Welcome back!
I’ve made it back from my vacation with a souvenir sickness. Hooray! That’s what I get for traveling around the start of the school year and to Disney no less. I’ve also heard people talking about having the flu already and they haven’t even had a chance to get their seasonal flu shot.
I also feel like I’m snowballing into “so many things left to get done with so little time.”
Such is life!
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After Dolly’s passing, one of my friends recommended the Dolly Parton’s America podcast, which ran in 2019.
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Joie de Livres in Montreal is hosting a Q&A with Rachel Reid and Peter Peter, who composed the original music for Heated Rivalry. Sarah also did a podcast episode with Claire, one of Joie de Livres’ owners.
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BBC has a profile on romance legend Barbara Cartland. This link was sent in by James S, and I believe a couple of you mentioned it last week.
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Enjoy this cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams.”
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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!
The Game Changers collection campaign by AH2 (Adianna Herrera and Ali Hazelwood) is now live on Backer Kit! The stretch goal of an edition of Unrivaled was just reached. It won’t ship until August/September 2027.
https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/ah-romance-collections/game-changers-collector-s-edition?ref=bk-social-project&utm_source=backerkit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=bk-social-project
Many old clips of Dolly Parton interviews and singing have popped up on YouTube, but this is my absolute favorite of those I’ve viewed: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CwQ20jjMzuI?app=desktop&ra=m
I guess I should have anticipated the dismissive tone of the Cartland article, and yet…..
I read the Cartland article in a different way, I think, Zuzus. It does start from the point that her work is now “forgotten” and people only remember her personality, appearance and eccentricities, but the biographer calls this out: “It would be good if she was remembered as something more than a joke … she achieved something that ought to be acknowledged in some way”. It’s a pretty rounded view of her many achievements, including acknowledging how important she is to the genre.
I still remember a quote attributed to Ms Cartland that I read in the 1990s: After forty a woman has to choose between losing her figure or her face. My advice is to keep your face, and stay sitting down.
@LML: I’d heard that quote about women having to choose between their face and their figure but attributed to Catherine Deneuve, not Barbara Cartland. When I searched the Internet, it appears to be attributed to a variety of people, with a not surprising number of variations:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2025/04/27/face-behind/