The inciting incident for this week’s ADHD redirection was a comment on a Substack essay about declining romance quality. The comment itself is representative of a particular problem in online discourse about romance—one that isn’t called out enough and has repercussions beyond mere subjective enjoyment of romance novels. It touches on all aspects of the…
It seems we’re never truly done debating who gets to control narrative. From Frank Zappa’s brush with obscenity accusations, and the congressional farce over 80s song lyrics, to the posthumous sanitization of Roald Dahl, there’s a persistent impulse in our culture to police creative expression. This impulse often targets areas deemed ‘problematic’ or ‘dangerous,’ and…
I didn’t want to do it. The teaser chapters were always, somehow, objectively terrible despite the intriguing hooks, and I knew it would only get worse behind the paywall. Yet, for months on Instagram, I was stalked by interesting story blurbs with vivid AI-generated images and “movie” clips that linked to romance subscription apps until…
on dark romance and why evolution ≠ redefinition What is genre romance? It’s actually more flexible than it gets credit for. It blends well with other genres, and it only has a few, core, non-negotiable pillars: an HEA (happily ever after ending) or HFN (happy for now – although I think readers who accept HFN…
(it takes courage and class to push it real good) I recently came across this TikTok clip (hilariously, while going down an internet rabbit hole about mafia men), and it bugged me by way of reminding me of similar thoughts I had about Jamie Dornan when Fifty Shades of Grey came out. Michele Morrone claims…
character gold and conflict fuel for romance authors I’m infatuated with this clip from a two-hour Diary of a CEO interview with James Sexton. The delivery is amazing – if you’ve spent any time in New York, you’ve met a guy who talks like this about a topic he may or may not understand. I’m…