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What is BIPOC Romance? Feat. Regina Black
36 Plays20 days ago
In the eleventh episode of The Write Way of Life’s ~Romance Season~, host Karis Rogerson chats with USA Today bestselling author Regina Black about BIPOC romance. They discuss how publishing seems to treat white as the default for characters, their favorite BIPOC romances, and also how to center joy and romance in stories about marginlized people.
Find Regina Black online. Order her books, including the Art of the Scandal. And follow her on instagram.
The Write Way of Life is a craft-focused author interview podcast by Karis Rogerson & A.D Jolietta. Follow The Write Way of Life on Instagram or find us on our website. Follow Karis on Instagram and subscribe to her newsletter. Follow Adi on Instagram.
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Transcript
Introduction & Episode Overview
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello, hello, everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Right Way of Life podcast. I'm Karis Rogerson, one of your hosts for the podcast, and i am here introducing this episode solo because Adi is in Alaska and life is lifing. I am not in Alaska. I am in Brooklyn, where it is...
00:00:47
Speaker
cold as fuck. Um, I've been cold all day. I'm freezing. So we're just gonna race through this little intro and then I will continue being cold, but not recorded.
00:01:01
Speaker
so um this episode is our second episode in our breaking the default series this one is about specifically bipoc romance i'm super excited about it i was super excited about it and i had an amazing conversation with our guest regina black who is an amazing author um and i really just had a great time with this talk i think um regina had some really incredible insights to share so I'm actually just going to read her bio and then we will dive in and you will get to the episode faster.
00:01:36
Speaker
All right.
Guest Introduction: Regina Black
00:01:38
Speaker
Regina Black is a former litigator, current law school administrator, and lifelong romance reader who writes about art, identity, and love in the modern South. Her debut, The Art of Scandal, was named to Best Romance of 2023 by Publishers Weekly, Amazon, Audible, and the Chicago Public Library. Her second novel, August Lane, became an instant USA Today bestseller and was praised as a powerhouse of the genre by the New York Times Book Review. Regina currently lives in Little Rock, Arkansas with her husband and daughter.
00:02:09
Speaker
Welcome, Regina, to The Right Way of Life.
Journey from Law to Romance Writing
00:02:12
Speaker
All right. Hey, everyone. Welcome to a new episode of The Right Way of Life. I am Karis Rogerson, one of your hosts, and I'm here with romance author and credit extraordinaire, let's say that, ah Regina Black. How are you, Regina? I'm good. Glad to here.
00:02:28
Speaker
Amazing. We're so glad to have you. Would you mind just introducing yourself and your books for our listeners who maybe aren't already familiar? Yeah, so my name is Regina Black, and um I've written two books. When I'm not writing romance, I am a law school administrator and former litigator. I i call it recovering litigator. Yeah. When live in the South and I've been reading romance all my life, um my debut novel was The Artist's Scandal. And that was about a woman, a politician's wife, who finds that her husband has been cheating on her and he pays her a million dollars to keep playing the perfect wife. But then she ends up meeting and falling for this much younger artist. And she kind of has to re-examine her choices.
00:03:18
Speaker
um and my latest book was august lane and that is a second chance romance that is set in small town arkansas and it is about a black country singer who lied about writing his only hit and he gets a second chance at stardom but in order to take it he has to go back home to his small arkansas hometown where august lane lives who is the person who actually wrote the song that made him famous and she's also his first love from high school obsessed I love it I love I love a romance I'm realizing this where which okay this is so basic but I love romances where like there's external factors where it's like you know we could be in love but like you did this or like we could be in love but the million dollars I er everyone calls my books messy and I embrace that wholeheartedly I love mess I
00:04:17
Speaker
it's So good.
Challenging Default Representations in Romance
00:04:19
Speaker
it's So good. But yeah, um I mentioned this to you right before we started recording. And for our listeners, I'll just remind them we're going through a series looking at Publishing, romance publishing, which um tends to and historically has defaulted to characters that are white, cis-het, able-bodied, and telling those stories. um And we're looking at stories and authors and and craft tips for sort of breaking that and breaking out of that.
00:04:45
Speaker
um And representing, like, you know, the world as it is, which includes so many people, more than like who we have historically tended to see.
00:04:57
Speaker
um So I just want to get started by like getting a baseline of sort of like, what is your take on romance publishing? And like, is there sort of a default that people default to? Like, is there sort of a a weightedness toward these white, able-bodied like romances?
00:05:17
Speaker
Yeah, I really think there is. um You know, I came, i started reading romance in like the 90s when I was very young. yeah And all at that time, pretty much all the books were white, straight romances. um And I actually remember the covers of the first romance books I saw with Black women.
