Publishing Is Finally Taking Romance Seriously—and Jasmine Guillory is Here For It

For our Romance Week series, Arriel Vinson interviews bestselling novelist Jasmine Guillory about the past, present, and future of the romance genre.

My first time reading a bona fide romance novel was for a college gender and sexuality course. It had all the classic tropes, like white characters who could afford to run off alone on a vacation at a whim. But I devoured it. I wasn’t used to reading books where romance was the focal point. After that class, I didn’t read the genre again for a while. It wasn’t until I went to graduate school for writing that I delved in again—I needed to understand my own writing, why love was always at the center, the craft of romance. I started with young adult romance, where the love was new and tender, without the grown-up issues.

Not too long after, I read Jasmine Guillory for the first time. The Wedding Date was my first of her novels, and I loved everything about it—from the characters’ relationships to their careers to the way they pined for each other. I realized I needed to read more of Guillory’s stories, and more adult romance in general. I wanted to read books where Black women got the happy ending, where the love interest didn’t do something unforgivable to the protagonist. Guillory has set the standard for Black women writing romance and, in doing so, has opened up the space for even more romance writers to enter the genre and stand right beside her.

The romance genre has changed in so many ways. It spans age and race and considers more than love alone. During our interview, Guillory and I talked about the state of romance today, the ways she’s seen it change, and where she draws inspiration from. Our conversation has been edited for clarity.

*

Arriel Vinson: Do you think your approach to writing romance has changed as you’ve continued to write?

Jasmine Guillory: I’m sure it has. I think as you keep doing something, as you get older, we all approach things differently. When I first started writing, I was just writing romance. I was excited and diving straight into it. Now, I think more specifically about each part of the story.

At the beginning, specifically for the romance plotline, I’m thinking very clearly about “Why is it that these two people specifically have fallen in love with one another? What makes one of them fall in love with the other and vice versa?” I’m trying to pin that down for myself and also make that clear to the reader. I’m also thinking more specifically about each of their own personal stories. What has brought these two people to this point where they meet one another, where they’re ready for this relationship, and what has happened in their lives before? I’m breaking things down a lot more for myself as I write the story.

Guillory has set the standard for Black women writing romance and, in doing so, has opened up the space for even more romance writers to enter the genre.

AV: In an article, you mentioned that you write characters who enjoy sex and that men have always been able to write about sex in any genre. How do you think the outlook on sex and romance has transformed since you’ve started writing?

JG: Romance writers have always been really good about showing women enjoying sex. That’s one of the things that a lot of women specifically like about romance—that you don’t have to be ashamed of liking sex, and you can throw yourself into the story and be like, “Yes, I also like sex like these characters.” One of the things I’ve really enjoyed about romance is there’s a lot more focus on consent. Sometimes it’s specific and verbal, but sometimes it’s just being made clear that these two people both wanted it, which is something that I really like to see. There have been sex scenes in romance novels that have made me uncomfortable, where I’m like, “Does she want to be pushed up against the wall like that?” But when it’s clear that yes, she does want that, then that makes everything different.

AV: And you can see that across a few different genres now, too, which is so important. I notice that you read a lot of young adult romance or rom-coms as well. What impact do other genres or other media have on your writing?

JG: I think every book I read helps me with my writing, whether it’s, “Oh, I love the way she wrote these characters. Let me think about how she did that. Why did that make such an impact on me?” or reading dialogue I really like. Reading poetry or [work by] people who do really interesting things with words makes me think about sentences in different ways. I love reading young adult and middle grade because when books are geared toward younger audiences, they do a very good job of jumping you into the story in a way that captures attention. Not every lesson I get from another book is going to specifically change the way I write, but it’s always a good education.

Reading mystery novels helps me think about how to both reveal and hide information in books, because every book has some sort of mystery in it, whether it’s a mystery novel or not. Everything I read and every story—whether it’s a movie or TV show or even just listening to people tell a story—helps me think, What are different ways to tell stories that capture people’s attention and make them excited to hear what’s next?

AV: I love that. You can take inspiration from a few different places when you’re writing, and whether it ends up in the exact book you’re writing or not doesn’t matter—it’s having the knowledge of it. What does writing romance allow you to explore about people or the world or your craft that other genres may not allow you to explore in the same way?

JG: One of the things that I love about writing romance is I feel like romance is really about relationships, because the romance between two people also relates to the relationships that each of those individual people have with so many other people in their lives. So it really makes you think about friendships and family and work relationships and all of the relationships in their lives that have sustained them, [as well as] relationships that have ended. All of those things play into who each of these people are at the current moment of the book and also how they came to find one another and be that person for one another.

AV: You contributed a piece to an anthology about Black love, and the book’s description says, “It hasn’t often been easy to find Black romance joyfully showcased in entertainment media.” Why do you think Black romance novels are finally getting their shine? It seems like romance is becoming more inclusive. What do you think has caused that shift?

