ABSTRACT
Fiction both reflects the current sociopolitical nature of the community that it represents and portends the emerging forces shaping the future direction of that same community. Nowhere could the queer reader find a romance that depicted a queer couple with any hope for future fulfillment. It took a revolution to create the literature that reflected queer lives and provided a place in which to hope and dream. Very few works featured gay and lesbian characters, and those that did depicted the popular attitudes of society at large toward "queers", even when written by queer authors. Queer romance has grown from a handful of titles published by struggling presses existing far from the mainstream publishing network to dozens of new titles a month in every genre produced by publishers recognized by the Romance Writers of America. Charting the course of the queer romance journey from obscurity to visibility is the story of a revolution in progress.