00:05:37
Speaker
people on because it was so outside the ordinary. um But I think that it is the default because when you think about what romance does as a genre and what it represents, it kind of aligns with this default image we have of you know, beauty and the lack of struggle and ease and all of those things are aligned with, you know, the status quo, the majority, you know. And so i think anytime you put anything that deviates from that in a book,
00:06:13
Speaker
it kind of disrupts this escapist fantasy feeling for some people because they can't, you know, imagine a queer person in the past ever like actually having a happy ending or, you know, if a black person falls in love when slavery exists, the love can't possibly be realistic or thrive when...
00:06:34
Speaker
people were doing that all the time so um I do think that's one of the reasons why the when people think of romance they picture in a particular way because the happy ending is so integral to the genre so that is that is very interesting I'm realizing like I didn't start reading regular romance. I read a lot of Christian romance as a kid, which is its own very specific genre. And that was like really all I read was Christian romance and then Amish romance. But so it was like 2018, 2019 when I started reading adult romance, like contemporary adult romance. And by then we were already seeing a shift where there was more diverse representations. Like the the first real romance novel that I read was red Red, White, and Royal Blue. And that was the sort of my gateway into it. And it was like, so...
00:07:28
Speaker
I never considered a world where like it wouldn't make sense for there to be queer characters having their happily ending because that was like the first one that I saw. um so i'm I'm considering and I realized this during the last episode we did with Alexandra Bastia. I was like, I'm a little lucky in that sense because like I always was able to I came to romance as it was flourishing and expanding. And that's really lovely for me.
00:07:53
Speaker
Um, but not everyone had that experience.
Beyond Marginalization: Joy in Romance
00:07:56
Speaker
And i I, just, I don't know. It pisses me off when I think of people being like, I think of, there is an author. I don't know if I should say her name because she's like a really big author. Um, but she said something about how she doesn't write BIPOC characters in her historicals because she wants to write happy endings. Um, and I was, which is ironic for so many reasons, but also it just was like, that feels like a failure of imagination. um Yeah, I also, i think it's also reflective of art in general and how they see marginalization. People see marginalization.
00:08:32
Speaker
Because when you are centered in a piece of art, how you are centered is kind of a reflection of what they, like, society or the media thinks your value is in that space.
00:08:44
Speaker
Right. So what is the value of, you know, black actors and stories in film or black actors and is an art? And by a marge, it's our struggle. It's our marginalization.
00:08:57
Speaker
Right. And so that's why primarily the stories you see with those characters are about their marginalization in some way and even when we get something that does celebrate our joy the conversation surrounding it centers on the depiction of the marginalization and that's the value of the scene and a lot of people when it comes to romance actually it may not may be conscious or not you pick up a romance and it has a black lead in it and you kind of look for those things
00:09:30
Speaker
Right. if it's mentioned, if the fact that this is a queer character or a black character or a Latino character existing in a society that has systemic issues and, you know, systemic racism or sexism, um yeah if you mention that as part of just this is the general part of this director your experience, then the review centers on like, oh, this is such great representation.
00:09:57
Speaker
Oh, trigger warnings for racism. And it's like racism. I just wrote this Black woman existing in America. and so I feel like a lot of times that that is one of the reasons why a lot of people kind of shy away from books that feature marginalized characters. Because so i I'm not in the mood for something heavy. i just want something light and to escape and all of that. And like our books are never what they reach for with that. Yeah.
00:10:31
Speaker
That's a great point. And I think it's, yeah, I think so often when people think of marginalized identities, they think of it in the terms of the marginalization aspect of it instead of the, like, it is just a way to exist in the world. There are obviously, like,
00:10:51
Speaker
The world exists in, like, especially in America, like, it is a white supremacist structure. It is very homophobic. Like, it's, it is the world that it is. But that doesn't mean that every day being a marginalized person in this world is a struggle. There is so much beauty. Like, I didn't know I was queer until, like, four years ago. And then when I came out, it was, like, I found so much joy in being able to be, like, I'm queer and I'm part of this community and, like,
00:11:18
Speaker
it's amazing and it's beautiful and it's wonderful. And I keep using the word like cut kaleidoscopic because like that, it really feels like I like looked into a kaleidoscope and was like, holy shit, there's colors out there. um And so there's, and I know I, I don't have experience being ah a BIPOC in the world. Obviously I'm a white woman, but like, I know that there is beauty in the culture and in the experience of walking through the world, like as a black woman, as a Latin a person, like there it's,
00:11:46
Speaker
Which is all to say, as ah you know, and most listeners know, like, it's not a bad thing to be to be a marginalized person. It's just the world makes, the world is what it is and tries to make it a bad thing.
00:12:01
Speaker
um And I think that's one reason why I really love... um romances that do sort of break that default is because it's like, it shows me that there is like so much beauty. And I always, they're not, I don't go to romance novels to be educated because that's really not their purpose. But I have learned so much through romance novels. So, so much. And not even just about life experience, but about, you know, like literal sex because,
00:12:29
Speaker
every Every day is a learning experience in a romance. I also think romance is great. One of the things I really love about romance is it's such an emotion center genre. I think the the takeaway I get from romance a lot of times, it teaches ah you a lot about yourself.
