iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Dr Amy Burge

Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

This includes a quote from IASPR's own @dramyburge.bsky.social !

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Have been allocated the plush HUGE room for our talk (bonus: it is air-conditioned) #RNAConf26

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Thrilled to be back at the #RNAConf26 and to be talking more about the incredible scholarship out there on romantic fiction! I always learn so much at RNA events, and meet the NICEST people 💕

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

On my way to give a talk at @northumbriauni.bsky.social and it feels entirely appropriate to be prepping next week's class on Catherine Cookson on the train!

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

Did Regency romance mad libs with my students today (from Beyond Heaving Bosoms by @smartbitches.bsky.social) so am I a cool teacher now?

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

If you can't access the chapter and want to read let me or @menysnoweballes.bsky.social know and we'll send a pre-print your way, or try this link: research.birmingham.ac.uk/files/278419...

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

Particularly fond of this line: "If, as Sontag writes, ‘[c]amp is a woman walking around in a dress made of three million feathers’ then camp is also Ken wearing three watches and two pairs of sunglasses, or over-naming his house."

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

Finally received a copy of this from the publisher (although ebook only, and I can't download it?!) and was reminded that @menysnoweballes.bsky.social and I wrote some SMART thoughts (probably all from Rachel tbh).

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Reposted by Dr Amy Burge

Rachel Moss @menysnoweballes.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

Hi Barbies! Pleased that @dramyburge.bsky.social & my chapter, '‘The man behind the tan’: Ken’s Trumpian Absurdity' has been published in the exciting new book The Barbie Phenomenon, Volume 1! www.routledge.com/The-Barbie-P...

media.tenor.com

a close up of a barbie doll with blonde hair

ALT: a close up of a barbie doll with blonde hair

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Reposted by Dr Amy Burge

Jodi McAlister @jodimca.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

Cover reveal! @dramyburge.bsky.social and I revealed the cover of our new academic book, The Bonkbuster: Women's Popular Reading in the Long 1980s, at the @iaspr.bsky.social conference today. Out January 2026! www.bloomsbury.com/uk/bonkbuste...

The cover of The Bonkbuster: Women's Popular Romance in the Long 1980s. It's pink leopard print.

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Reposted by Dr Amy Burge

Dr Jane Bonsall @janebonsall.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

I wrote a blog post about my book! Want some ramblings about fairy ladies, magical princesses, and serpent women (and how we should feel about them)? Or just curious about how reading medieval romance is like watching Star Wars?? It's all here, folks (and also a 35% discount 👀)!

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

The promotion trajectory of Wrexham AFC (3x in 3 years) is *literally* the plot of Jilly Cooper's book Tackle!, so which owner is secretly Rupert Campbell-Black: Ryan Reynolds or Rob McElhenney?

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Sign any petitions you can, write to your MP about the AI and Copyright consultation - ALCS has published their response here: www.alcs.co.uk/about-alcs/c... Find out if Meta has used your work: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a... And sign up for ALCS if you've published work in the UK!

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Organisations like ALCS exist to make sure that authors are paid when people print, copy, or access their work. You can bet Meta hasn't paid any authors for use of their work.

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Today was @alcs.co.uk payment day! Always a delightful surprise, and a reminder authors should be paid for their work. A less delightful surprise this week was finding out that 8 things I've published, including the monograph based on my PhD research, have been used by Meta to train their AI.

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

There I was, minding my own business, reading my Jackie Collins (technically work as @jodimca.bsky.social would attest) when I was asked about what I was reading for Read This podcast! Always delighted to talk about bonkbusters (I'm on at 7:20). open.spotify.com/episode/31Er...

Screenshot of the transcript of the episode

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Today is a reading day at the State Library of Victoria 📖

Two books on a desk, Faludi Backlash and Wolf, Fire with Fire

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Reposted by Dr Amy Burge

Jodi McAlister @jodimca.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

This is tomorrow!! @dramyburge.bsky.social and I will be presenting our keynote on bonkbusters first up, from 10:15-11:15am. If you're in Melbourne, come along and let us tell you about some truly bonkers books.

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

Couldn't find her handle before but this article partly looks at @brijbautista.bsky.social's novel You, Me, U.S. (2019)

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

Now that it's fully open access, happy to share this article of mine that was recently published in Literature, Critique, and Empire Today (formerly Journal of Commonwealth Literature) on marriage migration in romance novels by Helen Hoang and Brigitte Bautista! journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

I had an absolutely wonderful time at Edith Cowan Uni in Perth talking all things Love Studies with Madalena Grobbelar, Elizabeth Reid Boyd and Debra Dudek! Dream collaboration team - and there is TONS of exciting research coming out of the ECU network.

Two heart shaped cookies that read "love studies" and "love @ecu"

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Reposted by Dr Amy Burge

Jodi McAlister @jodimca.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

ICYMI, Melbourne! @dramyburge.bsky.social and I are psyched to be giving this keynote to talk all about the books and readers of Jackie Collins, Jilly Cooper, Shirley Conran and Judith Krantz.

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

I will join you on this hill, friend.

