In a joint celebration of Black History Month and Valentine’s Day, the Ashland Public Library, in partnership with 18 other libraries including the Brookline Public Library, hosted a virtual author’s panel showcasing three self-published Black indie romance writers on Monday, Feb. 12.

Panelist Ines Johnson, a screenwriter-turned-novelist, began writing books while creating scripts for children’s television. She said she has loved reading since childhood.

“My godmother, instead of her pantry being lined with cans and pancake mix, her pantry was lined with ‘Harley Quinns.’ It was my first library,” Johnson said. “She said I could take whatever book I wanted, and that started my love for reading.”

Alexandria House, another panelist, is a full-time author from Arkansas who has written over 30 books and specializes in contemporary African American romance. An avid reader and writer all her life, House said she has recently switched gears into writing romance professionally.

“I never saw writing as a potential career because I come from an academic family; my father was a physician, my mother was a teacher, so I thought those were my only two lanes. I ended up going to nursing school so I could take care of these children I had, and as my oldest went off to college, I knew that wasn’t where my talent lay,” House said. “I started thinking, ‘There’s got to be something I’m supposed to do other than working a 9-5,’ because I knew there was a legacy I was supposed to leave.”

Johnson said she prefers to highlight joy in her books about multicultural characters instead of writing stories about their struggles to provide an escape for her readers and herself.

“Romance to me is about escapism, so I don’t focus on the issues that the media and society at large would attribute to people of color. I’m not interested in writing about racism or prejudices or microaggressions,” Johnson said. “I don’t want to write about the issues that are put down upon us. I’m writing stories about the celebration of cultures and the celebration of their love, and that’s what I want to give a voice to.”

Panelist Katrina Jackson said books about Black people don’t always have to be solely about racism, but topics of discrimination are necessary for preserving the honesty in her books.

“Struggle and joy live in the same space, and I don’t think it would be fair to pretend as if any of my characters don’t live in a world that treats them as Black people. Often, my characters talk about racism in a way that is making light of what is actually quite heavy,” Jackson said. “I’m writing books that touch this world, and it would be unfair of me to not build my characters around what they might have to face, even if I know it might not be the center of their story.”

House said that growing up in a predominantly Black area has influenced her writing, her depiction of characters and the language they use.

“I grew up in a historically Black college town in Arkansas, and all I knew was Blackness and Black excellence; my parents instilled that in me. That’s the only culture I knew to put into anything, and that’s the only lens I’ve ever seen anything through,” House said. “I don’t think it was even a conscious thought. I think I’m just recreating what I lived.”

Jackson said that Black voices in romance have always been present; it just may take a bit of digging to find them.

“When I came to be a reader and when I was starting to publish, I was surprised at how many Black authors there were, and I had only just scratched the surface,” Jackson said. “One Black author welcomed me to another. That part is also important: We’re not new, and we have always been here.”