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Writing Romance in a Climate of Censorship with Kit Caelsto
Katherine Grant: Welcome back to the Historical Romance Sampler. Today, in honor of Banned Books Week here in the USA, we're doing another episode all about book bans and censorship. I'm joined by Kit Calesto, a multi-genre author who has been publishing since 2002. If there's a single theme to Kit's writing, it's horses, equines.
Kit writes equestrian fiction and equestrian romance, as well as cozy and cozy adjacent fantasy, both for general and young adult audiences, and erotic paranormal romance under different pen names. Their work often features queer and disability representation. When I asked my fellow romance author members of Authors Against Book Bans if anyone wanted to talk about censorship with me for Banned Books Week, Kit raised their hand.
So, thank you, Kit, so much for joining me today.
Kit Caelsto: You're so welcome. Thanks for having me.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. So just to catch listeners up, there has been an alarming rise in challenges to books carried in public spaces, like schools and libraries, since about 2020. Most conversations about banned books focus on what is going on in the children's book space because of that.
However, if you've been listening to my previous episodes on book bans, you know that this climate of censorship is touching books for adults, too, and that's what we are gonna focus on today. So Kit's going to share with us what's going on in their state of Missouri and how it impacts them as a writer and author business.
So Kit, I just want to start by finding out, why do you write what you write?
Kit Caelsto: I kind of fell into the romance side of it. I discovered after I got my first job at about 14, I walked into Kmart, so I just dated myself, found a book with a horse and a really cute guy on the cover. And I w- you know, being 14, I was like, "I wanna read that."
It was Mercedes Lackey's book, Magic's Pawn. Mm. And that completely introduced me to the world of fantasy, and I was hooked. So I started off writing fantasy. My mother read romances, mostly like Harlequin and Silhouette romances, and I checked out huge stacks of them from the library. So I connected with the fantasy writing group, but then I also connected with the local RWA chapter and started trying to put my own unique spin on romance.
And basically, besides the horses, what connects it is I found books to be a great escape as a young adult and a kid, and I wanted to provide that same kind of happy place or that same kind of escape to my readers. I came from a family of readers, and so that's why I've started writing stories.
Katherine Grant: I love that.
And so you've been writing and publishing for a while now, and you mentioned that there's stuff going on in Missouri that's really changing how you're thinking about what you're doing. So can you give us kind of a summary of what's happening in Missouri?
Kit Caelsto: Sure. So in the summer, our governor signed a bill that puts very onerous restrictions on adult-focused websites. They aim it at commercial adult websites where, like, at least a third of the content is sexually explicit or designed for gratification, and that is a pretty broad definition.
Obviously, as an author and as a writer, I like to think of my stories as more than that. I mean, no shade, I have written erotica, but, you know, there, there's a plot there. There's character. There's world building. And I have been on and off with my romance writing. I was first published in 2002, and I published pretty consistently up until about 2015, 2016.
And I just started getting burnt out. I had to take care of an elderly family member. I came back to it just a few years ago. I kind of got reinvigorated, started writing again, and then the political climate and everything changed. And so with this bill, which we can discuss in more detail, although I'll say I'm not a lawyer.
This is just what I've read in the news media. It puts some pretty strict requirements on these websites and some pretty scary fines, like up to $10,000 per day if the Secretary of State decides that you're violating this law.
Katherine Grant: Wow.
Kit Caelsto: And so yeah, I just finished grad school, so I've kind of come in and out of another one of those periods of burnout with the erotic side of the romance.
A- and I'm thinking about, you know, kind of getting rejuvenated and getting back into some of those series, and now I'm just thinking, "Is this where I really want to go right now?"
Katherine Grant: Right. Yeah, so are you hearing that this is impacting... 'cause when I'm thinking about the websites that this could be impacting, I can think about, you know, you might have your own storefront-
Kit Caelsto: Mm-hmm
Katherine Grant: that is selling your books, and then you would be the one facing the $10,000 a day fines. And then there's also the retailers like Amazon or Kobo or whatever that might- Be faced with those fines and decide, "Well, then we're not gonna accept any content that risks those fines." Are you hearing about that sort of kind of like calculation, or who, who's thinking about this?
Kit Caelsto: I am not, and I think part of that is it is very hard to get news out of Missouri that isn't towing the party line. I mean, there's some great independent journalists, but they're very hard to find, and I'm living in a very rural part of the state, so I don't have a lot of access like the people in St.
Louis or Kansas City do. From what I understand is the website owner and operator would be the one facing the fine. So like if, if you only sell on Amazon, it's Amazon's problem, not yours. You know, phew. But as somebody... I have been self-publishing. I ran a publishing company for about 10 years, and I self-published through my own company.
I had been published through about 10 different publishers. I went through several very high-profile publisher implosions and went, "Yeah, I can do this on my own." And so, I have, you know, on my website, yes, I have my own storefront. I also have a serial story that I publish which is available only to people who sign up to my community, and then I also am trying to monetize that community.
So it is a single-person operation, and so basically if I fall under these very vague guidelines, I could be targeted, and that's kind of what's making me think. Now, the sites that you think about, like Pornhub, they have just blocked Missouri altogether. Hmm. And I am currently looking into doing that. But being in Missouri, I can't block myself from working on the website, so I'm looking into different ways to do that.
