The International Association for the Study of Popular Romance (IASPR) is proud to announce the winner of the first annual Conseula Francis Award for the best unpublished essay on popular romance media and/or the logics, institutions, and social practices of romantic love in global popular culture. The winning essay this year is “The Stable Muslim Love Triangle – Triangular Desire in Black Muslim Romance Fiction,” by Layla Abdullah-Poulos of SUNY Empire State College: a groundbreaking study of “the amalgamation of Islamic, Black American, and American notions of love, courtship, and sexual dialogue” in this emerging textual corpus.

As the winning essay, “The Stable Muslim Love Triangle” will receive a $250 USD cash prize and be published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Popular Romance Studies. Abdullah-Poulos will also join the the panel of judges for next year’s Francis Award.