Romance Writers of America filed for bankruptcy. For some reason, I’ve received a number of emails about it. Not sure why since we are not members, although we did give a talk one time to the local Austin chapter of RWA.
If you google this topic, you will come across an article from Bloomberg, which hilariously blames Courtney Milan for the collapse of RWA. Poor Courtney and her superpowers. #sarcasm. Full disclaimer: I’ve met Courtney in person, so we do know each other in a professional setting.
There are two sides of this coin: social and financial. Let’s talk about the social one first.
A quick recap of Courtney Milan vs RWA: RWA always had issues with their definition of romance, which was pretty much white and straight. Which is a crying shame because RWA was founded by Vivian Stephens, a legendary editor and a woman of color, who was basically the mother of non-white romance in US. They took their founder’s legacy and stomped all over it. But I digress.
In 2019 Courtney Milan criticized a couple of romance books for their portrayal of Asian women, which Courtney, who is of Chinese descent, found lacking and quite frankly racist. The authors complained to RWA, alleging that because Courtney had a wide social media following, her criticism caused them to lose sales. Publicly RWA always leaned into the toxic side of “we should be nice to each other.” Privately, not so much. More on that later.
Courtney fired back, pointing out that she had a right to call out racism and perpetuation of harmful stereotypes, and that telling her, as a woman of color, to shut up and sit down wasn’t a good look for RWA. Paraphrasing here, obviously. RWA suspended her and banned her from being an officer of the organization for life. They made her permanently ineligible to hold a leadership position. What happened to being nice?
A whole bunch of people had a problem with it, got up and left. You can read a longer version on Vox.
As long as I’ve been in publishing – which is roughly 17 years – RWA felt like a reactionary organization. It seemed like RWA leadership desperately clung to a very narrow definition of romance and fiercely gatekept anyone from changing it.
The social and political climate in the mid 2000’s was very different. When we started out, Black Romance had its own section in the book store. You would walk into Wal-Mart, and there would the usual romance section and then to the side, there would be a small section for “African-American Romance.” They segregated it. Mind boggles, but that’s the way it was. This gives you the idea of the cultural landscape. Interracial couples were controversial. Gay people were controversial. Gay protagonists were unheard of. But forced seduction was okay. The genre has come a long way.
For the majority of my career, watching as an outside observer, it appeared that RWA was on guard against everyone: authors of color, gay people – Suzanne Brockman gave the most amazing speech about it, self-published authors, writers who wrote in genres they didn’t consider as “romance.” You would see PNR people openly snubbed at conferences because they didn’t write white contemporary or historical.
It felt like fear. As if the people who did the most urgent gatekeeping were afraid that if other subgenres flourished and people who are different from the status quo told their stories, they would become popular and take a piece of the publishing pie away from them. And when people pointed that out, the response was to shame and to hurl accusations of not being nice. The organization had multiple opportunities to alter course, but ultimately, it didn’t.
You can’t completely blame Bloomberg for crediting Courtney Milan with for RWA’s failure to thrive. After all, they included it in their bankruptcy filing.
Subsequently, predominantly due to disputes concerning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) issues between some members of a prior RWA board and others in the larger romance writing community, membership decreased to approximately 3,000.
Smart Bitches, Trashy Books – very good rant.
They just had to get that last dig in.
Courtney Milan didn’t ruin RWA. RWA ruined RWA because they failed to evolve. In the last 5 years, membership shrank from 10,000 to only about 2,000 members. If a professional organization doesn’t represent you, doesn’t advocate for your interests, and actively attempts to suppress your voice, why would you continue your membership?
Which brings us to the other side of the coin, the financial decline. Like many professional organizations, RWA depended on membership dues. One of their biggest draws was the RWA conference, which was attended by readers and industry professionals editors, publishers, publicists, agents, etc. If you were just starting out or if you had something to shop, it was a good place to make connections. Writing is solitary and for a lot of us conferences like that were a chance to have lunch with our friends whom we saw once a year.
But conferences are expensive. The one time we tried to run one, we learned that hotels make you commit to a block of rooms in advance. Let’s say you think 100 people are coming and you request 100 rooms. 75 people show up. You are on the hook for those 25 rooms that didn’t get used. You must pay for them.
Due to COVID concerns, the Debtor held its annual conference virtually in 2020 and 2021, and subsequently its membership reduced further. RWA was able to postpone its obligations to the respective Conference Centers these two years by agreeing to add two future years to the applicable Conference Center Contract to 2028.
