ABSTRACT
This chapter tells the story of how and why the author wrote Phyllida. It discusses some reactions to it in the context of examining the recent past of American culture and its perception of romance novels and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer or Questioning (LGBTQ) identity, and in particular, why, twelve years and many media cycles after its inception, Phyllida continues to be a revolutionary novel. Phyllida had been published as (just) "fiction" while retaining, unchanged, its ménage romance that was the core of its story. There are two ways to write a work of genre fiction about a minority. The first is to make the distinguishing quality (race or ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation) the focus of the story. The second approach is to write the same kind of story that has always been told about the "in group," but to write it with members of the minority as protagonists.
