this is why RWA fell apart so spectacularly. we came for a professional book assoc. that was BUSTING with casual bigots who thought it was cool as long everyone was smiling and buying their books. btw i quit my local chapter because they went after an 18 muslim girl on goodreads.
the RWA mess of 2020 like step 12 in their racial and homophobic unraveling that honestly started the moment Vivian Stephens tried to clarify her original intent for the org.
some of your favorites are people who would happily run you over with their car if called them out for supporting Donald.
For those who want more context for how wrong Gaby Dunn is. There were a couple adult romance imprints who were putting out romance about Gay men written mostly by cis women. A lot these stories were fetishizing and racist. One publisher also just stopped paying their authors.
There was a concern that Gay men were being shut out of adult romance publishing. YA publish seems to be heading in a great direction with #ownvoices rep re race, gender and sexuality. Adult romance is still lagging in queer rep. Again this is about harmful rep. Not who is out.
When Love Simon came out I think people were nervous that YA romance was going to repeat the same pattern of shutting gay men out. Again, that's not happening. So Gaby's point is not only shitty, it's kinda incorrect.
Just gonna throw this out there because I am not white. It’s called being socially responsible. Do I need to write a 5 page monologue on BLM in my erotic rom com? No. Do I need to make sure there is a moral compass in my books to show readers that I give a fuck? Yeah.
All manner of things can happen in any kind of story, BUT if you do introduce bigotry it is your job as a writer to say, inside the narrative, this is wrong and my main characters know this is wrong. Falling for a slave owner kinda misses that point by miles.
Btw I have fucked up and been called out for bad rep that I thought was good early in my career and I was grateful for it. I did make a mistake and I learned what those mistakes can mean to readers. You learn, you grow. You don’t thread for 2 whole days.