Readers: Books and Conversation with Jodi McAlister

Jodi McAlister is no stranger to the Petersham Bowling Club. She was a guest in its first season in 2023. She came back to speak about two new books and her body of work as an academic and author in the field of romance and depictions of modern love.

She spoke about The Bonk Buster: Women’s Popular Reading in the Long 1980s, an academic book she co-authored with Amy Burge and ‘An Academic Affair’ a new rom com for adults set in the cut throat world of academia.

As ever Jodi is hilarious, wise and offers superb insights about what people read romance and rom-coms for, how those books have been viewed (and why) and what she loves about stretching the genres she writes in.

In her work Jodi expands the ways we think about love, romance, sex, desire and listening. She brings these topics into the mainstream in thoughtful, sassy and astute ways.