But what the law also says is if your clients or customers use a VPN to get around geo-blocking, you're still liable. So it's very vague, very subject to interpretation. And the gist of it is if, if your site is more adult focused, then you have to do third party ID verification. Which one is a monthly cost although I did find a WordPress plugin that will do, like, 100 verifications for free that I'm working on implementing.
But there's a monthly cost there. Plus, I don't want to be in charge of having anybody's private information. That's... I mean, I don't need to know that. I'm assuming if somebody's buying one of my books, that they're an adult, that they know what they're doing, and they know what they're getting into.
Because it's not like I'm trying to be cutesy or hide things with my language.
Katherine Grant: Right. So one thing that's going on is that this law has passed. Another thing that's going on is that it's very vague language, and they're not providing guidance to businesses like yours that are, you know, trying to figure out, well, okay, how do I respond to this?
We're not even talking about let's get this repealed. We're just saying, well, how do I exist as a business in Missouri? So yeah, how does it impact you when you're making business decisions now?
Kit Caelsto: Well, as somebody who is already... How do I put this? As somebody who is already perhaps not on their side of things, my pronouns are they/them.
Basically, I am trying to be true to myself and be true to my values, but I'm also trying to weigh risks and rewards. So, like, I have sat down with Book Report, which I love, and just, you know, ran all the numbers on all the pen names on Book Report and went, okay, what am I making? Where am I making it from?
What's going on here? And just, you know, doing some real you know, business risks, you know, strengths, weaknesses, risks, opportunity type analysis to determine what I want to write while still staying true to myself. And in my case, the decision I'm leaning towards is sticking with the equestrian fiction and the fantasy, which may have romantic elements, but certainly is not explicit.
Katherine Grant: And were you drawn to returning to your more explicit romances after, like, in the last couple of years? Was that partly a business decision, or was that more of a creative you wanted to write that?
Kit Caelsto: A little bit of both. I feel very bad about abandoning basically a 20-year career. I've got three main pen names that I, I have written under.
Although I have been focusing kind of on one more recently. And so part of it was, you know, I've got the newsletter list, I've got, you know, I've been in Romancelandia since, you know, for 20-plus years. I've got a real soft spot in my heart for reading romances. It's a, it's a genre I enjoy and enji- enjoy working elements of into other genres.
And so yeah, I mean, some of it was business, but some of it was also just creative. I really like the world I've created. It's a very inclusive and broad shifter world that I, that I've been playing in lately. I've got a shark shifter, for example. And yeah, just some, some really different, really different connections.
And so, I spoke at Pride in Prose their last conference about writing, like, transgender main characters in romance. And so yeah, it's just, I, I feel like there's more stories to be told, and I'd like to tell them, but I can't, I can't afford to get into anybody's crosshairs.
Katherine Grant: Right. And so how does that end up impacting you as a creative writer and or just as a person?
Kit Caelsto: It's difficult. I, I ha- I am neurodivergent. I am AuDHD, so, and I'm very late diagnosed AuDHD. So I'm dealing with, you know, a lot of trauma from that. And then I literally have my government telling me that they don't want me writing what I write. And this isn't isolated. Last year, and I know Authors Against Books Bans was really involved in this a legislature in Oklahoma tried to get a law passed that would basically label anything with any romantic content as, like, you know, explicit and ban it.
So, and some of the books that were or movies were, like, Dirty Dancing, you know, things like that that, I mean, PG-13 rated stuff. I mean, things that you wouldn't think twice about. And, you know, the, the question is these laws are vague. These laws are, in many ways, poorly written. I mean, the, the writer and editor in me could, could, you know, have some fun with this.
They're very poorly written, but that's by design because they don't know what businesses they want to go after until somebody tells them what to go after.
Katherine Grant: Yeah. So to kind of, like, sum this up, this very vague law that is broadly trying to scare and impose fines on content that is vaguely defined as explicit or for adults is essentially silencing you as a romance writer.
It's too much of a risk, and so you're not gonna be able to write your romances anymore.
Kit Caelsto: More than likely, yeah. I mean, I, I wanna be clear that this is a personal decision and a creative decision that, you know, I can go, I can go in this other direction. But yeah, it is definitely playing an important role.
And, you know, I did ask the one publisher I have a book with and I said, "Hey, you know, I'm not hearing anybody talk about this. Are you guys worried about it?" And they were like, "Oh, it's not going..." You know, it was very, "It's not gonna affect us. We're not gonna worry about it." And I'm just thinking, you know, granted, I am probably taking a more extreme view than a lot of people would, but I feel like if anything, we, with, with the book bans and some of the different campaigns, we, we have to look at all the c- all the consequences.
I mean, o- one, you know, being an autistic person, pattern matching is kind of my thing. We have been here before, we have seen this before, and I don't think it's going to stop people. And if we look at last year Stripe, one of the payment providers, it has been very inconsistent and very rigorous at trying to enforce their adult content ban.
