Changes Afoot at RWA

Last night I attended a preview of the Mythic Creatures exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History with my fellow board members. Talk quickly turned to the changes in RWA's PAN policy as well as the decision by the board to eliminate the mainstream fiction with romantic elements category in the RITA's but to keep the category in the Golden Heart's.

For anyone reading this blog who is not a member of RWA, PAN is the published authors network of RWA. Typically once you have signed a contract with an RWA approved publisher, you are eligible to join PAN. But now apparently they want to change the rules and make it that you have to have been paid a certain advance by your RWA approved publisher in order to join PAN.

What this means is that new authors who are being published by RWA approved ebook publishers may not be eligible to join PAN because their advances may not be big enough. What is the point of this? You finally get that book contract, your book is going to be in print (for those publishers who do both), and you can't join PAN? My understanding was that for a publisher to be approved by RWA they had to pay a certain amount in royalties and advances. Am I wrong about this? If so, how does excluding a portion of your membership strengthen PAN?

I'm even more confused about eliminating the mainstream fiction with romantic elements category from the RITA's but keeping it for the Golden Hearts. Why is is good enough for the Golden Heart but not the RITA's anymore? What about all those finalists who then go on to be published? They will no longer be able to enter that winning manuscript or finalist manuscript in their own organizations awards.

While I know that RWA is ROMANCE writers of America, the reality is that many of the members are being published in YA or mainstream fiction. Both Nora Roberts and Suzanne Brockmann are still strong supporters of RWA, but I wouldn't call Suzanne Brockmann's books romances, although they do have a strong romantic element in them.

I started out writing romance, and I still continue to plug away at writing romance. However, what most agents that I've queried seem to be interested in from me are my YA novels. I would love to be published in romance, but that's not all I write, and I find it disconcerting to know that if I move into women's fiction, there won't be a place for me in my own organization's awards.

Sure, there are always the RT Awards, but those are decided by the editorial staff of RT. It's not quite the same as the RITA's.

I personally would like to see the mainstream category continue, with an additional category for straight historical fiction, and also erotic romance. Whether that's ever going to happen, depends on who the next President and board are.

Thanks for reading,

EKM