Respecting the Romance

I think we can all agree that romance rarely, if ever, gets the respect it deserves.  We’ve all put up with our fair share of ribbing, raised eye-brows, and snide comments because, “oh, you read those books”.  Well ladies of the island, this past month I attended a magical event- a gathering of people who wanted to discuss romance not just because they enjoyed it, but because they think it has literary value!

This year’s International Conference on Popular Romance was held at my college, meaning I was lucky enough to attend some of the events.  It’s amazing the tidbits you learn at these things, like Lisa Dale once took a class with my advisor (and fell asleep during it) and SB Sarah can do a kickass Pittsburgh accent.  No worries, I absorbed some academic bits too.  In fact, I was even part of one of the presentations!

Amy Burge, a well-dressed Ph.D. candidate in the Centre for Women’s Studies at the University of York in the UK directed my Popular Romance class (jealous yet?) in a meeting which would later be used in her “(Re)Readingthe Romance: A Hands-On Harlequin Workshop”.  We were all given the cut out words of a single page of a Harlequin novel, which we then rearranged as we saw fit.  Here’s a quick look at how it went:

Don’t I have class with some of the prettiest girls!  Now you also know what some of my friends look like haha : )  I was so glad they didn’t include me in the clip.  I had just rolled out of bed (well, technically I had peeled myself off the floor) and I wasn’t quite rocking the sweats and frizz that morning.

Here’s my interaction with the Harlequin romance:

I think it states the obvious- I am a romance reader and love these “guilty pleasures”!