Ten years later, of course things are now completely different. It has always irked me that one specific narrative was the only that seemed acceptable, regardless of what that narrative was. For me, queerness is defined by the joy of finally knowing who you are. While stories with a message absolutely have their place and I admire the authors writing about complex, hard topics-difficulty is certainly not the defining characteristic of queerness for everyone. That’s how you win awards, people said, and otherwise, no one will want this. Coming out stories, conversion therapy survival accounts, et cetera. It was only a bonus that it turns out I like ripping stories apart and putting them back together with their creators to make them even better than before.īut then, bringing about change was much easier said than done.įrom international conferences to chats with many former bosses, I always received the same message: I wish it weren’t so, but queer novels will only sell if there’s a teachable message. I liked the thought of doing something that contributes in a positive way to the state of the world.
I found myself wanting to fix that, to help the authors who I know are writing these stories. And certainly none whatsoever about queer characters of color, let alone disabled queer POC. There were hardly any F/F books in stores, especially not any about bisexual or pansexual teens that I had access to. When I first started in publishing around ten years ago, there wasn’t a lot of queer representation.
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