Nobody asked me to write romance. And honestly, that probably should have stopped me. Romance is written by women, for women, marketed to women. Black authors are already a small slice of traditional publishing. Black men in that space? We're talking a fraction of a fraction.
I did it anyway.
Black women deserve to see themselves loved in these pages. Not just present. Not the strong one holding everything together while the man figures out who he is. Actually loved. Pursued. Chosen. Written that way on purpose, by somebody who means it.
And there is something specific about a Black man writing that story. Not better. Specific. When a Black man sits down and makes a Black woman the center of a love story, he is saying something about how he sees her. What he thinks she is worth. That perspective is rare on the page. Rarer than it should be.
I grew up watching Black women read themselves into stories that were not built for them. Swapping faces in their heads. Inserting themselves into narratives where nobody looked like them. That is a tax. You should not have to work that hard just to feel seen in a love story.
My books don't charge that tax.
The woman on the page looks like her. The man loving her looks familiar too. And the love between them ain't some grand exception to the rule. It is just real. Ordinary and full and real.
Black women have been writing their own love into existence for a long time. I just wanted to add a Black man's voice to that. Not to take over the conversation. To show up in it.
That is why I write what I write.