Howdy folks!
Today, Annette Mori is here.
Please welcome Annette!
Lately I’ve been a part of healthy discussion around the world of lesfic and there are vastly different perspectives regarding lesbian books written by male authors or straight women. A number of authors prefer to remain private about themselves and their lives outside of writing. I’m not quite sure how a person determines whether an author is straight, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender, questioning, etc. Sure, some of us are quite open about our sexuality, talking about our partners or wives, but that is not always the case. In a few instances, there are authors who falsely present themselves as a female author of lesfic. The most recent example was an author who simply changed a few names in a m/m romance to make it a f/f romance. That has generated quite a bit of discussion. I land solidly on the side of that is wrong and I won’t support any authors who actively deceive their readers.
In these threads, there are some who defend the men who pass themselves off as women or create the same story in multiple sub-genres. Examples are thrown out about how women authors would pass themselves off as men so they could sell their work. Yes, that is a historical fact. Many of the very well know female authors such as Louisa Mae Alcott, the Bronte sisters, Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot) or more recently JK Rowling and Nora Roberts. Well, I’m not buying it. There is nothing remotely similar about women being taken seriously as writers and thus using a male pseudonym with male authors pretending to be lesbians to sell lesfic. When women make the same wage as men, or lesbian fiction has a much broader audience, then go ahead toss that argument out, but at this point I just see that as a slap in the face. Why would a privileged male need to do that?
The quality of the story should be the only thing that counts is another point often cited in these threads. On occasion, I’ve felt like I have to defend my position on this topic and that my perspective is less valid because surely a true connoisseur of quality fiction does not limit themselves to one subgenre or one gender. I respect that view, but have decided that I’d like to pay it forward to all those who have supported my writing as a new lesbian author. Although I have purchased lesfic from male authors and from time to time I’ll pick up a mainstream non-lesfic book, for the most part I tend to want to spend my dollars on supporting new lesfic authors who are women or don’t receive the same level of press as the biggies. I also tend to support fellow lesbians. If that makes me bigoted, then so be it. Let’s face it, lesbian fiction and specifically lesbian authors who only write lesbian fiction are a very tiny subset of the writing community and dammit they deserve more support than they get.
I stopped reading posts on Goodreads because of the vitriol surrounding lesbian fiction. To a lesser degree, I find the same thing on Amazon. I once received a particularly scathing review, which was probably valid in the criticism of my work, and yet I took great exception to the parting jab aimed at lesbian fiction in general. The last line in the review, “I’m officially sick of lesbian fiction,” seemed an unnecessary thing to say and painted a broad brush over the sub-genre I adore. The opinion that lesbian fiction is mostly crap, poorly written, garbage that is not worth considering runs rampant. The utterly amazing thing is that those posts are front and center, and embedded within Lesbian Fiction groups or from lesbians themselves. That just makes me sad, but I don’t respond to the contempt. What’s the point? I won’t ever change that perspective. It will just ratchet up the hatespeak and be perceived as defensive. Is internal homophobia at play here. I don’t know. I won’t even venture into that tangled web.
Sometimes I feel like others are looking at me, shaking their heads and thinking I don’t have discriminating taste when it comes to my preference in literature, because I predominantly stick to lesbian romance. It reminds me of those occasions when someone has looked down their nose at me when I state I prefer a 10-dollar bottle of wine over a 50-dollar bottle of wine. It’s as if they are saying, I have no class, no taste at all. Some of the best books in lesbian fiction or romance that I have ever read never make it into the top 100. I’d like to find a way to ferret those books out and give them the accolades they deserve. Whenever I come across a book like that, I try to put it out there for others to see. I don’t want those gems to go away because we don’t support one another, but there’s only so much one person or a few people can do. Maybe we need a list of the best lesbian romance novels that no-one knows about. Finally, after many years in the desert, there is enough quality lesbian romance and fiction out there. I’m old enough to remember how the selection was so limited, I had to scrounge around for my next book to read. I don’t want to return to the desert. Is it too much to ask that we support one another and continue to provide the flow of great books?
The Organization
The feisty, fiery women from Asset Management are back for another heart-stopping adventure! This time, their sites are set on a new mob boss Leonid Petrov who is more cunning and ten times more ruthless than the slave trader they took on in Asset Management.
No one is more surprised than Val when she is tagged as the go-to member of the team. Her task…infiltrate Leonid’s inner circle and work with another agent already on the inside. Val’s impenetrable exterior is starting to crumble, but Maggie, the head of The Organization doesn’t have a better option. Tasked with keeping Leonid’s impossible new wife, Gina, safe, Val encounters more problems than solutions.