There we go. First, there was COVID, and when COVID was over, RWA still had a major image problem. Nobody came to the conference. The membership had dropped, the reader attendance withered because the authors they wanted to see were no longer attending, and the publishing professionals moved on, since without readers the conference was no longer a valid promotional opportunity. Down went the dominoes. No big mystery.
Did RWA do a lot of good? Probably. It was started with the best of intentions. Sadly, we’ll mostly remember the collapse. Hopefully, something new will rise from these ashes, because we really do need a writing organization that advocates for our rights and offers support and mentorship.
Mod R is off today, so please be considerate in your comments. I have to write today and I may have to lock the comments section ion self-defense.
I love that, in their last attempt to throw shade at Courtney Milan, the RWA proved that they were the white supremacist, homophobic and prejudiced organization CM denounced them as. I really hope it gives her grounds to sue them to oblivion, and in the nearby future, CM is one of the leaders in a new rise of a reliable professional org for romance writers.
I also find it strange that they didn’t include Suzanne Brockmann, Sarah MacLean, Tessa Dare, Nora Roberts, and others under that shade, because they all had a lot to add. Oh, and the person who thought it’d be a good idea to give an award to a book featuring a Nazi officer-Jewish woman pairing.
(Yes, someone did that)
But sure, let’s blame Courtney Milan. /s
I don’t know CM, but I wish her all the best.
Courtney Milan is a gorgeous writer. I love her work, and I learn so much. The Devil Comes Courting just dazzled me.
Thank you for educating me. I always appreciate your insight and the way you condense the information while providing links to the background details.
I hope a new, inclusive organization can be formed. Sounds like a need.
Unexpecter consequences.
Read this post and the SBTB rant linked above (It is an excellent rant). All the magical powers attributed to Courtney Milan by RWA made me curious about her, so I Googled her and now I will be buying one of her books (at least one).
She is a master of the novella! She manages to make such an emotional impact in a short space, which is hard to do well. I recommend her entire Brothers Sinister series! Impeccably researched and well written. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
I had a funny experience with this topic in September/October 2019. I started picking up vibes concerning a mystery disease possibly originating in China right at the same time that I started following a battle royale going on at RWA. It was so strange to watch two entirely disparate events take off and start growing towards an explosion.
I have a completely unrelated question: is there any chance that “Grace of Small Magics” will get a sequel? I love Grace and Nassar and the games were just the first volley in the war with Roar, I would really like to know, how Grace will adept to her new life in a new world.
I’d kind of forgotten about them (helps I don’t write romance) except in a “The only local-ish writing group near me is RWA affiliated, poor me” sort of way. I am not at all surprised though, given the various things that went on.
Thank for a writer’s viewpoint. I enjoy reading your books. We need more books representing everyone.
Fear and Loathing
I think is engendered as much by fear as not. No reasonable person is going to force you (should not) to participate in their lifestyle. Ok rapists of mind and body abound, but it is illegal.
I was recently in the French Quarter of NOLA and was struck by the diversity and inter. Inter you name it. And everyone seemed happy in their preferences and otherness.
A long time ago I read a line about “leaving to others their otherness”. It stuck. Seems like a good rule to live by.
OTH there’s enough self righteous prigs out there to make this a challenge. I’m considering it my lifetime growth opportunity!
As an HR ( Human Resources) professional I am gobsmacked about the things people and organizations cling too in their refusal to move forward
I don’t read books that are strictly Romance; to me they are really boring. I lean more toward action romance or comedy romance when I do read “romance” (& yes, I do not like graphic romance”. However, this is my thought. Writers write; readers read. Not all readers read the same thing; no two people are alike. Things I might like, someone else doesn’t. I read books by all authors, regardless of race, color, religion, etc, etc. If I read an excerpt of a book and it doesn’t grab me, I don’t buy it/borrow it. It takes ALL kinds of writers in order to reach EVERYONE. For an organization that is supposed to promote Romance writers to be so biased is, of course, going to cause itself to fail.
Well put.
My wife and I were RWA members a bit over a decade ago writing strictly romance then. We were both active in our respective local chapters though neither of us went to the big con. Lots of infighting and posturing even back then that seemed rather unnecessary. I did win a couple of RWA chapter contests, got my books in front of editors/publishers, and learned a lot through the gatherings. I guess I view it as a mixed bag with a self imposed bad ending. We were well out when the Courtney Milan thing hit, but I remember the anger over it.
I remember Courtney Milan from the Dear Author/Ellora’s Cave lawsuit days. You’d think the RWA would have remembered that messy saga.
Nora Robert’s has a blog post on this when it all went down with Ms. Milan. Even she was no longer a member at that point.
