Another week, another poorly-researched think piece on supposed trailblazers for Black romance authors. We won’t link to the piece because it’s mostly a rehash of all the others, which are rehashes of press releases. We’d rather focus on the many other Black voices in romance in this mini mid-week thread.
First of all, Alyssa gets straight to the point.
Elysabeth provides a history of Black voices in romance.
Rebekah talks about why she started WOC in Romance–specifically to push back on the false narrative that there are no Black voices in Romance.
Because as Savannah points out, there have been plenty of Black romance authors.
In fact, this year is the 25th anniversary of Arabesque, the first Black romance imprint.
Suleikha calls for those pushing this narrative to look inward.
Here are just a few of the romances by Black authors published this week:
Oh, and everything on this list:
And in this feed:
It’s been a long and winding road for Black romance authors. Those trails were blazed many years ago, as seen here www.rwa.org/trailblazers. Anyone who is interested can find that rich history if they look.