The Ruby-Slippered Sisterhood

For skiffy rommers out there thinking of entering the Golden Heart, my 2009 Golden Heart class this week launched a fabulous blog. GH finalist Liz Bemis designed and developed the site, and it's just lovely. In conjunction with the launch, the group is giving away GH chapter critiques and sexy slipper mugs. To participate, just leave a comment.

Today's post is "Don't Enter the Golden Heart ..." by finalist Amy Talley (who recently made her first sale). Other September blog topics include:

• A Brick Road of a Different Color
• Go for the Gold! Tips for Turning Your GH Entry Into a Potential Finalist
• A Heaping Portion of Inspirational Sap, or, Why I Almost Didn't Enter the Golden Heart
• Suddenly Cinderella: On Acquiring Glamorousness in Four Months Flat
  

Parellel Universe on The Galaxy Express

A reminder about The Galaxy Express Parallel Universe event, which is coming up beginning July 5.

Parallel Universe will run concurrently with the RWA Nationals in Washington DC and promises to be a Skiffy Rommer paradise, featuring articles, guest bloggers, and live twitter posts (tweets) from SFR-oriented attendees who will be right at the heart of it all reporting on the happenings--official or otherwise. We hope to have good coverage of "The Gathering" sponsored by the FF&P Chapter and the RITA and Golden Heart Awards, where we'll be cheering on Sharon Lynn Fisher's SFR, Ghost Planet, a Golden Heart finalist in the Paranormal category.

If you're on Twitter, the #rwasfr hashtag has been kicked off in advance (and I could use some company). Feel free to post anything related to SFR or RWA whether you plan to be in attendance or not. If you're not on Twitter but have been thinking of joining, now might be a good time to sign up. Do a search for the hashtag #rwasfr to jump into the conversation. You may also wish to follow #rwachange which has developed in just a few days into an almost 400-strong group promoting reform of the organizations' policies toward e-publishing.

Come join the fun.

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.