Friday, January 10, 2020

THE FIGHT FOR RWA, PART 2


Well, it’s been another wild week in the world of professional romance. 

The formerly well-respected Romance Writers of America®, an organization of 10,000 members, continues to implode, with more Board members resigning, the new President the subject of a recall petition and eventually resigning, the Executive Director (a longtime paid staffer) submitting her resignation, literary agencies and publishers withdrawing from this year’s national conference, state and online chapters calling for an accounting from the national leadership and, according to one source, 4500 members turning in their member cards. 



Every new statement from what remains of the RWA® Board of Directors brings more confusion and creates more suspicion that things are not what they should be at the national level. And, if you don’t believe me, you can follow some of the links helpfully provided in paranormal author Jami Gold’s exhaustive summary blog post here. It’s not just that the problems with diversity, equity and inclusion I mentioned in my post last week are worse than we thought, but that policies and procedures are being violated, demands for explanation are being ignored and possible financial discrepancies are being hinted at.

So far, the RWA leadership has responded to the chaos with two moves. The first, and most dramatic, has been to cancel this year’s RITA® contest, pushing any 2019 entries into a combined 2019-2020 contest next year. The leadership is promising a “revamped” contest, presumably with new rules and a new process. But, what else could they do, after nearly 300 entries were withdrawn and half the current judges also pulled out? 

Then there was the surreptitious effort by person(s) unknown to rewrite the rules, new for this year, dealing with discrimination in the RITA judging. The new rules would have scanned for judges with a pattern of scoring entries with “not a romance” or “did not finish” for books with MCs of color, with disabilities or LGBTQ+. Those judges would have been asked to defend their decisions, and if unable to do so, would have been removed from the judge rolls permanently. Without discussion, and without announcement, those paragraphs were quietly stricken from the RITA rules while more visible controversies were raging. All in all, it’s certainly best the contest was postponed for a year until things can be put right.

The current leadership has also promised a full audit by an outside independent organization of the ethics procedures and policies that started this disaster. Timing of such an audit, and the full scale of what the audit would cover, of course, have not been mentioned. But I would argue that many of RWA’s problems today stem from having outside consultants, chosen by Board members with their own agenda, recommend actions that don’t fit the membership’s true desires.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that any examination of the organization should include a full financial audit, as many local and online chapters have called for (including the Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal Chapter, the one which most SFR authors would identify with). Also, any members of the national RWA leadership and relevant staff members should be called to account, not only with regard to the immediate incident that led to this current debacle, but also with regard to policies and procedures that affect members on an ongoing basis, such as qualifying for PRO or PAN or ascending to Board office.

As part of a "new and improved RWA," new Board and staff members, committee heads, chapter presidents and RITA judges should receive real and relevant DEI training, tailored to our needs (not just generic to anyone off the street). The training should take time, and RWA should provide incentives for completing it. RWA has $3 million in reserve. We need to spend some of that money where it will do some good. (To be fair, the leadership has mumbled something about DEI training, but the actual commitment here is vague and past actions have not built much trust that they will follow through.)

I said last week that I was considering seriously whether to give up my RWA membership. I spoke with a close friend, a past president of the Virginia NAACP, who urged me to stay and continue the fight. After all, she said, to abandon the battlefield is to yield the battle to the enemy. If everyone of good conscience leaves RWA, then the organization will be left to those who will be free to express their prejudice or simply ignore those without a voice. Change, no matter how small, is possible as long as we still have a seat at the table. No change can be made from outside.

So I’m staying. I would have remained a judge—a fair one, I hope—if the RITA contest had been held this year. I will work for whatever changes we can make in RITA and RWA for the future, and I urge everyone to do the same. I don’t expect it to be easy, but nothing good ever comes without hard work. I still live by our motto: Never give up. Never surrender!


Cheers, Donna

1 comment:

  1. Excellent post, Donna. I admit that I've simply retreated from this boondoggle and all the drama and animosity surrounding it, so I really appreciate the update from someone still following the developments closely.

    You said: "But I would argue that many of RWA’s problems today stem from having outside consultants, chosen by Board members with their own agenda, recommend actions that don’t fit the membership’s true desires." You said it! The last major upheaval in the organization when Romance was "redefined" was another trauma--though nothing of the scale of the current one!--that caused many members to choose non-renewal. Apparently the organization still hasn't learned that they need to address issues from within and not bring in outsiders who may not have expertise or experience in the book industry or the writing world.

    Many kudos for sticking with it and working to bring change from the inside. I'm not normally one to give up on a struggle, but this last disaster was the last straw. I won't completely rule out joining again at some future point if the issues are satisfactorily fixed, but I fear RWA is already in its death throes.

    That said, many of my peers and I speculated the organization had five years of life left during the last upheaval, and it's still here seven years later, so maybe it'll survive this latest meltdown too, with members like you who care to continue to fight the good fight. I'll be cheering you on from the sidelines.

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