Some of our reviews

The Convincing Hour by Ann Roberts is getting so much love. Della Baczyk over at NetGalley gives it a 5 out of 5 and says: “This is a novel to be read and talked about. It should be on everyone’s must read list for 2021.” Jane Shambler also on NetGalley gives it a 5 and says: “It’s a great story and I’m routing for a sequel.”Meike Zande, van der on NetGalley also gives it 5 stars and raves: “This was so ridiculously good, I was glued to the book from the first to the last page and the prologue is an absolute wrecking ball!”

Librarian Colleen Corgel on NetGalley says of Karin Kallmaker‘s Simply the Best: “Well, here’s another great one from Kallmaker.”

Beyond the Smoke by Stacy Lynn Miller continues to impress. Laure D. over at NetGalley says: “And… She did it again!!! She released another book (a romantic thriller) that you can’t put down and that keeps you up all night long because you want to know how those characters you love beyond reason by now will get through all their ordeals and overcome all obstacles…:

The audio book version of A Matter of Blood by Catherine Maiorisi, with Abby Craden narrating got a 4.5 stars from LezReviewBooks. “The audiobook version was read by Abby Craden who, as usual, did a fantastic job. There are a good number of characters, male and female, and Ms. Craden managed to make them all distinct in their voices and personalities. Her performance of the irascible and irritating Corelli and her inexperienced but supportive partner PJ was perfect.”

The audio book version of Delay of Game by Tracey Richarson, with Anastasia Watley narrating also got raves from LezReviewBooks: “Who knew ice hockey could be hot? Anastasia’s overall narration, especially of the romance parts, is fantastic.”

We’ll be back with more reviews soon!

The post “A novel that should be on your must read list” and “ridiculously good” the reviews of #BellaBooks are in and they are absolutely glowing! appeared first on Bella Media Channel.

Then I remembered where I was sitting: juvenile detention.

I scanned the room, noticing the gray sweatpants, various-colored T-shirts, and the slip-on Vans. No one held a pencil longer than three inches since it could be used as a weapon. Many had tattoos creeping up their respective necks or down past their wrists. When it was time to do their independent work, they focused on their computers while two correction officers strolled down the aisles.

I knew each child had a heartbreaking story and to be sentenced to detention meant the kid had done something horrible or couldn’t stop committing a minor infraction and detention was the last resort. Yes, these were the bad kids but they sure didn’t act like it. What was different? As a school principal, I knew kids like this—in fact, I saw one there that had been at my school. They were constantly in trouble and consumed dozens of hours in finding services, working with the courts, supporting the families, and working with the police. Still, very little improved.

When I asked the detention principal why these habitually unsuccessful students were suddenly finding success, he explained that once the temptations were removed, as well as poor role models and a culture of the streets, many of the kids thrived. We spoke about life after jail and he shook his head. While some of the students would never see the inside of a cell again, many would return and a decent percentage would face prison. A lot of the kids hated the idea of leaving detention because they knew what waited for them.

I thought about those kids and what it would take to change the trajectory of their lives so they could thrive and be successful. It would take a lot of money, changing a lot of laws that keep down the poor and people of color, dispelling some long-held notions about “family,” and admitting that for many of our kids, the current educational system is broken.

The Convincing Hour is both a love letter to all of my students and an answer to the question I asked myself. Story Black is a survivalist, taking care of herself and her genius-I.Q. mother, Patty, a meth addict. Story wants something better for herself and she realizes that road leads through the local juvenile detention facility to a school designed by Charlotte Barnaby, a former principal who wins the largest lottery ever. The only person standing between Story and her future is Patty.

Can Story stand up to Patty, the smartest person she knows, and rewrite her predictable future?

Ann Robert’s YA novel The Convincing Hour will be available from Bella Books on September 16th. Ann Roberts is the author of numerous romance and general fiction books, as well as the award-winning Ari Adams mystery series. Ann is a native Arizonan who should have been born near an ocean and a lighthouse. She loves to find a beach whenever possible and has set several of her stories near the Pacific Ocean.

The post Author Ann Roberts talks about how her latest work is a love letter to students appeared first on Bella Media Channel.

And now, my reality is that I’m older than both of the women in Touchwood. Not a situation I ever envisioned, though it was going to happen. For the record, I prefer it to the alternative, of course.

Quick refresher: Touchwood was my second novel, written circa 1989-90, and published in 1991. It features openly lesbian Rayann, 29, and long-closeted Louisa, 56. Passion between them is a big surprise to both, but that’s the easy part. Their families are outright opposed to the relationship. Their closest friends are also not on board, and the gay community, busy fighting for visibility and inclusion, is not great at practicing what it preaches.

When I was working on this new edition —  cosmetic changes, modernization of grammar, and eliminating 600+ uses of “she said” — I was happy that I’d done justice to the vibrant self-made community of the early Gay 90s, warts and all. The younger character, Rayann, still felt real to me, especially given the rising feeling that the world was about to change in huge and positive ways.

Louisa, oh Louisa, I fell in love all over again. My research into the 1950s world that made her the woman she is in the 1990s holds up (at least I think so), even after all these years. Where I may have not been quite right was what it actually feels like to be post-menopausal. There’s no bottle of ibuprofen at hand, she’s not suddenly mopping her entire body while sitting in front of a fan, and she doesn’t have days where “I slept funny” causes a backache, limp, and a strong desire for adult beverages at lunch.

What I began wondering about, though, was what in today’s world would excite Louisa? That is, aside from streaming baseball games and large screens to watch them on. She’s a strong, independent butch woman who survived a small town that didn’t want her to exist.