I’m sorry to hear that they filed for bankruptcy. It sounds like they brought it upon themselves. Courtney appears blameless. That’s the problem with cancel culture, you will eventually cancel yourself and in your arrogance will be left wondering what happened and unable to take blame or responsibility, will look for a scapegoat. Cue Courtney. It’s sad.
No, not toddlers stumbling in the dark. If you’re self promoting, you need better catch phrases. Like “cutting edge of new trends” or “the start of a new genre”.
We see you.
My first thought was, “Couldn’t happen to a nicer organization.”
I have to acknowledge, though, that I met a lot of very good friends through RWA, and boy did being affiliated and serving on my local chapter’s board provide an *education* in institutional and industrial inertia.
I don’t think we’re going to see anything like RWA replace RWA. Our local chapter disaffiliated and went virtual in 2020 and it’s doing ok, but it’s not thriving. I would guess that’s the case for most of the groups that disaffiliated.
In the meantime, a number of profit-based businesses have stepped into the gap to provide author education and networking opportunities. Many of them are offering genuinely good workshops and coaching. They’re nimble and responsive to industry and technological changes in a way RWA (or, to be fair, most large nonprofits largely run by volunteers) can’t be. The people who have the time, energy, inclination, and financial ease necessary to be able to devote themselves to volunteering for a group like RWA tend to skew older and more conservative. (Or are young and desperate to win the approval of the old guard.) These for-profit endeavors are not going to provide much in the way of advocacy, but then RWA’s supposed advocacy ultimately supported the white, straight status quo time and again.
Anyway, any regrets I have watching RWA’s death spiral are for what a lot of good people hoped it could be—not for what it actually is/was (basically, a dumpster fire that kind of looked cozy from far enough away and smelled ok if you were upwind).
Thank you for laying this out. It’s not an unfamiliar story.
The heart-breaking piece of RWA’s demise is that when it was good, it was very very good.
I joined in 2006, and in the warm, collegial atmosphere of a thriving local chapter, RCRW Portland OR, learned how to write and publish a romance.
In those days, you couldn’t just ‘Google it’ for all kinds of info and instructions and Who’s Who, the way we can now. RWA held classes, workshops, matched us with crit partners that all helped us learn about our craft AND how to get published.
Without RWA, I likely would not be an indie author with a string of successful books & novellas.
Tragically, the national board did bring about the demise of the org–through bullheadedness and a studied lack of concern for their changing membership.
“But forced seduction was okay.”
This is one of the reasons I drifted away from reading romance, which was my primary genre while in my 20s; I started coming across it more and more. The final blow was a western where the ‘hero’ was sent to retrieve a woman (not a teenager) and wound up making her walk barefoot across the desert in just her petticoats. As she became increasingly sunburned and miserable, she was falling in love with him. At that point I wound up ripping the book in half and throwing the pieces across the room.
I was already drifting towards scifi, fantasy and urban fantasy anyway and that was just the final death knell.
When I was younger I found romance terrible – bad writing, bad ideas, unrealistic, shallow. And I dismissed it completely. Over time I have found that things are not that simple. There is so, so much supply and demand for romance that it’s impossible for all of it to be good and I think as a consequence most romance readers have become accustomed to low quality writing (and yes, there are also some pretty terrible archetypes that need to go away). For a while I thought that if you mix romance with another genre (I usually went for SciFi or Fantasy) that forced the quality up and that was the only way to find good romance, at least a smaller pool to comb though. But eventually I found books that are pure romance that were actually good, it’s is just that they are hard to find since the market is flooded with so much material and I have found reviews in the genre are not a useful way to determine quality at all, so one has to wade through a lot of romance books to find one that is actually worth reading. So I no longer dismiss the genre, but I still find it easier to start with another genre and have romance be secondary as it gives me a higher probability to find a good book.
Blaming one author for their bigotry, gatekeeping and bias is absurd. They did it to themselves with their unwillingness to change and be supportive of all who write romance.
Maybe this isn’t a bad thing. Maybe a better version will develop. But I suspect it will take time.
Romance novels back in the day were either bodice rippers or Harlequin novels where sex was obliquely referred to in the last few pages. So much has changed in 50 years.
This is informative and clear. Thank you for advocating for communities of color. I love the diversity of your characters too. You rock!
I vividly recall a fellow soldier and I finding a stash of Black romance in a locker. She was very critical, mentioning that there was almost nothing culturally appropriate. It was just the authors saying the characters were Black in a typically white romance. That may actually have been the first wedge in my anti-racism journey. Robinson, if you’re out there, thank you.
