Fabulous news, everyone. After a multi-year struggle by LGBT romance writers and allies, Romance Writers of America, the professional association for the largest publishing genre, has officially recognized the Rainbow Romance Writers, a formerly "guerrilla" group of writers specializing in LGBT-themed romance fiction, as a chapter.
Writing about the new chapter in the SF Examiner, Alan Chin says,
For many years authors of GLBT romance novels who attended literary conferences had to contend with shouldering aside peer scorn, open discrimination, their promotional material removed from conference displays, and were denied equal treatment by some romance reviewers and review venues. But things are changing.
Why should DailyKos readers care about romance fiction? I will be posting a diary in a couple of days explaining that progressives should not denigrate romance fiction (or romance, for that matter) because it frequently embodies progressive, and even radical, values. In the meantime, let me just say that a political movement that disses a cultural vector with these stats ...
*64.6M Americans read at least one romance novel in 2008 (versus 51.1 millioni in 2002 and 41 million in 1998)
*geographic distribution: 29% of the Southern population reads romance, 27% of the Western population reads romance, 26% of the Midwest population reads romance, 12.6% of the Northeast population reads romance
*one-quarter of ALL books sold are romance novels
...might want to rethink that strategy.
Tearing down the wall segregating LGBT fiction in such a popular genre represents a HUGE social advance. Congrats to the LGBTQ romance fiction authors / activists!
