My first really helpful link I got from Smart Bitches, a site that writes very critical reviews of romance novels. This was one of the first sites I stumbled upon that gave me a sort of vindication... here was a site that was not afraid to give a book a really bad review. Here was a site that held romance novels to the same standards as any other type of novel. I felt like I had finally found a place, a group of people that felt the same way that I did... that just because romance novels are popular fiction didn't mean they had to be badly written.
For a long time I lurked, and then was lured into commenting. And then my second break happened. In reference to a Romance Writers Association award, SBTB linked to Teach Me Tonight, a blog about scholarship on romance novels!!! Really, things just don't get better than that.
So, following a variety of links, these are some of the websites that I found helpful:
The RWA's Academic Research Grant Homepage, where they list the past recipients. I'm definitely looking these people up to see what else they've written.
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Jennifer! Hey there. I'm this year's recipient of the RWA Grant, but I doubt that's gone live yet on the website. A couple of articles you want to read that you can find references for on the Wiki: mine ("'Expressing' Herself"--despite the title, it's all about the heroes), Dawn Heinecken's from Romantic Conventions, and then there's a whole bunch in Dangerous Men, Adventurous Women edited by Jayne Ann Krentz (the author).
Narrowing down to one or two authors (I've got a conference paper that will eventually be an article on Suz Brockmann and J.R. Ward's heroes, for example) or a specific type of scene, or even a specific sub-genre. Try to find something you've already read a great deal of, because then you just have to flesh out the edges, so to speak.
This is a very exciting time to be part of romance criticism, and it's fabulous to have you start in your undergrad! If you'd like me to read drafts or the final product--I don't know how things work at your school--I'd be happy to do so.
My email is my first and last name as one word at gmail.
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