Random question: I have a vague recollection of an American short story about immigrants who bring their gods with them. By a female author, maybe early 20th century? (I realise this is also the plot of the novel American Gods). Does anyone have a title or author for this? Or am I hallucinating it?

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I just deleted my Academia account. You can find me easily enough elsewhere. If you need a copy of a chapter or article and cannot get it through your library, I would be extremely delighted to find a request in my inbox!

This is very exciting!!

I had to write about it. The idea that the existence of functional agencies of regulation and oversight for workplaces is now part of the fantasy of romance is MIND BLOWING and also terrifyingly accurate. (Sidenote: A Corps of Health and Safety is a hilarious title and I love it.)

My latest book An Academic Affair is now out in the UK! This is the first of my books to get a proper print release there (exciting!). I hope you enjoy reading about my totally-only-getting-married-on-paper rival academics as much as I did writing them. www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/An-Aca...

Breathtaking! Thanks to Oxford World’s Classics for making this dual edition of Mary Shelley’s ‘The Last Man’ & ‘The Journal of Sorrow’ possible & beautiful! Out in Feb in UK, May in US—in the bicentennial year of these literary masterpieces.

I am very excited to announce the CfP for our Special Issue "Romancing the Posthuman" for JPRS! Please share widely 😀

Artist Danny Flynn sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/flynn_... was born on this day, so here's some of his cover art 1989-1990. 1: Brian Stableford "Journey to the Centre", 2: CJ Cherryh "Hunter of Worlds", 3: Robert t A Heinlein "Red Planet", 4: Adrienne Martine-Barnes "The Sea Sword":

This looks amazing! Very valuable work.

I saw a job posting for a heritage project focused on Romany history. I wasn't sure how visible it would be so wanted to share so that the job gets seen by the people whose history it is focusing on. Give it a share, perhaps? museum-services-jobs.le.ac.uk/job/learning...

I've submitted a proposal and, even if my proposal isn't accepted, I'd love to see the volume succeed in getting to publication, because it's important to know how romance is shaped by/helps to shape what's going on in the world.

What a beautiful piece from RK Russel in the Guardian! www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/a...

Just saw some 2nd anniversary posts for the #Barbie movie, so I replug my paper on its challenging reception in urban Pakistan: From a toy to a tool: the reception of Barbie and cultural ambiguity in contemporary Pakistan - Javaria Farooqui, 2024 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #AcademicSky

Yes this!

"What such machines offer is the spectacle of thought, and in manipulating them people devote themselves more to the spectacle of thought than to thought itself." (from Baudrillard, The Transparency of Evil)

Some more Mexico City!

A little belatedly I'm sharing some of the gorgeous places and and people I encountered in Mexico City, during and after our amazing #IASPR conference at UNAM.

Look, it's not about two scholars who are each other's Reviewer 2, but if you want a rom-com about two bitter academic rivals who end up together written by an academic, then may I point you towards... (I wanted to call it Higher Yearning, but alas, got shot down)

This sounds lovely, and I'm throwing it out there for any Harlequin novelist who is still writing Viking Romance! They don't have as big a presence on Bluesky as on Instagram, but @michellestyles.bsky.social might pass this on?

That's from Guy Lancaster, writing in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette (8 June 2025) www.pressreader.com/usa/arkansas...

"For so long, we have regarded the consumption of Harlequin paperbacks as nigh pathological on the part of women, when in fact, it was the rejection of romance that typified the pathological condition beginning to emerge in American culture at large."

Romance novels are booming in 2025! …Or are they? 🤔 #romancelandia Dive into my deep (and slightly obsessive) look at why today's romance "boom" might just be a whimper compared to decades past. Data, nostalgia, and a sprinkle of snark await: read now! open.substack.com/pub/shelflov...