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Reposted by Dr Amy Burge

Javaria Farooqui @javariafarooqui.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

Hi everyone! Happily resharing that my little book will be out in the world on 28th November. It is about the anglophone romance reading fandom in Pakistan, book history, & some bits of postcolonialism. #AcademicChatter #AcademicSky #Romancelandia www.bloomsbury.com/uk/romance-f...

bloomsbury.com

Romance Fandom in 21st-Century Pakistan

Romance Fandom in 21st-century Pakistan offers the first major study of English-speaking romance fandom in South Asia, providing a new reader-centric model that…

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 22/10/2024

Had THE BEST time chatting about Rivals and mine and @jodimca.bsky.social's research on Ireland AM this morning! This is my in-the-office-before-8.15am face 😂

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 09/10/2024

I learned enough on my last trip to Australia to understand what this film is about (and also why it should have been released on the 21st December) youtu.be/K_Fwe9Q6NB0?...

youtu.be

How To Make Gravy | Official Trailer | BINGE

YouTube video by BINGE

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Reposted by Dr Amy Burge

Jodi McAlister @jodimca.bsky.social · 03/10/2024

Hey Australian scholars! Do you have some thoughts on nostalgia and popular fiction? Deakin's having a symposium on November 21! @dramyburge.bsky.social & I are delighted to be the keynotes, presenting some of our work on bonkbusters. Full CFP link here (goes to a PDF): bit.ly/3ZidjRJ

Flyer text:

CFP: Nostalgia and Popular Culture Symposium

"Nostalgia is always complicated - complicated in what it looks like, how it works, upon whom it works, and even who works on it." Sean Scanlan (2004, p.3)

Cohosted by Deakin's Reading Writing Futures and the Reading & Screening the Fantastique Research Network, this one-day symposium will facilitate robust discussions on the role of nostalgia in the production and reception of popular cultures.

Spanning disciplines, forms and genres, this event aims to think beyond clear-cut conceptions of nostalgia and towards more nuanced understandings of it as simultaneously limiting, comforting, provocative and powerful in the context of popular culture.

Please submit a 250-word abstract for 20-minute papers or panels and a 100-word bio-note to r.fetherston@deakin.edu.au by Friday 11 October 2024.

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 16/07/2024

Great article! If you're collecting info on more ethical academic journals, the independent Journal of Popular Romance Studies @jprstudies.bsky.social (for which I am the current managing editor) has been open access with no fees since 2009 and is indexed in Scopus/Scimago. www.jprstudies.org

jprstudies.org

Journal of Popular Romance Studies

The Journal of Popular Romance Studies is an interdisciplinary journal exploring popular romance media and other instances of romantic love in global culture.

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 16/07/2024

More adventures in book cover research! Here we have the blue US cover (Avon) and pink UK cover (Piatkus) of Olivia Dade's Spoiler Alert (2020). Published at the same time, but only the US cover features a clinch! Suggests changes happened earlier in the UK as @jackiebarbosa.bsky.social noted.

Avon cover of Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade, an illustrated couple embrace against a blue background

Piatkus cover of Spoiler Alert, Olivia Dade, pink background, two illustrated figures (man and woman) sit with laptops on their knee, one at the bottom left, the other at top right.

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Reposted by Dr Amy Burge

Jodi McAlister @jodimca.bsky.social · 13/07/2024

If you're in Australia - there's a big piece on the 50th anniversary of Mills & Boon publishing here in the latest print issue of the Australian Women's Weekly (feat. quite a lot of comments from me). #Romancelandia

A double magazine page spread. On the left, the headline says Romance For The Ages. There are three classic Mills & Book covers scattered amid the text.

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 12/07/2024

This is a good point, and it does seem to be happening, looking at various reviews online.

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 12/07/2024

This is absolutely true, there are so many examples (from years ago too) of historicals having single character covers. Some Mills & Boon contemporary titles post 2010 did this too.

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 12/07/2024

I believe YA Is generally targeted at readers aged 12-18.

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 12/07/2024

This might also be a UK/US difference as high school starts at age 11 in the UK, there's no equivalent of middle school (so 14 is not a particularly pivotal age here).

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 12/07/2024

It's the lower end but 13 could still be YA, to be fair. @amandaallenphd.bsky.social is the expert on YA, but I believe it would also depend on the tone and subject matter as well, as to whether it was children's or YA.

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 12/07/2024

It's possible, for sure. I definitely think publishers are explicitly targeting a wider romance-reading market with cartoon covers (from YA through New Adult - @jodimca.bsky.social may have thoughts on this - to adult) and the use of similar covers across the board maximises market reach.

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 12/07/2024

There are some category M&B shelved in the romance section in the Waterstones we're surveying for this research, but not many. Mills & Boon are also diversifying their own cover art and format. I also think you're right on chick lit, it definitely used cartoon/illustrated covers!

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 12/07/2024

There's also the context of bookshop placement to consider - while illustrated covers are used for children's books and for romance, they are separated in both physical and digital bookstores. I'm not sure how much accidental overlap actually happens given that additional context.

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 12/07/2024

This is really interesting! Clearly, publishers are doing this deliberately (they're obviously aware of market trends) and aren't bothered about clearly distinguishing subgenres to readers. What "romance" means in this market is perhaps shifting (maybe closer to the British "romantic fiction").

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Dr Amy Burge @dramyburge.bsky.social · 11/07/2024

I was at a talk the author gave about the inspiration for this cover model! This is a really good example of a sexy cartoon cover (the stir it made also suggests it's quite rare).

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