Romance Fiction and its major subgenres (major authors and texts, turning points in the development of the genre or any subgenre)
--Romance and Region: places, histories, mythologies, traditions
--Romance on the World Stage (texts in translation; romance manga; non-Western writers, readers, and publishers; local, national, and multinational publishing)
--Romance communities and the Romance Industry: authors, readers, publishers, websites, blogs
If you are a romance author or editor and are interested in speaking on your own work or on developments in the romance genre, please contact us!
As we did last year in San Francisco, the Romance Fiction area will meet in a special Open Forum to discuss upcoming conferences, work in progress, and the future of the field. Of particular interest this year: the new International Association for the Study of Popular Romance (IASPR) with its affiliated scholarly publication, Journal of Popular Romance Studies (JPRS)!
Submit a one-page (150-250 word) proposal or abstract (via regular mail or e-mail) by November 15, 2008, to the Area Chairs in Romance:
Eric Selinger
Dept. of English
DePaul Univ.
802 West Belden Ave.
Chicago, IL 60614
773-325-4475
Darcy Martin
Women’s Studies
East Tennessee State University
(423) 439-6311
by SB Sarah • Tuesday, November 11, 2008 at 01:50 AM
Our Grade:
Title: Talking With the Dead
Author: Shiloh Walker
Publication Info: Samhain Publishing November 2006, ISBN: B000R93DC6
Genre: Romantic Suspense
This was a free Kindle download from Sam Hain (distant cousin to Sam Adams) and since it was three dots long (the length of a book on the Kindle is depicted by a series of dots beneath the title in the contents section of the device) I figured it would be a quick read for me.
Let me say outright: there were a lot things that frustrated me about this story, but Shiloh Walker’s writing is not one of them. Despite the elements that I’ll get to in a moment, I’ll be looking for Walker’s books in the future because her writing is SOLID. The narrative voice was unique and inviting, and often underscored the subtle language differences between the hero (a Southern man) and the heroine (an Indiana sheriff). The plot was tight, with growing and ebbing tension.
Even in the confines of a novella, the hero was nuanced and sympathetic. Michael O’Rourke can hear the dead, see the dead, and generally gets pestered by the dead who aren’t pleased that they’re dead because they wouldn’t be if not for whatever murdering fucknut who killed them. O’Roarke is nearly burnt out entirely, and he began his adult life with most of his innocence and humor cut off by a neglectful, abusive mother. He was saved only by the love and watchful care of his brother. The heroine, Daisy Crandall, is a small town Indiana sheriff plagued by a serial killer who kidnaps women, rapes them repeatedly, chokes and revives them, and then cuts them all over so they exsanguinate slowly, too weak to get help after their dying bodies are dumped in a field. Sick mother fucker.
O’Rourke rolls into town because he’s guided by the sense of anguish and terror that cloaks the town limits, and finds himself assisting both Daisy and the latest victim in the quest for the killer. O’Rourke’s past is revealed in the initial chapter, so he’s already wrenchingly sympathetic. Daisy, on the other hand, must confront the limitations of her own investigation and figure out why this O’Rourke guy is so damn creepy.
Walker has serious skillz with the dramatic tension, the descriptions, the pacing, the mood and the narration, and as a character O’Rourke is marvelously written. I particularly adored the dialogue between O’Rourke and his brother – familial banter with an extraordinary subtext, and humor balanced with pain. Those were definitely my favorite scenes.
There’s very little “meh” in this novella for me – I either adored parts or was screeching about others. The good, I’ve outlined. I don’t know if I can underscore how good I found the good parts, particularly Walker’s writing. It’s damn good. So what made me screech?
There’s a serial killer in a small town in Indiana, and not once does Daisy have to deal with a panicked town? Why aren’t more people flipping out?
The villain was plenty scary but once he’s revealed in full, he becomes less so to the point where he’s too easily vanquished. There was no explanation of who he was or how he fit into the community – or how he managed to be an uncaught yet prolific serial killer in a small town in the first place.
