97. Breaking Free From Limiting Labels Is A Revolution with Romance Author Tasha L. Harrison
Summary
Noted romance and erotica author and editor, Tasha L. Harrison joins Erica to discuss attracting people to your community through authenticity. Part of that involves letting people in to know who you are, what it is that makes you the individual and the human that you are that can't be manufactured or replicated by someone else. Simply put, it’s your personality. When preparing this topic for Pause On The Play, Erica knew immediately that her friend, Tasha, who is also the creator of the #20kin5Days writing challenge and the Wordmakers Writing Community, was exactly who she wanted to talk with about it.
Tasha and Erica also unpack misconceptions surrounding Black romance, showing up as you are with your full voice, and refusing to be categorized by other people’s expectations.
In this discussion:
Attracting people to your work and your community
Unleashing authentic personality
The people-pleasing trap
Building better communities
Why pro-Black isn’t anti-white
Fostering a healthy listening, learning environment
Self-preservation over false choices
Breaking free from limiting labels
Keep The Dialogue Going
Context is drawn from conversation, and conversation is something that we use as a tool in Pause On The Play The Community.
Our conversations don't look any one way; they're not about any one topic, any one concern or cause. And our members don't all come from one specific background. Being able to figure out what it is to be more unapologetically you and have that discussion in a room of people that are there to cheer you on and advocating for you to be able to do this is so important.
During our monthly calls, we support our community and help them figure out how to share what’s important to them. We help our members bring more of themselves to the forefront, clarify what matters to them, and broadcast that authentic message to their people.
Join us over at Pause On The Play The Community to be in the room as we continue talking March 2021 about visibility and how to get your audience to feel what it is that you want them to feel, and what you want them to know about you.
Article
Like any good conversation, visibility is a two-way street. It’s not just about seeing others; it’s also about being seen. Part of being seen is getting people whom you want to be seen by to actually feel something that entices them to say, I do want to learn a little more, I do want to hear what you have to say, and I want to be a part of this conversation with you. The other part is the transparency that needs to come from letting people know who you are, what makes you the individual - the human - that you are that can’t be manufactured or replicated. What is it about you that resonates with others? It’s your personality.
Meet Tasha L. Harrison
Erica enlisted one of her favorite people to join her in unpacking the importance of personality. Tasha L. Harrison is a romance writer, yes, but that description isn’t nearly expansive enough. “I am, like, the Jamaican on In Living Color: I got three jobs. Too many jobs, too many jobs,” she jokes. Writer, prolific tweeter, founder of Wordmakers, an online writing community she formalized last September after years of loosely managing the group across multiple social media channels. Tasha has a powerful, distinctive way of bringing people together. Her skills go beyond simple connection, however. The people in her community actually commune with each other, support each other, learn from each other. There's a lot to be said for the intangibles that go into creating a community in which people do, literally, interact. Tasha brings that type of energy to her group while also holding space for other people’s energy. That’s important because when you build a community, it’s not just all about you.
“Yeah. That's the hard part, the holding space part,” admits Tasha. “I didn't anticipate that, you know, it requires so much energy to keep these people, you know, interacting and just, you know, being in the group, but also leaning on each other more than they're leaning on me, which was, like, a bit of growing pains in the beginning.”
Authentic Community-Building
Anyone can say they want an engaged community, but not everyone wants to put
themselves out there in the space. Tasha’s personality is the uniting factor in Wordmakers’ success. “Yeah. I’m...kind of notoriously a loudmouth,” she laughs, admitting that she hasn’t always been so, explaining how she went from pre-teen people-pleaser to outspoken romance author. “Once I hit my teen years, I was just kinda, like, you know what? I only got one life to live. I'm going to do what I want, say what I want, and make apologies for it later - if I need to.” She explains that since entering the romance community, she’s gained an even greater reputation as the person who speaks up and out against the lack of diversity in the romance genre.
“You know, I just went through a period for probably, like, three years where I was literally the pitbull,” she says of the confrontations she’d undertake. “Like, literally, people were siccing me on people.” That level of tenacity, although great for her reputation, exhausted her. “I realized it was like, you know, I can't do this with the entire community. Maybe I can make something smaller for myself where I can, you know, indoctrinate some people.”
