Kennedy Ryan believes life is happy for everyone: NPR

Kennedy Ryan first fell in love with romance novels in middle school. She would sneak books away from her mother, who was a preacher, and hide them at the back of her cupboard.

After high school, Ryan turned away from books and pursued a career in journalism and autism advocacy. But she returned to novels in her 30s, inspired by the sense of escape they provided. The idea for his first book series, called the Bennett Series, came to him during countless evenings spent with his son with autism on a river near his Atlanta home.

“I started dreaming about this imaginary place called Rivermont,” Ryan says. “This community… began in my imagination and became the focus of the first series I wrote.”

The romance books Ryan read when she was younger rarely included anyone who looked like her. “Every heroine I was reading about was white. And thin, fair and blue-eyed,” she says. So when she began writing her books, she deliberately centered people who had been marginalized by the genre, including black, indigenous and queer women, and people living with disability.

“(My protagonist) wasn’t the one who was getting happily ever after,” says Ryan. “I want to take those identities, those experiences, and those communities that have been on the periphery of the cultural narrative and plant them firmly at the center.”

Ryan is the first Black author to win a RITA, romance’s highest honor, awarded by the Romance Writers of America.. His best selling novel, before i let gois being adapted into a streaming series on Peacock, and his latest book, scoreFollows a woman suffering from bipolar disorder who reunites with her college boyfriend while making a film about the Harlem Renaissance. She knows that some people dislike her style, but she attributes part of this to “patriarchy and misogyny”.

She says, “This is the only genre (where) women are absolutely at the center. We’re mostly writing it. We’re the ones running it. We’re the ones making money from it.” “And whenever women benefit in this way at every level, patriarchy comes into play.”

Interview highlights

What attracted her to romance

This was my first introduction to what relationships look like. (Except, obviously, the one that was in my house, which, fortunately, was very healthy with my mom and my dad.) But I liked, I think, avoiding it, too. I mean, I was only in eighth grade. But I kind of like being transported to another world. And there was a glamor to it, especially back then.

This is like the heyday of Bodice Rippers and Harlequin Presents, and so it was generally a very glamorous setting. And I was living in rural North Carolina with deer on my front porch, you know? So I think the glamor of it really attracted me. And just the idea that you can be in another world and also just love looking at women specifically, now you? Loved…and at the center of something.

What makes his work different

I think about: What conversation do I want to have? Whether I want to talk about Black women’s mental health, or I want to talk about neurodivergence, or I want to talk about domestic violence, or I want to talk about missing and murdered Indigenous women, I’m like “What conversation do I want to have?” I start from. And then I create the characters that I think are best suited to further that conversation.

I refer to my romance, the way I write it, as (a) Trojan Horse. I am trafficking in sermons. I’m smuggling in the conversation that I want to have in what, for me, is the most accessible style of publishing. …Maybe you’re not talking about black women’s mental health or depression in general and that we don’t have to suffer in silence. Maybe it’s not something you’re sitting down and thinking about, but suddenly you’re reading a romance novel and that’s the conversation that’s at the center, and it’s making you think about it. And that’s the most interesting thing about romance to me. For me, it’s a medium for me to preach.

What does sexuality add to the story?

Sometimes culture makes women feel ashamed of our desires. We have been made to feel like we are not entitled to happiness and that our happiness should not be at the center. And in many situations, it’s okay for men to have fun. It is okay for men to pursue these things. But when women do it, it seems, it’s a dirty secret. It’s something we’re embarrassed about, or it’s something we hide, or it’s something we’re embarrassed about. …

There are some romance novels called “Open Door”. So, you know, it’s a much more elaborate type of sex scene. The physical aspect of the relationship is more extensive. And then you have the fade-to-black, or closed-door romance, where[sex is]just kind of hinted at. And then, there’s a whole genre that is inspirational or Christian romance, and maybe you don’t have to have sex on the page at all. So romance is a big spectrum reflecting physical intimacy. And I think none of this is wrong. I think that’s what people are looking for.

On the power of writing happy endings for your characters

I think this part about happily ever after is so amazing, especially for Black women, for chronically ill women, for women who are going through uncertain outcomes in the real world, especially in the timeline that we’re living in right now: I’m creating a space where you look at someone who looks like you and find happiness and find happiness forever. And some people, they don’t get to see that in real life. And it’s exciting and it’s promising for them to be able to see it even in imagination. There have been many women who have said to me, “After reading one of your books I decided to give love a try again. … Something about it encouraged me and made me feel like maybe I shouldn’t give up just yet.” I think it’s good. I think giving people hope and happiness, especially in the times we live in, there’s no downside to that for me.

On my son’s autism

My son is very impressed. Even at age 25, he is still only partially verbal. And he works on his own time. There are certain benchmarks that I thought he would reach when he was 10 but that he hasn’t reached yet, or that he reached much later. I think one of the things this journey has taught me is not to compare myself, my son, my life with anyone else.

On being the co-founder of lift 4 autism foundation

At times it came down to: Am I going to pay for therapy, or am I going to pay my light bill? And I believed, we should not be making these decisions. My husband and (I), both of our cars were repossessed. One morning we woke up and the cars were missing. We had to sell some of our house. Sometimes we did not have food. It also taught me a lot about community, people rallied around us and made sure our family had everything we needed. And I said to the Lord one day, like when I’m praying, I’m meditating, and I’m like, I don’t want anyone else to go through this. Like, I don’t want it to be anyone else’s responsibility to make these decisions. These are impossible decisions. And I decided to start a foundation. …

I checked the gaps. Apparently there was a gap for healing. … Then we had a lot of couples who were experiencing marital stress, whether it’s right at the beginning, or people who have been in it for a really long time and are tired. We started doing marriage retreats. We also started paying for couples therapy. And then I thought, God, if it’s so hard for me and I have a partner, how much harder is it for people who are single parents? And then we started programming that was specifically targeting single parents and their entire family, such as all of their children. So, for me, it was like a reflection of the gaps that I was seeing.

Therese Madden and John Sheehan Produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper, and Beth Novy adapted it for the Web.