Then it hit me. Louisa would have binged season one of Gentleman Jack, with another rewatch planned for the holidays as a run up to the second season.

Louisa’s bookstore will, of course, have stocked Female Fortune: Land, Gender and Authority: the Anne Lister diaries 1833-36 and all the other authoritative histories of Anne Lister. She would have read them all too. The restrictive world that Louisa grew up in had plenty in common with Lister’s — she would have understood Lister’s survival dance of outer compromise and inner steel.

I can picture Louisa dabbed away more than a few tears at this highly acclaimed historic drama, centered on a real woman’s story — an unapologetic woman who intended to resist the limitations the world put on her sex in any way she could find.

Dancing with Rayann to this jaunty tune would have soothed Louisa’s memories of the gender-defying women in her own past who’d been beaten, cast out of families, and jailed for not wearing three articles of women’s clothing.

One way to change history is to tell our stories. For ourselves and our children, and for the ones who survived it.

Karin Kallmaker’s second novel is now available in a 30^th Anniversary edition which includes a foreword by the author and a short story. Touchwood and her latest novel, Simply the Best, are both available from Bella Books. Karin has written of over thirty novels, and has always written about women who love women and isn’t likely to change. Her addiction to TimTams, coffee, and Taytos won’t likely change either.

The post Karin Kallmaker: Why Louisa from Touchwood Would Love Gentleman Jack appeared first on Bella Media Channel.

I have so many fond memories of climbing. My first experience climbing was with a group of women camping in Indian Cove, a campground on the north side of the Joshua Tree National Park. I just thought it was going to be a fun weekend but I got my first taste of climbing. First lesson: hiking boots are not the best climbing shoes but are way better than bare feet.

I got so into climbing that I took my climbing gear with me when I traveled for work and hooked work buddies into going to local climbing gyms or outdoor crags. I even conned my non-athletic wife into climbing but mostly into being my belay babe (the woman on the other ending of the rope keeping me safe).

Wanting to learn more about outdoor climbing, I took a three-day private lesson with a young world class climber who’d been featured in Climbing Magazine. He was nineteen, whipcord thin, over six feet tall, and amazingly strong. He’d set 5.8 climbs for me, climbing in flip flops and he made everything look so easy. He’d show me a move and then expect me to repeat it. Well, I’m five-four. Even accounting for the fact that he was being able to reach all of the holds with his elbow, our inequities in body length and strength still made most of the moves tenuous for me.

One of those moves I was supposed to attempt was a sit start with my left hand on a small hold and my right foot against a depression in the rock. I then had to lift up and grab a small lip in the rock face with my right hand about three feet above my left hand. He had made it look so easy, hanging in place from one hand with a single foot balanced on the rock. I studied his move and then reworked it to fit my frame and wingspan. I sat on the ground, placed my hand on the initial hold he’d indicated, but I adjusted my foot to a small nub closer by about two feet. After adjusting my grip and my balance, I lifted up and grabbed a hold lower than the one specified and inched my way up in three moves with associated counterbalancing feet to the small rock lip. I had used his techniques but made the climb my own. He looked at me in amazement and said he’d never thought about doing it that way. By the end of the trip, I was a better climber, but I also had a greater appreciation of the wonderful, fascinating world of climbing and climbers.

Writing Calculated Risk gave me the opportunity to share a small fraction of the climbing world with you.

Katherine Rupley’s debut novel Calculated Risk will be available from Bella Books on September 16th. After a successful engineering career in aerospace, Katherine Rupley decided to try her hand at writing, utilizing the skills she learned while taking UCLA extension classes.

The post Author Katherine Rupley talks about merging her love of rock climbing with storytelling appeared first on Bella Media Channel.

The Right Closet is a timely, poignant-while-comedic tale. Marinated in farce and baked in a sociopolitical oven, it posits hate and division versus love and unity.

The characters and their story brewed for a long time through years of real world social wins and losses as the tides swung with the political pendulum. In polarized times, I wondered what would happen if two political enemies had a clean slate and didn’t know they were supposed to hate each other. Suddenly, the possibilities came into view.

I found my shero in Creama LaCroppe, Puerto Rican drag queen diva extraordinaire. Her best friend, lesbian newscaster, Tawny Beige, gave both Creama and me the gift of persistence—to follow this story to the end.

Creama sashayed into my consciousness as a well-defined composite of my longtime political activism combined with experiences from my youth.

Long before I was of age to go to a gay bar, my gay men friends would dress me up as a drag queen so that we could all go dancing without anyone asking me for I.D. They schooled me in Drag 101, did my makeup, taught me how to smile without letting my lips touch, and assured me that all anyone needed to do drag was big hair.

I had big hair.

Fast-forward a couple of years to freshman year in college as a foreign language major who grew up mimicking accents. At school in Florida, my crowd of gay friends consisted of immigrant and First-Gen Cuban Americans and a couple of African American buddies. As the only white girl in the bunch, I relied on High School Spanish and often imitated my friends’ accents to amuse them.

During a dance night in Little Havana at a straight club that vehemently frowned on both gays and whites, I developed a persona tailor made for the occasion. That was the night I began speaking Cuban English so that I wouldn’t get bounced from the club. (I’m sure times have changed since then.)

It was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened. One of the guys in the group said to me in his thick Cuban accent, “Oye, Chica. You know, when you talk this way I understand you better!” The deal was sealed. I was already accustomed to hearing my name pronounced “MayLiza”, but now MayLiza only spoke in Cuban English.

Drawing on my limited experience as both a faux drag queen and a faux Cubana, it’s not a big stretch to think that one day those experiences would collide and produce an extraordinary, write-able character to tell this social and political tale.