00:12:47
Speaker
So when you're reading a book and there is this relationship and these two people are interacting in the specific, very specific ways that these two characters interact, you have reactions to it.
00:13:00
Speaker
Like it either, it just either makes you swim or it or, you may pick one up and you go, that's not hot. You know, and it's like, that's what you're really pulling from romance because romance is about connection it's about emotion and all it's to me the most intimate genre and it really reflects and teaches you about what kinds of connections you want right Yeah, absolutely. And so I feel like reading them from a young age really shaped the way I kind of navigated my romantic life because I had a lot more insight into what i was looking for but what I wasn't looking for. And so that's where I feel like the education in romance really comes from.
The Intellectual Value of Romance
00:13:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. I'm thinking of like ways that that has panned out in my life and in my experience. And I'm like, yeah, no, you're 100% right.
00:13:59
Speaker
Going to a romance, like, you know, reading my book and saying, I want to learn more about black culture. going to say, yeah, you might get something out of it. It's very specific. Like, it's just two people. Yeah. It's in the world. Yeah.
00:14:14
Speaker
The other thing i do think you can get from reading outside your experience is a clearer picture of your own experience, particularly if you're in the majority and it's invisible to you most of the time. When you read authors that don't share your identity, you actually see yourself a lot more clearly. And I feel like that's an underrated educational experience that we have when we read diversely well.
00:14:42
Speaker
Yeah. Underrated, sometimes uncomfortable, but discomfort is like really good for growth. um So totally worth it. um i was just thinking when you said um it's about emotions and like showing you how to feel it. it For some reason, I thought of.
00:15:04
Speaker
the The concept of, like, cringe and just, like, feeling emotions and how – and this is a conversation I've had both on this podcast and with other people lately. But I was thinking of it yesterday because I saw a post. It was about heated rivalry, which is, like, all I've thought about since Thanksgiving. But it was – people have been using the phrase, like, we're reheating the rivalry when they're, like, rewatching episodes. And someone was like, I hate that phrase. It's so stupid. Like, he used, like, a vomit emoji. And i was like, well, sometimes you just got to be a little cringe, like – It's romance. Like you're a allowed to be like embarrassing or like silly because it's fun and it's cute. And like, what's wrong with it? um So
00:15:40
Speaker
yeah that i yeah. Honestly, sometimes I feel like some of that comes from kind of like the head getting in in the way of the heart type. I mean, happens particularly with readers. um I have um like, I write about this stuff in my newsletter and I wrote this one newsletter that kind of was called In the Defense of Arousal because i feel like it's it's one of those things that everyone talks around but people don't like engaging with because they don't want to admit the sensory experience you're seeking when you pick up a romance book that has like you know sex on sex. does kind of really lean into physical chemistry or that sort of thing.
00:16:24
Speaker
um And it's it's like, the it's the difference between you know picking up a mystery with a twisty plot and you're trying to figure it out, which is kind of all in your head, where when you pick up a horror book and you just want to be scared.
00:16:37
Speaker
Or a romance where you just want to feel tingles and you want to feel the tears in your stomach or tingles all over. and I feel like it was just reluctance to own that because people are kind of ashamed of it. And then you kind of slide over into this conversation of like, you know, the characterization of it is smut and like, why being it? And so, yeah, I do think a lot of people push back against the more what they kind of call embarrassing aspects of the genre.
00:17:08
Speaker
And i always feel like the things that people are embarrassed by are the things that are kind of purely sensory, pleasure, romantic, romantic. Whirny, syrupy, sugary aspects of the genre that actually you are looking for when you pick the book up.
00:17:24
Speaker
begin Right. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to like feel something in your body. It doesn't make it less smart or like intellectual than if you're only thinking with your brain.
00:17:35
Speaker
I argue that most of this stuff that becomes extremely popular is because it prompts that experience. Like the purely yeah mental experience, people can ah can admire that for, you know, how clever it is. But the stuff that just kind of catches on and goes viral tends to be the stuff that evokes some sort of visceral kind of emotional and physical response. Mm-hmm.
00:17:59
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. um i love that. I love the the idea of like, i don't know, I think about a lot in my own life shame and like it's the way it has presented in my life and the way I'm trying to sort of like divest myself of it. And I think a lot of it is like from being told like bodies are bad bodies or like they need to be one type of way and look one type of way or it's bad. You can't talk about like bodily functions or like You know, whether that's, like, oh, you, like, anyway, like, whether it's, like, using euphemisms for the bathroom to euphemisms for sex, you know, like, it's, like, well, the body is shameful. and It's, well, I mean, we would, none of us would be here without bodies. So, like, let's.
