Abstract

This is an ethnographic study of romance writers' literacy practices. The study was inspired by the gap between academic interpretations of romance literacy communities and texts and my own experiences as a publishing romance writer, and it is informed by theoretical foundations in critical literacy and composition studies. The central research questions explore what it is like for other romance writers to be writing for women in a genre that is both much beloved and much maligned. What does it mean to write romance? What is it like as a social practice and what are the conflicts and transformations that chart romance writers' lives? To answer these questions, I conducted an ethnographic inquiry emphasizing a case study of a romance writers' critique group.

Struggles over subjectivity largely define public discourses about romance texts and literacy practices. I document and interpret examples of public conversation about romance novels and romance writers' public responses to demonstrate the highly charged discourses of resistance and contest that mark their practices. Romance writers respond to limiting and dehumanizing constructions of their agency and subjectivities, using them as invitations to revise public discourse about their work. The study also finds evidence that romance writers use their texts and their writing processes to reflect personal and political struggles to enact feminist gender and social relations. Romance literacy practices emerge as public participation in society via one form of popular culture.

My findings suggest implications for literacy education and democratic participation in post-industrial societies where popular culture, while pervasive, is often perceived as impervious to meaningful agency or the possibility of transformative and liberatory practice. This study indicates that in dramatic contrast to stereotypical perceptions about romance texts, readers, and writers, writing romance can be a profoundly political and transformative social practice.