“Jane Kolven” was born in 2018 when I realized I needed a new pen name to represent the new kind of stories I wanted to tell. After years of studying English and creative writing, I translated my studies into romance novel authorship at the peak of the male/male romance heydays. I published several novels, novellas, and short stories. I was proud of what I wrote, but an oversaturated market meant a lot of subpar writing got published with subpar editing and proofreading, and finding an audience was challenging for new authors. After a few years on the scene, I took a break to figure out who I was and what stories I wanted to tell. Shortly after, some scandals with outing authors whose gender didn’t match their pen name rocked the m/m community (as did other scandals), the market shifted toward wanting more authentic stories by authentic voices, and many smaller presses went out of business.

This was somewhat fortuitous for me, though I would have left the m/m world if it had continued as strongly. I was growing frustrating that I wasn’t telling stories about my own experiences and that the lines of sexuality seemed so rigid (gay, straight, or bi, presupposing mostly cis characters).

Jane represents an exciting opportunity to write about my own life and the people I know and love: lesbians, queer women, trans and nonbinary people, and a variety of LGBTQ people with a variety of genders and sexualities. I focus on telling happy stories, since the world in real life can be pretty dreadful. But I don’t shy away from heavy political issues that shape our community every day. I believe that rather than being “mere fantasy” or “escape,” romance can be a tool for social change, and that’s what I hope to achieve with my work.

Visit Jane’s author page on the Bold Strokes Books website here. To see the list of current publications, check out the My Books tab. And be sure to follow me on social media!