WHEN: May 14 (Australian time zones)

PAPER SUBMISSION DEADLINE: March 24 (Australian time zones)

ATTENDEE REGISTRATION DEADLINE: May 13 (Australian time zones)

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Heated Rivalry’s Television adaptation is currently in the top five most popular TV shows online, and Rachel Reid’s Game Changers books sold over 1.3 million copies in North America alone, prior to the show’s premiere.

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As a collective of researchers (see ‘Who are we?’ in the FAQs) interested in Popular Romance Scholarship, Gender and Sexuality Studies, creative industries, publishing, and social media book culture, we want to take stock of this moment. One team member Harry Stewart has published a piece for The Conversation called ‘Why the Heated Rivalry TV series understands gay men better than the book’, which was read over 24,000 times in its first week. We know that our peers in this field must have a lot to say about Rachel Reid’s Books, Jacob Tierney’s television adaptation, and the current landscape of LGBTQIA+ stories.

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Whether you're in academia or not, we would love to see you on May 14 for Hot Takes and Ice Skates, a fun academic event prioritising shorter papers, lightning talks, roundtable sessions, PechaKucha presentations and a focus on ‘hot takes’ (i.e. first responses to the phenomenon that is Heated Rivalry and its contextual concerns). We are very pleased to anounce that Professor Jonathan A. Allan will be kick-starting the day with a keynote address.