Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 67
March 9, 2011
IASPR Workshops Announced
Workshop Summaries for this summer's International Association for the Study of Popular Romance conference are now available.
I'm attending, as an audience member–let me know if you'll be there, and we can say hi!
I'm particularly interested in these papers:
–Jonathan A. Allan (University of Toronto): The Fetish Commodity of Virginity in Popular Romance Novels
–Len Barot/Radclyffe (Author, editor, publisher, Bold Stroke Books): Queering the Alpha
–Sarah S. G. Frantz (Fayetteville State...
March 8, 2011
Centenary of International Women's Day
Today you can check out my post on "a romance for the ages, Kermit and Miss Piggy" over at Heroes and Heartbreakers.
2011 is the centenary of International Women's Day!
Joyce Stevens' history of IWD in words and images.
A brief history of the holiday at the United Nations' website.
A 1920 socialist proclamation: "But Women's Day did achieve something. It turned out above all to be an excellent method of agitation among the less political of our proletarian sisters. They could not help but...
March 7, 2011
New to my TBR
Alert! I should have a post going up at Heroes and Heartbreakers about one of my all-time favorite romantic couples some time today – will post a direct link once it's available.
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I've been more careful about buying fiction lately. My To Be Read piles are so frightening that I probably couldn't complete them all within the next decade unless I don't do anything but read.
However, that doesn't mean I've stopped buying books.
Here are a few of my recent choices, that I think deserve more...
March 6, 2011
Geoffrey Dearmer, "She To Him"
She To Him
The day you died, my Share of All
My soul was tossed
Hither and thither, like a leaf,
And lost, lost, lost,
From sounds and sight,
Beneath the night
Of gloom and grief.
But –
(Hush, for the wind may hear)
Soon, soon you came in solitude:
And we renewed
All happiness.
Now, who shall guess
How close we are, my dear?
(Hush, for the wind may hear.)
Yet –
Other women wait
Their doors ajar;
And listen, listen, listen,
For the gate,
And murmur, "Soon, the war
Will seem a far,
Dim agony of sleep."
Ma...
March 5, 2011
Geoffrey Dearmer, "From 'W' Beach"
From 'W' Beach
The Isle of Imbros, set in turquoise blue,
Lies to the westward; on the eastern side
The purple hills of Asia fade from view,
And rolling battleships at anchor ride.
White flocks of cloud float by, the sunset glows,
And dipping gulls fleck a slow-waking sea,
Where dim steel-shadowed forms with foaming bows
Wind up in the Narrows towards Gallipoli.
No colour breaks this tongue of barren land
Save where a group of huddled tents gleams white;
Before me ugly shapes like spectres stand,
March 4, 2011
Top 3 Reasons I Love Historical Romance
1. The outfits. Dukes have bigger…coronets of rank. Also, the hats. Men in hats. Women in hats. People these days…not enough hats. Or gloves. There's something about concealment beneath all those almost fetishistic garments…it makes you wonder what else they're hiding. There aren't enough calling cards in modern life, either. Or boots: tall, shiny men's boots. Women's boots with dozens of little hooks. Boots flecked with the mud of the road. Boots polished with champagne....
March 3, 2011
Various reviews, 2008- 2010
It's been a while since I've compiled reviews, if I ever did, so here are links to some of the longer, more detailed reviews of my novels:
Read, React, Review reviewed The Duchess, Her Maid, The Groom and Their Lover twice: number one and number two (for politics).
Impressions of a Reader reviewed The Moonlight Mistress.
Culinary Carnivale reviewed The Moonlight Mistress.
Great War Fiction reviewed The Moonlight Mistress, even though it isn't his usual sort of thing at all!
The Discriminating F...
March 2, 2011
A Moment of Geek
We interrupt this blog for an important moment of Geek.
'We Brought Succour to Belgium', novelist May Sinclair's brief memoir of 23 September – 25 October 13, 1914, when she was a nurse at Ostend and Antwerp. The coolest part? She mentions seeing a Taube. I cannot adequately convey how absolutely thrilling that is to me. Even more thrilling than if she'd seen a zeppelin. I haven't found much at all about Taubes yet.
More on Sinclair; the article quotes letters she wrote to poets Charlotte ...
March 1, 2011
World War One Linkgasm
New links!
African-Americans in the Great War at Edwardian Promenade.
Last U.S. WWI veteran dies at 110.
Old Links!
This rest of this linkgasm is primarily for my own convenience, to replace a bookmarking site that's closing down, but I thought some of you might appreciate these links I've collected over the last few years, as well. These aren't the first links you'd find on an internet search, but ones I located a few layers down, when I was searching on more specific items.
February 28, 2011
2011 So Far
2011 seems to be going well so far, writing-wise. I had January and February off from my choir (rehearsals begin again in March), so I planned deliberately to focus on writing, especially in February.
In preparation, in mid-December I read through an abandoned novel for the first time since August, with the plan of turning it into a short piece of 15-20,000 words. I cut out large chunks of subplot, saving them in separate files. I won't tell how much I cut, because, ouch! Then I let it...
