Mia Sosa
As a little girl growing up in East Harlem, I was always curious about how other (read: white and rich) people lived. I found my inaccurate answers by watching television (Dynasty, anyone?) and reading romance books. Ranchers, Hollywood starlets, secretaries eventually marrying their bosses — I could find all that and more in between the covers of a romance novel. I didn’t question much of it; I just consumed ALL THE BOOKS. I even imagined that reading romance would help me navigate unfamiliar territory, such as my interactions with well-to-do peers in middle school and beyond. It didn’t. Nevertheless, I was hooked on romance at an early age, and I’m glad I stuck around long enough to see the genre begin to welcome happily-ever-afters for everyone.
There’s so much I love about the genre: its ability to give readers hope and comfort, the swoonworthy moments and sexy times, the true character growth that happens on the page, the infinite ways its tropes can be used to create fresh and unforgettable stories, its capacity to celebrate and reinforce women’s sexual agency, the variety of tastes it caters to, the shared language of its diehard fans, its ability to empower marginalized communities, and… I really could go on forever, so why don’t I stop here?
The genre is slowly and steadily making strides in being more inclusive on several fronts, but there’s still so much more work to be done. Any growth needs to be embraced by the genre’s key players — authors, readers and publishers — but within each of these groups, there are individuals who still think that diversifying the genre shouldn’t be a goal, that crafting happily-ever-afters for underrepresented characters is unrealistic or that stories about people different from them are unrelatable. I’d love for this not to be the case, but sadly, we’re not there yet.
Mia Sosa writes funny, flirty, and moderately dirty love stories for Avon Impulse and William Morrow. Her next book, Crashing Into Her, releases in February 2019.
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