Welcome back to Wednesday Links! How are we all feeling?
I just received news that the event I’m moderating for Lovestruck Books is sold out and they’re taking only waitlist names now. I’m ecstatic but also want to vomit from nerves. But no, I know it’ll be great. Seriously, if you haven’t visited the space, I highly recommend it.
Aside from that, my peachy pinky home office is coming together. Painting is done, my desk is in, and my new computer is ready to go! I’m living that “ultra wide monitor” life and it’s quite the adjustment. There’s also going to be a tiny reading nook with a big fluffy chair. I’m just really delighting in designing my own space for gaming, reading, and crafting.
I’m also starting a stitch-a-long! The theme is the “stitchers book club.” It’s my first SAL, but I’m looking forward to it. Do you have any projects you hope to start this year?
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I admittedly laughed at the question of: Are romantasy novels an affront to Welsh mythology? However, the article does refer to them more as “fairy porn,” which is pretty telling on where things stand.
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Author Kimberly Lemming visited the Love in the Library exhibition at Indiana University’s Lilly Library. One of her books was featured! Have you had a chance to visit yet?
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Speaking of romantasy hubbub, a plagiarism scandal is brewing!
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Did you think Baroness Shraeder deserved better in The Sound of Music? This song is for you.
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Don’t forget to share what cool or interesting things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!
Jenna Bush Hager will be part of RHPG with the Thousand Voices imprint. It will have multiple genres, including romance:
https://global.penguinrandomhouse.com/announcements/introducing-thousand-voices-x-rhpg-a-new-publishing-venture-from-the-random-house-publishing-group-jenna-bush-hagers-thousand-voices-media/
I was going to link to that New Yorker plagiarism article! It landed in my mailbox today.
The Guardian trying to get to grips with romantasy is amusing – but really, Ireland needs to get in there first if we’re complaining about countries being stereotyped in fantasy.
Not sure where else to post this, so just wanted to share that this week’s episode of The Big Gay Fiction podcast is the last. Husbands & co-hosts, Jeff Adams & Will Knauss, announced at the beginning of the episode that, after producing the show for ten years, they felt it was time to move on to other ventures (I believe both of them are published authors). I was sad to see the podcast come to an end, but I certainly wish them well in their future endeavors.
That plagiarism article is really interesting. The author seems to have done a good job looking into the case. I’m interested to see how it plays out and inclined to avoid books by Entangled Publishing.
“Pelletier said, ‘I wrote that sentence, but I was using Tracy’s voice.’” Sheesh.
I love the video, and it gave me an excuse to revisit this bit of snark: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-regret-to-inform-you-that-my-wedding-to-captain-von-trapp-has-been-canceled
I enjoyed the humor in the video and the article (thanks, @Deborah) but … does the song bring Christine Lavin’s music to anyone else’s mind?
Is the Welsh thing really just because of the names? Irish, Scots, and (let’s not forget) English, need not apply? Also that article is really smug. Hell, there’s even fairy traditions outside of the UK!
Also having dragons makes Fourth Wing Welsh? (insert ‘sure Jan’ gif here)
I think it’s worth noting that The Guardian’s Pass Notes column is satire!
This exhibition of imaginary and fictional books (the article below explains) sounds awesome—apparently it’s coming to the Book Club of San Francisco next, wish they’d say when:
https://observer.com/2025/01/art-review-imaginary-books-the-grolier-club/
@discodollydeb: Will has apparently just released his first romance in years under the new pen name William Gayheart, so maybe he and Jeff will be more prolific with books now? Hope so!
I believe the Guardian piece is based on a real article originated it seems from The Telegraph. I had to follow a series of links from the column.
I feel that anti-romantasy lady is actually being DEEPLY patronizing herself. 1) It’s not at all only Welsh/Anglo; there’s eastern european and asian and middle eastern and latin american and these books are inspired by ALL THE THINGS. Fae and magical beings absolutely did NOT have Wales as their cradle of inception. They’re everywhere.
2) Yes, there is a great deal of smut in these books; just like in traditional romance – but by engaging in this “written for 15 year old girls”, they are engaging in the most base, awful, sexist reductionism that if something is written for females, younger people, or god forbid, YOUNG FEMALES, then it is inherently lacking in value and should not exist (see examples in well, all of pop culture everywhere). This has been the trend for decades, and I was hoping we would start to maybe move past it, but I guess not. When Twilight is still used as the yardstick/boogeyman for how young/female adult literature has been and forever will be shiite, it’s infuriating. Was it shiite? Maybe. Should one potentially problematic book be the eternal lodestone around which other, broader, richer, more mature books (in terms of character and plot) are rejected? GAH. We are never going to break out of this f-g net and never taken seriously as “real” literature, “real” books worth spending time on.
Sorry for rant. This infuriates me, lol.
Update: the Welsh Romantasy story is in this week’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. So that’s fun.