“I never saw myself in any of the characters, so I’d recast them in my head as Black people.”
My favorite Black love moment of the past 30 years is. If I can write anything that delicious, organic, sexy, funny, and aspirational, I’d die happy.
Yes! That was definitely art imitating life. In the literary world, being classified as a romance or chick lit writer automatically puts you at a disadvantage in that people think you’re less serious, less skilled, or less talented than literary writers. And it’s because the majority of the readership is women. Historically, things that women like are deemed silly. Critics thought the Beatles were silly at first because of their fan base.
I’ve never been asked to turn any of my characters white, but I’ve had friends in the fantasy and sci-fi genres who’ve been asked to whitewash their characters, because apparently asking audiences to believe in a fantasy character who isn’t white is a bridge too far. I have been asked to add more white characters to my books or to give a protagonist a “Black struggle” subplot. Both were a hard no, because it’s clear that those edits were to make my stories feel safer for white audiences.
It’s funny, I’m not really sure, either. I never really realized I was writing romance, but my novels all have a strong central love story with a happy ending, and that meets the parameters of the genre! The publishing industry defines literary books as being primarily character-driven, as opposed to plot, but so many genre novels have brilliant characterizations.Audre, my protagonist’s 12-year-old daughter.
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