Leah Johnson writes: “When I told the man at the bar that I write young adult novels—specifically young adult rom-coms—for a living, he asked if I ever planned to write a ‘real book.’ Then he smiled that smile men always smile when they think they’re being smart and clever and just this side of charming, and added, ‘My poetry chapbook was just selected for publication.’ To be a person who writes romance—specifically to be a woman or a femme who writes romance—is to know that there is a big percentage of the population who, despite the records you break and the number of copies you sell, will always dismiss your work as empty or corny or undeserving of the shelf space they take up.”