How to Write a Romance Novel Workshop with Adriana Herrera and Sarah MacLean
Friday, September 8, 12:45-3:15 p.m. HQ L02 (Registration required)
Join bestselling and critically acclaimed romance authors Adriana Herrera and Sarah MacLean as they discuss their craft and how they approach writing emotional, evocative and compelling romance novels. Learn how to combine character, conflict and worldbuilding to tell big, bold, feminist stories that deliver the perfect happily ever after.
Pre-workshop reading list from Adriana and Sarah
We encourage people planning to join us for the class to read two books from the following list, many of which we will discuss during the presentation:
- KJ Charles’s The Magpie Lord – A phenomenal ground-breaking historical romance. A debut novel set in a wonderfully developed Victorian London where witches exist among regular folk. This debut manages to deliver a riveting romance, a twisty mystery, with some moments of hair-raising horror to boot. Truly one of the great ones of the last decade.
- Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels – A historical romance novel set in London and Paris, that is a near perfect template for the genre, and its heroines.
- Adriana Herrera’s On The Hustle – A brilliantly sexy, smart contemporary with a heroine who knows what she wants and a hero who knows he wants her more than anything.
- Adriana Herrera’s A Caribbean Heiress in Paris – A historical romance set in 1890s Paris against the backdrop of the World’s Fair – a perfect example of how historical romance can stand as modern, feminist and powerfully relevant.
- Uzma Jalaluddin’s Hana Khan Carries On – A contemporary romance set in Toronto, clever and fun, featuring rival restaurateurs who fall in love without knowing just who they’re falling in love with.
- Angelina M. Lopez’s After Hours on Milagro Street – A contemporary romance set in Kansas, sharp and sexy, with tremendous worldbuilding and a heroine who stands apart from the pack.
- Sarah MacLean’s Wicked & the Wallflower – A historical romance set in Victorian London with a defiant heroine with a penchant for picking locks and hero who is hermetically closed to any vulnerabilities. A perfect example of how to build stakes around internal conflict.
- Milla Vane’s A Heart of Blood and Ashes – One of the best fantasy romances of recent years. Expansive, feminist and fierce.
- Susan Elizabeth Philips’s Heaven, Texas – No one writes a romance hero like SEP. Bobby Tom Denton could be her finest a true scoundrel who is undone by love. Perfectly executed enemies-to-lovers with a dash of fake-dating contemporary romance. There is also a secondary love story that is just as engrossing as the primary.
-Sarah MacLean’s The Day of the Duchess – A second chance historical romance with a perfectly executed grand gesture. A master class in how to deliver a deeply emotional romance while exploring sensitive themes.
Romance Nonfiction
-Dangerous Men Adventurous Women. Published in 1992* and edited by Jayne Anne Krentz, this essay collection is a who’s who of romance greats writing their thoughts on the appeal of romance. Two essays we recommend from this collection:
“Beneath the Surface: The Hidden Codes of Romance” by Linda Harlow and Jayne Anne Krentz – A fascinating breakdown of why the conventions and messages in romance are necessary and enduring.
“Mean, Moody and Magnificent: The Hero in Romance Literature” by Robyn Donald – An interesting analysis of the traditional romance hero and how his implacability and strength matter only because it is the heroine’s to dismantle.
*Be advised that the language in some of these essays around sexuality, gender identity and expression is dated given it was published over thirty years ago. That being said, it is a wonderful collection with some of the greatest to ever write in the genre.
- The Heroine’s Journey by Gail Carriger – A ground-breaking way of turning the classic Hero’s Journey of storytelling onto its head, thinking about plot as a journey to community, a cornerstone of romance.
ADRIANA HERRERA
USA Today Best Selling author Adriana was born and raised in the Caribbean, but for the last fifteen years has let her job (and her spouse) take her all over the world. She loves writing stories about people who look and sound like her people, getting unapologetic happy endings.
When she’s not dreaming up love stories, planning logistically complex vacations with her family or hunting for discount Broadway tickets, she’s a trauma therapist in New York City, working with survivors of domestic and sexual violence.
Her Dreamers series has received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and Booklist and has been featured in The TODAY Show on NBC, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Library Journal and The Washington Post. Her debut, American Dreamer, was selected as one of Booklist’s Best Romance Debuts of 2019, and one of the Top 10 Romances of 2019 by Entertainment Weekly. Her third novel, American Love Story, was one of the winners in the first annual Ripped Bodice Award for Excellence in Romantic Fiction. Adriana is an outspoken advocate for diversity in romance and has written for Remezcla and Bustle about Own Voices in the genre. She’s one of the co-creators of the Queer Romance PoC Collective.
SARAH MACLEAN
New York Times, Washington Post & USA Today bestseller Sarah MacLean is the author of historical romance novels. Translated into more than twenty-five languages, the books that make up “The MacLeaniverse” are beloved by readers worldwide. In addition to her novels, Sarah is a leading advocate for the romance genre, speaking widely on its place as a feminist text and a cultural bellwether. A columnist for the New York Times, the Washington Post and Bustle, she is the co-host of the weekly romance podcast, Fated Mates. Her work in support of romance and those who read it earned her a place on Jezebel.com’s Sheroes list and led Entertainment Weekly to call her “the elegantly fuming, utterly intoxicating queen of historical romance.” Sarah is a graduate of Smith College & Harvard University. She lives in New York City.