Markéta Šmídová

What's going on with Queer As Folklore? *Deep intake of breath* part 1

Re my previous skeet, Boundless (publisher previously known as Unbound) are today soliciting for pledges via email, so if you're on their mailing list, read this before giving them your money.

A Squid Game meme: "my paper got accepted for a conference" with a man smiling, "me realising I have to write it now" with a man frowning and tired.

Ok that’s one dream fulfilled. @sachacoward.bsky.social is as kind and funny in person as he is in his online talks 💚 I even put together several somewhat coherent sentences!

going to organize a conference on ‘livid experience’ and see how many of the submissions notice

*cracks knuckles* as someone writing an effing dissertation specifically on this, I'm probably the most qualified to say there isn't any (and if there is, pls point me to it).

just blurted out in class "yes, you have to cite where you got your info. in a world in which lying loudly is the only thing that seems to get rewarded, citing your sources is an act of resistance" and folks, I really believe that.

But in your poll, all the options are excellent and you just can’t lose, whereas…

If only scholarly publications came with a short synopsis of the paper right up front, written by the authors to highlight the important and salient points of the study.

We could give it a nifty name, like "abstract".

The Molly Houses of 18th century London were not just the gay bars of the era, but also were settings of vast assortment of gender play, including weddings and "mock birth" rituals where patrons would be reborn in identities and family units of their choosing.

a man in a suit and tie is holding a brown jacket ALT: a man in a suit and tie is holding a brown jacket

Me before a three-day weekend (Monday is a national holiday here): oh yes, a long weekend, I can catch up with chores, work on dissertation, AND relax

Me today:

A footnote: "Because of pronunciation difficulties, Prof. Dr. Newbell Niles Puckett has suggested, in mock seriousness, that the phrase esoteric-exoteric factor be glamorized by terming it the Es-Ex or simply the S-X factor. In like vein, the author admits to no objections to such nicknames.

TMW you read a serious folkloristics essay when suddenly

Absolutely!

Excited to dive into this book! #romancelandia #researchingromance

An older lady, with a string of pearls round her neck.

Mary Burchell remains one of the most successful romance writers, ever. Over 110 Mills and Boon books to her name.

Less well known is that much of her early writing was done for one purpose:

Funding her efforts to get Jews out of Nazi Germany, with her sister.

Mary is a Righteous Gentile. /1 🧵

The Journal of Popular Romance Studies is seeking new members for its editorial team! Like all editorial team roles, these are unpaid volunteer positions. Links to both position adverts can be found on our home page: www.jprstudies.org (1/3)

My review of The Folklore of Devon by Mark Norman has been finally published in Marvels & Tales: digitalcommons.wayne.edu/cgi/viewcont... @folklorepod.bsky.social

Or HEIC

“As difficult to pin down as a mermaid?” Why a mermaid of all things?

“Oh, my friend, those weren’t angels”: Trauma, Recovery and Folklore in The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal and Spectred Isle by KJ Charles | Journal of Popular Romance Studies As Robert Eaglestone says in his chapter in The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma, “some critics have argued or even assumed that trauma can only be represented in complex, challenging and,...

Scholars of historical paranormal romance, folklore, trauma and recovery and/or fans of KJ Charles will want to click into our new article today: an analysis of The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal and Spectred Isle written by @smidovamm.bsky.social! www.jprstudies.org/2024/08/oh-m...

Monika Markéta Šmídová ( @smidovamm.bsky.social ) reviews *1960s Gay Pulp Fiction: The Misplaced Heritage*, ed. by Drewey Wayne Gunn and Jaime Harker and (among lots of other things) finds romance:
www.jprstudies.org/2024/02/revi...

It's a new book review day! If you want to know more about gay pulp fiction (and you do), click here to read @smidovamm.bsky.social's review of the book 1960s Gay Pulp Fiction: The Misplaced Heritage, edited by Drewey Wayne Gunn and Jaime Harker www.jprstudies.org/2024/02/revi...

The Data Does Not Exist to Support "Romance is a Billion Dollar Industry" And, more importantly, we don't need it

The Data Does Not Exist to Support "Romance is a Billion Dollar Industry"
And more importantly, we don't need it to

Alt title: RWA's final romance market data report was in 2013. Stop citing RWA to demonstrate the current size of the romance market.

#romancebks

open.substack.com/pub/shelflov...

If you want to have a spotless home, apply for a PhD.
What I am supposed to do: research and revise my paper
What I have done so far: deepcleaned the fridge, did the dishes, cooked, reorganized bookshelves, took the trash out…

😐

Buy a gift for a fellow romance novel reader who needs help this season. Find all the wishlists and more information. Learn more: bit.ly/holidayfairies Romancelandia Holiday Fairies 2023

Buy a gift for a fellow romance novel reader who needs help this season. Find all the wishlists and more information.

Romancelandia Holiday Fairies in a mutual aid effort for the romance reader community.

shelflovepodcast.com/holiday-fair...

Audiobooks too, if it’s your thing. The two I have listened to (An Unknown Ajax and The Foundling) were very well done.

Damn! What can I say, mom and I isolated for a month due to various injuries (don’t ask), went for one (1) check up, masked, and guess what my mom caught? Yes, covid. Winter can indeed fuck off.

Speedy recovery to you!

I see the Guardian's best romance books of 2023 include a book published in 2019, a book about a relationship that very specifically isn't a romance novel, and the groundbreaking new voice Jilly Cooper who also doesn't write romance. Well done, lads, prime effort.

a text editing blurb, showing 'good girl' corrected to 'satisfactory small woman' "The noun good girl is perhaps a bit too passe and informal for this context. Consider changing the usage to a synonym that can more vividly convey the meaning you are trying to express."

I do not think this will have the same effect, but if you insist

Single graph from newspaper clipping that reads “In order words, Varga’s new male angle on the formula isn’t all that different from the old male-female slant. I imagine that modernity will now condemn us to other sorts of Gothic novel, the black Gothic, the feminist Gothic, the ecological Gothic, the nuclear or antinuclear Gothic, the rock Gothic and the China Gothic — but no matter how many modernist cliches pepper the stew, the result is always a mysterious housekeeper, a strange extravagant manor, rooks cawing through the twilight, muffled sobs, the clank of chains in the attic.”

Excerpt from a contemporary review of Vincent Virga’s GAYWYCK (1980)—known as the first openly gay gothic romance.

Found the clipping in a first edition. The critic, Robert Taylor, pans the book. But his argument is having the opposite effect: my response to it is SIGN ME UP