News Archives - Programs
ReReading the Romance
Saturday, June 21, 1997
Sponsored by The Maumee Valley Chapter of
The Romance Writers of America
and The Browne Library
In 1996 the Romance Writers of America decided to place their organizational archives at the internationally famous Browne Library. ReReading the Romance was a one-day symposium, bringing writers and scholars together to celebrate this landmark event in romance scholarship.
Speakers: Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Keynote Speaker, "The
Power of Love: The Romance Novel at the Millennium; or, How the Ladies
Had the Last Laugh"
Love has powered the career of Susan Elizabeth Phillips, multi-award winning
author of ten romances. Her novels, published in fourteen languages, consistingly
hit the New York Times, Publishers Weekly and USA Today best
seller lists. It Had to Be You, her seventh book, was voted Fovorite
Book of the Year by the membership of the Romance Writers of America, and garnered
four other prestigious awards. Many of her other books have been named Best
Romance of the Year or have received Reviewers' Choice Awards. Susan also contributed
to Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of
the Romance, which received the PCA/ACA Women's Caucus Susan Koppelman
Award for Excellence in Feminist Studies of Popular Culture and American Culture.
She delivered the keynote speech at the Romance Writers of America national
conference in New Orleans in 1991.
After graduating from Ohio University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in
theater, Susan did postgraduate work at the University of Iowa. She taught
high school for six years in the Columbus, Ohio, public school system. She
now lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and two sons.
Jennifer Crusie Smith, Luncheon Speaker, "Re-Visioning the
Myth: How Romance Writers Adapt Myth and Fairy Tale"
Sizzle, a Stolen Moments novella, won the Silhouette Short
Reads Contest, launching Jennifer Crusie Smith's first sale in
1992. Jennifer began writer romances as part of her research for
her doctoral dissertation and has since written nine category novels
for Harlequin and Bantam. Getting Rid of Bradley won the
Romance Writers of America Rita Award for Best Short Contemporary
Romance and Anyone But You was named one of the Best Books
of 1996 by the Library Journal. Jennifer's academic publications
range from "This Is Not Your Mother's Cinderella," an essay on
fairy tales in romance fiction, in the forthcoming Scholars
on Romance, and "Romancing Reality" in the journal Paradoxa to
a book of literary criticism, Anne Rice: A Critical Companion.
With a bachelor's degree in art education from Bowling Green State U niversity
and a master's degree in both professional writing and women's literature from
Wright State University, Jennifer is currently in the Ph.D. program and completing
her MFA in fiction at the Ohio State University. She is exploring the use of
humor in 20th century western women's popular literature for her dissertation.
Her main ambitions in life are to graduate from college and learn how to plot,
not necessarily in that order.
Alison Scott & Cathie Linz, Closing Speakers, "Romance in
the Stacks"
What do pulp art, Sherlock Holmes and Virginia Woolf have in common? Alison
has published on these diverse topics. After working in rare book libraries
in Illinois, New York and Massachusetts, Alison came to Bowling Green State
University in 1993 to head the Browne Library. She received her Ph.D. in American
Studies from Boston University in 1995.
"Light, lively, and sexy . . . " is the way Library Journal describes Cathie Linz's books. Since leaving her career in a university law library, she has had more than thirty romances published in nearly twenty languages. Romantic Times has given Cathie its prestigious Storyteller of the Year Award. In 1995 Cathie received the Romance Writers of America's highest service award--the National Service Award--for her work in educating others about the romance genre. Her first trilogy for Silhouette Desire, Three Weddings and a Gift, debuted last fall with Michael's Baby, Seducing Hunter, and Abbey and the Cowboy, her thirtieth novel. Cathie lives in the Chicago area with her family.
