Fridays with Freddie: Why I Write What I Write

Hey everyone! Back with another Fridays with Freddie post, up a little later than usual today.

Today I'm talking about why I write what I write. First of all, it would probably help to make sure you know what I write before I start going on about why. I write diverse LGBT/queer romance often with fantasy, urban fantasy or paranormal overtones. Sometimes the romance takes a bit of a backseat to the overall plot, but it will always be there and it will always be queer and/or diverse. 

Obviously I'm still growing my platform, so there isn't a lot already published that I can point to as examples of what I write, but that doesn't mean I can't talk about it. So let's talk about why I write it. I am a queer, plus-size, cisgender woman of color who rarely - if ever - has seen myself in the books that I read. I tend to read the same genres I write, and the reason is in the sentence right before this one.

There are only a few liberties taken here; this is pretty close to how I look.

I want to read more people of color in romance, multicultural romances where it's not just White & Black, White & Asian, White & insert any other ethnicity here. What about the mixed relationships that don't include white people? Where are my Black-Korean romances? My Filipino-Indian romances*? Where are all of those with queer characters?

This isn't to say they don't exist at all, they're just not prevalent. Alyssa Cole writes a series called Off the Grid where three members of a Korean family find love. The eldest brother with a Black woman, the middle brother with a white man, and the youngest sister with a Hispanic man.  It's probably one of the most diverse romance series I've ever read...and one of the few I can call to mind. Annabeth Albert writes queer romance and there are diverse characters there as well. I'm glad for these authors, but boy howdy are pickings slim!

Mahatma Ghandi is credited with saying, "Be the change you wish to see in the world." That quote explains my drive to get more of what I want to see out there. Why wait around for someone else to do it if I'm capable? What if there are people out there like me who want to see this too, but they're not writers? If not me, then who? If I wanted to read queer and diverse romance, fantasy, and paranormal, then by gum, I was gonna put more of it out there myself.

Lots of question I'm leaving off with today so here's one more: why do YOU write what you write? And if you're a reader, not a writer, what drives you to read what you do? And finally, what queer and diverse authors am I missing? Based on what I said here, feel free to throw suggestions my way. Preference goes to authors who are themselves diverse, and stories that contain queer AND diverse characters, not just white m/m romance. (Disclaimer: I know of other Less Than Three authors, so chances are you don't need to suggest them!)

*wait for it...