Recently episode released two new permanent shelves: LGBTQ+ and Sci-fi, but I believe episode would benefit adding a third one —> The Historical shelve.
Personally I am a sucker for period based stories and I know a growing number of reader and authors share my interest for this genre! Alas, as of right now, historical stories are really hard to find on the app, dispersed in all genres , lost, hidden between a thousand of romance, drama, adventures and fantasy stories How infuriating is it when you finally stumble (after hour of searching) on a cover where you spot a victorian gown only to find out it’s a vampire story… AGAIN 
Yet this genre truly deserve it’s own place for various reason.
FOR THE COMMUNITY:
-Adding an historical genre could furthermore encourage authors to explore their creativity and invent new universe. Take every single cliche trope but adding to it an historical background immediately makes it 100x more interesting and original.
-Diversity wise it would hugely benefit the community. While based on which period your plot occur, the cast might not be as cosmopolite as the world is today for exemple it would not really makes sense to have a lot of non white character in medieval Europe, nor it would makes sense to have white blonde mc on a story about Heian court x), writing an historical is by essence an experience of diversity in itself. Let’s not forget that up until recently, there were an For all non American authors, makes us discover about your country, your culture. The historical genre is a great way to teach people about a culture, why people are what they are today. Tell us about the difficulties, the discrimination a community had to face, etc
This is also a way to encourage episode to release more culture and era based items, please we’re seriously lacking
Now lets not forget that episode is also a Business …
THE BENEFIT BUISNESS WISE
-As we saw recently, people tends to go back to “vintage”. They go thriftshopping more, old tendance like corset are coming back, Shows like Bridgerton, The Queens Gambit, Picky Blinders, film inspired by Jane Austen universe etc are huge success… In a Word, the historical genre Sales. Surfing on this wave by creating more historical episode original stories, maybe it could also help attract new readers to the platform.
-A lot of other interactive story telling platform like Choices have already incorporated this genre Why not Episode ? 
HOW?
the historical genre could be a drama subgenre or a genre of it own with their subgenre (it could be era based like one subgenre that goes from prehistory to renaissance and an other one with more recent history. Or by geographical zones )
If you think this idea could be beneficial to the app, please like and comment on this thread! 
With Love,
Louve1 
