Come meet the Bluestocking Belles! – #HistoricalRomance #CooperativeWriting #FBParty

By Rue Allyn (Guest Blogger)

The Bluestocking Belles are celebrating ten years of cooperative writing. Everyone is invited. The event takes place on March 15, 2025 in the Belles Brigade, our FB group, https://www.facebook.com/groups/1645454959073273/. We will be hosting dozens of authors with prizes and fun galore from 10AM to 10PM NYT. Please join us.

Who are the Bluestocking Belles? A group of authors who write historical romance, separately and together, and who help promote one another.
Roughly seven years ago, I was invited to join a group of authors calling themselves ‘the Bluestocking Belles.’ I’d never heard of the Bluestocking Belles—or the Belles as I call them—so I spent a few weeks looking them up online and reading one or two of their books. Boy am I ever glad I did.

What I learned during my research intrigued me enough to accept the invitation. I became the eight Belle. A change in membership had prompted my invitation. I never met the author who left the group, opening a spot for me, but to that author I am extremely grateful, as I am to all the Belles past and present.

One of the things about the Belles that intrigued me most was the collections they published—one per year at that time—we now frequently produce two collections per year. Many of those collections were not mere assemblies of unique stories on a theme—although we have a few of those. Belles’ collections are that and much more; the stories are inter-related. Characters, settings, circumstances from one story appear in another.

Once I joined the group, I learned that the process for creating this kind of intertwined collection involved a great deal of work. I won’t go into the process here. However, I will say that the work involved in creating and promoting the collections made me a much better writer. I’ve learned from each and every Belle, and each Belle is a master of her craft.

Our membership has changed over the years, but the current Belles are Jude Knight, Caroline Warfield, Cerise Duval, Susana Ellis, Elizabeth Ellen Carter, Alina K. Field, Sherry Ewing and myself. Individually, we are VERY different authors—different time periods (though all of us write primarily historical romance), distinct voices, and varied preferences for character types and tropes.

All of my Belles colleagues understand the historical romance reading audience—we are readers first, after all. They recognize heroic behavior and enjoy creating conflict for fictional couples on their way to HEA. We LOVE variety. Yes, we like traditional Regency Romance settings and tropes, but you’ll find in our individual stories and our collections that our writing range extends well beyond London ballrooms and soirees.

One other thing unites us, besides the desire to bring great, emotionally intense stories to readers—our love of history. We love it so much that each of us often must force ourselves to stop researching in order to get the book written.

I have been blessed to be a part of this special group of authors. I hope, for all of you reading this, you may find for yourselves a group, a family, of friends who share interests, care deeply about each other’s well-being, work together for a common goal while maintaining their distinct individuality, and love to read 😊

PS: I forgot to mention that we do all of this on-line. We live all over the world, New Zealand, Australia, Central America, and the US. Location is no barrier to creativity. All that requires is a willingness to do the work.

Come hang out at our 10^th anniversary celebration, March 15^th. We’d love to get to know you.