Two episodes in one week! We are doing what we can to take care of you, Fated Maters!

This week, we’ve got Julie Moody-Freeman, professor, self-proclaimed romance nerd, and host of the new “Black Romance Podcast” with us! We’re freewheeling about the importance of oral history, Black romance, romance and academia, her life as a romance reader, her favorite books and authors, and her dream interviews. Subscribe to the Black Romance Podcast at Apple, Overcast, Spotify, or your favorite podcasting service.

We’re back on our regular Wednesday schedule next week, and with a deep dive on Alisha Rai’s Serving Pleasure, a fantastic erotic romance. Find it at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple Books or Bookshop.org.

Also, we had our first Fated States phonebanking session with Indivisible.org this week — it was great and we loved seeing so many of your amazing faces! Please join us, fellow Fated Maters and special guests for Fated States Phonebanking Part 2 on Saturday, October 3rd at 3pm Eastern to call North Carolina!

Show Notes

This week, we interview moody-freeman.aspx">Julie Moody-Freeman, a professor of African and Diaspora Studies at DePaul University. She's the host of the Black Romance Podcast. Julie wrote a chatper in the newly released Routledge Companion to Popular Romance Fiction.

The Black Romance Podcast is an oral history podcast which has interviewed some of the greatest voices in Black romance both past and present.

If you're interested readings some books of non-romance oral history, Jen recommends Voices from Chernobyl, Tower Stories, and anything by Studs Terkel. You might also enjoy the podcast Bughouse Square, which pairs interviews from the Studs Terkel Radio Archives and Eve Ewing interviewing poeple today. It's terrific.

The end-of-an-era-mall-bookstores.html">era of the mall bookstore--Waldenbooks and B. Dalton-- is over. But then again, malls-department-stores-bankruptcy.html">malls might be over.

Vivian Stephens was the woman who revolutionized the American cateogry romance. You should listen to her two-part interview on the Black Romance Podcast, read this terrific profile of her in Texas Monthly, and listen to us read and discuss some of her early aquistions with Steve Ammidown.

Julie teaches a class called Romance, Women, and Race at Depaul. On the reading list: Make it Last Forever by Gwyneth Bolton, Gabriel's Discovery by Felicia Mason, A Duke by Default by Alyssa Cole, Forbidden by Beverly Jenkins, and The Brightest Day Anthology.

Although Season One of the Black Romance Podcast will be coming to a close soon, she listed some of the women she'd love to interview: Shirley Hailstock, Donna Hill, and Rochelle Alers.

Rosalind Wells and Francis Ray are two Black romance trailblazers who are no longer with us.

Next week, we'll be reading Serving Pleasure by Alisha Rai.