Eliot

The op's username is inaccurate. This is an excellently drawn cat

Living in Minnesota right now feels like being in the emergency room. Literally everyone is suffering in different ways, even if it's "just" a badly twisted ankle rather than a kidney stone or a full-on heart attack. The staff are working as hard as they can but energy and resources are dwindling.

I want "sometimes the third-act breakup should stick" on a T-shirt, much truth :)

Romantic stories that aren't "romance" (in marketing or other terms) absolutely do say "x love story matters," and in many ways litfic (for example) has MORE cultural cachet & authority than romance. But also being defined out of romance per se is political and can hit hard. Interesting dynamics.

but I think it's tied up with what the genre means to us (emotionally, not definitionally) and how we perceive genre romance's particular cultural power or authority...I'd guess specifically (usually?) in the area of "who deserves love and what intimate lives are important/worthy/good."

One thing that this and many similar wonderings/efforts bring up for me is the separate but related question: What is the point of getting certain narratives under the "romance" genre label? (Not dismissively, for real!) I suspect the answer is different for older texts and for current publishing,

(now wondering if on a not-relevant-to-my-work-with-current-romance-yet-interesting level the idea of "forever" depends on Christian ideas re being reunited in Heaven? which had never occurred to me bc lolwut, but obviously faith stuff is in the mix from the jump w/the novel & romance specifically)

I do see what you're saying (here, & more broadly about what rel's are celebrated), and our culture does magical thinking, but since everybody dies and thus there is no forever relationship, I tend more toward "it hasn't stuck the landing if we can't believe they'll be together like next Tuesday."

Yeah ... I mean also, I take it as pretty non-literal, an acronym grabbed from fairytale language that's taken on a technical meaning in genre. Probably in part because I tend to read romance with marginalized characters who simply are not like "and now nothing bad shall happen ever again."

When I'm not being a teacher/editor/critic I will totally be like "ugh that wasn't a romance, that person is gross, happy would have been getting tf out" so ... certainly uses vary by context :) And perhaps the HEA can only be legible if *some* readers beyond the writer can see the ending as happy?

The question of whether I (or another reader) agrees that the relationship is good/desirable/acceptable is, for me, largely about "is the book successful" or "do I like it," rather than "is it a romance" or "is this an HEA." Buuut ...

In my view, for the purposes of genre romance, an HEA is an ending that involves the romantic leads in a committed (in some way) romantic relationship with each other, and *the book signals* that this is good news.

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I have literally no idea when or why my great whatever grandparents moved to the US. Which is kind of interesting, I suppose--a combo of utterly disconnected from genealogy/"family" as part of identity + my families of origin not talking much about histories more than a couple generations back.

In the romance history class I'm taking, we're reading Jane Eyre, but I'm just brushing up bc I do not have time to reread Jane Eyre. Anyway I just did a pretty detailed plot summary out loud to my partner, then checked online bc it's been 20+ yrs, and I'm very proud about being 100% right.

I'm actually very sad about today's loss, but: Terry Pratchett was the heartbreaking one.

❤️

A stack of thin pink books that say OBSTETRIX * NAOMI KRITZER on the spine

HEY I AM DOING A FUNDRAISER FOR MINNESOTA RENT FUNDS

AND GIVING AWAY A SIGNED ARC (advance review copy) OF OBSTETRIX

THAT'S RIGHT YOU CAN HELP MINNESOTA FAMILIES AND MAYBE GET A FREE EARLY SIGNED COPY OF MY BOOK

I have put up signed copies of books 1–3 of the Wisconsin Gothic series as prizes. I will draw hedgehogs in them and write history facts.

janehadleywrites.com/romanceformn/

oh shit the art in this piece hits hard

I think immediately of Cat Sebastian's A Gentleman Never Keeps Score.

NO. BRAIN. NOVEL. (No not that other one, you absolute rascal.)

that cat is not ceding any ground; respect

A Visual Tour of Minneapolis’ Radical History The city’s all-out rebellion against ICE builds on more than a century of labor and social justice organizing, explains archivist Isaac Silver.

Very cool history told through Isaac Silver's incredible collection of leftist ephemera inthesetimes.com/article/visu...

Thank you ❤️ what a beautiful friend you're got there!

Check in on your Twin Cities friends, family, colleagues, distant acquaintances. (Thank you, friends and colleagues, who've been doing this so beautifully for me.) Don't know what to say? Send a cat picture, we love that shit. "This sucks, thinking of you." "You and your neighbors are in my heart."

On LitHub today. Kao Kalia Yang's Letter from Minnesota.

oh I meant to ask months ago if you've read that one, thought of you, we should chat sometime!

Mutual Aid by Dean Spade is free on Libro for the next week (until 2/2). 

We know that books can't fix everything, but they can help us show up for and strengthen our communities. Our employee book club read this last year, leading to a great discussion. We hope that it helps others do the same 💗 ⏬

hey! we're looking for a sensitivity reader and/or consultant for a large @farhorizonscoop.bsky.social project. we would like someone familiar with the topics of colonialism and imperialism, particularly non-white people or people from former British colonies. paid gig. reply or DM if interested.