Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…

Predictable, yeah, I know. But dangit, you cannot go wrong with a Bowie quote *g*

Last week, I found out that my first book, Forgotten Song, will be going to print. First of all, YAY! I know there are some folks who’ve been patiently waiting for this book to be available in print **waves at Elaine** and now it finally will be. No date yet, but I’ll share as soon as I know it :D

That’s not the point of this blog, though. Here’s the point. Thinking about Forgotten Song being in print made me think about Then Vs Now, and all that’s happened in the almost three years since the book was first published in ‘05. Is it just me, or has the gay romance market — and by extension the romance market in general — gone through some big changes in the past few years?

Consider this. When Forgotten Song first hit the internet tubes, I was hardly the only gay romance author out there, but it was hardly the norm either. I regularly ran into people who were shocked (not always in a good way) that such a thing even existed, and even more shocked that a straight, married woman would be writing it. There seemed to be a lot of confusion as to what the attraction was. Nowadays, most people I meet are at least aware of gay romance. Some read it, some don’t, some have an obsession bordering on unhealthy (not unlike yours truly O_O), but very few people are unaware, and very few that I meet lately have any problem with it. And, maybe most tellingly of all, more and more women, often married or otherwise partnered (and NOT always straight, either) are coming out of the closet so to speak and proclaiming their love of gay romance.

In a culture which produced Sally Kern and that batshit-insane family “church” that pickets funerals, the fact that gay romance is now just one more genre is a very hopeful sign. Maybe I’m an incurable optimist (I’ve been called such and can’t honestly deny it), or maybe I just don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m not gay myself and have thus never been the target of discrimination in that arena. But whether it’s realistic or not, I do take hope from the leaps and bounds gay romance has made in the past few years. RWA recognizes it. There are panels about it at many many cons. RT has even published a review of a gay romance. Sure, it was by one of their favorite authors and it would’ve looked weird if they’d ignored it, but still. That door has now been cracked open just a hair, and if that’s happened, full acceptance is inevitable in time.

So what do y’all think? Am I just a pie-in-the-sky idealist? Or do you think the romance market’s growing acceptence of gay romance is a reflection of more global positive changes in our whole society? I like to think it is, and I hope hope HOPE I’m right :)

Written by Ally Blue

Ally is a rich and famous author of hot gay manlove. She travels the world in her private jet, being waited on hand and foot by her team of pretty young men who bring her umbrella drinks and make out for her pleasure . . . Okay, so that's her dream life. Her novels of Manlove & Angst are mostly written in her living room, in between working at the Evil Day Job and doing Mom Stuff. Oh, the glamorous life of an author!
Visit The Author's Website