JG: I think we always wanted it, right? We always sought out any story that we could find that had it. And I think publishing finally realized, “Oh, these people will buy these books. Maybe we should publish more of them.” And then they started publishing more of them, and lo and behold, they sold lots of copies because people wanted them. I am thrilled about that, and I just hope that more and more keep coming.

Those books were out there, but they were hard to find. They weren’t in bookstores. They weren’t in libraries. I remember when I was first reading a bunch of romance, I was mostly reading stuff from my library, and there weren’t a lot of Black romance novels. I went searching for them, and I found that they existed but it was hard to get copies. So I’m thrilled that they’re out there now and more accessible for so many people.

AV: What other ways, if any, have you seen the genre change since you’ve started publishing?

JG: I used to have a hard time going into independent bookstores and finding romance. I go to lots of book events around me, and there used to be very few romance events. Going to book festivals, there were very few romance panels. And now there are romance sections in almost every indie bookstore that I go into. There are lots of romance events, both in person and virtual. So many book festivals have romance panels. It’s so exciting to me.

I think it’s partly because once they started having them, they were like, “Oh, romance people come out for this.” The romance people who come out to events are the best people. They’re always the most fun. It’s people making friends in line. Everybody’s bonding. It’s a whole room full of joy.

I used to have a hard time going into independent bookstores and finding romance. I go to lots of book events around me, and there used to be very few romance events.

AV: That’s so exciting to hear. I want to ask about another article, where you mentioned that you like to write characters who are less ashamed of their bodies. How do you think the conversation around body types in the romance genre has changed? Do you think that romance still has progress to make when it comes to being inclusive about body size?

JG: I mean, I’m sure that every genre has progress that they need to make, right? There are always people or publishers who either actively aren’t great at it or have their blind spots. I’m sure I have my own blind spots, but I think a lot of people make efforts to be more inclusive about body size and to talk about it in a different way. That’s really one of the most important things—not to think of a tall, thin, white, blonde person as the ideal. There are lots of subtle ways in books that you can—without saying that’s your ideal—make it clear that it is. I have seen less of that recently, and I’ve really appreciated that.

One thing that someone once said during a panel that I was on—I wish I could remember who said this because I think it was so smart—is “I don’t want anybody to be hurt by a book that I’ve written. Because I’ve been hurt by books that I’ve read, and I don’t want readers to feel that way reading my books.” So that’s something that I make an effort for, both for things like race and body size that have a specific impact on me but also for things that may not.

AV: I’ve noticed that in other genres too, that there’s more of an effort being made to be considerate of readers and get things right, just like you mentioned earlier about consent.

How do you think romance has changed with the heightened amount of dating apps? For most of the novels I’m reading, there’s still just a meet-cute. Dating apps sometimes aren’t even part of the equation. But how do you think the current way of finding love has changed how you write about romance, if at all, and the genre in general?

JG: I have read a number of books that either involve dating apps or people meeting that way. I do think it makes a more interesting story if the first conversations are in text messages, right?

People have been really thinking about how communication works in the world. Really, that’s the crux of it: What are the communication styles? How do people have those first conversations? How have people changed their communications when they’re texting a lot? Are you having weird fights because you’re communicating over text message instead of in person?

A lot of it really is about just communication and what we all expect from one another. Boundaries, how people ask each other questions, what dealbreakers people have. So I do think that dating has changed in certain ways, but also I think people are kind of the same. People communicate in weird ways with one another, but that has always been the case. So I think both translating that into fiction and then having readers think about that and either change their behaviors or compare their behaviors to fiction is interesting to think about.

AV: Because I mostly read YA, I’ve been reading a lot of books that include text messages, and it’s always so fun to see how the different characters communicate or don’t. And it’s mostly that they don’t.

JG: Yeah, because one criticism that I often see people make about any kind of romance is that if they just talked to one another, they could clear this up. Have you met people in real life? Have you met people? Do people, if they’re having problems with each other that they’re stressed about, sit down and have an honest conversation? No, that’s not how communication works. One difficult thing about writing a novel is you need to explain why each person isn’t going to sit down and have that conversation. But that so rarely happens in real life. So often, even reading advice columns, it’s like, “How do I have this conversation with this person?” People go for years without having honest conversations with their family or friends about things. So in novels you have to explain why people are holding back, because we all have our specific reasons. But the human way of communicating is to not communicate.

AV: Right. That’s just the way of the world, I guess. Is there anything else you want to add about the state of romance, where it’s been, where it’s headed, what you hope to see more of?

JG: Romance has gotten a lot more respect recently, which I’ve really liked to see. People are always still kind of rolling their eyes at romance novels, but I’ve seen it happen a lot less. I think so many people turned to romance during the pandemic because people needed something to make them feel good. And I am happy that people are less snide about things that make people happy. I’m glad that there are more books about things that make people happy and that there’s more respect for that. Because writing a good romance novel is hard, and I’m glad that people are paying attention to that and giving it the respect that it deserves.