Feb 14 2023 62 mins 7
"I am not writing to make other people comfortable." A conversation about “Diversity in the Age of Viral Books” with authors Adriana Herrera, Kennedy Ryan, Nana Malone, and Nisha Sharma, moderated by Nichole Perkins. They cover that and so much more. It’s an insightful, incisive, and wide-ranging conversation that covers what inspired each of the authors to start writing romance and what they find to be the hardest thing about it; the pressure they’ve felt to tone down the authenticity of their books to appeal to audiences who don’t share their or their characters’ identities and some of the choices they’ve had to make in terms of content and marketing; their experiences having books traditionally published and publishing them independently; and how TikTok, in particular, has changed publishing, and what that means when the app itself isn’t an even playing field for authors of color.
