The Popular Romance Project

Popular romance sells. And it reveals deep truths about people and cultures, fantasies and fears. The statistics are staggering: According to the Romance Writers of America, romance fiction generates over $1 billion in sales annually, and romance is often the top-performing category on the New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly best-seller lists.

The Popular Romance Project includes four ambitious, high-profile, carefully integrated programs

Love Between the Covers

An award-winning, feature-length documentary film that focuses on the remarkable global community that romance readers and writers have built.

To find out more, click here.

Popular Romance Project

An interactive, content-rich website created by the Center for History and New Media, allowing the website’s users to see romance novels in a broad context across time and place.

It includes interview clips with romance readers, writers, & publishers, and blogs about everything from Jane Austen to Korean TV dramas! Check it out!

To see more video clips from the project, click here.

What is Love? Romance Fiction in the Digital Age

An academic conference on the past and future of romance fiction, hosted by the Library of Congress, February 10-11, 2015, organized by the Popular Romance Project, the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance, and the Library of Congress.

National Public Library Screening Tour

A nationwide series of library programs built around screenings of Love Between the Covers, starting in the Fall of 2015, and continuing through 2016.