But let’s roll back to how The Right Closet began. As an activist who had fought in Florida against Anita Bryant, I soon found myself in San Francisco working to get Harvey Milk elected as my Supervisor, and then to defeat California’s Proposition 6, the Briggs Initiative, which sought to ban gays from working in the California Public Schools.

Years later in the early 2000s, enduring the constant barrage of sway that the religious-right had gained since Ronald Reagan, I became aware of Ralph Reed, the mastermind behind every successful and noteworthy religious-right candidate. To put it bluntly, the guy both fascinated and scared me. I needed to find a way to make him less scary—to make him a caricature. And although the sociopolitical assault on my community was no laughing matter, it did make me wonder what would happen if a toxic character like Reed met up with a force equal and opposite.

Bam! Just like that, Creama LaCroppe was born, and so was her adversary, Congressman Dick Peak.

Through Creama I channeled my inner Latina drag queen… a fighter for truth, justice, and the American way. Okay, that’s Superman, but you get the idea.

It wasn’t enough however to make them only powerful adversaries. Call me an optimist, but I kept thinking that this connection could evolve to one that inspired hope and humanity.

The Right Closet was off and running!

But then came a stumbling block. Since the other main character who drives the plot is a gay woman and Diva Creama’s best friend, was this a book for men or women?  Whenever I pitched the story to both conventional gay and mainstream publishing, I hit a wall. Agents, editors, publishers loved the idea but had no idea where to place it. That sent the original version of The Right Closet straight into the drawer-of-no-return.

Then something weird happened. The LGBT community had unified and gained clout; we suddenly had both conservatives and liberals promoting equality. Seemingly all at once, our long history of battling for scraps evaporated. In what appeared like a singularity of thought, gay marriage was upheld by the Supreme Court and almost in tandem, corporate America opened their doors and policies to inclusivity.

The Right Closet got buried deeper in the drawer.

In 2016, the unthinkable happened with the election of the 45^th president. The fight was on again, only this time instead of fighting to gain rights, we were battling to not lose them. It was finally time to rip up the original Right Closet and rewrite it with a fresh and current perspective. What remained from the original was large as life characters, their underlying plot, and a crazy notion that humor, love, and humanity were worth fighting for.

Through The Right Closet, I not only had the opportunity to heal a political divide, more importantly it became a powerful tool to bring diversity into my community. Creating LGBT friends, straight allies, and foes in the context of fiction started to resemble real life, especially as their vast differences gave way to deeper personal relationships.

I think Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers was onto something nearly two-hundred years ago when he wrote, “All for one, and one for all.”

Melissa Price’s latest novel The Right Closet will be available from Bella Books on September 16th. Melissa is a novelist, who in the absence of computer or pen, isn’t too proud to write in crayon or spray paint. Her works include the exciting romantic intrigue novels Steel Eyes, and Skin in the Game (a Steel Eyes midquel).

The post Author Melissa Price talks about what she learned from Drag Queens appeared first on Bella Media Channel.

Latest Reviews

Simply the Best by Karin Kallmaker has received some very strong reviews. Over on NetGalley, reviewer Emily A , writes “Simply The Best scream Devil Wears Prada to me in many beautiful ways.…” Over at Rainbow Literary Society, reviewer Jude Silberfeld gave the book 4 stars: “Neither fluffy nor too heavy, Simply The Best hits the right balance, incorporating current news and societal themes in what remains, fundamentally, a romance novel.

Jen Lawrence’s Guardian continues to draw raves. Lex Kent over at Goodreads gave the book 4.5 stars: “This book was a pretty epic romance, with plenty of angst that got me running for the tissues. This was a very strong debut and I can’t wait to read Lawrence’s next book.” Andi Kent at NetGalley gave the book 5 stars, writing “Fantastic fantasy novel. Great worldbuilding – parallel universe between a land of magic and that of humans, fated love, destiny and soul mates, and badass women with swords and their partner shields who protect them.” Betty Harmon of Rainbow Connections gives Guardian 5 stars and says: “I’m very impressed with this debut novel, and I can’t wait to read more in this series.”

Talented Amateur by Maryn Scott is also getting its fair share of glowing reviews. Andi Kent over at NetGalley says: “Great, high suspense read.” While Betty Harmon over at Rainbow Connections says: “Talented Amateur by Maryn Scott is an intriguing mystery and suspense story with a dash of romance added in. It is also a good solid debut novel.”

Betty Harmon over at Rainbow Connections also loved The Commiment by Virginia Hale and gave it 5 stars. “It’s been a while since I’ve read a romance with as much angst as The Commitment by Virginia Hale. It’s almost dripping from the pages like tears…and I loved every one of those pages.”

We’ll be back with more reviews soon!

The post “Epic Romance” and “High Suspense” Bella Books reviews are in appeared first on Bella Media Channel.

Early Reviews for our August Releases

The Commiment by Virginia Hale is getting some early love. Meike Zande, van der over at NetGalley says: “In short, another excellent addition to Hale’s list of novels, I easily recommend this if you’re looking for a well written angsty romance.” Gemma Johns on NetGalley raves “The story was beautifully portrayed and I’m keen to check out other books by the author. Overall I recommend.” Lezreviewbooks gives it 4.25 stars and raves: “I love romance authors that are a little different from the norm and to me that fits Hale perfectly. I love her unique ideas and settings and it always makes me wonder what she could be writing for us next. If you are looking for an angsty slow-burn romance, this book is for you.”

Karin Kallmaker‘s Simply the Best is also getting some early love. Danijela Mladenovic on NetGalley: “You can’t really go wrong with Karin Kallmaker. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book by her that I didn’t like.” Bookseller B. Kajer-Crain gives it a 5 out of 5 stars and adds: “The romance between Alice and Pepper was lovely. Despite the age difference, there was enough connection to make them believable as a couple. I highly recommend this book.”