00:18:43
Speaker
Yeah. No, I and I really think one of the best things like as an author earth that I kind of I've done to kind of push or kind of push against that, which you're talking about, like that shame and and, you know, being embarrassed to tell people I write romance or any of that or writing from a place of self-consciousness because I do my best not to do that.
00:19:07
Speaker
um it's just consuming a lot of different types of media and a lot of different types of voices and i read a lot of non-fiction i watch a ton of movies i used to work at blockbuster back when that was at so um just constantly consuming art and it just really shows you all these ways of thinking about like the human body and like it And after a while, you kind of shake off that self-consciousness and you just kind of go, this is art. I'm telling a story. And, you know, having people consume it and respond the way that I want to is the whole point of even doing this. Because if that's not your goal, if your goal is not to inspire that kind of reaction in someone, then why am I even writing romance? I should be writing something else.
00:19:58
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And um when it comes to writing romance and specifically writing romance with BIPOC leads and love interests, like, why is that something like to you personally, but also on a
Centering Joy in BIPOC Narratives
00:20:11
Speaker
grander scale? Like, why is that important? Why does that matter?
00:20:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, me, part of it is what I was saying before. When I came to the genre, there just wasn't much in the form of representation. And so when I thought about what I wanted to write, it was always, i always wanted to write Black characters, Black women in particular, and romance. And when i sit down to write it, I think it is really important to center people with these identities in a story like this that is joy focused you know, about pleasure and about escapism.
00:20:51
Speaker
Because a lot of the books that we typically see with these characters very much heavily center on their marginalization. So i it's it's just where my interest is Like I've read so many romances over the years with so many characters that kind of blend together that my interest will always go to, you know, where I feel like there's absence and that impacts the types of stories I tell, too. So like,
00:21:22
Speaker
You know, when I was, when I i was querying or trying to get the Art of Scandal published, I was very, very conscious of the fact that I did not have good comps. There were like, you know, comps are comparative titles for those that don't know that you know, convince editors and agents to take your book on. and I did that around in 2020.
00:21:47
Speaker
The height of rom-com And I did not write a rom-com, but I wanted to write this type of kind of sexy, scandalous, soapy romance, but I wanted it to center characters of color in it.
00:22:04
Speaker
That's where my interest was. So I wrote that being very aware that it was kind of a long shot in my mind of that getting published. I mean, it worked out really well, but...
00:22:15
Speaker
um But yeah, so that is why I write the stories I write. um Even when I write books between characters of different races, i tend to write about two marginalized people because that's just, those are just stories that I'm interested in telling.
00:22:32
Speaker
yeah absolutely did you end up finding comps when you were querying the art of scandal that you used not really not good ones like yeah i used uh i called what did i call it uh shonda rhymes with life like that's what i said even my yeah when she was submitting it her comps were just she was she had yeah now there's a lot more Yeah, and now people use The Art of Scandal or August Lane, they can use those as comps too, which is like... i hope so.
00:23:04
Speaker
Yeah. No, I think that's that's one thing that's really cool about like, well, I don't know, I think it's like,
00:23:13
Speaker
seeing because I've been and I've been trying to publish since 2014. I haven't published yet, but like, I remember the first book that i read that had ah mental health representation that really spoke to me. And it was very, like, it was very unusual. It was like 2016 and it was a YA. And I was like, Whoa, I've never seen this before. But now I use that as a comp in some of my books that also did similar things with mental health representation. And, um and it's just like, it's,
00:23:42
Speaker
It sucks in a lot of ways to be one of the first to do something or to not have those comps. um And I think like one small thing is like, well, but now now there is this comp in the world. Like, yeah, yeah. i And I think it's nice. So I was really fortunate.
00:23:57
Speaker
You know, we tried to sell the artist scandal. Seven days in June had just come out. And I went on submission and we ended up selling it to the editor who had acquired some of those in June. So we found a person that looked at that book and said, oh, I know what this is. And that was the big, big problem. And that is a problem that i think a lot of people writing in this space or writing characters we don't normally see in a particular type of story have.
00:24:27
Speaker
If you're trying to be traditionally published, you have to convince people in that industry um that they can take your book, understand your book, and they know who to sell your book to. And a lot of times they don't. They really don't. They don't have any experience with it.
00:24:45
Speaker
um And so I feel like a lot of people looked at my book and said, I'm not really sure what this is, because there's a romance in it. There's, ah you know, it's open door. But there's also like these dramatic elements and this family element and all of these things. And well, it's not a rom com. So like, what it? It's not contemporary fiction.
00:25:05
Speaker
So where do we put it on the shelf? oh now I think people have a better idea of it back then it was a little like oh and it's it's black characters but she's not really talking about racism really but race is mentioned so um I do think a lot of people even now we get we get that response whenever people are confronted with something that deviates from what is expected and the norm a lot of times they're like yeah I like this I just don't know what to do with it's a norm
00:25:36
Speaker
Yeah.
