So last night I got home from my dance classes (salsa/mambo and hustle) to find a letter from RWA with a proxy form since I'm not going to be going to Dallas this year (Been there, done that, have the T-shirt). Apparently the board has voted to get rid of the novel with strong romantic elements category in the Golden Heart but not the RITA. Why? Since the contest is for unpublished authors, RWA feels that they should be promoting romance.
Okay, on the one hand, I can see there point, but on the other hand, there are at least 5 other categories for people to enter if they are writing a romance. So why drop this one category? Is it that they're afraid that more people will enter this category than the others? I don't think so. I would say that, given the number of people who are members of the Chick-lit chapter, compared to say the total number of RWA members, it's pretty small. The chick-lit chapter last time I looked had about 300 members, give or take, and not all of them are entering the Golden Heart.
In fact, quite a few people that I know who have entered the Golden Heart, some have entered in more than one category, with more than one manuscript in that same category. If you're going to change anything, how about limiting the number of entries an author can submit in any given category. That would make sense. The same goes for the RITA. Why have Nora Roberts compete against herself, or her pseudonymn, JD Robb?
They also want to get rid of the Novella category as well. Given the number of anthologies that are published every year by all publishing houses, this also to me seems like a waste of time. Seriously, is it just me or does seem like the board of RWA spends alot of time thinking about nothing in particular?
The one board meeting that I attended, most of the meeting was taken up with that ole definition of romance. It was clear then, that there was a faction on the board who were not happy with the whole chick-lit/erotica/erotic romance boom of the past ten years. Just the fact that you cannot join PAN unless you've written a romance or your book is published by an RWA approved publisher proves that.
Oy, color me annoyed.
Thanks for reading,
EKM
2 comments:
Color me annoyed, too.
I can no longer enter the GH (and thank God, since once was enough) and have given up on the Rita, I have no vested interest in saying this, but I think what the board is trying to discourage is unpublished non-romance writers from participating. To some degree, the only reason why the published category exists is not to alienate former romance authors who have moved on to other stuff. Why should a complete newbie get the same treatment when the org. is about romance? I can't believe I actually agree with something the RWA has done. I need to lie down now.
All the best,
Dee
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