Panel 2: The Novel as a Site of Education, Challenge, and Hope
The panel will discuss romance as a site and vehicle for learning, teaching, and ethics with themes of race, sexuality, gender, and more.
Panel 3: Romance on the public stage
The panel will discuss the various public receptions, reputations, and material transformations of romance over the decades; book history and literary criticism about popular fiction by black people; the phenomena of media romance; and the innovative oral histories created through podcasts by a PhD scholar, romance writer, and romance critic.
Master class “The Art of Character Building”
This workshop will include techniques for creating unique and memorable literary characters. Participants can learn how to ask the right questions of their characters to give them depth and authenticity.
Interactive Reading and Feedback
An interactive reading of the participants’ works followed by feedback from other writers and possibly even invited experts.