Publishing Challenges for BIPOC Stories
00:25:37
Speaker
Yeah. This is maybe uncharitable or maybe not. But sometimes when I hear of like that response, I'm like, okay, well, use your imagination. Like, figure out a way to sell the book. Yeah, don't know. But don't know. It's hard.
00:25:50
Speaker
it is it is a specific it's a skill set. right yeah you know If you have spent years you know reading in the romance publishing space and you have acquired this knowledge of what to do with these books, when someone hands you, like you know you're like, I know what to do with square pegs with these small widgets, but now here's a circle widget.
00:26:14
Speaker
Do I want to take the time to learn how to sell a circle widget or could I just like leapfrog over that and get another square yep I feel like that's more of what happens in publishing right now I don't I don't think there's this assumption the book isn't good Oh, for sure. actually think it's more like a cost benefit analysis of I'm not really, you know, we don't have a deep backlist of black titles.
00:26:42
Speaker
So I don't know where those readers are. And it's not worth my time to kind of find them. Yeah, for sure. There's I see so many people will share screenshots of like rejections that they get from agents or editors. And so often it's like, yeah, this is really good. I just say I don't know where to put it. So yeah and so you're so right. Like so often it's not even it's like I love the book. I just can't.
00:27:06
Speaker
I can't picture where it goes. like Yeah. And like, because publishing is so underworked, overworked and underpaid, that's the phrasing because there is so much to do. And so, and people, fewer people doing it. Like it's, I understand the, the, the thought of like, I don't have the time to learn what to do with this. I just wish it was as a different system that allowed for that.
00:27:33
Speaker
And that's one of the reasons it's really important to be mindful of who you're working with. um You know, there's this advice that goes around that like a bad agent is worth a no agent. You know, i would say the same for um a bad editor as well.
00:27:49
Speaker
ay a lot of being successful, writing something that does not align with the majority of stuff that's out there is putting it in the hands of someone that does have that vision and does understand you know, what that work is and understands that representing me as a Black author is not the same as representing their white authors. Like, you know, we're not goingnna have the same experience.
00:28:13
Speaker
You know, what works for them may not work for us. You know, be you might think about different things when you put our votes in the world. So, yeah. Yeah, it reminds me of something that I have seen um as I guess, like, writing craft advice, which is, like, if you're writing, um whether from the POV, well, especially if you're writing from the POV of someone who doesn't share your identity, but even if you just have, like, side characters or non-POV characters who don't share aspects of your identity, like, know people, i guess, like, who do. Like, if I'm going to write...
00:28:48
Speaker
um I, ah this is an example from a book of mine where I had um my white main character and then I gave her roommate and I based her off my roommate. So she's a black woman. And it was like, i have experience. i I live with my roommate, obviously. And so it was like, I, it's, I'm thinking of it in terms of the editors. Like I, at the very least, like I can ask her, like, what is your experience? But at the, at the different way, I'm like, i have proximal understanding of her experience because we've lived together for so long. um But also I think of like with editors where it's like, look at who they've worked with to see like, do they have the, the understanding, right. Of like how to work with someone who isn't.
00:29:34
Speaker
Yeah. yeah ah it's It's really important to look at an editor's list. It's also important to look at an agent's list. And also, like when agents, you know, they publish these manuscript wish lists, right? And then they they'll list books that they're like, I want the next.
00:29:53
Speaker
And if the whole list is white and they're asking for Black books, I wouldn't necessarily... trust that person to represent me because they're actually not reading the type of stories that you are writing and this is kind of this is relevant to the craft writing craft aspect of like writing outside your own experience i always say that you know wanting to do it is the first step but to me it's like it's kind of like with the agent it's like don't ask for my book when you don't read books like mine And with a writer, i would say before you try to write outside your experience, have you ever written about your own experience? Like, why would you write about my experience when you've never written yours, when yours is invisible to you? So if you go back to all your books and the word white is never in your book.
00:30:50
Speaker
Or you don't, like, acknowledge the position or the specific experience of your character in any way. Like, the fact that she is... The fact that, you know, she is able-bodied.
00:31:01
Speaker
And you've never actually... integrated that into her experience in a book what makes you think you could do that with someone who's not your identity so try that first and there are some authors that do do that and do it well um and then once you kind of nail that you might have an idea of the things that you should be mindful of when you're writing outside your experience.