Debut author Jen Lawrence is getting some new fans with her first novel Guardian. Bonny Kay A on NetGalley also loved it: “Bravo!! This was an impressive fantasy.” Nutmeg on NetGalley raves: “For a debut writer, this is an impressive entry in the fantasy genre.” Meike Zande, van der on NetGalley is also impressed: “This was such a good surprise. I’m a fan of fantasy, so I was happy to see this book amongst the releases for this month. While this is set in a fantasy universe, the heart of this story is the romance. This is a debut book and I am impressed with the quality of the writing, I was immediately hooked and I will be reading more by this author.”

Bonny Kay A on NetGalley raves about Maryn Scott debut Talented Amateur. “This is an awesome well written mystery thriller with a side of romance. The characters are great and fully developed.” Reviewer Della Baczyk on NetGalley also shows Talented Amateur some love. “Talented Amateur is an exciting debut novel by Maryn Scott filled with Mexican cartels, kidnappings, family revenge and romance. The storyline is well composed with a number of twists and turns to keep you guessing on what will happen next. I could not put this book down and read it in one very late night sitting.”

Reviews for our July Releases

Red Tide at Heron Bay by Gerri Hill has received some very strong reviews. The Lesbian Review raves: “I know I’m reading something special when I can’t put a book down.” Over on NetGalley, reviewer Carole Coleman gave the book 5 stars, writing “Ms. Hill does a wonderful job of blending mystery with a love story (reminds me of Devil’s Rock and Hell’s Highway) and she did it justice again in this book.” On NetGalley, reviewer Bonnie Kay A gave the book 5 stars: “Ms. Hill has certainly done it again. I was hooked from the beginning to the end. This is a murder, mystery, romance with loveable main characters who are fully developed and has great chemistry.” Also on NetGalley, reviewer Claire Estelle gave the book another 5 stars, writing “Another brilliant gripping crime thriller from Gerri Hill, couldn’t put it down and read in one sitting!” While reviewer Bonnie Sherrard gushed over on NetGalley. “Ms Hill writes about characters that you can’t help but like and root for. Great plot, nicely paced means another best seller for Ms Hill. Excellent read.”

Stacy Lynn Miller’s Beyond the Smoke has received glowing reviews. On NetGalley reviewer Betty Harmon gave the book 5 stars: “Beyond the Smoke is the third novel in “The Manhattan Sloane Thriller” series by Stacy Lynn Miller… but I think this one might be the best yet.” Lex over at Goodreads gave the book 4.25 stars, writing “This is the third book in Miller’s Manhattan Sloane Thriller series and is the best written book of the series. All three books were great, but it is clear that Miller has now found her writing groove.” Lezreviewbooks also raves about Beyond the Smoke giving it a 5 out of 5 rating.

Sheryl Wright‘s Illusion Lake has thrilled readers. On NetGalley, reviewer Mikhila No gave the book 5 stars, writing “So, do I recommend? Hell yes! Compelling writing, mysteries and lovable characters that are sure to never leave you bored, what’s not to want?” Bonnie Sherrard from Netgalley raves: “Excellent read. Simply put, it is one of the best crime books I’ve read this year.” Lezreviewbooks.com gave the book 4.2 stars: “I got only 4 hours of sleep last night because I could not put this book down so I would recommend reading this book on a weekend. I truly believe this is Wright’s best book and it makes me excited to see what she has instore for us next.” Another NetGalley reviewer Carolyn McBride gushes: “There were so many wonderful layers to this story, and everything wrapped up in a satisfying way…I was so immersed in the story and the characters that when I came to the end, I was a little sad. I want to go back. I want more, Ms. Wright! Please?

Older Releases

Tracy Richardson’s Thursday Afternoons received a nice review from Yorkie Boi over at NetGalley. “What’s not to love. Great story, the main characters are always well developed and the reader is drawn in to enjoy every page of the journey. Can highly recommend.”

Save the Date an anthology by several Bella Books authors received a good review from educator/reviewer Kel Mo over at NetGalley: “Diverse characters and amazing stories full of love, mishaps, old and new wedding traditions. This is a must have for your collection. It is not your standard romance anthology. This one covers a range of topics.
Absolutely loved it.

The audio book version of Dawn of Change by Gerri Hill got a lot of love from The Lesbian Review. “Dawn Of Change by Gerri Hill is a slow burn, toaster oven romance with fantastic narration by the epic Abby Craden.”

Old Love by Nancy J. Hedin gets love from The Lesbian Review:
“The character development is superb, and I loved the warm community feel that grew as the story progressed. A really good mystery, with a second-chance romance.”

LezReview Books raves about The Papercutter by Cindy Rizzo. “There’s so much more here, secret codes, clandestine agencies, dangerous meetups, and mysticism. But it’s the characters that make you care and maybe at the back of your mind, grow a seed of concern if you live here in the USA. The last third of the book absolutely flew and all I could think of was, when is book 2 coming out?

We’ll be back with more reviews soon!

The post “A master in suspense and crime and romance books” and “real page turner” the reviews of #BellaBooks are in and they are absolutely glowing! appeared first on Bella Media Channel.

Terrible Praise by Lara Hayes

This haunting love story is full of thrills and chills. Author Lara Hayes introduces us to the world of Stela, a 500 year old vampire who has had to trade in her warrior skills for financial ones in the twenty-first century. When she meets human nurse Elizabeth Dumas, their connection is undeniable.  All Together Stranger, book two in the amazing Redamancy series is also on sale. Bet you can’t just get one.

