For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved stories. And the romantic ones were always my favourite. And for as long as I can remember, I’ve always been a little bit embarrassed about the fact that I love love so damn much.

When I wrote my first novel, No One Else, a mafia-themed romantic suspense novel (unpublished), I worked hard on that sucker. I spent months writing, revising, and shopping it around to agents. It was legit work, effort. And yet, when people asked what I wrote, I said ‘oh, it’s just romance’. Just. Romance. As if romance and love isn’t something that the majority of people on this earth desire. As if love doesn’t motivate us to do crazy, admirable, (sometimes) stupid things.

It isn’t wrong or less than to choose to read stories about romance, where the ending makes you smile and your heart swell. It isn’t wrong or less than to write them, either, but somehow, romance doesn’t get taken seriously in so many circles. And not only does it not get taken seriously, it gets majorly looked down upon.

It is absolutely, perfectly okay to not enjoy something without putting it down. I don’t enjoy science fiction, but I respect and enthusiastically support your right to enjoy reading and writing it! Why can I not be afforded the same respect — to the point where I will pre-emptively put down my career — doing something I love that supports me financially (!! How many people get to say they do that?!)?

So if people don’t offer it, I’m going to demand it. No longer will I write ‘just romance’. No longer will I dip my voice and say ‘oh, smut’ when people ask what I write, as if nobody would be interested. I won’t stand around and let writer groups downplay my career because it’s ‘just romance’ anymore.

I write romance. And I’m damn proud of that.