For some, the people-pleasing becomes embedded in their personality to the point where they never stop. “But when it does,” Erica says, “what can happen...it's like, oh, well, I, I just don't give a shit anymore, and I'm just not going to hold my tongue.” Many people don’t reach that point until much later in life, however. What strikes her about Tasha’s evolution is how early she released the need to please others. “To get there earlier, at least from my vantage point,” Erica says, “is freeing because you stop worrying about what other people are thinking and feeling as much, and you’re more likely to not hide your own thoughts and opinions on things.”
Tasha and other Black authors used a “whisper network” to discuss the tactics employed by publishers and editors in the romance space - a space which she points out is notorious for omitting Black romance in the first place. These executives bullied Black romance authors into bad contracts or working relationships. “We were doing this whisper network because they had convinced us that talking about it was bad for a business, for our author brand, and also that it's more important to keep sweet, like, to be nice and make the nice white ladies feel comfortable,” she says. “It just got to be exhausting ‘cause it was, like, I don't feel like I should have to ask ten people before I do something. If I want to submit to a publisher, we should be able to say on the timeline don't do this because they're racist.” It took years for these issues to move off of private DMs and into the open. “And then, when it all came out, all the white people were like, Oh my God! I didn't know this was going on,” Tasha says. “I'm like we can't keep living like this y'all. We can't.” These days, she lets people know that if they’re not going to name names publicly, don’t even bother mentioning it to her.
Pro-Black Not Anti-White
Tasha’s community members know exactly what they’re getting when they settle into her corner of the romance-world, a space she’s dubbed Romancelandia. “You are making it very clear: do not show up with fuck-shit,” Erica affirms, “because I will say something which is a piece of people understanding, like, you have corraled people closer to you that are like, oh yeah, I don't want to be quiet about things that aren't okay either!”
At Erica’s request, Tasha shares some of the additional traits that influence her community-building and how she shows up as an author. “I write primarily Black romance,” she says, “but I also write interracial. But I don't write interracial in a way that centers white supremacy. You know, if there's going to be a white hero, he's not going to be like, oh, an angel sent down from heaven! Oh, let's worship his whiteness! You know?” Tasha calls out Fabio here, tearing down his cultivated image as the white, muscle-bound blonde god of late 20th-century romance novel covers. “He's a gross conservative which is very disturbing to me,” she says. “Fabio...made his living off of the thoughts and lustings of women and doesn't believe in reproductive rights. He's that guy.”
Fabio’s myth laid to rest, Tasha returns to Erica’s question, saying that her works center Blackness even when they feature an interracial romance. “There’s no hand-holding in my novels. Like, I tell people just like Toni Morrison: I write for Black people,” she says, adding, “If you can read words, you can read it. I’m not saying that you can’t read it if you're not Black, but I'm writing it specifically for Black people.” Feminism and social justice issues are also prominent themes in her books. She pauses, considering why she weaves those topics into her books before pointing out that if she wrote a romance featuring a relationship between a woman and a police officer, the story would come across as too unrealistic if police brutality went unacknowledged.
“What you said is important because very often, I think when things are written specifically for and by a Black person, there is somehow this misconception that it is anti-white,” Erica says. “And that's not what it is.” She points out that if that’s the case, we have to have a conversation about whether mainstream romance novels are anti-Black.
“But, that's where their mind goes,” Tasha responds. “They think, Oh, I see two Black characters on a cover of a book. I automatically assume that's for Black people. Not for me because I'm white. And that's because they assume that we are feeling the same way.”
Erica clarifies for readers that they doesn’t refer to every single white person. “They is meant for those people that choose to operate within very strict parameters of what is and is not okay through the lens of whiteness, AKA white supremacy.”
“Ah, yes,” Tasha says, “the disclaimer, the disclaimer: this is not all white folks - but it is the industry.”
Here, Erica posits the cultural significance of seeing Black women in a space that wasn’t created with them in mind, an industry that didn’t provide them with access to love, let alone a happy ending. “These are not things that are easily written about or handed to us,” she says.
Tasha takes that observation further, relaying the experience of Beverly Jenkins, romance author and resident icon. Ms. Bev used to receive mail from white readers who were shocked to discover that love was universal, regardless of color. “She would get letters, like, actual physical letters in the mail from white readers, like, I didn't know that Black people love each other like this! They love each other just like white people do!” Tasha says, “And I'm just thinking, like, what, what'd you, what did you think it was? What'd you think that we do? What? We just mate?”
