By Paula Treick DeBoard
Spicy romance was in the air on Friday, February 21, when local resident and bestselling romance author Audrey Carlan led a workshop on writing “spice” – the name for steamy romance with a chili pepper rating system. If it isn’t your genre, you might be surprised to learn that romance is hotter than ever before (in sales, that is—and maybe in content, too). Romance sales have been increasing year to year, fueled in part by the purchases of younger readers on “BookTok” and “Bookstagram” and by cross-genre smash successes of romantasy reads from Sarah J. Maas and others. This workshop was entertaining and practical—the perfect push for writers who want to dip their toes into spice writing. Let us know if you’d like us to host this event again!
Other writing events on the horizon:
Bookish is hosting “Five Mondays in March” – Monday night writing sessions in our store from 6:30-8:30, with the goal of fostering community and holding us accountable to our projects.
Second Tuesday Poetry, hosted by the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center, returns on March 11 at 7pm featuring poets Bob Stanley from Sacramento and Dana Cervine from Santa Cruz. The public is invited to share after the keynote readers at an open mic reading.
And speaking of poetry, outgoing Stanislaus County youth poet laureate Zoe Byron is leading a poetry workshop on Saturday, March 22 at Bookish. Check our website at www.bookishmodesto.com/events<www.bookishmodesto.com/events> for more information about this and the other events listed here.
