The term re-education can have something of a negative connotation. It can call to mind labour camps, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and propaganda. Sadly, thanks to a lifetime of insidious propaganda, we are in need of some re-education. Or perhaps it is better to call it retraining for your brain. Despite what you’ve been indoctrinated, or conditioned to believe, you are never ‘too old’ to learn. Rather than using the expressions older people/younger people, I prefer the terms youngers and olders coined by my hero, anti-ageism activist, A ..read more

In the nearly ten years since I completed my doctoral work that focused on ageism and the lack of representation of women over the age of 40 as romantic leads/heroines, I thought it might be time to look back and see if we’ve, like Fatboy Slim and the old Virginia Slims ads said, “come a long way, baby.” I’m compiling my thoughts, and the thoughts from a few others who have written about older women in romance fiction and film and popular media, the romance publishing industry, ageism, sexism, stereotypes, intersectionality, gender bias, fat-shaming, ethnicity… well, you get where I am coming ..read more

Age persists as one element of diversity that advertisers and romance fiction continue to ignore. Olders, to use the phrase coined by anti-ageism activist, Ashton Applewhite, are consumers of all sorts of products, from cars to food, to films, to romance novels. However, olders are typically ignored or misrepresented, and as Martha Boudreau, AARP’s chief of marketing and communications officer notes, are seldom valued as a marketing demographic. When they are included in marketing, they are frequently shown as absent-minded, out-of-touch, tech illiterate, frail, haggy, cantankerous, frumpy, s ..read more

During the recent Romance Writers of Australia conference, this year titled Love in Isolation, I had to opportunity to ask Liz Pelletier, Editor and CEO of Entangled Publishing, how the company’s August imprint was going. August, if you are not aware, is an imprint aimed at Gen-Xers, with “older characters in their 40s”. It was launched in 2018. Kudos galore to Entangled for launching this line when other publishers outright ignore the consumer base of Gen-Xers, Boomers, and those beyond in favour of adhering to the stagnant tradition of keeping female leads young whilst courting younger reade ..read more

During the recent Romance Writers of Australia conference, this year titled Love in Isolation, I had to opportunity to ask Liz Pelletier, Editor and CEO of Entangled Publishing, how the company’s August imprint was going. August, if you are not aware, is an imprint aimed at Gen-Xers, with “older characters in their 40s”. It was launched in 2018. Kudos galore to Entangled for launching this line when other publishers outright ignore the consumer base of Gen-Xers, Boomers, and those beyond in favour of adhering to the stagnant tradition of keeping female leads young whilst courting younger reade ..read more

Karen Booth, the author, advocate for Seasoned Romance, and co-founder of the Seasoned Romance Facebook group has a new book coming out in February, and it is an important book. Have a look as the title and cover and you may understand why—if you are over the age of 40, you may, at last, feel seen. Visibility and invisibility slot together with discussions about inclusion and diversity, which boil down to the need to be seen. In Karen’s upcoming seasoned romance, Gray Hair Don’t Care, visibility and invisibility hinge upon a full head of hair. For some women, grey hair is fraught with meaning ..read more

Seasoned Romance –some think the name needs work. There are those who’d prefer a different moniker because ‘seasoned’ brings to mind images of salt and pepper, which, when you stop to think about it, is totally fitting since we are talking about characters who may have grey hair. Frankly, I’d be happy to just call it romance, because that’s what it is, but this industry is driven by the need to know where to shelf a genre. Whether you want to think of it as mature romance, later in life romance, or silver fox romance (and that silver foxiness includes women), Seasoned Romance is a sub-genre of ..read more

Me in my doctoral bonnet Last night, as part of the upcoming online Romance Writers of Australia conference, I sat on a panel of romance authors and editors who were also academics and scholars in romance fiction. We talked about our experiences as doctoral students and the challenges some of us faced when we submitted proposals to critically investigate romance fiction, a genre that was, for far too long, not taken seriously or considered less-than worthy of study. Things have gotten better in academia. We academic types and scholars studying the genre are being taken seriously now, more ser ..read more

Dear Reader, Once again, you with your finger on the pulse of romance, your eyes on the words and covers and spines of books of paper, screen, and audio. I come to you asking for your help. It’s four years since I post titled A Little Help From My Romance Reading Friends and I come to you to tell me about the Romance novels you have read where both leads are over the age of 40, especially novels you have read where the heroine is aged OVER 40 — or over  50, 60, and beyond.  It’s time to update the list I keep on this site, and I need your help to do this because I am only one tiny wo ..read more

There is something I have been stewing over, trying find to a way to deal with my rage and put it into words without, well, simply ranting. I really, really want to rant. The suggestion one ought to give up their life for the good of a country’s economy is disturbing, like this pandemic is, but I realised the vile idea serves to underscore the ageism I often discuss. Sometimes hashing out an issue in writing helps to quell my urge to rant. At least that is what I am hoping. Like ageism crusader Ashton Applewhite, I’m going to use the term olders instead older people or elderly, which often co ..read more