Captivated by Love

Our Team Reveals Their Favorite Love Stories   

February 14 is Valentine’s Day. However, we at Project Write Now believe that the whole month of February should embrace the theme of love. Love has the power to inspire, heal, and bring people together, and it’s a feeling worth celebrating. We <heart> love.

This month, we asked our team members to share their favorite love stories. Whether it’s their own romance or a favorite TV series or book, here are the love stories that captivated them …

PWN instructor Gay Edelman, who leads the our Keep Growing Writers Retreat, said: 

“I love love! I chew up romance novels like bubble gum—and the feistier the woman, the better. A bit of mystery and intrigue makes for even more fun and that oh-so-necessary total escape I need to soothe my worried soul. My hands-down favorite, though, is Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. I first read it when I was a young teen, and I have read it probably a dozen more times over the years. Each time, I see the plots and characters differently, depending on my age. First, it’s a young girl being swept off her feet by a debonair mystery man. Yum! But then, it’s a feisty (there’s that word again) young woman taking on the ridiculous strictures of the English class systems. And so on. Now, as a woman of a certain age, I reflect on the extreme tenderness of the mature love she and her fella live into. I’ll take romance, for sure, like the old song says.”

PWN’s program coordinator and Lunchtime Write-In instructor Lisa Hartsgrove, said:

“You probably wouldn’t consider The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy a love story, but it is! And it’s my favorite story of all. During an apocalyptic event, Arthur Dent is scooped up with a galactic hitchhiker onto a ship of Vogons. They escape just in time and are picked up again by another ship through its Improbability Drive. On that ship just so happens to be Tricia McMillan, also known as Trillian—Dent’s missed connection. They reconnect through their intergalactic travels and the rebuilding of Earth. There’s so much else that happens, but the way these two continue to find each other in such vastness is a love I hope everyone gets to experience.” 

PWN’s Personal Essay instructor Mark McDevitt said:

“I’m a sucker for period love stories, and I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s all the starchy costumes, knowing glances, and all that pent-up longing. Everything written in the subtext. Or maybe it’s that history just feels more romantic when compared with the banality of modern life. Who doesn’t prefer the mystery of a personal letter, the clatter of a typewriter, or a telegram marked “urgent” over the immediacy of email or Zoom? Not to mention that everyone just looks so much better in candlelight! Anyway, my favorite love story is Jane Eyre by Emily Bronte. Jane is not what we would consider beautiful, wealthy or powerful – but yet, she possesses a kind of magnetism and internal strength that makes her feel timeless and relatable. She is, for my money at least, one of the great female protagonists in literature. She walks away from Mr. Rochester though it nearly kills her, because she knows her own value. In doing so, she chooses dignity over desperation, self-respect over comfort — accepting love only on her own terms. I suppose, at its core, it’s really a story about self-worth — about self-love — which in the end, is the only love story worth telling.”

PWN’s Short Story instructor Lisa Johnson Mitchell said: 

One of my favorite love stories is actually a play. Love Letters by A.R. Gurney is the story of two well-heeled childhood friends, Melissa and Andrew, who correspond via letters over a span of 50 years. The actors sit side by side on stage and we learn of their hopes and dreams, along with their defining moments, the highs and lows. The characters share an emotional intimacy that some marriages might well not possess, which fascinated me. Ultimately, the narrative broke my heart because we learn of their regret of not choosing each other. At the end, Melissa dies. I wept incongruously when I saw it on Broadway. It did me in, in only the best of ways. Nevertheless, it imprinted on my mind as one of the saddest, most beautiful stories I’d ever seen.

Book Revision Lab PAL Michelle Prestininzi said: 

One of my favorite love stories is Diana Gabaldon’s epic Outlander novels/Amazon series. This historical time-travel fantasy spans multiple continents and chronicles Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser’s love affair. Their adventures, passion, and tenderness toward each other make you want to time travel with them, too. It’s so good! 

PWN instructor and book inc writer Lou Storey said: 

I suppose my very first true romance story remains my favorite, Wuthering Heights—but my first exposure was in a Classic Comic Books series that I read as a kid, then my next exposure was the 1939 movie starring Merle Oberon & Laurence Olivier (in rerun, of course, I’m not THAT old), and finally in high school, the book by Emily Brontë—which was much more complicated than the comic book or the movie, and far better. My favorite line, one that made me curious about what romantic love might feel like: “He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” Sounded good to me.

Do you have a love story waiting to be told? Whether it’s a tale of self-discovery like Jane Eyre, an epic adventure like Outlander, or a story of souls that are fundamentally the same, our Writers Institute provides the perfect space to bring your vision to life. Our experienced instructors—who clearly know and love a great romance—will guide you through the craft of storytelling, helping you develop compelling characters, build tension through those “knowing glances,” and capture the tenderness of love in all its forms.

Join us at PWN’s Writers Institute and let’s write the next great love story together!