Laura Vivanco

Yes, someone else queried this section so I contacted Bridget Kies about it and

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Given that one of Bridget's research areas is Gender, sexuality, and LGBTIQA studies, I'm guessing that if gender isn't asked about, that's very deliberate and not due to making assumptions that everyone who reads/writes romance is cis and female.

OK, have heard back from Bridget Kies and, to paraphrase, because she knows that the categories can't fit/suit everyone, the demographic questions have deliberately been made optional, so that no-one's forced into a box that doesn't fit them.

Oh, yes, that would be me too!

I haven't taken the survey myself yet, so I don't know the answer to this, but were either of you able to leave a comment about these issues while responding to the survey? In case you couldn't, I'll tag in @bridgetkies.bsky.social (though I think she may not be on here very frequently).

Thanks!

I suppose that's one benefit of me not having done the age verification thing: no DMs for me!

"The purpose of this survey is to understand attitudes romance authors and readers have toward generative AI use in the romance industry. The results will be used for academic research and publications related to romance and AI."

I know lots of you have strong opinions on this topic, so I hope this will be of interest:

"You are being asked to participate in a survey of romance authors and readers that is being conducted by Prof. Bridget Kies in the Film Studies and Production program at Oakland University."

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

From "Who decides what is read on Goodreads? Uncovering sponsorship and its implications for scholarly Research" by Hu et al journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1... And their data only went up to 2017, so the proportion of "incentivised" reviews (and AI-generated reviews) could well have increased.

Attracted by the promise of a broader and more egalitarian sample of readers than published book reviews provide, researchers are increasingly scraping social reviewing platforms like Goodreads for data about readers’ behavior. Yet, treating online book reviews as direct proxies for readers and books can be problematic, as they are socially and technically constructed artifacts shaped by platform dynamics, whether between developers and users, or book industry stakeholders and reviewers.

Choosing a corpus of texts to study/explaining why you've chosen to study particular texts got harder for romance scholars after we realised the flaws with the RITAs. I've noticed more of us citing Goodreads rankings, but it's worth noting that these need to be approached carefully too.

😨 Hope it goes away soon!

Have also dipped into a couple of Jeffery Farnol, and something about the tone of them made me think he was an influence on The Transformation of Philip Jettan/ Powder and Patch and Simon the Coldheart. Again, early works by Heyer, so I think she was still finding her feet as an author.

These Old Shades is kind of a sequel to Heyer's The Black Moth, with a bit of the backstory + names changed. Basically, the hero of TOS is the villain of TBM. I have a v vague memory of reading bits of Charles Rex + seeing a connection with TOS. Not surprising, since TOS + TBM are both early Heyers.

Nothing to add about the topic itself, but I did spot a typo: "busienesses"

Lorgnette - Wikipedia

I just realised that if you rotate the loop-tailed g 90 degrees clockwise, you get a lorgnette (though the one in this photo has an extra tiny loop which you'd have to ignore).

‘No Plan B’: Water companies fear pollution crackdown will stop them spreading sewage sludge on farmland

Oh, now you've reminded me of sewage sludge! unearthed.greenpeace.org/2025/06/09/s...

Passion’s Fortune: The Story of Mills & Boon Abstract. This is the first history of Mills & Boon, the British publishing phenomenon that has become a household name, synonymous with romantic ficti

I don't think McAleer goes far enough forwards in the company's history to really help with the period you're interested in: academic.oup.com/book/4960?lo...

The merchants of Venus : inside Harlequin and the empire of romance : Grescoe, Paul, 1939- : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive x, 309 p. : 24 cm

You can look inside Grescoe here, which probably has a lot of the details you're looking for: archive.org/details/merc...

I'm writing about romance while traveling and without access to my bookshelves. So, super basic question for my romance peeps: Harlequin was reprinting M&B after '58. Bought M&B in '71. But... the reprints went both ways, yes? The NA/Harlequin titles were being reprinted as M&B in the UK too, y?

Some lines, but not all, and it depends on when you're looking at. I'm not sure when Harlequin set up editorial offices in the US/Canada. Might have had something to do with the takeover of Silhouette?

Call for Papers with a closing date of August 18, 2025 for an edited volume. It will be edited by Nattie Golubov, Eric Selinger and Charlotte Ireland

Yes, but No. 10 is for the Prime Minister, and the original post specifically refers to "residences for a head of state", which in a UK context means the individual whom I'm assuming you meant when you mentioned parasites.

But how are you supposed to be assured that they're not fraudsters if they ring you up unexpectedly and try to get information from you?

I'm guessing the source isn't widely available yet, and I'm also guessing it's related to this, which I could find: www.msn.com/en-ca/news/w...

Britons could soon install balcony solar panels in flats and rental homes Proposals would enable Britons to save on energy bills and join millions of people in Europe who use ‘plug-in’ panels

You've reminded me of an article I saw a while ago about solar balcony panels, which would certainly make them look less like the bars of a jail cell!

So realistic! And also, so cute! 😍🦝

Personally, I don't like that there's a default to sort people into two groups with each judged against an arbitrary set of qualities (that can vary according to the period, place etc) called "masculinity" and "femininity". Why can't we accept that each person is a mix of different qualities?

Yes, and also, if someone did read some dark romance and think that's what women want in real life 😱