Ithaca College

Love Between the Covers, an NEH-funded look at the $1.2 billion romance publishing industry, will air at Cinemapolis Tuesday October 20 at 7:15 pm. Admission is free.

U.S. Representative Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.) introduced a bill in 2014 proposing to prohibit the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) from funding any project relating to the research of love or romance (H.R.5155). Yet, popular romance is the highest selling book genre in the world today, representing the largest share of sales revenue in the industry. Moreover, 84% of romance readership are women, and women dominate the author rolls.

Popular romance is a women’s industry, perhaps the largest in the US. Yet a US legislator made a point of crafting a law against funding its study. Why?

Sponsored by Ithaca College's first-year seminar program and the Finger Lakes Film Festival (FLEFF), the screening will be followed by a post-show Q&A with a panel of local romance authors.

Author panel includes:

USA Today bestselling author GAYLE CALLEN has written more than twenty historical romances for Avon Books, and her novels have won the Holt Medallion, the Laurel Wreath Award, the Booksellers' Best Award, and been translated into eleven different languages. The mother of three grown children, Gayle lives in central New York with her dog Uma and her husband, Jim the Romance Hero. She also writes contemporary romances as Emma Cane. Visit her website at www.gaylecallen.com.

ELLEN HARTMAN spent fifteen years writing technical manuals no one ever read until she decided to take a shot at what she really loved--romance. She sold her first book to Harlequin through a contest and went on to write and publish seven more. She's on a hiatus from writing romance at the moment while she finishes a young adult novel. This year she'll have a short story published in the local anthology, "From the Finger Lakes.” You can find Ellen at www.ellenhartman.com.

JENNIFER BOKAL penned her first book at age eight. An early lover of the written word, she decided to follow her passion and become a full-time writer. From then on, she didn’t look back. She earned a master of arts degree in creative writing from Wilkes University. In 2007 she published her first novel, Celtic Heart. Amazon recently published The Gladiator’s Mistress under its Montlake imprint, and the book is now a #1 Kindle Bestseller.  

EMMA BARON lives in upstate New York with her husband, daughter, and two dogs. Before turning to writing, she tried her hand at variety of things: zookeeper, research field assistant in South America and Africa, lawyer...so far, writing is proving to be the biggest adventure yet. You can find Emma’s books,The Glass Orchid and Exposed, on Amazon.

Panel moderator JEN WOFFORD (aka GIULIA TORRE) has her Ph.D. in Reading/Writing/Literacy from the University of Pennsylvania. She is teaching a first-year seminar on Reading Popular Romance at IC. Her book, Wolfe Island, was runner-up for Golden Quill’s (2015) Best First Book (historical), and earned 2nd place in Ignite the Flame (2014, historical). You can find her at www.giuliatorre.com and on twitter @ReadGiuliaTorre.