Romance from Manila

Sat 7 May 2022

Kat Mayo + Jodi McAlister + Mina V Esguerra

slq Auditorium 2, level 2, State Library

Main Festival

#Performances

#About the event

Duration: 60 minutes

Love and romance are vividly human experiences, and how writers translate them to the page says so much about their own culture. Esguerra is a brilliant romance writer and she’s also helped create a new community of romance authors in Manila. She talks love on the page, and how culture informs love and vice versa.

Mina V. Esguerra in conversation with Jodi McAlister and Kat Mayo

#Artists

Kat Mayo

Kat Mayo is an avid reader of romance novels. She blogs at bookthingo.com.au and hosts a podcast that explores the place of romance fiction in literary culture. Her reviews have appeared in Books+Publishing, and she received the 2014 Romance in the Media Award from the Romance Writers of Australia for her essay, Dear columnists, romance fiction is not your bitch. @BookThingo.

Jodi McAlister

Jodi is both an author and scholar of romance fiction. As an author, she's written romance novels for adults and young adults: most recently, the Marry Me, Juliet series (Simon & Schuster) and Libby Lawrence is Good at Pretending (Wakefield). As an academic, she has published two monographs and numerous articles and book chapters, and works as a Senior Lecturer in Writing, Literature and Culture at Deakin University in Melbourne.

Mina V Esguerra

Mina V. Esguerra writes and publishes romance novels. Her young adult/fantasy trilogy Interim Goddess of Love is a college love story featuring gods from Philippine mythology. Her contemporary romance novellas won the Filipino Readers' Choice awards for Chick Lit in 2012 (Fairy Tale Fail) and 2013 (That Kind of Guy). In 2013, she founded #RomanceClass, a community of Filipino authors of romance in English, and it has since helped over 80 authors write and publish over 100 books. She is also a media adaptation agent, working with LA-based Bold MP to develop romance media by Filipino creatives for an international audience. Visit minavesguerra.com for more information about her books and projects.