Kennedy Ryan first fell in love with romance novels in middle school. She'd sneak the books past her mom, who was a preacher, and keep a stash hidden at the back of her closet.
Ryan drifted from the books after high school and went on to build a career in journalism and autism advocacy. But she returned to the novels in her 30s, drawn by the sense of escape they provided. The idea for her first book series, called the Bennett series, came to her over the course of countless evenings she spent with her son, who has autism, at a river near their Atlanta home.
"I just started dreaming about this imaginary place called Rivermont," Ryan says. "This community ... just started kind of in my imagination and it became the centerpiece for the first series that I ever wrote."
The romance books Ryan read when she was younger rarely included anyone who looked like herself. "Every heroine I was reading about was white. And thin and blonde and blue-eyed," she says. So when she began to write her own books, she deliberately centered people the genre had left at the margins, including Black, Indigenous and queer women, and people living with disabilities.
"[My protagonist] wasn't the one who was getting the happily ever after," Ryan says. "I want to take those identities and those experiences and those communities that have been on the periphery of cultural narrative and set them firmly at the center."
This is the only genre [where] women are absolutely at the center. ... And anytime women are benefiting at every level that way, patriarchy comes into play.Kennedy Ryan
Ryan is the first Black author to win the RITA, romance's highest honor, which is presented by the Romance Writers of America. Her best-selling novel, Before I Let Go, is being adapted into a streaming series on Peacock, and her latest book, Score, follows a woman with bipolar disorder who reunites with her college sweetheart while making a film about the Harlem Renaissance. She's aware that some people are dismissive of her genre, but she attributes some of that to "patriarchy and misogyny."
"This is the only genre [where] women are absolutely at the center. We are mostly writing it. We are the ones who are running it. We are ones who're making money from it," she says. "And anytime women are benefiting at every level that way, patriarchy comes into play."
Interview highlights
On what drew her to romance
It was one of my first introductions to seeing what relationships looked like. (Besides, obviously, the one that was in my house, which was very healthy, fortunately, with my mom and my dad.) But I liked, I think, the escape of it, too. I mean, I was only in the eighth grade. But I like being transported kind of to another world. And there was a glamor to it, especially then.
This is like the heyday of the bodice rippers and Harlequin Presents, and so it was usually a very glamorous setting. And I was living in rural North Carolina with, like, deer on my front porch, you know? So the glamor of it, I think, really drew me. And just this idea that you could be in another world and also that just seeing women especially loved, you now? Loved … and at the center of something.
On what makes her work different
I approach it from: What is the conversation I want to have? Whether it's I wanna talk about Black women's mental health, or I wanna to talk about neurodivergence, or I want to talk about domestic violence, or I wanna talk about missing and murdered Indigenous women, I start with "What is the conversation I want to have?" and then I build the characters who I feel are best equipped to carry that conversation.
I refer to my romance, the way I write it, as [a] Trojan horse. I'm smuggling in discourse. I'm smuggling in the conversation I want to have in what, to me, is the most accessible genre in publishing. ... Maybe you're not typically talking about Black women's mental health or depression and how we don't need to suffer in silence. Maybe that's not something you're sitting around thinking about, but all of a sudden 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 is what's most interesting to me about romance. For me, it is this vehicle for me to have discourse.
On what the sensuality adds to the story
A lot of times culture makes women feel ashamed for our desires. We've been made to feel like we don't have a right to pleasure and that our pleasure shouldn't be at the center. And in a lot of situations, it's fine for men to have pleasure. It's fine for men to pursue these things. But when women do, it's like, it's a dirty secret. It's something that we're embarrassed about, or it's something that we hide, or it's something we shame. …
There's some romance novels that have what's called "open door." So, you know, it is much more detailed kind of sex scenes. The physical aspect of the relationship is more detailed. And then you have fade-to-black, or closed-door romance, where [sex is] just kind of alluded to. And then, there's a whole genre that's inspirational or Christian romance, and you may have, like, no sex on the page at all. So romance is a huge spectrum of how physical intimacy is depicted. And I think none of it is wrong. I think it's what people are looking for.
On the power of writing happy endings for her characters
The part about the happily-ever-after that I think is so amazing, especially for Black women, for chronically ill women, for women who are in the real world navigating uncertain outcomes, especially the timeline we're living in now: I am creating a space where you see someone who looks like you get joy and get a happily-ever-after. And for some people, they don't get to see that in real life. And it is encouraging and it's hopeful for them to see it, even in fiction. There are so many women who have told me, "I decided to give love a chance again after I read one of your books. … Something about it encouraged me and made me feel like maybe I shouldn't give up on it quite yet." I think that's good. I think giving people hope and joy is, especially in the times we're living, there's not a downside to that for me.
On her son's autism
My son is very impacted. Even at 25, he's still only partially verbal. And he kind of works at his own time. There are certain benchmarks that I thought he would reach when he was 10 that he still hasn't reached, or that he reached much later. One of the things I think that this journey has taught me is not to compare myself, my son, our life, to anyone else's.
On co-founding the Lift 4 Autism foundation
A lot of times it came down to: Am I going to pay for therapy, or am I gonna pay my light bill? And I was like, we shouldn't have to make these decisions. My husband and [I], both of our cars were repossessed. We woke up one morning and the cars were gone. We had to do a short sell on our house. We didn't have food sometimes. It taught me a lot about community too, people just kind of rallying around us and making sure that our family had what we needed. And I just kind of said to the Lord one day, like when I'm praying, I'm meditating, and I'm like, I just don't want anybody else to go through this. Like, I don't anybody else to have to make these decisions. These are impossible decisions. And I decided to start a foundation. …
I examined the gaps. There was a gap for therapy, obviously. … Then we had a lot of couples who were experiencing marital strain, whether it's at the very beginning, or people who have been in this a really, really long time and are worn down. We started doing marriage retreats. We also started paying for couples therapy. And then I thought about, gosh, if it's this hard for me and I have a partner, how hard is it for people who are single parents? And then we started programming that was specifically targeting single parents and their entire family, like [for] all of their children. So, for me, it was just kind of 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 Novey adapted it for the web.
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