Erica follows that up with a simple retort for anyone who even remotely subscribes to the misconception that Black love couldn’t possibly be as valid as white love: Baby, you don’t know what this love is. “I want you to understand that, if you think about the fact that Black people are disenfranchised, discombobulated, stolen from, used as cattle - and yet we still find all the reason, all the reasons to love one another as well as ourselves.”
“That’s revolutionary,” Tasha says. “They're thinking that you know, look at all these horrible things that are happening to Black people. How do they have any room for love?” She points out that gatekeepers within the romance space even convinced many Black folks that they don't want to read historical romance because there couldn’t possibly be room for love beyond the toil and strife of slavery.
“I've been in here for 84 years, “she jokes about her time in the romance community, “and I'm still fighting against this very simple concept.” The characters’ vernacular may be different, but the stories are the same, she says. “We are exactly like, y'all. We may, you know, our homes, our families, our loves are, you know, just how we move through life is pretty much exactly like y'all's.” She points out that, like her, Black fans of romance have been reading books about white protagonists forever. While she can’t sympathise with a white billionaire’s material wealth or him whisking a white woman away via helicopter, it’s the story’s emotions that ultimately make the characters relatable.
“I'm going to call that revolutionary,” Erica says of Tasha’s stance against the industry’s gross exclusions and misrepresentations of Black love.
Keep Showing Up
Erica asks Tasha how she maintains that viewpoint and stance in her public interactions - online, in her community, and on social media.
“I think a lot of people are attracted to me just because I say whatever and do whatever.” That, Tasha says, makes it easier for her to steer clear of self-censoring. She’s free to show up exactly as who she is online, in print, and real life. People either love or hate her for that forthrightness - and Tasha’s fine either way. “I'm always showing up exactly how I am and making sure that my voice is in what I'm writing so that people are not getting a false impression.” She calls out those who either hide behind a brand persona or want to force her under one just to make others comfortable. “If you're uncomfortable with me, you can choose to go other places. That's fine with me as well.”
She extends this ease to others, as well, just by comfortably inhabiting spaces and interacting. This is especially evident at Wordmakers. Newer attendees are often shy the first time they join one of Tasha’s sessions. “I think once we get past the point where it's like, you don't have to have a polished persona to show up. You can just show up how you are and be who you are. People get a little bit more comfortable,” she says.
It’s important to note here that Wordmakers isn’t exclusively made up of Black authors. “I have lots of different types of people in my community,” she says. “The white authors who show up are the kind of authors, the white authors, that I want to interact with. They are, you know, loud about diversity, want to learn if they don't know anything, willing to listen.”
Listening, Learning
Listening is a vital component of the community’s success. The online writing sessions often extend beyond scheduled time as the Black writers stick around to discuss diversity issues in the romance space. Many of the white writers hang out as well to listen and learn. “I'm definitely making it easier for them to be in an environment where they can ask questions and absorb information that they probably wouldn't get anywhere else and, also, making it easier for them to speak out about stuff,” Tasha says. She likens that transference of knowledge to ants taking little kernels of truth back to the hive and sharing with the rest of the colony.
Tasha’s also proud of introducing her group to tarot and crystals, both of which play an integral role in her writing process. “Most of the people that were in my group were not tarot readers and didn't care about crystals. Everybody doin’ it now. I've indoctrinated everyone, everyone.”
Erica acknowledges how open and relaxed Tasha’s community is, a space where spirituality can exist beyond typically rigid boundaries. “That in itself, to me, is a huge thing,” Erica says, “because as woke as the white spiritual community is, it is not very encompassing of Black or of color spirituality.” She also appreciates Tasha’s ability to foster a community in which white people genuinely shut up and listen rather than simply shutting up to watch the conversations as if they’re passively watching a film.
“I think that that's important, and that is why I've had times, you know, here on this show to where I, I'm going to say what I have to say. Period,” Erica says, with the keen observation that although some will listen, others will feel hurt or embarrassed by what they don’t understand or don’t know. “I'm not available to have you police my conversation, my tone, my dialect, my dialogue. Any of it,” she says. “And, if anything, there is more value in you listening to me as I am and you being able to understand versus feeling like there is your reality, and then there is mine.” The only way to move beyond this impasse is to stop forcing other people to code switch for your comfort. “I don't want to have to quantify my Blackness and where it is acceptable to be as such. That ain't, that ain't hot in the streets.”