But the two most jarring elements were the unresolved plot points, and the sexuality between the protagonists. The romance between protagonists was flat, and it went from “Hey you’re cute” and “You have a nice ass” with a soupçon of “Gee your hair smells terrific” to serious bonerating in .02 seconds. Plus, since that rapid acceleration of bonerating status happens AFTER some violent discussion of rape and the murder victims, it was hard for me to separate the two because the protagonists’ attraction was so flimsy and based on so little time together that it read like satiation of lust instead of true emotional connection, even the beginnings of one. Plus, the subtext of the seizing sexual gestures within their first encounter was discomfiting when contrasted the villain in the preceding chapters.
Further, the resolution of O’Roarke’s brother’s story is left out, despite several specific statements as to what end his brother is seeking. O’Roarke’s brother is one of the factors that enables the reader to understand the nobility and strength of his character; to see his brother cheated of his own resolution in the end of the story was terribly unsatisfying. Unless there’s a second book about him, I am really, truly bummed that he didn’t have his own ending. The lack of resolution to that particular plot point, since it supercedes all the other resolutions that Michael must seek on behalf of others every day of his extraordinary life, is disappointing and leaves a great void in my enjoyment of the novella.
But even despite those dangling threads and my questions of the scope of the villainy, Shiloh Walker has some badass writing chops. Her writing is sharp, descriptive, and intelligent, and I was instantly dragged into her story. That’s quite a talent, considering how short novellas are. The fact that I missed the ending to the journeys of ancillary characters is also a testament to Walker’s talent, because I gave a hell of a crap about secondary characters, and missed seeing them reach a satisfactory ending. As I said, I’m definitely keeping my eye out for more, as I am ever a fan of unique and fascinating character collections.
by SB Sarah • Monday, November 10, 2008 at 12:07 PM
Should you be looking to become a full-time writer of romance, I have the one web site on the internet with all the answers to your many, many questions. Well, no, I don’t. I have the exact opposite.
There’s a lot of meaningless drivel on the internet (hi there!) and most of it merits exactly zero notice, but this site is just a clusterfuck of wowser: Got the Thing in Becoming a World-renowned Writer?. The first paragraph alone may harm you, your neighbors, and possibly people you don’t even know. You might be so spellbounded by the writing that you pass out cold, particularly after this piece of advice:
You write what you read and that means you need to read a love of romance stories to get some ideas from experts before you and that’s it in the nutshell
Wait, that’s it? Really?
But the site that page links to is an even bigger treasure trove of WTF, particularly this quote:
If you’ve ever finished a great romance and thought to yourself, “Hey, I could write one of those!” there has never been a better time than the present to fulfill your dreams.
Yes. Fuck the economy. Quit your job now!
Seriously. If you’ve ever finished a great romance and thought to yourself, “Hey, I can do that!” you have one of the following problems:
a. a clearly deluded sense of how easy it is to write a great romance (hint: it is not easy)
b. an inaccurate method of evaluating that which might be a “great romance.”
I mean, sheesh, who hasn’t finished a romance novel so profound in its brilliance that it leaves you in breathless tears, and paused to think, “Nice, but I could do better.”
by SB Sarah • Monday, November 10, 2008 at 02:08 AM
The Sam Hain (not to be confused with Sam Adams, or Sam Bucca) Free Kindle book of the week has been announced: Bianca D’Arc’s MaidenFlight.
Dragon menage? No way? Yes way. Three way!
by SB Sarah • Sunday, November 09, 2008 at 06:31 PM
All I’m saying is, for this much money, the Kindle better harness nuclear energy to make eggs, do laundry, and drive me to work every day. Holy shit. $6,232.00 for an EBOOK?! And that’s 20% off!
I mean, I get nervous wearing nice jewelry sometimes on the subway. Imagine having a SIX THOUSAND DOLLAR ebook on the Kindle?! I’d be afraid to touch the damn thing.
[Thanks to Student Tech News for the link.]
