ALLi News Editor, Dan Holloway
What writer doesn’t love a great portmanteau? I learned one brand new one on the 14th of this month as we celebrated Pi Day (which continues to baffle Brits who fail to see the connection between circles and 143!) and I learned about piems.
But a consistent feature of the news this month has been the best portmanteau since Barbenheimer. Romantasy (a portmanteau of, as you would imagine, romance and fantasy) is a relatively new name for a genre that feels as old as storytelling itself but which, like many of the oldest stories, much of the media would have you believe BookTok has made anew. Cynical snipes aside, this is very much a genre that the BookTok community has embraced and whose sales it has boosted.
It’s also a genre beloved of many indie writers and highly suited to an indie modus operandi of fast series publication and high social media presence. And it has been nudging the surface of mainstream attention increasingly. The Guardian listed Romantasy as one of its seven major trends of London Book Fair.
It hit the news at the end of this month because of its inclusion in the latest edition of the Goodreads Choice Books of 2023. The polls for those awards are unsurprisingly topped by Fourth Wing, from the superstar author of 2023, Rebecca Yarros.
And it’s not just awards that have taken note of the growth of this delightfully-monikered genre. Publishers Weekly reports on a Romantasy festival in Chicago. The three day conference at the Otherworld Theatre saw a variety of events and formats, and put a highlight on a wide set of variations on the genre,from a diverse set of authors.
It’s fabulous to see the growth and celebration of new genres. Especially ones that bring books to a wider audience. I look forward to reporting on indie successes as the genre matures. Maybe for next year’s Goodreads readers’ choice.
