One day in Romancelandia lasts approximately 1.3 Earth years. Now imagine a week. To help you keep up, we’ve gone through the tweets about last week’s highs (and lows) of representation in romance to bring you our Weekly Romance Update.
These tweets are from or about issues affecting BIPOC, LGBTQIAP+, and/or otherwise underrepresented writers, reviewers, and list curators. If you’re not already, please follow these accounts and be sure to always retweet the original post.
On #NationalComingOutDay, Jack talked about how the language we use to talk about romance erases queer men.
Weāre excited to see more queer/bi/pan women in romance.
But we still have work to do to make this a space for everyoneās HEAs. Because people still think a bipartisan romance is more realistic than almost literally any other scenario.
Although there might be room for a tale of love across the aisle if it ends like this.
Olivia delivered a thoughtful analysis of Kingdom of Exiles, parallels to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and how it paints queerness as dangerous.
Olivia isnāt the only reader to identify problematic allegories in Kingdom of Exiles. GR reviewer Stanella noted a while back that the entire book can be read as a metphor for chattel slavery in which the enslavers are the heros.
http://goodreads.com/review/show/2877537012
Authors use all the similes in the rainbow to describe BIPOC, but the only way you can tell a character is white is if itās not mentioned at all. If an author isnāt describing their white characters, they are saying that white is the default.
Also, a word from Ms. Bev for reporters stuck in a narrative loop about diversity in romance.
#WorldMentalHealthDay was last week, and Corey had some great recs for mental illness rep in romance.
They also joined Ceillie Simkiss and A.Z. Louise to discuss nuerodiverse rep in romance with Pink Heart Society.
Tomorrow is National Indigenous Peopleās Day, and one way you can celebrate is by backing this Native American Heist-Comedy-Romantic-Drama Comic by Navajo artists.
For those of you lucky enough to live near The Ripped Bodice, they are celebrating the Filipino diaspora in romance with an amazing panel of authors on October 19.
And you might have seen that our own š is embarking on a project with a group of authors to publish a holidays anthology for all the love stories that happen at times other than Christmas.
Make sure you check out new releases curated by WOC in Romance.
And donāt miss Girl, Have You Readās list.
Be sure to join us for our Reader Chat this Tuesday about How to Love a Scandalous Duke!
We hope you have a week filled with books and joy and all the good things! And if we have missed anything important, please let us know. Our DMs are open. You can also submit anonymous feedback at bit.ly/RSJfeedback.
If you appreciate the work we do, please consider buying us a ko-fi to help fund our giveaways of romances by underrepresented authors bit.ly/RSJkofi. Thank you!