00:31:26
Speaker
So. Yeah, that's excellent advice. Thank you. um And definitely the kind of thing where i I mean, I remember when I first started writing, I was like, I'm impatient. I'm ready to go. I don't want to take the time to learn. And it's like, slow down, slow your roll. It's okay to take the time to learn. And yeah,
00:31:44
Speaker
and then sometimes i yeah i'm sorry i it but the best thing you can do is just kind of read like right like yes yeah yeah agent editor writer whoever you are like just take the time to kind of read outside you're hearing some different voices and that is going to get you so far so yeah it's very easy to fall into a mindset of like um time running out or like I don't have the time but the truth is like i mean books take time you cannot really rush a book because the the just the beasts that they are like they they require time to cook um
00:32:24
Speaker
Any individual book requires some time, but also like a career of book making like requires time and energy and craft focus and and learning. And part of craft is reading books that are like yours and reading books that are unlike yours. Yeah.
00:32:39
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that's that's really how you learn how to create at the end of it. Yeah. um And it's how you develop your voice as well. Yeah. Yeah, I'm thinking of it when um I mentioned earlier when you were talking about your books, I realized yesterday I was reading a ah young adult novel by Anne Liang. And I was like, oh, my God, this book is so like, it's one of those where like, I can see that the the characters like each other, but there's no way things remain as they are situationally, like they can't get together because...
00:33:10
Speaker
Her family this and her his family that. And I was like, my books are always like very internal obstacles. And I was like, you know what, I need to sit and I need to read more books with big external obstacles so I can learn yes yeah how to incorporate them because there's something so so delicious about being like, oh, you want to be together, but how? Like, how are they going to make it work? It's impossible. yeah i I love that. Like all my friends, that that's what I go to every time. um The way I come up with my romance, like the premise of my romance is I always think about, okay, let's put this character in a situation and who is the absolute worst person for her to fall for in this situation. And it just ends up kind of writing itself. Right. And then, you know, when you set up a book with those type of stakes, you lean into the stakes. Because I think sometimes, you know, if you're not used to writing a lot of conflict, you kind of like try to make it okay.
00:34:09
Speaker
You know, like with in August Lane, like he stole her song. And when I first came up with it, I said, well, did he really, you know, hey but, you know, as soon as I embraced it, the fact, yeah, um he did.
00:34:25
Speaker
my character became so clear in my mind and it it just gave such rich character material to mine for character and plot and all of that stuff. So one of my favorite piece of advice is like lean into the mess. Like,
00:34:44
Speaker
if If you think something, you go, no, I can't do that. Interrogate why you feel like you can't. And push back against it. If if you feel like, no, I think I'm just kind of nervous about the amount of conflict.
00:34:56
Speaker
It's probably a sign you should write it. Yeah. It's, yeah. I'm feeling that in a couple of my current projects where I'm like, oh, I could like pull my punches a little bit, but the book would be better if I did it. Yeah. So...
00:35:13
Speaker
um okay the next question is can you share to whatever degree you're comfortable with what it is like breaking into publishing breaking out and publishing etc with um books that center characters of color um what is hard what is rewarding
00:35:34
Speaker
I definitely think the most rewarding thing is the community aspect.
Community Support & Cover Representation
00:35:38
Speaker
um It is wonderful to go out into the world and see other Black women, particularly because that is who's primarily in my mind when I'm writing. Say they read this and saw them themselves in it.
00:35:51
Speaker
um That definitely happened with Artist Scandal, but it really happened with August Lane. There were so many Black women from the South or that grew up in small towns. that absolutely saw themselves. They saw their family members in it.
00:36:05
Speaker
And that was, that's wonderful. Like, I love having those conversations because that's why I'm writing it. Or or the Black country fans that felt alone. Like, one of the major reasons I wrote that book was because um that is something that people...
00:36:20
Speaker
before cowboy carter like just really didn't talk about so we all kind of like the dixie chicks or shania 20 private but yeah um ne and like that coming together that that book is like oh my gosh i love this you know song too i listened to reba garnett So that is the wonderful thing about writing from that personal space of like writing someone with my identity and other people with my identity pick it up and they go, oh, I hear you. You're talking to me.
00:36:53
Speaker
That's to me the best part. um i would say the most difficult part I've kind of touched on is that when you're writing Black characters, there people coming with these assumptions about what this story is and what it's going to be like and the characters. And then, you know, like I say, you get a lot of the, if you mention someone saying something racially insensitive, it's like, oh, put a trigger warning on that. It's racism. Yeah.
00:37:22
Speaker
And the first time that happened with Art of Scandal, i was taken aback because I was like, I i don't remember writing about racism in this book. But I did write about like microaggressions that Rachel X because of her position.
00:37:37
Speaker
and so it's it's hard because that some people won't pick your book up because they're like, oh, that's too serious for me. And it's not an accurate classification. it just happens because you're writing about Black characters.
00:37:53
Speaker
um so that's frustrating the other thing is for that's been frustrating has been um the covers the cover conversation it is very And I try to be understanding about the limit. you know Like we said before, people are aware of publishing and like there's all kinds of things that go into it. But um I think most Black authors will tell you that they have struggled when it comes to that conversation because of depiction of us.
