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withdrawn and half the current judges also pulled out?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
