These are strange times in America. There's a bill in the works in the Oklahoma legislature that critics claim would ban explicit romance novels entirely--you wouldn't be able to write them, publish them, sell them, make them available to the public in any fashion (ie libraries) or own them. And--I believe--if there are any LGBTQ+ characters in them, they don't even have to be explicit. They're just straight out banned.
Needless to say, many romance authors are concerned about this. Even though it's unlikely to pass, stranger things have happened recently--and continue to happen.
Over the past few weeks, the current federal administration has sought not just to remove protections for transgender people, but to eliminate any mention of them whatsoever. In one of the most egregious example of this, National Parks Service was forced to remove any mention of transgender people from its page on the Stonewall National Monument. Which is an absurd and blatant attempt to re-write history. Diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the federal government are also on the chopping block.
I grew up in the sixties. And while I'm not going to pretend that I was acutely aware of the social issues of the time, such as civil rights, gay and trans rights, women's rights, abortion rights, anti-war protests, or books being banned for reasons of obscenity, I wasn't shielded from these battles, either. And if there was any lesson that I learned from that time, any kernel of hope gleaned from all the social unrest of the day it could be summarized by this quote: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
Call me naive, but for a very long time, I really believed that was true. And yes, I understood that there would be setbacks. That the course of justice (like that of true love) would not run smooth. I knew that the path to a free, equal, tolerant and compassionate society would likely be long and winding and filled with obstacles, but surely--eventually--we would get there. Right?
Yeah, lately, I'm not so sure. This video (from last year--when things weren't nearly as bad as they are now) didn't help.
So. What does all of this have to do with (you'll excuse the expression) the price of eggs? Or even the state of Romance? Well, my point is this. At this rate, it's hard to make publishing plans. Because who knows what's going to be banned next?
Which leads me to last week's new release. Giada Mazzi is Living her Best Life is a pretty unexceptional romance. It's light, it's fluffy, it's mostly sweet and it takes place in October--very definitely so. This is very much a Pumpkin Spice Latte themed book. So, I'd originally planned on releasing in September. Makes sense, right? But here's the thing. The heroine is a trans woman, and I am no longer confident that I'll be able to publish it come September. Hell, I'm not convinced we'll still have a habitable planet come September.
Maybe I'm overreacting. I hope that I am. But I'm enormously proud of this book. I love these characters and I didn't want to run the risk of not being able to share them with the world. So, I put it out there now. While I still could publish it, while bookstores and libraries could still stock it, and while you can still read it without fear of running afoul of the law.
And yes, I'm not thrilled that it's only available through Amazon, atm, but it is what it is. And, as I said at the start--these are strange times.
https://books2read.com/GiadaMazzi
A Games We Play/Whole Latte Love Story
Life is more than just the lies we try and tell ourselves about what we’ve done and who we are.
I guess the truth is that I never stopped loving Ben. And I never stopped imagining how different my life might have been if he were only the person I needed him to be, instead of the person that he is. Which is silly, right? I mean, truly; it’s laughable. Because if he were someone else, he wouldn’t be him. And the world is already full of people like that. What good is one more gonna do me?
Besides, if I’m honest, Ben wasn’t ever the problem. That was me. I was never the person he believed me to be. Oh, I thought I was, in the beginning. I tried hard to be, and that worked for a while. Sort of. But eventually I reached the point where I had to make a choice between living life for myself, or for everyone else.
And when it came right down to that…how could I not choose me?
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