Keepers of the Cave by Gerri Hill

Bestselling author Gerri Hill weaves a thrilling tale of two FBI agents, who are sent on an undercover mission to infiltrate a secretive town and discover the dangers that lurk beneath their insular community. The women share a past together that will either bond them together or tear them apart. While you are at it pick up the thrilling sequel Weeping Walls. 

Five Moons Rising by Lise MacTague

Mary Alice Nolan has dedicated her life to protecting humans from the unknown world of supernatural creatures that live beside them. Werewolf Ruri Samson witnesses the slaughter of her pack by a rival Alpha wolf and his followers, and is on their run. When Mary Alice (aka Malice) and Ruri meet, they must join forces to take down the Alpha, and face their forbidden attraction head on. We know this won’t be enough and you will want to pick up the sequel too. Grab Hunter’s Descent on sale too!

And visit our website and found more books to love.  

The post If you are missing Wynonna Earp or love Discovery of Witches you’ll love these novels. appeared first on Bella Media Channel.

Which led me to Danny the Street, and the cast cover of Kelly Clarkson’s “People Like Us.” This rendition fell on my ears like something new. In the story, it lifted Danny the Street’s depression, and saved a haven for people too fabulous to survive elsewhere in the world. Alan Mingo Jr. (Kinky Boots et al) as Maura Lee Karupt created a showstopper with powerful, colorful, soulful drag queen fabulosity.

It felt like it had been ages since I’d tapped my toes along with music. Hello Spotify (another entrant into my life, thanks again to my son). I queued up that version and was immediately recommended yet more songs by drag queens and divas.

So that’s how I got from Maura Lee Karupt to this gem:

There it is: exuberance in spite of adversity. Proud authenticity, irreverence, and survival in answer to the endless hostility, violence, and demonization aimed at drag queens, transpeople, and the rest of us nonconformists. Shea Diamond’s declaration “I am America” got through the fog of the daily news and sounded a chord in me that had fallen silent. Because I am America, for all its glory and faults, baby, I am America too.

This how America walk. This how America talk. This how America is.

I cranked it in the car every chance I got from New Year’s Day 2021 onward. Simply the Best, the book I’d been struggling to write for more than 2 years, was off to the editor 3 months later.

I haven’t stopped singing “This how America is.” Because #WEREHERE. This song and more is what showed me how Alice Cabot’s despair over both the state of the world and her seeming inability to do anything about it could be eased. Like me, she needed an out, proud, drag queen to remind her that it is enough to be queer, here, and daring to show our love. That’s how we change the world.

Karin Kallmaker’s new novel, Simply the Best, will be available from Bella Books on August 12. She’s always written about women who love women and isn’t likely to change. Her addiction to TimTams, coffee, and Taytos won’t likely change either.

The post Karin Kallmaker: That Time When I Was Saved by a Drag Queen appeared first on Bella Media Channel.

Not a new question then, and I’ve frequently pondered what to say as to not seem weird and uninteresting, and yet I always fail. But what proved a first, was the extra consideration that went into deciding whether or not to state that I am Coloured.

Usually, in non-South African spaces, I say that I’m a Person of Colour (POC) and let that be the end of it. Because, when introducing yourself as Coloured to most foreigners, the reactions range from racists nodding in agreement: ‘You sure are’. To the unaware racists patting you on the head and saying: ‘Oh no, honey, no. Don’t refer to yourself as a slur. You’re free now.’ (Hyperbole, obviously, but you catch my drift. Hopefully).

Mostly, though, people are unsure and awkward as to how to respond. The more verbose will state: ‘Well, here in the United States of America, we don’t refer to our Black people like that no more.’ Bless these people (I’m atheist by the way).

In South Africa, races are classified in five groups: Black, White, Coloured, Asian, and Other/Unspecified. According to Wikipedia: Coloured people are part of a heterogeneous ethnic group with ancestral links to European colonizers, indigenous Khoisan and Xhosa people, and slaves imported from the East Indies.

In the simplest of terms: Coloured people are “Brown” people.

That includes me with my light skin. Neither of my parents, nor any of their parents, are/were White. Though when I introduce myself to foreigners as a person of colour, it’s immediately met with scepticism and suspicion. I keep saying foreigners, because despite my skin colour, South Africans know that we exist as a racial group. They recognise our features and our accents. Stereotypes, I know, and not universally applicable, but there are distinct things that identify Coloured people as Coloured, and since we’re only found in a small number in South Africa, some foreigners often mistake us as being biracial, Black, or White.

I have family members with darker skin than my Black friends, and lighter skin than my White friends. And because of this, falling in love with women, and how I appreciate women’s beauty, has never been a matter of skin colour for me. Though I admit that implicit cultural biases may exist, as they do in most humans raised in homogenous cultural societies enforced by the segregation policies of oppressive racist regimes.

Because of all the shades my people come in, Colourism has been a concept I’ve needed to work on developing more of an understanding of.

Growing up in a neighbourhood of Coloured people and going to a Coloured school, I never thought of myself as having light-skin privilege. I only became aware of this as a concept when I reached university and was taught the actual unprejudiced history of South Africa and the practice of allowing Coloured people who ‘pass’ as white access to resources and class status, allowing them to marry White people and own property.

It’s a past built on pain and violence; of families torn apart, and as I discovered when entering a predominantly white-owned corporate world, a practice still pervasive in the most subtle yet fundamentally racist ways. My light-skin privilege allowed me access to opportunities that my darker skinned Coloured and Black colleagues weren’t granted. Because, as one White colleague thought was a compliment to give me: You’re ‘half-white’ (No. I’m not).

