Guest post written by Bed and Breakup author Susie Dumond
Susie Dumond is a queer rom-com writer originally from Little Rock, Arkansas. She also talks about books as a senior contributor at Book Riot and a bookseller at her local indie bookstore in Washington, DC.
About Bed and Breakup (out June 24, 2025): Two exes reunite to fix up and sell the bed-and-breakfast that destroyed their marriage—because some dreams, no matter how dusty or broken, deserve a second chance.
Here’s my deepest truth, the one that I worry will turn my entire home state against me: From the moment I was old enough to understand that there was a world outside of Arkansas, I wanted to leave it. Little Rock was the only home I’d ever known, yet for reasons that wouldn’t become clear for another decade (cough cough, lesbian), I never truly felt at home there. I knew intrinsically that there was something different about me, something that made me feel unwelcome in a state that some call “the buckle of the Bible Belt”.
My father’s family roots burrowed deep in the Arkansas soil, going back generations in a region known for rice farming and duck hunting. Most of my mom’s family lived nearby in Tennessee, so as a kid, I’d never made it far past the state line. My world was small, but my imagination was big, and I knew there must be somewhere else where I wouldn’t feel like an oddity for reasons I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Meanwhile, I escaped through reading sky-high piles of books.
Two decades, three cities, and two books later, I returned to Arkansas to write a queer rom-com set there. Setting has proved fertile inspiration for all of my novels. Queerly Beloved is set in Tulsa, were I moved for college, embraced my queer identity, and met my future spouse. Looking for a Sign is set in New Orleans, a city where I’ve made many fond memories. I love writing queer stories set in places some would consider unlikely. Then friends and readers in Arkansas started asking, “When do we get a book set here?”
I wanted to honor my home state with a whimsical love story. But in truth, I struggled to picture a happy ending for a queer couple in a state with homophobic and transphobic laws on the books. Openly hostile attitudes toward queerness make it harder to breathe the “Natural State” air.
Except for in one place — Eureka Springs. This quirky little mountain town in the middle of the Ozarks has long been a haven for LGBTQ+ people. Known for its fabled healing groundwater, Eureka Springs has become a tourist destination full of preserved Victorian architecture, scenic vistas, spas, art, and culture. As a kid, I visited Eureka Spring multiple times per year. It was the first place where I saw same-sex couples holding hands in public, unafraid of who might see. Rainbow flags hang on porches and storefronts throughout the town. They celebrate LGBTQ+ festivals not once, but three times minimum per year. Before I knew I was a lesbian, I knew I was welcome in Eureka Springs.
That’s where I would set my next lesbian love story. As I visited home while drafting the book, I worked through my own feelings about what it means to love a place that doesn’t always love you back. Bed and Breakup took shape in the only way that made sense to me: a second-chance romance. Two women, both from Little Rock like me, fell in love while renovating a historic inn in Eureka Springs, but its eventual success tore them apart. Now they’ve landed back there for different reasons and are forced to confront their shared baggage. Just like my characters Molly and Robin were giving each other another shot after a devastating breakup and seven-year separation, I was giving Arkansas another chance to show me what makes it worth cherishing.
In truth, it was queer community that helped me survive coming of age in Little Rock. Gay bars weren’t an option, as I wasn’t daring enough to get a fake ID. But as a community theater kid, I’d stumbled into a secret world of queerness. I still remember being stunned to learn two of the adults in a musical I performed in were lesbians. They seemed so nice! And so normal! Not at all like the scary motorcycle-riding heathens I’d been warned about. In fact, something about them felt familiar.
I returned to Little Rock as an adult, feeling less like an insider desperate to get out and more like an outsider not sure if I wanted to fit in. I discovered a queer community still thriving, filling bars and dance parties and coffee shops, just out of sight but not so hard to find if you were looking for it. I went to a gay bar I’d never been to before and was thrilled to find that the karaoke night host was a former high school classmate. I knew several other old acquaintances in the audience, sipping beers and belting along to Dolly Parton. Despite my secret fear that I’d be shunned for leaving, I was welcomed back with open arms. There’s a certain magic to a queer space in a red state. A resilience, a playfulness, a kaleidoscopic mix of unlikely characters where one more is always a treat.
Despite the sob stories we see in the media of queer people in red states, there’s so much hope, joy, fun, and community to be found. LGBTQ+ people are everywhere, finding love, creating homes, connecting people, and making art. Where you live doesn’t determine who you are or who you can be. I hope that the small-town found family in Bed and Breakup can help queer readers with a messy relationship to the place they grew up look at their old home — and their younger selves — a little more gently.
