Wednesday, June 25, 2008

New Posts

I apologize for the lapse in making new posts. Some good news on the personal front has kept me busy for the past few months: I'm engaged! It's an exciting time, especially since I'm still working on two joint educational ventures: an MS in Information Studies (emphasis: Web Design and Instructional Technolgoy) and a Ph.D. in English (emphasis: Regency Women Writers). I'm in the process of creating a new website to showcase my research on the Regency era and on its women writers, in particular. So, I'll be sharing a lot of different news over the next few months. At this point, I'm half-way done with a new story, which will be historical-paranormal, though no time-travel this time.

Call for People: The International Association for the Study of Popular Romance (IASPR)

Exciting news: the scholars behind the educational and entertaining blog Teach Me Tonight are looking for volunteers to help out on with the creation of a new society and new journal. I've copied and pasted the information below:

Teach Me Tonight: IASPR and JRPS
This is a Call For People, rather than a Call For Papers. It is time for an academic society for the study of popular romance fiction, with all the rights and privileges appertaining thereunto, like a journal and conferences. So we have decided to start one! "We" being myself, Eric Selinger, and a few other people who are already interested in being involved.

The society will be called The International Association for the Study of Popular Romance (IASPR) and the journal will be an online, open-source journal called The Journal of Popular Romance Studies (JPRS).

So, we're looking for people who might be interested in helping us build these institutions. Do you want to get in on the ground floor? Do you already have experience in the hierarchy of an academic organization or with an academic journal that you'd love to share with us, even if you don't want to be involved in the day-to-day aspects of running either? Please let us know! For minimum involvement, for example, we're going to need people to act as peer reviewers for the journal, so please let us know your specific area of interest in romance novels (paranormals? inspirationals? Regencies? heroes? romances published in the 1950s?). For maximum involvement, we're going to need journal editors and IASPR board members. We especially need the input of people who might have done any of this before, so you can at least tell us what to avoid! :)

For now, the contact person for both the society and the journal is myself, Sarah Frantz. Comment here with a way to contact you and I'll email you post-haste. (Or you can contact me at my Gmail account, which is my full first and last names as one word.)

Let me know what you're interested in doing (A highly-valued affinity for numbers? You could be Treasurer! Technical Know-how? We need Web Gurus! Organization? We need a Membership Chairperson!). Or if you don't know specifically what you might be able to contribute, but are really interested in being a part of the process, let us know that, too! We promise, we'll find a use for you.