Tasha agrees. She’s committed to her foundational values even if they may have cost her career advancement. “I feel like I would probably be a lot further along and a little bit more well-known and making a little bit more money if I wasn't so loud all the time,” she says, at the same time uninterested in making the tradeoff. “Do I want to exchange money for what I feel like is a large portion of what makes me me?”
For all the proposed caché that doing so might have brought her way, Tasha’s answer is a resounding no. “Like, that's not, that's not currency to me.” Having reclaimed her voice from those earlier people-pleasing days, she says she’s no longer willing, or even able, to censor herself. “When I was trying to, you know, like it, it was just painful. Like, I felt like I had nothing to say,” she explains. “Like, I couldn’t talk freely.”
Self-Preservation Over False Choices
Anyone who has the privilege of not worrying about their voice being silenced doesn’t truly understand what it feels like to be stifled or how deep the ramifications go. “Because,” Erica says, “when that happens, it changes who you are as a person. It changes what you do and how you do it. It changes your ability to even be willing to do certain things out loud.”
She also points to situations she’s experienced in which decisions were made out of self-preservation. “But when there's this point where it's like, no, I have a choice here, and I'm choosing me first and foremost, I'm choosing me, and I'm choosing to show up as all of me, and I am choosing to bring this into what I do. I don't know that people always understand that they have access to that.” But taking advantage of opportunities to step into the full expression of one’s authenticity isn’t so easy for all. “Very often as Black people, we are told you can't do that. You shouldn't do that. It's not acceptable to do that,” Erica says.
Additionally, Tasha points out that, when given the opportunity, Black folks are told they should be grateful for it and are forced to bend and accept their good fortune no matter how it’s presented. “But you don't have to do that,” she says. “You can make decisions along the way that makes it impossible for people to come to you sideways.”
That course of action isn’t always available, of course. She’s witnessed Black colleagues bow under the weight of contracts or opportunities that were blatantly anti-Black because they don’t have a strong foundation upon which they could choose to live. “They just want to be out there and noticed,” she says. “They want to get chose.”
“There are times that people have to choose between their values and a check,” Erica admits.
“True,” says Tasha.
While she doesn’t agree with the choices, Erica does understand where the impulse originates. There are, unfortunately, a lot of spaces that do not allow folks to be fully, unapologetically Black.
“So don’t go there!” Tasha counters.
Erica doesn’t disagree with her. Instead, she acknowledges the reality that Black folks have to either build their own spaces or go without. “But I think that that's an important concept for people to understand because you don't always have this choice of like, I'm going to completely change everything here. And it's like, you want to change it within the parameters of something that already doesn't work, is that what you want to do? Or do you want to recreate your own that does work?”
“Even in recreating our own, you only can recreate it for yourself,” Tasha says. She understands the limits of her influence within the community at large versus the impact she has in her self-made corner of it. “And that's what I'm focusing on.”
Ditch The Self-Limiting Labels
When recreating your space, what are some of the pieces that you need to be aware of to not leave on the shelf?
Tasha advises people to ditch the labels. “One of the things that I see happening a whole lot across social media is people slapping name tags on themselves... they're limiting how they can be exposed to different things.” Relying solely on an identity like “introvert” can keep people from branching out beyond that label’s perceived safety. “And, even when it comes to writing Black romance, it's like, oh, I write Black romance, but I'm only going to stay within the black romance community,” she says rather than striving to become a louder voice across the board. “I think the number one thing that I try to instill in my writer friends is that you know, just be completely authentic to yourself, and you don't have to fit into any category. Genres exist, but rules are made to be broken. Do what the fuck you want.”
Busting out of those boxes resonates with Erica. She urges readers to let the hidden parts of their personality see the light of day; share them with others regardless of how they might respond to it. “I don't want to edit myself, and I don't think that that's beneficial for anyone to edit themselves,” she says, “particularly when they're looking to communicate with or lead or be in community with others because you're not who you actually are at that point.”
Beware of those boxes, Tasha says, because they often have additional boxes inside.“I have this sign over here that says, learn the rules so you can break them like an artist.” The mantra helps her counter the opinions of people who dismiss romance as too formulaic. “You know what's going to happen at the end of a mystery too,” she argues. “Genres have formulas. And those really aren’t formulas; they’re just reader expectations.”
“Every story has already been written, right? Like, you only can bring your voice to it. Your voice is what makes it a good story.” Sure, some writers have built successful careers writing the same book over and over again, within the confines of a box. “But, if you want to fulfill yourself, observing the box and figuring out how to write around it is, or out of it is, like, the best advice I can give to anyone.”