Before entering white spaces, I didn’t have any privilege. I had to read up on how Colourism presents in various cultures around the world from East Asia right across the map to the Americas. All mostly the influence of colonialism and oppression, and continuing to be a modern issue because of media representation upholding a very skewed perception of ‘beauty’.

As a light-skinned lesbian of colour, I tend to write the majority of my protagonists as light-skinned lesbians of colour. It’s therefore important for me to state that this isn’t the influence of Colourism, but rather an attempt to simply stay in my lane.

In the most ludicrous way, my conflict in announcing myself as Coloured to foreigners, is reflected in my existential crisis when choosing which colour thumbs-up emoji to use. My skin is light and I am Brown, which colour emoji do I pick? The one that physically describes me? Or the one that describes my racial group? Those who know I’m a POC will think I’m trying to present myself as White (big oof). Those who think I’m White pretending to be Brown, will judge me as dishonest and dismiss my experiences as a person of colour.

The joys of living with anxiety. There’s always something to obsess over when not a single other person probably cares.

I always use the yellow emoji.

Being Coloured isn’t something I want to default to a mustard-coloured emoji, i.e. to an umbrella term like POC. I want to state it proudly and confidently. And perhaps in doing so, someone will ask me what being Coloured means, or preferably do their own research and discover that the Coloured people of South Africa exists. And that we have a relatively young and uniquely developed culture comprising of an amalgamation of multi-ethnic foods, languages and practices we’ve blended to make our own.

35 years old Jen Lawrence is from Cape Town, South Africa. Her ideal life would be spent writing and gaming with a cat on her lap until her back and eyes hurt, and then going outside to take a long walk with a dog, on a remotely located farm, with superfast internet connection.

The post #bellabooks author Jen Lawrence shares a powerful essay on colourism and being colored appeared first on Bella Media Channel.

When Ammonite was released in 2020, one of the major criticisms aimed at the film was that it was ahistorical. Fans of Mary Anning’s contributions to paleontology felt that her accomplishments were minimized in favor of a romantic relationship that may or may not have ever happened. Director Frances Lee and actor Kate Winslet were both quick to point out that inserting a straight romance into a work of historical fiction is incredibly common and has rarely been so heavily criticized when featuring straight couples. Lee asked, “Why are historical figures presumed straight?”

In fact, more often than not, historians and film studios alike have downplayed or outright ignored historical fact when it comes to the existence of queer people. Personalities that we know were queer due to statements either by them or by those close to them have been generally portrayed as heterosexual in Hollywood adaptations. Billie Holiday, Josephine Baker, and Cole Porter are all examples of people who have been portrayed as essentially straight in various renditions, while many more recent films like Bessie, Wild Nights With Emily, Reaching For The Moon, and Daphne have all openly embraced the queerness of their protagonists. Because even just grappling with queer people that history regards as out is still an ongoing issue, inserting a queer romance into a historical story is a somewhat more recent phenomenon, yet not without precedent.

Sister, My Sister (1994) and Murderous Maids (2000) are both based on the infamous Papin sisters, Lea and Christine, who may or may not have been involved in an incestuous affair with one another. Both of the films show the development of a bizarre, unsettling attraction between the two which leads to a steamy tryst that culminates in the violent murder of the mother and daughter that employed the two highly overworked maids. Obviously, we have no idea if there was such a relationship between the two, only that Christine’s fixation on Lea was off-putting, particularly after their imprisonment. Regardless of what happened behind closed doors, in the moment the case generally interested leftists because it offered clear commentary on the hellish working conditions the two women were forced to work under since early childhood and the brutal violence their boss was allowed to inflict upon them, but for the film renditions, any greater connection to society at large is more or less buried, and instead the idea that it’s a tale of “forbidden longing” is embraced.

This is likewise true of Heavenly Creatures (1994), which focuses on a volatile relationship between two schoolgirls and is based on the true story of Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme. The two teamed up and murdered Parker’s mother, ostensibly in hopes that they’d then be able to live together. The person formerly known as Hulme came forward later to be clear that there was no lesbian relationship, while acknowledging their interactions had been obsessive and toxic. Meanwhile, in Lizzie (2018), Lizzie Borden is imagined to have been motivated to murder when her relationship with a servant that her father repeatedly attacks, using his position of power to demand a sexual relationship with her. Ultimately, Lizzie snaps, and loses her love in the process. Critics have expressed concerns around rebooting and reimagining Lizzie’s story, as these adaptations generally move pieces of the story around until we feel comfortable with the horrific acts of violence she was accused of. In the end, it can seem like a negotiation, pleading with us to redirect our ire towards “more deserving” targets. As for what really happened, we’ll likely never know.

Not every reimagining is rooted in real-life murders. Still, the tendency to link female murderers with lesbianism regardless of how tenuous the evidence might be can’t be placed on films alone, as the sensationalism around these crimes is based either in the frenzied reports contemporary to the events, or, in the case of Lizzie Borden, in an unrelated novel nearly a century after the fact which nevertheless predated the film by close to four decades. For these films, the lesbianism seems not necessarily inclined to make any kind of a statement outside of adding some sensationalism and stressing the status of these young women as being uniquely outside of society’s grander view of their gender in their respective eras.

In Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017), Wonder Woman creator Professor William Marston’s polyamorous marriage is the focal point of the drama that unfolds. Written and directed by Angela Robinson (D.E.B.S.), the film eschews many of the general facts around Marston’s life and his relationship with Elizabeth Marston and Olive Byrne in favor of telling a sensual love story, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Family members have come forward to denounce the film as a fiction, noting that there was apparently no sexual relationship between the women whatsoever.

