Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Romance documentary to air in Canada

Heads up, Canadians. On Thursday, March 8 at 8:30PM EST, you might want to tune your TV sets to the BRAVO! Canada channel for a documentary on the romance industry, "Who's Afraid of Happy Endings?"

Part of the footage was shot at the annual Romance Writers of America Conference held in Reno in the summer of 2005. (Longtime NRJW readers may recall that I blogged from there.) I mention that because the film crew was highly visible and several of my author and editor friends who read this blog (they know who they are) found themselves in front of the cameras.

Over at Teach Me Tonight, the excellent Laura Vivanco (who also reads this blog, but that's not the only reason I call her "excellent") has posted some detailed information and quotes about the documentary and includes a link to a video clip featuring Nora Roberts and Debbie Macomber. Click over there, even if you won't be in Canada on Thursday night, because it's interesting stuff.

No word, yet, on when the documentary might air in the U.S. But bookmark Laura's post and check back, because she has invited viewers to share their impressions of the program.

9 comments:

Laura Vivanco said...

Thanks for spreading the word, Brenda. I wish I could see it, because it sounds like it will be very interesting. If any of your Canadian readers watch it I'd love to know what they think about it.

Oh, and people coming from this blog should maybe be warned that some of the most recent posts on Teach Me Tonight discuss some rather 'hot' topics/texts. I know that not all your readers only read inspirationals, and not all would be offended by the content, but I worry that some people might be.

For some reason it seems as though rather a lot of the free short stories online are in the hottest romance sub-genre, though I do try to mix things up so that we discuss lots of different romance sub-genres, as well as much older novels which if written nowadays would probably be classed as 'romance'. In fact, Austen's Mansfield Park could probably be thought of as an inspirational.

Hmm. Can I be cheeky again? If anyone here could point me in the direction of any free online stories written by authors of inspirationals, I'd be very grateful :-) I did find one a while ago, but I haven't been able to find any recently. It's not as though I blog about everything I find, but if I can't find inspirational romance stories (and they aren't that easily found in the UK and certainly there aren't any in my local library), then I definitely can't blog about them.

Am I going to have to wait till September for the novel set in/around a library, Brenda?

K J Gillenwater said...

Brenda,

Please let us know when/if they broadcast this show in the U.S.! I watched the clip and was so disappointed when it ended. I was hooked. So interesting to hear these authors talk about their experiences.

Anyway, I'll keep checking the blog and hope soon they broadcast it here.

Brenda Coulter said...

Kristin, I'd love to see it, too. I think Laura blogged that they were thinking about airing it in August, but that wasn't firm.

Am I going to have to wait till September for the novel set in/around a library, Brenda?

I'm afraid so, Laura. Thanks for asking.
;-)

Just now I found three short inspirational romance stories at eHarlequin.com's Online Read Library. Scroll down, and near the bottom of the page you'll find two "Love Inspired" stories and one Love Inspired Suspense.

If anyone out there knows of more inspirational romance stories available for online reading or free (and legal) download, please give us a shout. (We're not looking for first chapters, but for complete stories, whether they're shorties or full-length novels.)

Shauna said...

Thanks for the heads up about the program! I live in Canada so I'll plan to watch it! I'll bookmark the blog and let you know what I think....providing I have an opinion, that is! LOL!

Brenda Coulter said...

Oh, I have faith in you, Shauna.
;-)

Laura, someone has e-mailed to tell me there's a Heartsong Presents novel available here for free download. There might be a couple of others on that publisher's site, but I didn't see them.

Anonymous said...

Brenda, I read your post on the ACFW loop. I'm not a published author (yet) but I've been writing free Inspirational Romance for the Internet since 1998. I have four completed online romance stories, and one online WIP that will be finished this June. You can find me at < http://acacia.pair.com/Journey.of.the.Heart/ >.

I also have three friends who write free Inspirational Romance for the Internet: Liz Delayne at < http://morethannovellas.com/ >, Rachel Brown at < http://tulipfiction.com/ >, and Rachel Rossano at < http://www.xanga.com/anavrea >. (The second Rachel has been writing Christian SciFi/Fantasy lately. See the links for "Liam" on the left hand side of her webpage for an Inspirational Romance. It's good!). They aren't published either, but it wouldn't surprise me if they one day were!

I'd be interested to know if you find others!

Sarah Fall
(aka Judith Bronte)
acacia@pair.com

Brenda Coulter said...

Ah--I just found another free download over at Heartsong.

Elle Fredrix said...

Brenda, thanks! I'm in Toronto. Heading downstairs to set up the recorder!

Laura Vivanco said...

Thanks very much Brenda and Sarah. I've already found a couple which have sparked a few ideas. If I don't have that 'hook' then I can't hang a blog post off them, even if they're good stories, so I'm really pleased about that. I'm mentioning that because I'll have to make a selection, and I wouldn't want that to be taken as an indication that the ones I haven't chosen are worse or anything like that. Anyway, it'll probably be a while before I have the time to work it up into a proper post but I really appreciate the help.