Tasha’s Key Authenticity Three
Erica asks Tasha for three examples of how her authenticity shows up in her community and her content.
“Tarot and crystals is one,” Tasha says. “I use tarot cards when I write. I use crystals to help me through the writing process. It's just kind of who I am.”
Confrontation is number two. “Not afraid of it. Will do it all the time if I see that it’s going to be beneficial.” Even when it’s not beneficial, Tasha never shies away from difficult topics or confrontational situations.
“Three: I go to my Blackness. Not, not a categoric Blackness,” she says, “like, not a stereotype of Blackness, but my authentic Blackness. My journey in Blackness, which has some rock in there and really enjoys sushi three or four times a week.”
Tasha bonds with Erica over disrupting expectations. “Black is not a personality trait,” she says. “It’s just who I am.” Being Black doesn’t preclude her from liking both Kurt Cobain and Wu-Tang Clan. Or going to rock concerts. Or writing romance novels.
“Well, as you say that, when I was younger, I'm like, I, I defied that on purpose,” Erica says. “Like, I wore Converse, I listened to alternative music…” She goes on to reminisce about the first time she heard “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden. “I was...my whole life just opened up.”
“We would’ve been friends in high school,” laughs Tasha. “We would have been the two weirdos. I was a weirdo crying on the bus when Kurt Cobain died, and everybody's like, well, who is Kurt Cobain?”
Before the conversation ends, Tasha shares with readers the plot of her latest book, If She Says Yes. “So, like, the hero is in love with his best friend's mom. So, like, kind of taboo-adjacent.” Tasha’s quick to add that her protagonist meets the mother as an adult. “He was a full-ass grown man!”
Closing Thoughts
Keeping the dialogue going is essential. Being able to go outside of the box in the way that Tasha and Erica did today is critical to understand that you can have a full-blown, fruitful dialogue with someone that doesn't look, live, or love the same way that you do - and you can still get so much value from it, so much that benefits what it is you’re trying to do, the type of impact that you're trying to make, the kind of experiences you want to center and to amplify.
You want to have an understanding of your values and your boundaries around how you choose to show up, what you choose to share, and how you choose to share it. You’re looking to become bolder, more authentic in your content, in the ways you work with people, and with the impact you make.
Guest Contact & Bio
Hi! I'm Tasha L. Harrison! I'm a romance and erotica author, freelance editor, and creator of the #20kin5Days writing challenge and the Wordmakers Writing Community.
When I was 11 or 12 years old, I wrote a 20 line poem for my grandmother as a present for Mother’s Day. The title of this bit of iambic pentameter was "Grandmother, If You Lived in Biblical Times” and it told the story of how she would have been present and influential at all the big moments like the Great Flood, The Fall of Jericho, In the Lion’s Den with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendigo, etc. My mother helped me decorate and frame this masterpiece and it lived on the entry table at my Grandmother’s house for years. While this wasn't the first thing I wrote, it was the first thing I remember when people ask me ”have you always wanted to be a writer?”
Side note: I memorized that poem and can still recite it from beginning to end. If you meet me IRL and there's a glass of whiskey in my hand, I might just rattle if off if you ask nicely.
I no longer write faith-based poetry, but I do write about characters who know each other biblically. My erotic and romantic fiction allows me the space to explore the human condition and suss out what happens when that chemical known as love and lust hits our bloodstream and how it impacts our lives.
Quoted
TASHA L. HARRISON
I’m always showing up exactly how I am and making sure that my voice is in what I'm writing so that people are not getting a false impression.
Genres exist, but rules are made to be broken. Do what the fuck you want.
Black is not a personality trait. It’s just who I am.
I go to my Blackness. Not a categoric Blackness, like, not a stereotype of Blackness, but my authentic Blackness, my journey in Blackness, which has some rock in there and really enjoys sushi three or four times a week.
Every story has already been written, right? Like, you only can bring your voice to it. Your voice is what makes it a good story.
ERICA COURDAE
I want you to understand that if you think about the fact that Black people are disenfranchised, discombobulated, stolen from, used as cattle - and yet we still find all the reason, all the reasons to love one another as well as ourselves.
If anything, there is more value in you listening to me as I am and you being able to understand, versus feeling like there is your reality, and then there is mine.
I don't want to edit myself, and I don't think that that's beneficial for anyone to edit themselves.