Annette Mori
Annette Mori is an award-winning author who lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her wife and their five furry kids. With eight (soon to be nine) published novels and one Goldie Award for her fourth novel, Locked Inside, she finally feels like a real author. Annette is as much a reader as a writer and always looking for the next lesfic novel to cue up.
Drop her a line she loves to hear from readers: annettemori0859@gmail.com or sign up for her mailing list . You can also follow her blog here.
Thanks Annette for popping by today.
Thanks, Annette, you touched on a lot of good and true points. The latest deceitful trend not only by male authors but for more than a few female M/M authors and M/F is to change the he to she and a few anatomical details and then call this trash ‘lesbian’. But there is nothing more despicable than a man trying to pass himself off as a lesbian, to try and push his trash on readers who want lesbian fiction written by lesbians.
I agree with you, Annette (and Linda). I believe in equality as much as the next feminist, but I think that men should not pretend to be women just to sell fiction to us in our niche! Women using male pseudonyms do so in an effort to level the playing field; men using female pseudonyms are doing it to get YET ANOTHER leg up on women, lesbians, and other ‘minorities’. If a man wants to write lesfic, though, more power to him – so long as he isn’t pretending to be one of us.
I agree wholeheartedly! On the business side of things, the double dipping ticks me off.
And on the personal side, a story written for women is very different than a story written for men, regardless of sexual orientation. Even though romance as a genre has a very specific formula and expectations (which, of course, shift based on the subplots and threads in the story), one simply cannot change pronouns and expect the story to resonate with their new audience. That’s just not how it works. 🙁
I’ve had time to think and I would like to add something else.
As much as I’m not keen on the idea of the double-dipping and mirroring, some people have to do what they have to do. And I’m afraid if we try to push these women (most likely) out or be angry at them, all we’ll do is have a fight on our hands akin to the “old guard” MM authors ranting about the indie MM authors.
It’s very sad and divisive, and I don’t want to see that happen to anyone in FF. It’s true, you just can’t change pronouns and names, and expect the story to have the same impact on an entirely different group of readers. But the readers are going to read who they want to read.
So I think our job here is to just keep doing what we do – write lovely stories about women who love women, about their journeys, and not worry so much about who is doing what.
Let’s let the readers decide who they want to read, and lift each other up, not bring each other down. 🙂
I agree with you, Jea. Our mission as writers is to write our stories. Reading is a selective choice and readers have every right to read what they want. As a writer and reader, I will never discourage someone from reading. I remember all the digs at readers who like Twilight and 50 Shades. The key point was the fans loved the books and were reading.
Perhaps, Jea, but after I learned about click farms and this practice of people simply changing the pronouns, or putting out essentially straight books with a lesbian thrown in who leaves her lover for a main into the Lesbian Romance category and affecting some of my sister authors who work so hard and produce wonderful books that never even make it into the top 100 to get exposure and find the intended audience, I guess I do think there is a need to step up and ensure we don’t lose the “L” in LBGT, because honestly, I think we are. Lesbians in history have always taken a back seat in the fight and I suppose I’d rather we didn’t. I want the readers out there to find those gems and honestly they can’t when they are smothered out and surrounded by books that really don’t fit the category or game the system.
So right, Annette. I agree. And why should we lesbians be expected to “lift up” these male and straight authors who churn out often harmful trash for a buck, that doesn’t represent the different realities of what it is to be a lesbian? And they certainly do not “lift up” lesbians. I don’t, nor do the lesbian authors I know, blame or take a “dig” at readers. Readers see these books in the top 100, most are cheap or free, and they pick them up to read. No wonder a lot of readers think lesbian fiction is junk. And please, I find it so condescending to Gay Males to reduce their legitimate concerns about gay male fiction to “ranting”. They had and have a right to protest the flood of fiction, often fetish fiction, not written by Gay males, that falsely represent their realities. Sure, any author has the right to write what they want to. But don’t be so condescending to lesbians who have a right to get angry and sad when we see as a false representation of ourselves just to make a buck.
For those who think you have no taste or class because you prefer lesfic…i would tell then that it’s an acquired taste so perhaps they should go and acquire some taste!
I support lesbian fiction written by lesbians
Lesbian fiction written by and for lesbians is something i am committed to.
I support lesbian stories written by lesbians. And let me make this clear, F/F stories written by men, or women who aren’t lesbians is NOT lesbian fiction. It should never be classified as such. The fact that it is only makes it hard for readers to access proper lesbian fiction.
I am a fan of lesbian fiction/romance/sci fi, written by lesbians. I know not all authors of lesfic are lesbian, but I hope they are at least female and not lying and using the lesbian community to further there writing be deceiving people.