About Spicy, Queer Romance Author | Harlowe Savage

I have been writing since I was old enough to put pen to paper. As long as I can remember, I was writing stories, coming up with scenarios in my head, self inserting original characters into my favorite works of fiction, and spending hours upon hours listening to music and just thinking about how each song would fit into the soundtrack of whatever story I was working on at the time. 

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I have a very distinct memory of listening to My Immortal by Evanescene on my lime-green iPod Nano, thinking about my vampire OC in the Twilight Series, how she'd fit in and what I would change about the plot if I were ever given a chance to put my ideas into practice. (Don't judge okay? Twilight came out during my peak, formative, middle-school years. Everyone and their mother had a self insert. Team Jacob by the way.)

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Looking back, I was doing things all the way back in middle school that could be considered peeking out of the closet. Actively seeking out queer media (Strawberry Panic ftw), referring to my close female friends as "wives", and actively choosing my crushes for each year so I would have something to tell people when they asked. Due to some mixture of being outgoing and being neurodivergent, nobody ever thought to pull me aside and say, "hey, that's some pretty gay behavior", it was always just brushed off as, oh that's just Harlowe. Consequently, I didn't figure out my bisexuality until I was in college. 

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By the time I was self aware enough to understand that my gravitation towards queer media was due, not to my desire to be a good ally, but rather to help me understand my bisexuality and burgeoning she/they-ness, I could already tell that there wasn't nearly enough of it. Of course I sought out all the representation in media that I could through popular media, but then eventually turned to the place that would end up being the catalyst for my writing career.

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Archive of Our Own

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As many do, I started out as a lurker, reading stories from my favorite ships, leaving kudos and comments, and building a list of stories that I could return to over and over. But then, the writer in me started to stir in the back of my mind. 

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I had ideas for these ships. I could write my own.

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I grew up in a household where we didn't really talk about sex. It wasn't frowned upon necessarily, but it just wasn't something we really talked about. So when I first started writing, I found that I was consistently looking over my shoulder, jumpy, as if I was doing something wrong. It took many months of therapy and reassurance from my fiancée for me to get to a place where I felt more comfortable writing the things I loved.

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In that time, my AO3 account, TheOriginalWaifu, grew faster and larger than I ever could have thought possible. People enjoyed reading my work and I could hardly believe it. It was at this time that I thought to myself, why shouldn't I try to bring the type of work I do to the mainstream book market? People clearly enjoy it. I'm sure there are plenty of people, just like me, who are tired of all the spicy romance books being focused around standard, heterosexual dynamics and would love to just walk into a bookstore, past all the Danielle Steel novels marketed towards the straight community and pick up a book written by a queer author, for the queer community.

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There are plenty of romance authors out there who write heterosexual erotica for the mainstream book market. Why shouldn't there be one dedicated to writing queer erotica?

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In December 2022, I published my first novel, Alexander. It is the first in a series I decided to do about historical figures who were either rumored to be or confirmed to be queer. Starting with Alexander the Great in the 300's BC, the rest of the books would follow suit, moving chronologically up the timeline. 

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June of 2023 I was invited to participate as a vendor at Phoenix Fan Fusion 2023 and it being the first physical event I had ever attended as a seller, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. 

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I brought 100 copies of Alexander, unsure what the market would be and telling myself that even if I didn't sell all 100 that the books themselves wouldn't depreciate in value and that I wouldn't really have lost money even if I went back home with every single one.

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To my surprise, the community truly rallied around me, just as excited about my book as I was to find the fan fictions catered to my interests all those years ago. 

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I sold out in three days.

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This was the first time that I had concrete proof that people wanted to read what I had written. That I could really do this. So, to anyone reading this who met me that day, I just wanted to say thank you. You gave me the courage and peace of mind to keep going, knowing that my dream of becoming a full time writer, wasn't just a dream; but rather an actual possibility.

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To this day I still keep up with my AO3 account, completing Kinktober every year (I take requests for MHA, Haikyuu, and One Piece by the way) and writing new stories when I have the time between projects. In my free time outside of writing and working, I love learning languages, reading, playing video games, and spending time with friends and family. 

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Admittedly, a lot of my free time goes into writing projects for publishing, but I truly wouldn't have it any other way. 

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I love hearing from and interacting with fans so if you've read any of my stories on AO3 or my Harlowe Savage novels, I would love to hear what you thought! Feel free to follow me on all my social medias to keep up with ongoing projects and let me know how you like the books. :)

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Thank you again for all your support!