Itch.io, which is primarily a gaming site, but a lot of us have books there, they went so far that if a book had any queer or LGBT tags on it, they delisted it and hid it as if it were adult. And that kind of, I mean, in the, in the communities I'm in, that was very much talked about and very much top level, but, like, I didn't...
I tried to mention that in some of the romance groups, like, "Hey, you know, we all use Stripe for Kickstarter, we all use Stripe for our websites, and Kickstarter's starting to crack down too on some of this stuff." It's like, shouldn't there be a concern about it? And I guess my concern is even if I am being too overreactive, that I'm compensating for the people who aren't reacting enough.
Katherine Grant: Well, and for me, it's like I only need to hear one story of an author deciding not to write romance books because of a law to say, "Wow, that's a problem. We need to do something about this." We need to say these laws are silencing our voices as a First Amendment problem, and also impacting businesses. Like, there's gonna be lost revenue, lost-
Kit Caelsto: Mm-hmm
Katherine Grant: um, you know, basically a whole sector. I mean, romance novels are a sector of the publishing industry and bring in revenue. And, you know, whether the lawmakers meant to target romance novels or not, it's clearly they're getting caught up. And so, you know, that, that should be reason alone for us to say, this is not an acceptable law.
What can we do to stop it in Missouri, repeal it, and also what can we do to stop it from becoming more common across other states?
Kit Caelsto: And I think that's a very important point because if you look at a lot of what has been happening, Missouri and other states like Missouri have kind of been the testing grounds to see what people can get away with.
Katherine Grant: Right. And to the point you were making, this is unfairly, overly so, and in a homophobic way, impacting the queer community so much more. It's the queer community that was saying, "Hey, Itch.io is doing this thing, and we need to, like, band together and figure out how to get them to, you know, let us sell our goods again."
And so th- like, there are two things that are getting conflated. One is how do we as a society want to talk about adult content and what's explicit and how do people access it? And then there's the homophobic act of labeling anything that's queer as explicit.
That is also something that those of us who aren't in the queer community need to be so aware of and s- join f- forces to speak up against because it's, it's something that, like, you know, sometimes I need to be reminded or have that really pointed out to me and be like, "Oh, wait a second, that's a real big problem," because it's not something that I'm thinking about as much as I'm thinking about, well, what does, what's the, like, line of sex?
W- you know, what, what is PG-13 versus R? But we all need to be thinking about all of it and thinking about how it intersects and not get int- into internal fights with each other about it, but instead say, "Well, okay, let, what can we do to stop it all from happening?" And, and instead of saying, "Well, it's not gonna impact us, so we're not gonna fight for it."
Kit Caelsto: Mm-hmm, I agree.
Katherine Grant: To close things out, I wanted to first of all, encourage listeners, if you don't know what's going on in your personal state about book bans and censorship, whether there are laws like this that are already passed or maybe that are bills that you can still stop from being passed take a moment to find your local chapters.
There are a lot of different organizations that are fighting against book bans. If you're an author, definitely join Authors Against Book Bans. You can also check out PEN America, the American Library Association, and just start... Honestly, just plug it into your Instagram and see what the algorithm gives you, because it'll probably deliver you the organization that's in your neighborhood.
And then also I wanted to highlight that, at least as of this recording in September 2026, there are three bills that Authors Against Book Bans has highlighted at the federal level as high risk, and we would like you to call both your congressional and your senator representatives and tell them to vote no on any legislation that ties school funding to content censorship.
A lot of these bills are saying that they will eliminate school funding unless they don't follow this very specific curriculum, and the curriculum is based on Christian homeschooling books. And it is just so clearly inappropriate at the federal level. So call your representatives and your senators to vote no against H.R.
7661, H.R. 2616, and H.R. 8705. And I'll put that information in the show notes so you can find it so easily. So Kit, thank you so much. Are there any specific calls to action you want to ask for? Is there anything going on in Missouri in specific that you, you know, if you have fellow Missourians, Mizzous listening, that they can join in?
Kit Caelsto: Missourians. Mizzou is the, the central college.
Katherine Grant: Okay.
Kit Caelsto: There, there really isn't. I would say obviously check your voter registration. Make sure you are, if you're in Missouri, please make sure you're registered to v- I mean, everywhere, but definitely in Missouri, make sure you're registered to vote for these midterms in November.
There are several amendment-type measures to our state constitution that are gonna be on the ballot, and a lot of it has to do with pushing back against the overreach by our legislature including keeping our ability to do so. You may have heard about the whole map situation. The Supreme Court said no, a federal judge said yes, and now nobody knows what to do.
So yeah, Missouri is still quite the hot bed. But I would say definitely check your voter registration, vote in the midterms, and if there are any ballot measures or anything, even if it seems like it's not gonna affect you, read up on them, because there's often groups in your area that can tell you a bit about them and how they, they probably would affect, you know, your life or your future.
Katherine Grant: That's right. And like we said, even if it's not going to affect you personally, take a moment and think about your neighbor, the person that you get coffee from- Mm-hmm ... and think about how will it impact those around you, and how do you want to be a good neighbor to people.
Kit Caelsto: Definitely.
Katherine Grant: Kit, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it.
Kit Caelsto: Thank you.