@vpfa
A forum for everyone interested in #Victorian and #Neovictorian popular fiction and culture. Hosts VPFJ Journal and Third Sex and Short Story Reading Groups 📚https://victorianpopularfiction.org/
VPFA are now going to be hosting regular mid-week and weekend writing retreats. If you are a member, you will have recently received an email providing the dates for all of these, so do have a look and pop them in your calendar!
OR, you can become a member now and get free access to all of our upcoming events (Annual £25 full membership and £10 student): victorianpopularfiction.org/membership-j...
Join us for a mid-week, mid-afternoon writing retreat and beat that afternoon slump! As usual, this event is free for VPFA members, but we have now opened this up to non-members for a small fee of £5 (£6.13 inc. Eventbrite fee). Sign up is available here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1984543534...
📢 LAST CALL, BOOK GIVEAWAY ends this Thurs. Repost to win 1 free copy of *Theatrical Afterlives: Nineteenth-Century Women’s Novels on the Stage* (OUP March 2026). global.oup.com/academic/pro....
Please check your emails for information that will be coming shortly, or head to SYP's event page here: thesyp.org.uk/events/syp-u...
With all the hype around Wuthering Heights since Emerald Fennel's (wild?) adaptation, we thought that this would be a great opportunity for a discussion of Emily Brontë's classic novel for a VPFA collaboration with the Society of Young Publishers.
Our fantastic doctoral student Sarah Dutson is organising the next of our North-West Long Nineteenth-Century Research Seminars, which is a hybrid event focusing on postgraduate and early career research on 19c afterlives. For more info, please click here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/nineteenth...
Today is your final opportunity to submit an abstract for the VPFA study day on the 'critical age". Get submitting!!
I went to a VPFA 'Turning your thesis into a monograph' workshop in 2022. After completing my PhD, I thought I'd maybe mine my thesis for a couple of articles and leave it at that. I left the workshop motivated, re-inspired, and my monograph is now in production 👀
So: sign up!
@vpfa.bsky.social
Become a member to get a link!
Join the VPFA for a workshop on publishing Victorian Popular Fiction!
✅ Turning your thesis into a monograph.
✅ Writing a winning book proposal.
✅ Insights from the VPFJ editorial committee.
✅ Handling peer review & rejection
📅 26th February at 6pm
🔗 See your emails for the registration link!
Just 9 days left to get an abstract in for this @vpfa.bsky.social study day on "The Critical Age". Please re-post to share as widely as we can. Thank you!
Thomas Vranken & Atele Dutt, ‘Speaking in Tongues: The Texts Haunting Stevenson’s Samoan Adaptation of “The Bottle Imp”’, Victorian Popular Fictions 6.2, 2024
@vpfa.bsky.social #C19
9/10
victorianpopularfiction.org/publications...
A response to Dickens's OLIVER TWIST's antagonist, FAGIN THE THIEF was nominated for the 2026 Edgar Award (Mystery Writers of America) and shortlisted for the National Jewish Book Awards (Jewish Book Council). It seems like an intriguing addition to the growing neo-Victorian canon.
Want to discuss Allison Epstein's new novel FAGIN THE THIEF?
To join the informal discussion of the novel, please email Rebecca Nesvet at nesvetr@uwgb.edu for zoom link or more information.
📆6-7PM BST, Tuesday 24 March.
New VPFA Study Day Announcement 📢: 'Out of this World: Science Fiction in the Victorian Period'.
Read the CfP on our website: victorianpopularfiction.org/out-of-this-....
@bavs-uk.bsky.social @rs4vp.org @thevicsoc.bsky.social @global19c.bsky.social
Feeling start of year de-motivation? Sign up for our virtual writing retreat to get those creative juices flowing! If you are a member, all information will be in an email from us, or get in touch with network.vpfa@gmail.com to find out more.
The next session of VPFA's Third Sex Reading Group is Sarah Waters' Affinity! Lots of interesting things to be included in the pack from the queer space of the seance room and prison, to intertextuality, and the connection between spiritualism and sexuality. To join email vpfareadinggroup@gmail.com
don't forget to send in your abstracts for this VPFA study day. Women's bodily experiences are so often overlooked in fiction, so this study day is so important for bringing those to light.
For those of you who need some mid-week inspiration, why not join us for our next virtual writing retreat? It is the perfect opportunity to get some work done in two solid writing blocks.
11 Feb 2-4pm (GMT)
Free for all VPFA members - check your emails for more information on how to register!
@l19cmanmet.bsky.social @19birkbeck.bsky.social @thevicsoc.bsky.social @bavs-uk.bsky.social @rs4vp.org @global19c.bsky.social @navsa.bsky.social @helenaesser.bsky.social @cryingtheoretic.bsky.social
The next special issue of Victorian Popular Fictions Journal is “Human–Animal Relations in Victorian Popular Literature and Culture” and will be guest-edited by Dr Bethany Dahlstrom & Dr Helena Esser. For full CFP and submission guidelines, please see: victorianpopularfiction.org/wp-content/u...
Now it's actually out, here's another plug for my new book about #Victorian New Humour, where I prove that Jerome is better than Joyce.
Just now realising I should have called it FUN de siecle.
@bavs-uk.bsky.social
@vpfa.bsky.social
link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
Fun de siècle would have been a great title! A fascinating piece of research that we can't wait to get into. Congratulations on your publication 😀
Check out Helena's new blog post as she considers some new and upcoming Neo-victorian novels and whether they are becoming more unhinged and innovative. Let us know if you have read any of the texts, and any thoughts you may have
Looking for some unusual neo-Victorian reads? The @vpfa.bsky.social blog's got you: victorianpopularfiction.org/is-neo-victo...
Start the year gently with conversation, curiosity, and a cup of tea.
We invite you to revisit familiar Victorian texts, share what still resonates, and explore how our research questions evolve over time.
Free for all VPFA members - check your emails for more information on how to register!
List of reasons why we don't use AI in class
I'm constantly revising my list of reasons why we don't use AI in my class. This one is specific to a first-year writing intensive. Free to borrow/adapt! 🙂
You heard it here first: next Third Sex session useful to anyone interested in Kent history! Sign up by emailing vpfareadinggroup@gmail.com to express interest!
Born in Ramsgate, we'll have you know! And yes, she's on the KMO site...