Posted 30 minutes agoSubscribe to BuzzFeed Daily NewsletterCaret DownRomance Author Jasmine Guillory Said She Never Thought About Writing About Anything Other Than Black Women Despite Dating Statistics Deeming Them The Least Desirable"Those shared experiences are so important to me. It's like there are times I read books and just feel seen."by Morgan MurrellBuzzFeed StaffFacebookPinterestLink If you're a big fan of romance novels, then there's a pretty big chance that you've read or heard of Jasmine Guillory. Her debut novel, The Wedding Date, became an instant hit, and soon earned widespread acclaim on BookTok and morning shows while also topping several book lists. Monica Schipper / Getty Images for Hello Sunshine The Wedding Date turned into a series, which includes six books in total: The Wedding Date, The Proposal, The Wedding Party, Royal Holiday, Party of Two, and While We Were Dating.I've read all of them, and I love the mushy feeling they gave me, but The Proposal will always be my favorite. Jasmine has made me fall in love with her characters and the unique worlds they live in, time and time again. Jasmine has helped reclaim the romance spotlight for women, particularly Black women, and expanded what representation looks like when it comes to this genre by giving them permission to see themselves at the center of joyful, sexy, soft, and aspirational love stories. She's assisted in shifting the cultural lens in the genre so that it doesn't depict a narrow image of womanhood. Instead, it's become a space where Black women are seen, desired, and cherished. View this photo on Instagram Instagram: @jasminepics So, when I heard she was teaming up with Liquid I.V. to quench our thirst after writing such steamy scenes, I knew I had to chat with her about her writing and the complexities that come with it! Morgan Murrell Here's a little taste of what we discussed: Your protagonists are often professional, ambitious Black women. Was that a conscious response to maybe a lack of what you were already seeing in romance/fiction, or was it just something that you wanted to be the center focus of your stories? Jasmine Guillory: You know, I feel like one of the biggest pieces of writing advice is, "Write what you know." I feel like that's the kind of woman I know. All of my friends are professional Black women who are ambitious, who care about their jobs, but also care about their families. They are close to their friends and meet up for brunch and all that stuff - these are the people that I felt like I could tell stories about, because I know them. Those are my people, that's me and my friends, and the communities that I'm around. So, it just felt natural when I wanted to start writing and to tell stories, to be telling those kinds of stories about these kinds of women, and to see the kind of world that I live in reflected on the page. I feel like the kinds of stories that the media likes to tell about Black women are not often those kinds of stories. It's not that we weren't writing them before, or that nobody was trying to make those movies or write those books. It's just that publishers didn't think that they would sell. The people who make movies didn't think that... "Oh, who's going to want to see that?" Lots of Black women, actually. And so it's wonderful to me to see the kinds of responses that I've gotten to my books. I see that in my day-to-day life, and I love being able to tell those stories and being able to be like, "Look, people do love our stories, and they do care about us." San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst N / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images I love that you touched on the theory that Black stories don't sell because it's been proven wrong time and time again. But did it ever deter you from writing Black characters because that notion has been out in the world for so long, or did it only encourage you to write about them more? JG: It never occurred to me to write about anything but Black people. But I never thought about writing for a long time, I think partly because I've been a huge reader my whole life, but for a long time, they weren't telling... When I was a little girl, there weren't stories about Black girls. And so I think it never occurred to me that I could be a writer, because I was like, "Well, I would only want to write about Black people. And I guess we don't get those books." As I got older, I was like, "Wait a minute, why are there no books like that? They must be out there." I knew I wasn't the only one who wanted them or the only one who wanted to write them, so I started writing. I think I started writing mostly just to see if I liked it...to give myself a creative outlet. Then, when I loved it and wanted to keep going, I was like, "Well, we'll see what happens if other people want these stories." And it turned out, yes, they do. BuzzFeed: I love that! We are not a monolith, and our perspective is just so different culturally and universally. So, I'm glad that you chose