Author Diary Entries
Author Diary Entries (formerly known as the Indie Author Weekly podcast) features your host, Sagan Morrow, as she shares diary-style personal stories of life as an indie author and her behind-the-scenes journey of writing and publishing books as an authorpreneur.
You’ll learn more about the books Sagan writes, her insights and stories of being an author and a multipassionate creative, and a peek behind the curtain of a writer's life.
The Author Diary Entries podcast is hosted by Sagan Morrow, a Kamloops-based writer with more than a decade of experience as a small business owner. She is also a hobbyist burlesque dancer and performs on stage as Babe Maverick.
Sagan started out as a blogger and freelance writer (and editor) around 2008. In 2016, she began teaching other freelancers how to improve productivity and time management through her online courses. She is an internationally board-certified Success & Life Coach who specializes in personal fulfillment, solopreneurship, and anti-hustle productivity.
Sagan writes the Polyamorous Passions romantic comedy series, and has published several business books in addition to her work as a romance novelist. She published her first work of fiction in 2018.
RECOMMENDED STARTING POINT: "Ep 179: Author Update (one year later)" AND "Ep 140: Welcome back to the podcast!" AND "Ep 50: What made me start writing the Polyamorous Passions series" AND "Ep 53: Top 5 episodes from the first year of podcasting on Indie Author Weekly (and why I started this podcast)".
The first 12 episodes of this podcast were originally published on a “secret” platform only for email subscribers, but you can tune into all of those original episodes right here. Access bonus materials to go along with podcast (including cheatsheets and spreadsheets relevant to the episode topics), plus full episode transcripts, sample chapters of her novels, and additional resources, at https://saganmorrow.com/secretpodcast. This podcast was rebranded from "Indie Author Weekly" to "Author Diary Entries" in April 2025.
Learn more about Sagan’s published works and upcoming novels at https://saganmorrow.com/books/. Connect with Sagan on Instagram & Threads: @Saganlives
Author Diary Entries
181: Queerness in my romance novels
“Do you write queer characters?” → Well… Yes and no! In this episode, I explain why this question is a tricky one, what makes a novel “queer enough” (an even more loaded question!), the nuance behind all of this, and the importance of using the words and labels that feel right for you.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Small Town Stilettos and the Polyamorous Passions series: SaganMorrow.com/books
- Episode 180 on the Author Diary Entries Podcast: Labels and gatekeeping in romance novels
- Connect with Sagan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saganlives
- Connect with Sagan on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@saganlives
You’re listening to the Author Diary Entries podcast — formerly known as Indie Author Weekly. I’m your host, Sagan Morrow, and this is episode #181.
“Do you write queer characters?” I’ve had several people ask me this question recently, and — building off Episode 180 on this podcast, we’re we talked about labels in romance novels — it’s a tricky one to answer.
To date, the main characters in my novels are all cis women, and their main love interests are, so far, all cis men.
During Helen’s trilogy of the Polyamorous Passions series — which include Books 4, 5, and 6 — her husband, Ben, realizes that he’s bisexual. Helen and Ben start a group sex arrangement with another couple, a cis man and cis woman. Ben also has a boyfriend outside of his marriage to Helen.
Scarlett, the main character of Books 7 - 9 in the Polyamorous Passions series, is not EXPLICITLY queer, but I will say that she’s been canonically pansexual since the start of the series. It just… hasn’t really come up in any of the storylines yet.
Margaret is the main character in Small Town Stilettos, and her best friend, Rachel, is gay.
Personally I also think of polyamory as being “queer adjacent” — and so far, all of my novels heavily feature polyamory and alternative relationship styles or alternative relationship identities.
The question then becomes: Is that enough to say that I write queer characters?
I don’t want to gatekeep it, BUT I also would never want to accidentally queerbait people and make readers think there is more queer representation than there actually explicitly is in my novels.
As such, until I have a main character who is explicitly queer, I don’t think I can really give a good answer to that question. I think in this case, having a main character who is explicitly queer — OR having the majority of secondary characters being queer — would be necessary for me to feel comfortable telling people that yes, my books feature queer characters. Until it gets to that point, I’m a little too cognizant about queerbaiting.
And in the meantime, I think saying that my books are “queer adjacent” or that *some of the side characters are queer* is really the most accurate thing I can say.
This does bring up some important questions around enoughness — for example, what makes a novel “queer enough” to be classified as having queer characters? That’s a loaded question!
I think this goes back to what we were talking about in our previous episode about labels and gatekeeping in romance novels — that was episode 180 on our Author Diary Entries podcast — in that intention matters a lot here, and we also need to have a concrete understanding about what we mean by a particular label.
For example: If a reader says to me, “I want to read a novel about queer romance! Is your book the right fit for me?” I’d probably say no, because the main storylines don’t feature that. HOWEVER, if a reader says to me, “I want to read a novel that has ANY kind of queer representation in it! Is your book the right fit for me?” I’d be able to say yes for SOME of my books.
The context matters a lot. It also depends on the reason why a person might be asking those questions… for example, if a reader is concerned that there might be homophobia in a novel, they might be asking the question to make sure the book has been vetted.
Once again, there’s so much nuance to this.
…I feel like what you’re probably really getting from this episode and our previous episode is a glimpse into why marketing novels can be a very tricky beast to navigate! Managing reader expectation and ensuring readers know what they’re getting into can be a challenge.
At the end of the day, that’s the most important thing to me: that readers are getting what they want when they read my novels. The labels or wording I might use truly does not matter; what matters is that my books are meeting your expectations.
So I hope this episode answered your question about queerness in my novels! And if you’ve read my books and you want to weigh in on this with your two cents, I’d love to hear it: Find me on Instagram & Threads and let’s chat about it — my handle is @Saganlives.
That’s a wrap on today’s episode! As always, you can access the show notes and transcript of this episode at SaganMorrow.com/podcast. And if you are enjoying the Author Diary Entries podcast, please take 2 minutes to rate and review it on your favourite podcast platform.
Thanks so much — I appreciate you!
