Showing posts with label Sarah Wendell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sarah Wendell. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

October's Winners plus Romance and the Resistance with Alisha Rai, Alyssa Cole, and Sarah Wendell

Image result for sos aloha halloween

We have winners at SOS Aloha - Mary P., Heather F., Susan P., and Patoct won a package of fun swag from the RWA Conference this past summer. I know you'll like it!

For November, I continue to giveaway RWA swag to four randomly selected winners from all the comments posted. Plus a bonus price - a leather bookmark for each winner from one of Scotland's castles in honor of St. Andrew's Day on November 30.

Do you have any plans for November?  On November 30, I'll be heading down to Prose and Politics at the Wharf for Romance and the Resistance: A Romance Panel with Alisha Rai, Alyssa Cole, and Sarah Wendell (link):

From historical to steamy to subversive, romance novels are doing everything “literary” fiction does. Introducing her Forbidden Hearts series, Alisha Rai’s Hate to Want You focuses on the forbidden love between Livvy Kane and Nicholas Chandler. Divided by feuding families and a past trauma, they nonetheless have an annual tryst, until a series of complications force them to make a decision. Set in the Civil War era, Alyssa Cole’s Loyal League series takes its name from a secret society of freed blacks and slaves funneling information to the Union. The spies in the first volume, An Extraordinary Union, are Elle Burns, a freedwoman posing as a mute slave in a key confederate household, and Scottish immigrant Malcolm McCall, who purports to be a Confederate soldier.

Rai and Cole will be in conversation with Sarah Wendell, who reviews romances on “Smart Bitches,Trashy Books” and is the author of Everything I Know About Love, I Learned from Romance Novels.

Mahalo,

Kim in Baltimore
Aloha Spirit in Charm City



Saturday, February 28, 2015

Aloha to the Library of Congress - What is Love? Romance Fiction in the Digital Age (part 3)

Library of Congress - Main Reading Room (link)

Continuing my recap of the romance conference hosted by the Center for the Book (link), I was eager to hear Panel 3: Community and the Romance Genre:

Moderator:  Mary Bly/Eloisa James, Professor of English, Fordham University, and romance author

Panelists:  Robyn Carr (romance author), Brenda Jackson (romance author), Kim Castillo (author assistant), Anne Jamison (Associate Professor of English, University of Utah), Kathleen Seidel (romance author and WRW member), and Sarah Wendell (book blogger)

Here are snippets from the conversation (paraphrase) about "community":

Romance is less about sex and more about hope

Robyn:  romance community is a place to comfornt vulnerable emotions in a safe place

Brenda:  garner relationships with readers

Kim:  "pay it forward", reading romance is life affirming, it becomes personal to reader

Sarah:  reading fiction makes us more empathetic

Sarah also asked Robyn how many virgins swam in the river (as her series is called Virgin River).   Sarah is a born entertainer and enthusiastic reader.   

The audience was comprised of romance readers, romance writers, and nonfiction writers curious about the genre.   The panel demonstrated that the romance community is alive, well, and welcoming.

What are your thoughts on the romance community? Comments are open through Saturday, March 7, 10 pm in Baltimore.  I'll post the winner on Sunday, March 8.

Mahalo,

Kim in Baltimore
Aloha Spirit in Charm City

Lucky enjoys the romance community ...