Yet, given what little we do know of their private lives with Marston, it isn’t particularly surprising that so many people would want their story to go in that direction. With all of the implications of Wonder Woman as a hero and feminist icon, we so often envision her as being more progressive than she has ever actually been on the page. Imagining a lesbian love story at the heart of her creation is tempting. While it is true that lengthy research has uncovered very little to confirm that this ever occurred, it is unlikely that its shaky basis in fact made the film any less enjoyable for its intended audience. Generally speaking, biopics are rarely so beholden to history as they are to the telling of a good story, which is a larger conversation than whether or not fictionalized queer romances have a place in the genre.

In Shirley (2020), the author Shirley Jackson is reimagined to fit into a story that is more about the disillusionment and regret that so many housewives of the era experienced than it is specifically about Jackson’s life. Jackson is sick in bed due to intense agoraphobia which is in some ways aggravated by her husband’s gaslighting and manipulation of her often understandable discomfort with his behavior. While Jackson is years into this unending, toxic marriage, a young woman named Rose comes to live with them as a favor to her husband who hopes to gain tenure at the same college Jackson’s husband teaches at. Rose is newlywed, and doesn’t at first see the pattern of male exploitation that her own marriage is rapidly falling into.

The queerness of Shirley appears in only a few short snippets, but it adds significant characterization to the story. First, when Rose sees a group of theater kids climbing on a short tree, one of them makes eye contact and smiles at her, and it speaks to the life that she walked away from by choosing marriage and motherhood. Then, after she and Jackson spark a friendship due to their mutual despair and their interest in a new book of Shirley’s, they share a sexually charged moment on a swing set that speaks to her rapidly waning interest in being “just” a housewife.

This is another film in which family members have spoken out against, while director Josephine Decker has stated that the factual omissions were intentional, as were the attempts to make her somewhat unlikeable for much of the audience. Indeed, like Professor Marston, Shirley spends very little time with cold hard facts and relies instead on a dreamy, emotional backdrop and captivating reimaginings of its core characters.

Which, in the end, is much the same effect as the one that Ammonite’s creators intended. Ammonite doesn’t tell the full story of Anning’s life, but it makes no attempts to do so. Instead, we are asked to look through a window to see a specific moment in time as it may have existed for her. Imagining this allows us to view her a bit differently, not so much a legend or a martyr but as a living, breathing human being. The film leans into its romance, but to say that it’s all the movie communicates about Anning would be wildly reductive. If anything, as with so many films, people who may not have ever heard of Anning’s work were compelled to seek her out.

Many biopics smudge or even erase the facts around a historical figure’s life in order to make an allowance that gives us a better story. Being as queer people have so often been left out of history entirely, it shouldn’t come as a great surprise to see that there are more cases of reimagining stories with queer overtones as of late. While there is something to be said for delivering information, it’s also generally accepted that biopics are generally at least somewhat fictional in nature. It’s true that these films are, at times, ahistorical, but it would be wrong to say that they can’t teach us anything.

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At the time, I was in my early twenties. I’d had a number of sexual experiences with women, including late night trysts, club meetups, and awkward “hangs”, but this was different: a real date, in a restaurant, with someone I had a massive crush on. In the lead-up to the big night, everything had been a flurry of activity: desperate, yearning texts, giddy Facebook stalking, trying on 40+ outfits to make sure that they were flattering and that I could eat in them.

It wasn’t until we were seated at the restaurant, awash with the flickering glow from the candles in the middle of the table, that I realized I had no f*cking idea what to do next. I could compliment her outfit, or the physique she worked so hard to maintain—but maybe that was sexist? I could ask about her family, but that felt awkward, because I wasn’t exactly out to my own. Maybe I should ask about her future plans—

And something about that word, future, it flipped a switch inside of me, and I started to spiral. Would the U.S. ever adopt marriage equality—and if not, what did it really mean to have a “domestic partner”? How would we tell her family—and worse, how would we tell mine? Could we ever have kids, or find a community we felt comfortable in?

And why the f*ck wouldn’t everyone stop starting at us?

Thinking about it now, at 35, it feels like when you burn yourself pulling a cookie sheet out of the oven—both sore and wistfully regretful. I do my own thing, comfortable in the knowledge that the rules of relationships are dictated between the people in them, and that no matter who you are or who you love, some part of society is not going to get on board.

But at that moment, I’d been caught unawares by my own ignorance, and the metaphorical plane was going down. I did my best to power through, but I guess it’s not a surprise she never called me back.

I’ve spent a lot of time since that moment trying to analyze what factors led a strong, intelligent feminist to morph into a straight-up bag of cowardice—but it wasn’t until watching The Wilds, which features more-than-one teenage queer character that does not die at the end, that an answer started to percolate around in the back of my mind. And it wasn’t until a pivotal scene, in which a particularly religious character, Shelby, admits she doesn’t condone homosexuality—and the entire group condemns her for being a bigot—that I realized how profoundly I’d been affected by the lack of media representation of queer and bisexual relationships in my formative teenage years.

That’s the thing about representation. It’s not enough to show a person and say, hey, this person exists, or even, hey, these two characters are doing it, obviously queer! Authentic representation means showing queer people across a spectrum of races, ages, genders, and disability statuses. It means showing all stages of relationships and life—meet-cutes and booty calls and breakups, yes, but also how queer people raise toddlers or nurture their new gardening business or deal with retirement. It means showing queer characters whose story includes all the other things straight characters’ lives get to be about—their relationship to magic, to public institutions, to families and the law (or how they’re going to find food and water on a deserted island). And because queer people live inside of communities, it means showing a variety of ways said community might react public expressions of queerness—including supportive ones, like when five other teenage girls you barely know have your back.

