My thoughts on love and diversity in the romance genre

My country is on fire right now with hate and violence. But even though I can't stop seeing it, reeling from it, I don't want to talk about that.

I want to talk about community. About romance. About love.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended the national conference for Romance Writers of America, down in Orlando (overwhelming and awesome and humid and full of good wine and people). Hands down, the highlight of the conference was Beverly Jenkins ending her Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award acceptance speech with,

“So now, here I stand, Beverly Elaine Hunter Jenkins, First of Her Name, Descendant of Slaves, Daughter of Dolores, Slayer of Words.”

Man, you should’ve been there. The whole room was flooded with emotion. With love. With pride (for her). With shame (for history). With hope (for the future).

I wish I could have bottled the flood in that room and used the force of it yesterday to drown the shouting in Charlottesville.

But then I realized that somebody's already done that, sort of. Diverse writers have bottled experience and pain, have packaged it in story and character, and used art to convey an entire education. It's all right there.

Love over hate. Every time.

If romance is the genre of hope, then maybe it's what this world needs most right now. What if -- what if -- we all went out and bought a romance featuring characters who are outside of our experience, and we went on a journey with them? And what if we found something beautiful at the end of it?

I think that could heal. Maybe?

So, I'm doing a little shopping over the next few weeks. I'll get Beverly Jenkins's latest. And Sasha Devlin's. And K. M. Jackson's. And Farrah Rochon's. And Alexis Hall's. And Synithia Williams's. And Alyssa Cole's. And Suleikha Snyder's.

And I will listen.