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Continue reading →: A Sunday with 3 Amazing Authors! (and me!)- UPDATED with video link!This Sunday, March 17th on Zoom, I’ll be moderating a panel of three amazing authors; Kelly Link, Beverly Jenkins, and Sandra Kitt. Inspired by the romance author character of Maryanne Gorch in Kelly’s new novel The Book of Love (which is not a romance, to be clear!), we’ll be talking…
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Continue reading →: Writing in Black and WhiteWhile I like to use Black History Month as an opportunity to share stories of Black love, there’s another aspect of the romance industry that I think is worth highlighting to give context to the experience of Black authors in the genre. As the 1980s began, shorter “category” romances served…
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Continue reading →: Black Romance Author History Anniversaries- My 2024 Reading ChallengeHappy New Year! I’ll be honest- I’m not usually a person who starts the year with a reading challenge. Life is too complicated and unpredictable to try and get myself to read a set number of books. But on the other hand it occurred to me that 2024 represents more…
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Continue reading →: Now you can find me on YouTube!When I started doing videos on Instagram a while back, several folks mentioned that they don’t use that platform for a number of legit reasons. It’s taken me a while to get to it, but I finally have a presence on YouTube as well! I’m starting by copying over a…
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Continue reading →: Lest We Forget- Ann Wassall, Pamela Macaluso, and Nancy Richards-AkersIn the world of romance fiction, 1996 was ages ago. As was 1997 and 1999. Authors and readers have come and gone multiple times over since then, as have entire publishing companies and subgenres. Lots of us read our books on handheld computers, something that seemed unthinkable all those years…
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Continue reading →: Men Writing Romance- Donald Bain and Jack PearlWriting teams have been a pretty common occurrence in romance over the years. Modern examples like best friends Christina Lauren (Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings) and the husband and wife team of Ilona Andrews (Ilona and Andrew Gordon), have carried the torch passed by those who came before, like Laura…
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Continue reading →: Steve Sandalis- The Topaz Man!Media reports to the contrary, the 1990s featured romance cover models other than a certain long-haired Italian. One of the most interesting ones to me is Steve Sandalis, aka Topaz Man. In May 1993, Penguin USA (as it was known at the time) announced the upcoming launch of Topaz, an…
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Continue reading →: Thinking About 1994- Reels Version
A couple of months ago, I did a quick Instagram reel about Black romance in 1994. The idea was to show the contrast between Black romances published in the first half of the year (none!) and the second half after the beginning of the Black Summer of Love. As I…
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Continue reading →: Men Who Write Romance- Ken Casper (1941-2021)I’d originally planned to do a reel or two on the Harlequin NASCAR line, a weird and under-remembered early 2000s partnership between two iconic brands. While your first instinct might be to think that this was some oddball attempt to woo male readers, it really seems to have been more…
Hello,
I’m Steve.
For more than a century, romance fiction has served as a mirror for societal ideas of gender, class, and race. I explore the stories behind the books to shed light on how authors, publishers, and editors shaped the genre.
Romance Fiction Has a History 