As a young teenager my older sisters got me hooked on historical romance books. But I also loved science fiction and fantasy. I never could understand why I couldn’t find a good book with both. Always thought maybe I was just weird to want that. Needless to say I’m a happy camper in my older years. So much to choose from. 😁
I looked into RWA several times when I was looking for an agent (because of the rep of their conferences). Even then, I didn’t find it welcoming. I mean, sure, pay dues, pay a huge fee and attend. Good luck, we might talk to you. It was one of the most expensive conferences going. I think Clarion was more expensive, but at least it was a writing workshop. It too was way outside my budget. Anyway, I later self-published. And I tend to write Hispanic characters, Native American characters and PNR. I suppose technically, some are inter-racial character couples because I mix in the Hispanic, White, Native American characters with abandon. I’m just writing what I know. After self-publishing a few novels, I looked into RWA again…well, as a self-published author, there was no way I felt welcome. They didn’t have panels for me. And their reputation was starting to tarnish by then, here and there on the internet. I had no idea their membership had fallen so low, but if you leave out self published authors these days, that’s more than half of what is being published! I don’t know. Gatekeeping only works for the people behind the gate. Those on the other side just keep doing the best we can. I don’t think anyone really saw the self-publishing boom coming. And no one could really guess how big it would get. As for the racism, it’s inexcusable. I really appreciated your article on the topic and the sharing of the background. I’ve been reading a lot of Black music history lately and I’m simply astounded. Then I read articles where it isn’t historical. And I’m still astounded and greatly saddened. It truly is mind boggling. Thank you again for the post.
Sounds like good riddance. I agree evolve or die, but that is easily done my allowing younger people to replace old at the top over time I would have thought.
Anyway very interesting thanks
Thank you.
I had pretty much forgotten about RWA. I remember reading Nora Roberts’ very succinct article on her website. Change comes hard to people entrenched in “how things are done” and who knows how much came from standard publishing sources worried about their jobs and bottom line. Fortunately I’m a reader and not a writer but I’m always looking for my next new writer and happy when I find one!
I just went on Amazon and bought the highest rated Courtney Milan book. I hope her writing career is extremely successful. She deserves it after having to deal with all of this RWA BS.
Bravo on your wonderful analysis of what’s happening with rwa. It’s an absolute astonishing wonder that rwa made it this far without collapsing sooner. I hope that authors and publishers come together to develop and create a new organization to replace it that represents everyone.
It’s too bad that they were so narrow in their thinking. I’m almost 80 and appreciate the way authors now often. don’t say Asian, African Latino, etc, but describe people as having warm skin tones, or dark espresso, etc. letting us see ethnicities as people first. And Disney princesses not always the blond stereotypes now. Moana, you rule girl!
I had not seen that speech by Suzanne Brockman. But I lived the journey of the books in which Robyn and Jules finally get their HEA. I was so upset the industry wouldn’t allow for them to have their own book when they first walked on the scene. And when they did finally get their book it felt like such a victory. Knowing the backstory of how they diminished that win feels like the RWA is reaping what they’ve sown.
We have a similar issue with a group in a community I am a part of here. It is for the empowerment of women. The national organization recognizes non-cisgender women, but the chapter here in DFW refuses to. And they are starting to reap consequences.
The Right not Nice thing has been a struggle my whole life. I am very outspoken and come down on the side of right. And when I moved to TX three years ago I felt it even more. Nice is prized entirely too much over right in this state. And it’s a mask to hide the ugly.
The sweetest (from a schadenfreude perspective) thing is that this is exactly what Courtney predicted from a legal POV years ago. She clerked with a supreme court judge. She understands fiduciary duty pretty well. Controversies she tried to address as an officer or issues she was pointing out after she was no longer an officer weren’t just hey racism is bad but a failure to address these is a legal failure of fiduciary duty which could lead to insolvency. Cuz giving awards to nazi romance isn’t the best look for making a wide subset of readers feel welcome.
They were dead in the water when they decided to censor Courtney as revenge.
As a predominantly romance reader who looks for believable characters and a compelling story, coming across your books was a wonderful discovery. Thank you for posting this. As a non US person I was always curious what RWA was.
I didn’t know anything about RWA and reading this article and following all the links (couple of levels down) has been educational. Thank you!
Other genres have had to deal with similar problems. I usually read SciFi and Fantasy so I am more versed in that space. There was an attempt to subvert the main award in that space, the Hugos, some years back (around 2016, I believe) by a group called the Sad Puppies. And while that attempt was unsuccessful, the last Hugos did actually fail with its own spectacular scandal (you can read more about it online if interested: John Scalzi’s blog is a good starting point as well as Daniel Greens’ YouTube channel).
