Writing Queer Romance as an Exploration of My Own Queerness

How I fell in love with my queer self through my queer fictional characters

Karmen Lee’s queer romance novels include The 7-10 Split, The Relationship Mechanic, and The Secret Crush Book Club

As a late thirty-something adult, when I look back on my childhood, I can see all the ways in which I missed the signs of my queerness. Part of that was growing up in a Southern, Christian family where queerness just wasn’t, and largely still isn’t, a thing. The aunts were married to the uncles, or they weren’t married at all. But they wanted to. That was always the undercurrent. The women who were unpaired were just “waiting for the right man” to swoop in and sweep them off their feet.

Being queer wasn’t something spoken about and so it wasn’t something I even thought about as an option. That isn’t to say I didn’t have an interest in girls. I giggled about all the same things as my girl friends. We experimented with kissing—first pillows, then my hand, then a couple friends when we were brave enough. But I still didn’t put together that how I felt about those innocent pecks during sleepovers wasn’t the same as how my friends perceived these early-in-life kisses. It wasn’t until high school, when a crush on a girl hit me like a ton of bricks, that I realized I was something different.

Lesbian. Bisexual. Queer.

Those were all new words for me that opened all new possibilities. I started to see myself differently as I discovered just how queer the things I loved were. Especially the literature I consumed.

Sailor Moon, Revolutionary Girl Utena, and Nana were my favorite manga. I spent hours furiously writing my own fan fiction about them, always with a happily ever after where the girl gets the girl and rides off into the sunset on a motorcycle. No idea why a motorcycle since they did and still do scare me. In my stories, there was always a focus for me on that “a-ha” moment, where the two characters realized there was more there than just friendship when they brushed hands.

There was love.

Queer love and desire were subjects I moved on to explore in my own works. But even more, re-examining all the things I loved and continue to love about those characters has helped me peel back layers of my own sexuality as I put bits and pieces into the characters I create.

The pandemic, as terrible as it was (and continues to be), came with one helpful outcome in that it forced me to sit the fuck down and think. I hadn’t truly been able to since my marriage in 2011 and subsequent divorce six years later in 2017. Between working multiple jobs and taking care of my son alone, I hadn’t had a moment to do that—to think about myself or what and who I wanted. That’s when I turned to my characters.

Being an author is freeing in a way. We can explore our likes and dislikes, unique situations and challenges, and say and do things we never thought possible for ourselves. For me, although I had dated women in the past, after marrying a man and having a child, I never really thought being in a relationship with a woman was a possibility for me. My life was far too filled, too complicated for that. In my mind, I was saddled with too much baggage to be seen as a viable partner. Yet it was something I desperately wanted. So, I turned thoughts into characters.

My first traditionally published romance novel, The 7-10 Split, had a fair amount of myself in it. It explored themes I had never given voice to, namely how to handle when your life doesn’t turn out the way you thought it would. Or should. My next book in the series, The Relationship Mechanic, explores a little more with concerns over commitment when it would mean changing how you choose to live. But book three…book three is very on the nose. A single mother who has spent most of her time concerned over her family who are now moving on and doing their own things, leaving her contemplating, what’s next? Yeah…that’s me alright.

Book three in this series, The Secret Crush Book Club, has been the toughest one for me to write because I’ve poured more of myself into it than before. Through one of my main characters, I’m exploring not only how to handle dating again with a kid, but also the additional layer of coming out to yourself and others later in life. I have known for years I liked women, but that was before a child was thrown into the mix. On social media, most of the queer women I see are young or around my age but without children. The ones I do stumble across who are closer to my situation, I eagerly follow. But really, it’s my fiction that is allowing me to delve into what the experience for me might be like…should I ever decide to leave my house.

I’ve been able to ask myself questions and play around with scenarios like, what would I do if my future partner doesn’t want kids? What should I do if she does? How do I tell her I can’t U-Haul until after the first year? And even more, how do I talk to my son about this? How do I introduce my son and my future partner? It might not be much different than if I were dating a man, but for me, who never had an example of what the process should look like, I have nothing to truly emulate. My world is books, and in literature, from myself and others, I have slowly developed a plan should an intimate relationship with another woman ever pan out.

Just like literature in my youth helped me understand and explore my queer identity then, writing queer and specifically sapphic romance is helping me explore it now. It’s helping me catch up on the lingo that has changed since growing up as a Y2K kid. It’s helping me understand the difference between sex and gender in a way I didn’t while I was married to a cis man or growing up in a culture where sex was never really discussed, much less gender. Even the (very) few times I’ve read reviews has helped me adapt the way I describe attraction to masculinity as opposed to attraction to men or femininity as opposed to women, and everything in between. I now have so many tools to prepare for when or if my son decides to let me know he’s attracted to someone of the same gender. It’s also given me some suggestions for what not to say.

Writing sapphic romance, in particular, has helped solidify that my thoughts and feelings from years ago were not and are not a phase. I’ve learned I don’t have to be ashamed that it took me a few more years to circle back to the same thoughts and realizations I had as a teen. Queerness isn’t something I chose to be or chose to do. Queerness is inherent to who I am as a person and who I look for in a partner. Queer is an identity I use proudly, an identity I reclaimed for myself through years of learning how to get out of my own way and just be.

Writing queerness, and specifically, Black queer love, has given me a way to celebrate the love I hope to one day have. I find strength in writing sapphic stories and hearing how my readers fall in love with those Black queer characters, because each character has a little bit of me. And if they love different pieces of me, one day I know I’ll find someone who loves me as a whole.

Karmen Lee is a lifelong Southerner living it up in Atlanta, Georgia, with her kid, her cats and humidity. When not packing lunches or working her nine-to-five, she can be found drinking coffee too late at night, watching House Hunters International and dreaming up ways to show her readers a good time. Find her on Twitter (@Author_KLee) or Instagram (@authorkarmenlee).