00:38:24
Speaker
um has is It's hard. A lot of times the major publishers publishers don't use Black artists, and sometimes they work with people who aren't used to depicting Black people on covers. So if it's an illustration, it's inaccurate. um Trying to find stock photos of Black people is impossible.
00:38:46
Speaker
And so that process is to me like one of the things that really highlights the struggle sometimes you have as a Black author in publishing because you can't even just get a decent depiction people.
00:39:02
Speaker
visual depiction of your characters ever so that is that's a kind of something that sounds small but it feels big when it's time to pack look and put it out into the world so yeah No, I think – thank you for sharing that. I had never – it had never occurred to me that because I – well, I haven't had a cover conversation with the publisher. But um thank you for sharing that. That's really illuminating. And just to think about, like, holy shit. like And because covers are really important. I mean – They draw people in. They encourage sales. And if it's you know if it's not perfect or if it's not good, it it really affects things. So it's not it's not a small thing, I think. yeah And you also have to think about like people that aren't normally depicted on these things. You do depict them. they can be It's a different...
00:39:58
Speaker
It's different than when you're depicting someone who you are used to seeing on a cover. So think about like bodies that don't, you know, align with the default.
00:40:09
Speaker
And then, you know, you have a book with a plus size character and you have a picture on it of a woman who obviously isn't. that what is that saying to the target audience or the people that are picking that book up because they want to read a book that reminds them of themselves and so yeah it can be it can be frustrating in ways that i don't sometimes the people in that industry realize so yeah and it also occurs to me things like um if you if
00:40:44
Speaker
If covers are like, oh, we don't have like an artist who can do darker skin. So we'll do like, we won't put people on the cover. But every other book in this category has people on the cover. Like that's a, that's another way to sort of be like marginalized. The author and the the character and the whole, the who they're representing. So. Yeah. yeah Yeah. I have thoughts about sometimes why they don't put people on the cover. But I'll look for myself.
00:41:12
Speaker
Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. um Okay, but I do want to talk about, we've mentioned this a little bit, like, scent like joy and how to center joy and, like, on a craft level.
Balancing Joy and Complexity
00:41:28
Speaker
What do you do when you're writing a story and you're, like like, how do you sort of write true to life without, while centering the joy in the HEA? Yeah. I always try and do that in my books. I try to be as honest as I can about what I'm writing. So I feel like the joy in the HEA is part of the structure of the genre I'm writing.
00:41:49
Speaker
And so when I take when I sit down and I say this is a romance, I have a structure that's leading me to joy. Like, you know, I know where my end goal is. i feel like the honesty and the humanity is in the execution and the characters and where the position I put them in, the backgrounds I give them, the conversations they have, you know, how honest do I want to be about the situation that I've put these characters in?
00:42:15
Speaker
So, for example, I like to use fake dating as an example of this. You do a fake dating and we all know that that's going to end up in them actually falling in love, which is like that joy framework.
00:42:26
Speaker
Right. But then think about fake dating. Like basically you have a character who has brought this person into their lives and then proceeds to lie to everyone around them about who this is. Like take them to a wedding and tell your mom, this is your boyfriend. You just lied to your mother. Right.
00:42:47
Speaker
And so I think the choice an author makes is whether to bring him into the fold, have her lie, and then have like, you know, the mom and the best friend be like, yeah, he's so cute. somebody that finds out the truth goes, yeah, but it wasn't all pretend, you know, that kind of joyful escapist approach or you can really have people grappling with the fact that you've lied to us for months and then kind of do dial even deeper into why that person felt compelled to do that and maybe there's some background
00:43:22
Speaker
between her and her family that is unresolved trauma or tension or things that would lead someone to think this is absolutely the only thing I can do in this situation. So that's kind of how I approach romance using tropes.
00:43:39
Speaker
I think about, you know, with a second chance romance, I'm like, let's bring in all the hurt and angst that comes with yes seeing this person that you broke your heart but you never got over bring it all in there knowing that you're gonna get them to that joyful wonderful happily ever after ending so okay I love that. I love the the idea of like just digging deep into the character, right? And like every action they take can become a question as to why they took that action. Yeah. And then you just get to tease that out.
00:44:18
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, that's and that's why, like, my favorite tropes tend to be the ones that are the messiest. Like, Robbie's lying. Someone, you know, the there was betrayal in the past. or I love the amnesia book. I always say to someone, one of my friends wrote me one. I love a good amnesia book because one of them remembers one of them's forgotten. It's just weak, like...
