Werewolves and Fainting Damsels: The Genius and Challenges of Genre Fiction

Thursday, October 21, 7 p.m. in Winants Auditorium on the campus of Hope College

When we first encounter a book, its genre raises certain expectations for what we, as readers, will find within the pages. In this talk, two authors pull back the creative curtain to show how novelists negotiate the complicated network of tropes and conventions that operate within the realm of popular genre fiction. Hear from two practitioners—Eleanor Bourg Nicholson, author of the Gothic novels A Bloody Habit and Brother Wolf, and Rhonda Ortiz, author of the historical romance novel In Pieces and founding editor of Chrism Press—what rules are to be observed, what rules are to be broken, and how genre and imagination combine to create a vivid narrative.

Books will be available for purchase at the event, and (barring an unexpected fainting fit) the authors will be available for book signing.

This event is free and open to the public. Due to Hope College’s COVID precautions, masks are required indoors on campus for all individuals who are vaccinated or unvaccinated.

Presented by the Saint Benedict Institute; co-sponsored by the Corpus Christi Foundation.