WNBA: Seattle Event

Women's National Book Association

Seattle Chapter

Please Join us for a program featuring Professors Joanna Gregson and Jen Lois as they discuss their social-scientific study focused on the craft, career and culture of romance writers. 

When: Saturday, February 25, 10:30 a.m. 

Where: Elliott Bay Book Company

1521 Tenth Avenue, Seattle WA

(Between Pike and Pine on Capitol Hill) 

Tenth is between Broadway and 11th in this part of Capitol Hill. Parking is on the street, metered and paid parking is available in the garage in the building. (Beware... if you park past your pre-paid time, you will get a ticket!)

Bring a friend!

Program:  

Since April of 2010, Professors Joanna Gregson and Jen Lois have been conducting sociological research on the authors of romance novels. By interviewing romance writers and attending local and national Romance Writers of America (RWA) events, Professors Gregson and Lois are examining the craft, career and culture of romance writers. In so doing, they hope to understand how writers construct romance, gender, and sexuality through their writing, how they experience their careers in what has been called “the most popular, least respected literary genre,” and how romance authors’ shared subculture is shaped by their gender. With the vast majority of existing research on romance fiction coming from the field of literary criticism—focusing on the content of the text and analyzing the books for latent messages about femininity, masculinity, and sexuality—this project breaks new ground as the first social-scientific study focused on romance writers themselves

Speaker bios:  

Joanna Gregson is a sociology professor at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA. She teaches and conducts research in the areas of gender, family, and deviance.  Dr. Gregson has published on such varied topics as teenage motherhood, incarcerated women, and women’s divorce experiences.  Her book, The Culture of Teenage Mothers (SUNY Press, 2009), explores how young mothers experience and respond to the stigma associated with teenage parenthood.

Jen Lois is a sociology professor at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA.  She teaches and researches in the areas of gender, family, emotions, and heroism.  Her first book, Heroic Efforts, examined heroism, emotions, and gender in a mountain-environment search-and-rescue group (NYU Press, 2003).  In 2006 the book was honored with the Outstanding Recent Contribution Award from the American Sociological Association’s Sociology of Emotions Section.  Her second book, Home Is Where the School Is (NYU Press, 2012), is based on ten years of research with homeschooling mothers, and focuses on how homeschooling can be a way to meet the high standards of good mothering in our culture.

Sincerely, Judy, Cathy, Barbara, Leslie, Linda, and Karlene
 

Your WNBA Seattle Chapter Board Members