RWA Randomness and SFR Promotion

Escape Velocity! Membership and registration now paid, offsite hotel booked, and airline tickets secured. It appears I'm headed for DC! *\o/*

I've been pondering many things writing-related since trying to pull together this trip to the RWA Conference in Washington DC in July. For one, I have my rader tuned to any talk of SFR, whether from speakers, authors, editors, agents or fellow writers. I've registered for the FF&P Chapter "The Gathering" event on Thursday night with hopes I'll meet a few more like-minded SFR writers.

The Galaxy Express recently had a spirited discussion about SFR promotion and the market in general in response to the post entitled The Bane of Being Futuristically Challenged. It got me thinking. Could we, as SFR writers and readers, help bolster the demand for our own sub-genre?

Another issue I've been thinking about? How can Science Fiction Romance break out of containment by that big, gray Paranormal Romance Oort cloud? It seems a bit unfortunate that almost all contests and awards lump our super sleek tech-throbs into the same pack with werewolves, vampires, mages and other icons that fall decidedly into the fantasy realm. SFR is a breed all its own, don't you think? Throwing it in this catch-all arena is like pitting Lord of the Rings against Star Wars. Or Ghost against Alien.

Since the demise of the Sapphire Awards [click for more on the Sapphire here], I don't know of any contests tailored to Science Fiction Romance. (If you do, let me know!)

So I have a dual-mission when I head to DC. Not only will I be there to promote my work, but SFR as a whole. Lighting one small gamma ray burst as the saying goes. (What, you've never heard it put quite that way?) I'll be talking SFR every chance I get, and keeping my radar tuned to SFR news I can share in future posts.