Writing Confessions: I Write BWWM romances, and I Like It

 

                                                            

                                                                        Photo By Nana V.

I have a writing confession to make. If you are wondering what kind of romance novels I write, I will tell you. I write BWWM romances, and that stands for black women and white men romances. These types of romances have been around for over a decade and are quite popular.

There is something hopeful about writing these types of romances because it makes me think that we have come to the point in society where we accept interracial dating and marriages. I started to read romance novels at the age of twelve, and it was always a white woman and a white man as the hero and heroine. As I fell in love with the genre, I wondered if the idea that white men were the ideal Alphas- handsome and well-off men that every woman would want, would ever leave me.

It wasn’t until I discovered authors like Brenda Jackson and Beverly Jenkins and black romance lines that black men who were Alphas- handsome and well-off too – would become an equal source of fascination in romance novels for me. I write BWWM romances because of their popularity with readers.

I am sure I am not the only black woman who grew up reading the standard romance where the hero and heroine are white, but writing in the BWWM genre it makes me aware of how different it is, although, hopeful to showcase a black woman with a white man. A new step in the romance genre or a subgenre that can fetishize the relationship if writers aren’t careful.

I don’t spend too much time on the fact that in my books that the heroine is black and the hero is white. I mention it and then move on, and I try to show them as three-dimensional characters with flaws and strengths like any other human being.

In my books, I have had moments when other characters recognize their race, but I don’t make it central to my romance books.

I like writing in the BWWM romance genre because it makes me think of the first kind of books that I read with the hero being white but writing a black woman as the heroine is revolutionary and quite nice for me.

 

Have you read any BWWM romances? What is your favorite BWWM romance?