For hundreds of years, romance novels have been derided as fluff, degraded as 'light reading' and ignored as a literary genre. Yet they're among the biggest revenue drivers for authors and publishers from print to Kindle. And they're almost every woman's guilty pleasure, starring women making choices for themselves, their lovers, their children and their future.
Panel One: Romance Novels as a Feminist Trope Through the Centuries
We explore power of the female protagonist over time, the multi-billion dollar romance novel industry and ever so much more in conversation between moderator (and author) Maya Rodale (Dangerous Books for Girls), Sarah MacLean, Carla Neggers, and Ashley Antoinette.
Panel Two: Erotic Writing and the Role of the Woman
The fantastic Feminista Jones will be moderating a second panel, including Alisha Rai, Jordan Silver, and Rebekah Weatherspoon, about the giggle/wiggle thing that is the erotically-charged portrayal of the female body in the written word.
An afterparty will gather at
Pravda, 281 Lafayette, New York (around the corner)
from ~9:30pm
Maya Rodale began reading romance novels in college at her mother’s insistence. She is now the bestselling and award winning author of numerous smart and sassy romance novels. A champion of the genre and its readers, she is also the author of the non-fiction book Dangerous Books For Girls: The Bad Reputation Of Romance Novels, Explained and has written for The Huffington Post, NPR, Bustle.com and more. Maya lives in New York City with her darling dog and a rogue of her own.
Sarah MacLean has degrees in history and cultural anthropology from Smith College and Harvard University. Before becoming a full-time author (and new mother!), Sarah worked in book publicity and marketing, helping to launch notable consumer awareness campaigns for the likes of J.K. Rowling (for the Harry Potter books). She has also worked in
conjunction with the Gates Foundation, and is a vocal advocate for issues relating to education and literacy. When this bestselling author is not writing romance, she travels the
country to discuss the romance genre and its place in both gender and cultural studies. She writes a monthly column celebrating the best in romance for the Washington Post, and her columns have appeared in the New York Times Book Review and Parents Magazine. She lives in New York City with her husband, her daughter and their dog.
New York Times bestselling author Carla Neggers is always plotting her next adventure—whether in life or for one of her novels. She wrote her first stories when she climbed her favorite sugar maple with pad and pen at age eleven. Now she is the author of more than sixty novels of romantic suspense and contemporary romance, including her acclaimed Sharpe & Donovan and Swift River Valley series. Her books have sold in over thirty countries, with translations in two-dozen languages, and have earned awards, rave reviews and the loyalty of readers.
Carla’s curiosity and vivid imagination are key to creating the complex relationships and deep sense of place in her books. At the core of every novel she writes is what Publishers Weekly has called her “flair for creating likable, believable characters and her keen recognition of the obstacles that can muddle relationships.”
Carla sold her first book not long after graduating magna cum laude from Boston University with a degree in journalism. An accomplished musician, she studied with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and freelanced as an arts-and-entertainment reporter—always with a novel in the works.
Feminista Jones is a mental health social worker, sex-positive feminist writer, public speaker, and community activist from New York City. She is an award-winning blogger and author of the popular erotic thriller, Push The Button. With a focus on women’s health and well-being, specifically in areas of mental and sexual health, she is currently the Love & Sex section editor at BlogHer.com and former sex columnist at Ebony.com. Feminista has been featured in several online publications, notably as a contributor to Salon.com and TIME.com, and she has been syndicated in TheRoot.com and TheGriot.com. For two years, she hosted a sex-positive feminist podcast called This Week In Blackness: After Dark, which discussed topics related to sex and sexuality, race, and feminism.
Feminista has been regularly featured on Huffingpost Live, has appeared on the Dr. Oz Show and the Exhale Show, and her work has been featured on C-SPAN and MSNBC. In 2013, Feminista was selected as a United Nations Foundation Fellow for her dynamic social media influence. In 2014, she launched a global anti-street harassment campaign (#YouOKSis) and a National Moment of Silence protesting police brutality (#NMOS14), both of which received international media attention. For this work, she was awarded the 2014 Black Weblog Award for Outstanding Online Activism. Feminista has presented at various conferences at universities and, in 2014, she was honored as one of the Top 100 Black Social Influencers by The Root. Feminista is also a mom, a mentor to young girls, and vocal advocate for the homeless.
Alisha Rai fell in love with the romance genre as a teenager, and that love has only grown. She writes hot and emotional contemporary erotic romance novels and is a fierce proponent of increased diversity in romance and media. Her books have been nominated for the RT Reviewers Choice Award and have received critical attention and rave reviews from sources such as Library Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, NPR, and Bitter Empire. Alisha lives in Washington, D.C., where she spends her time solving problems, dreaming up sexy heroes and heroines, and tweeting.
Raised in Southern New Hampshire, Rebekah Weatherspoon now lives in Southern California where writing is one of her many gigs. Before moving west, she received a B.A. in English Literature with a concentration in Shakespearean Works from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She writes erotic romance, both paranormal and contemporary, New Adult and Adult. Her BDSM romance At Her Feet won the Golden Crown Literary Award for erotic lesbian fiction and most recently her novella FIT (#1 in the FIT Trilogy) won the Romance Times Book Reviews Reviewers' Choice Award for Best Erotica Novella. You can find out more about Rebekah and her books at www.rebekahweatherspoon.com
