Beyond the Word: Love as Being

Why the Amari Sky Collection is about normalizing "unconventional" ways of loving—ourselves, our spaces, our experiences, and each other.

by Shani Michelle Hawley

Beyond the Word: Love as Being

As I’ve been deep in the editing process for Amari Sun, listening to the R&B pulse of the playlist I shared with you, I’ve had a major realization about what I am actually creating.

When I first started, I thought I was just writing a romance set against the sun-soaked backdrop of Italy. But the deeper I get into these characters, the more I realize that my writing is about contemporary love stories and “unconventional” ways of loving.

It is about normalizing a different way of loving people, yourself, experiences, and places.

For me, love is an experience and an action, it has to be a state of being....

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