00:44:45
Speaker
angst
00:44:51
Speaker
for sure I love a good um forbidden or like secret dating moment where you're like I want to like love you openly but I can't because of this or that or the other or like yeah I love a good forbidden run out i love it's secret a secret mom keeping me a secret why and then right and digging into what it's like to be the secret uh-huh yeah and like do you know you're a secret or do you think you're not like there's something there too yeah there's there's a lot there
00:45:25
Speaker
There's so many ways to take like a trope and then just sort of branch out into like 7 million different stories. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And push and dive kind of really deep into, okay, why do we like this trope? And like, just kind of bring that out in this different unexpected way.
00:45:42
Speaker
Like with the art of scandal, i wanted to kind of do a take on like a fake dating or a fake marriage situation, but like marriage, which you don't want her in. Right. and so yeah of course with the age gap i did want to do the older woman that her man but i wanted to kind of dissect that dynamic and really get at this man is exceptional in a way that makes her him attracted to her but he also realistically is 26 years old what does that do with the relationship which was yeah for me yeah so yeah i think it was fun for the people reading it but i enjoyed it was beat there so yeah amazing um okay we would love we me i would love some book recs for great um books about characters of color romance specifically obviously
00:46:39
Speaker
um so one of my favorite authors is also a dear friend of mine and we're friends because i love her writing i tell her about and it's nikki pain she is uh wonderful for people if you would like to read books so she's an anthropologist she's a um was a PhD in anthropology and she does such a phenomenal job with character development and bringing together characters from two different cultures in her books.
00:47:09
Speaker
Her first book is a black woman and a Filipino man. And her second book is a black woman and a Native American hero. um Her last book is between a Ghanaian American woman and a African American man. And then her next book,
00:47:28
Speaker
i don't know that it's been announced yet but it has another one of those dynamics i'm really excited about um so and she's just she's so smart and and legitimately funny there's like comedy com-coms and they're sexy so i mean he go get her entire backlist um another one other author that i recommend um for people that kind of like romance, some ah like a romance book, but also kind of literary fiction. She's not like a straight up and down romance um author. It's Tara Shelton Harris, writes amazing love stories in her contemporary fiction. And she has a book coming out called Where the Wildflowers Grow.
00:48:15
Speaker
and it's the most romantic book she's written so far. And it's beautifully written. And it has one of those wonderful kind of messy premises where one person is keeping this huge secret from the other so it is it's really great and it's a black romance and I loved it so amazing thank you so much for sharing those um is there anything else that you would like to add or just like share on this topic that like I haven't asked yet
00:48:45
Speaker
Yeah.
Recommendations & Conclusion
00:48:48
Speaker
I mean, i think just generally my thoughts are like when it comes to romance, I would just, and I probably already said this before, i would just like more people to kind of be open to picking up romances from different types of voices, particularly because recently we've had these conversations and on these online spaces about the quality of romance and things that people are sick of seeing and all the books are fill in the blank. And every time I see that, I think you're based, to me, it sounds like you're telling me what type of books you've been picking up.
00:49:28
Speaker
And if you want something different, if you really want books with yearning, if you really want books with good character work, if you want books that are talking about something, a lot of times it's going to be an author of color or a queer author or a disabled author because they are not going to sound like the books that you're sick of reading. So read outside your comfort zone and find somebody new to read.
00:49:56
Speaker
Yeah, I have a big soapbox that I love to get on is like reading and reading romance like you should it shouldn't. Well, maybe not shouldn't. But like I personally don't want to read just to self insert and see myself.
00:50:10
Speaker
I want to read to like see the world through someone else's eyes and like fall in love and see how like these two people who are nothing like me and who I don't think should fall in love are going to fall in love and then I'm going to root for them. Yeah.
00:50:22
Speaker
That is definitely how I think of romance. That's how I read romance. That's how I've always kind of read romance. And now yeah, I think, but even if you don't, I feel, i think the assumption is you can't, if you love self-inserting, the assumption is you can't do that.
00:50:39
Speaker
Oh yeah, I can self-insert anywhere, really. it's a talent. shot and You know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Could you let people know where to find you online and how to support you?
00:50:52
Speaker
yeah So um you can find me on Instagram. It's Regina Black Writes. That's what I am pretty much everywhere. so i primarily post on Instagram. And then I have a sub stack, Regina Black Writes. But the sub stack is called The Critical Heart.
00:51:08
Speaker
And I just write newsletters where I kind of have these types of conversations with people that... are very kind enough to so subscribe to me about like romance and why I love it and my thoughts about it, particularly as I'm writing, ah which I'm doing right now.
00:51:27
Speaker
And yeah, it's fun. So subscribe to my newsletter. I going to plus one that. I love your newsletter. I recently, I just read the, um it was like In Defense of Beauty, I think was one of the recent ones. Loved it.
00:51:41
Speaker
So good. I feel like I always come away and I'm like much to think about. And then I like expand my thinking. um So highly recommend if you're listening, you subscribe. um Thank you so much for coming and chatting with me today.
00:51:55
Speaker
i really appreciate your time and your insights.