New publication: "Demisexuality in Ali Hazelwood's STEMinist Series: The Love Hypothesis (2021) and Love, Theoretically (2023)" by Lucía Bausela Buccianti

Here's the abstract. It includes analysis of a novel by Kathleen Woodiwiss:

It's a good day for new publications on romance! Here's a second one: Cobb, Karie L., "Controlling the Narrative: How the United Daughters of the Confederacy Shaped Collective Memory Through Romance Novels" (2025). Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research. 218.

So grateful to have been able to experience the Royal Opera's performance of Die Walküre! The old myths are very much alive for these times.

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Happy Belated Mother's Day, with love to McSweeneys www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/uns...

Een boeiende thread, ook relevant voor @schimmelpenninck.bsky.social

This rings very true!

Got the Michael and Madonna Marsden Grant to present my research "Power, Madness, and Despair: Post #MeToo Analysis of Love Stories on Pakistani Television" at Popular Culture Association conference in New Orleans. Grateful to @pcaaca.bsky.social for this rich experience. #AcademicSky #romancelandia

day 1 of #romance panels on tropes @pcaaca.bsky.social: uses of “hidden identity”, hockey romance & hegemonic masculinity, harassment/bully romance, metafiction on authors,hashtag/discoverability,clothes in historicals,competent/incompetent reading of romance.Tl;dr: people have feelings abt #tropes.

Het Nationale Ballet Lady Macbeth | Helen Pickett and James Bonas Dancer: Anna Tsygankova Photo by Altin Kaftira

In the midst of all the marking I stole an afternoon to take my 11-year old and her best friend to the Tikibad: the largest subtropical swimmingpool in the Netherlands, with 21 slides. We went down all the slides, and then repeated all the scariest ones. It was amazing. I just wanted to share that.

Thanks to my department for combining my and my colleague's Leverhulme Trust teaching buy out into an almost full time (0.9) 1 year post 👇 - Application deadline 16th April #EarlyModern 🗃️ 1/ www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DML369/l...

"It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade." - Charles Dickens.

I know how much Irish people hate when people in the US, UK, or Canada talk about how they are 12% Irish, or whatever. But everybody having some Irish heritage means one thing: Irish people have a reputation as the most prolific shaggers in history. Happy St. Patrick’s Day, you rides. 😘

Preparing for the last book-talk event for this month & feeling pretty overwhelmed by the response to 'Romance Fandom' from PK universities. And the book isn't even available here yet! Reaffirmed in my belief that popular romance studies & fan studies are simply lit #romancelandia #AcademicSky #fans

This virtual event might be of interest to our readers!

Just came across Kristina Busse's article which gives quick rundowns on the origins of mpreg and heats and suggests some reasons for the former's popularity (free pdf from her website at kristinabusse.com/pdf/Busse,%2... )

Dear Romance and YA scholars, I'm keen to find reviewers for the following scholarly books for our Special Issue on YA Literature. If you're interested, email me at [email protected]. For more info on reviews, see here: www.jprstudies.org/submissions/...

For all the Amsterdammians on here: Every time I attend an event by the John Adams Institute I am blown away. They bring great speakers to their stage to inspire, console, stimulate, excite and engage us all. Last Friday, Timothy Snyder spoke on his book On Freedom www.john-adams.nl/timothy-snyd...

I think everyone needs these particular blessings, but I'm especially thinking of my fellow academics at this moment. And my houseplants.

I have taken the resources that were in the budget and which you were probably saving for higher education Forgive me they were needed to feed the AI bubble and to dismantle the humanities

I feel so seen. www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/cla...

A podcast where parents try to explain their children’s PhD

Oh hey, there's a write-up in the Guardian on some of the ways Romancelandia has mobilised in US politics.

It's one year today since Not Here To Make Friends came out in Australia/NZ, and I'm feeling all sentimental about it. www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/Not-He...

Just received my author copies of "Romance Fandom in 21st-Century Pakistan" & the feeling is absolutely great [sorta surreal too]. This little red book of romance will be featuring in many more posts in socials❤️ #AcademicSky #romancelandia #mybook #pakistan #readingculture