Allow me to re-introduce myself: What I write and why.
I write Contemporary Fiction with Black gay leads. If that’s not your thing, thanks for visiting and I wish you well. If you want to hang out for a bit, here are the vibes in detail:
Some books might be genre romance, where the main plot line is a love story with a “happily ever after.” Some might be contemporary stories with romance as a component. I make this distinction since not everything I release is about a couple. Either way, due to the identities of my main characters and myself, I’ve found myself in a niche.
For a look at that niche, do a search of “black gay fiction” or “black gay romance” (or a similar combination of words) in Amazon and tell me what you see.
The most egregious thing I’ve found by searching those terms are a few books that are not gay or Black, in the first few pages of results. This is an algorithmic thing. There’s no category or “shelf” for Black gay fiction so it must be searched and the results pull in just about anything adjacent to those terms. But I’m not here to talk about metadata.
There are a few things I’ve come to learn about being an author in a marginalized group, especially in the indie space. It all has to do with perception of the product. The extent to which authors contribute to that perception is a can of worms I don’t want to open since I’m here to make friends (more on that later) — this is about reader and cultural perception. There’s a spectrum with two extreme ends:
The first end is the expectation that everything we write is “important” — academically and culturally profound. It’s informed by theory and inspires discourse. It’s well written because it exists to educate and inform. I respect that work, but that’s not what I do.
The second end is that we’re all writing smut and, not only smut, but irresponsible, offensive smut that relies on outdated depictions and pathology. It might be poorly written and edited. Maybe the cover art was finalized in Microsoft Paint. But it gets the blood going because it’s fun! I enjoy reading it every now and then and I have respect for everyone’s output but I don’t write that.
The authors who I consider my contemporaries also don’t write that, so the niche for us is nichier.
Since the death of the most prolific example of what I’m talking about, there has not been a firm, visible and centralized conversation around it. Are there Black gay fiction authors putting out solid product? Yes, and many are traditionally published and well-regarded. And they span genres. But let’s zoom in a bit more in regards to my niche. This is the part where I might lose some of you:
My main characters are Black men who love Black men.
This is not a political stance or a reflection of my current personal, decidedly single life; it’s just what I know and how I’ve chosen to apply it.
Going back to an earlier point, my characters tend to be more mature in that they don’t refer to themselves as queer or POC and, by extension, I don’t categorize my work that way. By the time my characters (and myself) were established in their personal and professional lives, terms that are an outgrowth of a more recent discourse on identity had no utility. This is more of an age thing. I want to make sure no one comes to my work expecting a YA novel where the main character has magical powers, a white love interest or struggles with identity. The best way to achieve that is by shedding “queer” and “POC” over here.
To put it bluntly, the same thing that happens to a white woman in a Liane Moriarty novel can absolutely happen to the Black gay men I write about. Most of my books are about interpersonal conflict, where the heroes and villains can be Black and gay men; the conflict is not a direct result of marginalization. I write mess.
If you’re an author who stumbled on this and we’re in alignment, hit me up. None of us should feel like our niche is an island. Communities are stronger. There are stories to tell and money to make.
If you’re a reader looking for your next favorite book, stick around. There’s more to come.
—RC