I think more and more organizations and awards, not just professional writing ones, have to come face to face with the fact that people with diverse backgrounds are not going anywhere. They have always been here, but the internet and social media, despite its drawbacks, have made it much harder to silence people. And the newer generations have grown up in a world where much more then before diversity is normal and default.
Hi. So, I have a question? Where is Derek during the Wilmington stories? Has he already set out for Alaska or is he still in Atlanta? If he has already left, then why isn’t he checking in with Curren? I thought Derek was like the honorary brother of Curren? Like Curren was his adopted family?
Also, do you think Gavin, Mad Rogan’s cousin, will make an appearance in Arabella’s story? Also, will you be able to share anything from that universe in the near future? I would love to be at Penelope and Hearts’ wedding, or date night…🤞
Derek is in Alaska during the Wilmington Years. He left 2 years after Magic Triumphs (2 years after Julie left, in other words) and won’t return until Blood Heir- which happens approximately 2 years *after* the Wilmington Years adventures. We don’t know he doesn’t keep in touch at all with Curran, but Curran and Kate trust him. He needed to leave Atlanta, he talked to them about it, and they understood. There was always support and understanding on both sides of that relationship. For more on it, you can watch or read the Q&A after the release of Magic Clams 🙂 https://ilona-andrews.com/blog/magic-claims-spoiler-party-and-transcript/
For your second question, the Hidden Legacy series is finalised. Future stories, including Arabella’s, may be released in the future, but they are not guaranteed. House Andrews are happy about how they ended that adventure. You can always check the status of a series on the Release Schedule page https://ilona-andrews.com/release-schedule/
Hi Mod R! Thank you for the reply! I will patiently wait for more on Derek in Julie’s book 2. 😁
As for your comment on Hidden Legacy series, I will do the same thing as Her Grace with my fingers in my ears and say “I’m not listening, I’m not listening. This series is not over till we have an Arabella story. La la la la”
I suspect RWA is going to be around, the bankruptcy is likely chapter 11 which will let them get out from debt and reorganize. To be honest the RWA should change its name to HOA, bc that is what they acted like. They are supposed to advocate for the genre, dispel the notion it is written for old ladies with cats, help it flourish…and instead, they came off as out of touch and made REA seem to be run by old ladies with cats. They seemed to be more concerned ‘About the rules’ then the health of the organization.
When the crap hit the fan a well known, older member of the RWA made the comment ‘they are pushing things too hard, too fast’ , talking about those upset at the RWAs actions. I like this author but wow, in the third decade of the 21st century to be saying that is mind boggling,that is what opponents of the civil rights acts in the 1960s said about dismantling Jim Crow.
That they punished Courtney instead of trying to mediate the dispute tells all.
I think the biggest problem is ‘Romance Purity’ where to be a Romance it has to be X,Y and Z. Contains magic or magic creatures? not romance. Has aliens? Not Romance. There is no plus in doing so. Just think about it, the greatest romantic lines ever said are in a book not considered Romance:
‘Here Kitty Kitty’
Glad now that I didn’t ever buy that membership. 😐
I had thought they got better after the Courtney Milan fiasco, I’m saddened to learn they didn’t and they got even worse.
I love Courtney Milan! I remember reading Unveiled by her a while back and it was SO refreshing to have a completely normal, sane love interest who had all reasons for revenge and did enact his revenge– BUT did NOT take the toxic route of taking it out on the heroine and was genuinely a good person! That stepped up and took care of his family! Like the anti toxic masculinity role model that other HR authors desperately needed to look at.
I should go re-read that, I haven’t read HR in such a long time
They lost 8,000 members over DEI (among other things). This is why diversity, equity, and inclusion is so important, ESPECIALLY in romance. Everyone deserves a happily ever after.
You two are wonderful, for many reasons. RWA, obviously a racist organization, deserves its humiliating ending. Never will any naysaying re Ilona Andrews come from me.
Karen
I credit Courtney Milan and this whole sorry episode for opening my eyes to the problems with the industry. I read traditional romance and paranormal when I could get it. I read what was available without even thinking about it.
There was almost no books by people of colour in the UK shops, we didn’t even have the African American section and Suzanne Brockmann wrote the first gay romance I ever read. I loved Robin and Jules.
I remember thinking how badly and amateurishly the RWA handled the whole thing, banning CM then unbanning her etc.
But I think the industry has changed out of all recognition now and I have been introduced to a raft of wonderful writers that I would have not had access to if it wasn’t for CM calling them out. For this I will always be greatful.