“It’s so early for bottom talk!” model Lauren Chan yelps, not unhappily, from the stage. It’s 10:15 in the morning on October 24 in Brooklyn’s Industry City, and in this room, there seems to be an unspoken agreement that very little pairs better with coffee and pastries than sexually explicit conversation. Later in the day, attendees would make on-mic comments about knotting (Google it yourself) and groaned together at the use of “impalement” in a conversation about writing sex scenes.
Welcome to RomCon, the inaugural gathering of romance readers, writers, and enthusiasts from “romantic fiction company” 831 Stories. The sold-out event drew 300 ticketed attendees who spent the day attending panels (Chan moderated the first of the day, titled “Romance in Real Life: How the Genre Shapes Us,” featuring authors Upasna Barath, Hannah Brown, and Nikki Payne), getting books signed (Casey McQuiston signed a dog-eared copy of Red, White, & Royal Blue, while debut author Tyler McCall workshopped signatures in the first ARCs of her People Like You), and eating the ample provided snacks, but the main order of the day was simply being in community with romance readers who, well, love the genre.
It’s been just over two years since 831 Stories—which has been careful to avoid pigeonholing itself as solely a publishing imprint—published its first title, Alexandra Romanoff’s Big Fan. Now, 15 slim volumes with 831’s signature colorblocking make a pretty picture lined up on a shelf.
Since its release, Big Fan has made waves: a TV series adaptation of the 162-page novella is currently in development at Hulu, and the book recently hit shelves in airport godsend Hudson News, with plans to be available at Target later this year. Several RomCon attendees wore the “I Am a Fan of Mischief” shirts released in 831’s webstore along with Big Fan, referencing the book’s fictional boy band.
Bookshop merch was a popular accessory of the day, with attendees representing their favorite haunts on tote bags and hats, and the Ripped Bodice set up a bustling shop. Selfie sticks abounded, and I spotted more than one tiny, fuzzy, baby-pink microphone wielded in the name of #content, making good use of the cozy backdrop of custom 831 banners, pendants, and art throughout the space. Strangers chatted and swapped the mystery ARCs gifted to all, took photos of one another in front of the giant 831 Stories cover mocked up for the occasion, and followed back on social.
“Everyone here is bought in,” cookbook author Julia Turshen, who made her fiction debut with 831’s Down to Earth earlier this year, commented happily to a group of attendees between panels.
“I don’t know that I realized until I was sitting there in the room how much of a sort of tangible manifestation this would be of the many reasons that we started 831, and it felt so nice to get to realize that,” Claire Mazur, cofounder of 831, tells PW.
Mazur and cofounder Erica Cerulo had always wanted to launch a large-scale event, and after book swaps, panels, and parties across the country, they decided in earnest in the spring that this year would be it. Reflecting on the first-ever RomCon, she says watching people connect was the best part.
“We got a lot of feedback yesterday about just how kind and congenial and community oriented the room felt,” Mazur says, “and I said, I wish I could take any credit for it, but this is actually just what romance readers are like.”
The panel topics—on queer joy, real-life romance, writing sex, politics, and tropes—reflected the ethos and curation of 831.
Mazur calls the topics “the core ideas that drove us to start 831, and that we do try to prioritize through the books that we publish and the stories that we tell. I think almost all of them were pretty obvious to us from the start because they are the things that we just keep coming back to over and over.” It’s no coincidence that in Big Fan, the main female character is campaigning for universal basic income, and her love interest is actively attracted to her passion for the cause.
“Not to glaze my publisher too much,” Romanoff said during a panel, “but one of the things I like about 831 is, I feel, a lack of that cynicism.”
At the con, 831 soft-launched a slightly tweaked cover design for 2027, swapping subtle textural photos for some of the spaces on the covers, sharing both the new look and a slate of upcoming authors—Edith Zimmerman and Mickey Rapkin among them, “a murderer’s row” according to Mazur—by leaving to-scale copies of the covers on seats after lunch, with no additional commentary.
Rapkin’s book is a male/male romance, a first 831, with Mazur describing it as “near-historical” thanks to its ‘90s timeline. In another first, 831 will publish its first title by a male-identifying author—Frankie Caracciolo’s baseball romance, Off Season—in December. Expanding its offerings is intentional, Mazur says.
“We’ve always had the dream of getting more men to read romance,” she tells PW, “and I think maybe this could be part [of it] and we start to get our foot in the door with that vision.”
Even with these new horizons, she still draws a hard line on romantasy: “No wings in 2027.”
As the con’s banners head to a storage unit and the books head to their loving new homes, the pink play money scattered during the surprise performance from the cast of Magic Mike Live that wrapped up the day dutifully swept, Mazur and Cerulo are preparing for Valentine’s Day, which Mazur calls “our Super Bowl.”
Looking ahead, RomCon will “definitely” ride again, Mazur says. “The minute we all get some sleep, we’ll start planning and plotting what that looks like.”