When I meet young lesbian and bisexual women today, it’s actually hard to explain how hard up we were for content. The first romantic lesbian kiss on television didn’t even occur until 1991, on the legal drama L.A. LAW, which spawned a number of other lesbians kisses, all of them clear ratings ploys. But there’s a huge difference between a kiss and a relationship, so it’s even more important to note that the first lesbian wedding on prime-time TV wasn’t until 1996, during an episode of Roseanne. (By then, I’d already pictured my “dream wedding”.) The lesbian relationship between Tara and Willow on Buffy (2001) ignited a near-firestorm of interest—only to end by “burying your gays” (a trope that isstill definitely not dead). By the time the American public was openly besotted with Glee (2009), I’d graduated from college after a youth spent shadowed by the fallout from the AIDS crisis,  the legacy of Matthew Shepherd, and a lifetime of media that proved being “queer” wasn’t for me, regardless of how I felt romantically and sexually.

Another way to frame this is, in both television and in real life, being openly queer was a big-ass decision. Once you crossed that line, you couldn’t go back—which was hard to do, if you believed television’s insistence that not only do queer people have no future, but that their queerness was the only important aspect of their character. Queer characters led lives of pain and drama, specifically caused by their queerness, right up until the moment they randomly took a bullet.

Which brings me back to The Wilds, because by five minutes into the first episode, I realized that I recognized this show—not because I’d seen it before, but because I have terrible insomnia, and the only non-pharmacological way I can fall asleep is by re-watching old shows on repeat. In every possible way, the opening of The Wilds is straight-up early to mid-2000’s prime-time teen drama: the quick, awkward setup where we get just enough of the seven characters to peg them to the appropriate stereotype (“bulimic athlete”, “angry lesbian”, etc.) followed by slower, episodic pacing, a frame narrative starting each episode. The logic-defying plane crash, ending in a stripped-down version of the island from Lost. The over-the-top, hit you on the head messaging about feminism and morality. And believe me when I tell you that, at times, the show runs on grade-A teenage cheese—parental conflict, will-they-or-won’t-they relationships, and a lot of screaming at the sky, and all of it told in nested flashbacks. (Later, there’s even an “I’m emotionally unstable and therefore cutting my hair off!” scene.)

And yet, as the series progresses, each of these elements is subtly turned on its head. The show has a refreshing depth and honesty that I found addictive, especially when it came to the lesbian pairings on the show (of which, I will not give too much away, because I can’t bring myself to spoil this bit for anybody—but believe me when I say The Wilds perfectly captures the longing tension of my first queer kiss.) The women get flaking sunburn and acne. They don’t wear makeup; their armpit hair grows in. More importantly, instead of the equally unbelievable poles of kumbaya-harmony or constant infighting, we get the kind of behavior one actually expects out of teenage girls forced to work together in a stressful life-or-death situation—some friction, occasional individuals that don’t pair well together, but overall, they’re all doing their best to chip in, pitch in, and be fair.

The show’s diverse cast rapidly moves away from the initial stereotypes, developing instead into complex, deeply moving characters that deal with the realistic crushing pressures that the teen dramas of the mid-2000’s rarely connected with—in other words, nobody’s worried about “school” or “being popular”. Instead, they’re wrestling with taking care of their dying parent, the foster care system, or navigating complex relationships with people that feel good and harmful at the same time—and all these stories are presented with strong intersectional elements that look at the ways that race and sexuality complicate already complex pictures. Maybe this is one reason that while the majority of the characters are depicted as straight, I found myself in each one: there is no way, I think, to fully separate the “teen queer woman” experience from the “teenage girl” experience.

Like many shows of the mid-2000’s, who were perhaps tapping into the public’s first real understanding of what the internet would come to mean, there’s a thread of voyeurism—oh no, they’re being watched—but the show subverts this, too. By being upfront about that from the very first episode, it makes space to examine ideas like freedom, autonomy, and feminism, or the way that media doesn’t allow teenage girls—and particularly lesbian and bisexual girls—to experience their sexuality on any other level other than the bowdlerized, a phenomenon that echoes strongly the policing of queer media narratives. (Perfectly pure, or a villain, and never the twain shall meet—though they’ll probably both wind up dead.)

And like almost every other teen show with a queer young woman in it, we of course get the requisite “coming out” narrative—but it’s the juxtaposition between the backgrounds of the different characters that really elevates this aspect of it for me, particularly when it comes to the way the cultural context that you’re raised in affects your coming-out decisions on a multi-faceted level. And more important is what happens after coming out—how two teenage girls navigate a space when one of them isn’t sure exactly how they feel or what they’re doing; how they can create a mutual relationship in which they protect and respect each other’s needs, even if those needs aren’t perfect, culturally-sanctioned ones. Over and over, The Wilds highlights the gulf between how people usually navigate on television and the messiness of real life, and I have to say, I’m here for that content.

As a YA show, The Wilds isn’t actually intended for me. And yet, by the end of the first season (there’s a second season in the works!), I wasn’t sure how it could be for anybody but me. I mean the me of now, but also the me of 2005, an awkward new adult that still hadn’t figured anything out, the me that had grown up on a steady diet of teen dramas without ever seeing myself represented. The Wilds is the teen drama that the young queer women growing up in my generation deserved, but never got—and by the moments where the final cliffhanger is revealed, I felt purged, as if I’d just had a good cry or confessed all my deepest secrets to a friend.

If any of this sounds good to you, I recommend giving The Wilds a try—for the chance to consume a slice of mid-2000’s cheese, updated with a greater understanding of the spaces we inhabit.

The post The Wilds brings the cheesy queer teen drama we deserve appeared first on Bella Media Channel.