Pardon me please please if you lurk here and are nominated and I don’t know that you’re visiting, but I wanted to wish congratulations to SBTB Bitchery Readers and SBTB reviewed authors for their 2006 RITA nominations:
Stephanie Feagan, nominated for Best First Book: Show Her The Money.
Lani Diane Rich, nominated for [Best] Novel with Strong Romantic Elements: Ex and the Single Girl
Lisa Kleypas, who might not read this site but Candy and I dig her anyway, for Best Short Historical Romance: It Happened One Autumn
As I said, if you read and are nominated but I don’t know of your readership, please delurk and we’ll give you some mad props. And, above all, discuss, folks: what do you think of the Rita noms this year?
>>Oh, before I slit my wrists, I wanted to 2nd my vote for Smart Bitches et al to meet up at the bar in Atlanta this year.<<
Oops. Sorry, Shaunee. That post actually cheered me up. . . just so glad I’m not in college anymore. :zip:
I’d love to meet up with some Smart Bitches in Atlanta. Maybe around midnight, when everything else is winding down.
And Lani, thanks for the pep talk. I met your awesome self in the airport in Reno. You are one crazy Bitch! I also met Connie Brockway which was So. Fucking. Cool.
>>I don’t like the idea of an erotic romance category. Don’t get me wrong; I WRITE erotic romance! I just don’t think it should be ghettoized into its own neat little category.<<
“Ghettoized” *snort!*
But you pick which category you want to enter, don’t you? An erotica category would just open up another option for people who, for example, write BDSM or three men and a lady. Or penile barbs. Or cinnamon spoo. Mmmm. Cinnamon Barbs. My favorite afterdinner treat.
And, apparently, an asshole. I’m so sorry I didn’t make the connection. But don’t feel bad – my mother came in for my daughter’s birthday yesterday, and I was like, “And you are…?” I’ve got a mind like a sieve. Please find me in the bar in Atlanta and give me a good whack upside the head. I’ll always remember you then!
>>And, apparently, an asshole. I’m so sorry I didn’t make the connection.<<
Oh, please. I can’t even imagine how many people you must have met that week. And I have a mind like a sieve too, so we can meet each other over and over again, like dozens of shameful one-night-stands. Perfect.
Okay Bitches,
Bar gathering *must* happen! And if the original SB’s could make it? That would be heaven! Come on, isn’t there a way for you to write off a trip to RWA Atlanta this July as a business expense? Pretty please?
Okay Bitches,
Bar gathering *must* happen! And if the original SB’s could make it? That would be heaven! Come on, isn’t there a way for you to write off a trip to RWA Atlanta this July as a business expense? Pretty please?
Yes! Yes! And bring Freebird and Freebird’s cute Daddy.
Hey, you don’t have to join RWA just to show up at the bar. Call it a journalistic endeavor—you’re there to observe and snark.
A quick review of online availability reveals – no room at the inn!
But fear not. The Smart Bitches are trying to cook up something, even if it’s a “Midnight Bitching Hour” Party at the bar.
Any bar. Heh.
Alas, I will not be at the RWA convention in Atlanta this year, opting instead for Worldcon in Anaheim in August. But if any SB’s are going to LAconIV, I insist we get together!
Re stellar books not finaling… ever love a book and find that a friend hated it?
The same happens with the RITAs. A few years ago one of my books garnered an 8.2 (out of 9 possible) from one judge and a 2.0 (abysmal) from another.
Judges are asked to be as objective as possible and many (including me) try very hard to do so. But the scoring can still be pretty subjective. The books that reach the finals are good books that also hit the right panel of judges.
I am not sure there’s any way to make it better, because of the shortage of judges. It IS a big time commitment.
All you can do is write the best book you can and hope it hits the right set of judges. And keep the wine and chocolate handy.
I’ll be in any Atlanta SB bar thing. Winging my way in from Oz.
I’ve blogged at length about the asshattery of the categories in the Rita/GH contest: http://dianapeterfreund.blogspot.com/2006/03/agree-or-disagree-rwa-contest.html
They actually have nothing to do with industry though. A lot of RITA winners are like those Best Actress Oscar winners who never do another thing, many people who’ve never gotten the hint of a RITA nom are raking in big dough and accolades (PC, think of yourself as Scorsese!), and I’ve met plenty of writers with three or four of those little gold hearts around their necks but no first sale ribbon. My GH scores were all over the board.
Most erotic romance writers I’ve spoken to do NOT think there should be a specific category. However, the current categories do not adequately reflect the publishing climate, as shown by the fact that two YA titles are finalists in the “traditional” category.
Finally, the number of finalists per category is based on a percentage of the number of entrants per category. Since some categories are only serviced by one publisher, the result is a bit skewed.
I see these award situations as a reflection of where an industry is at any given time. Romance is still an awfully conservative genre, IMO, and for the most part, majority values are both incorporated and affirmed in the award process. That doesn’t mean wonderful writing isn’t rewarded, or that books that disappoint some of us won’t win. But I think more than anything that these awards basically take the temperature of the genre’s mainstream. For someone like me, that often signals a need to agitate some change, but for publishers I fear it tends to reaffirm the status quo.
One of the things that bothers me most about the RWA—at least the biggie national entity—is the way they seem to adhere to the myth of the amalgamated average Romance reader, what with all their statistics (I almost quoted that word but restrained myself) about who reads Romance and what is most valued in the genre (wasn’t “muscles” at the top of the hero list the last time I checked?). Trouble is, of course, that the readership is much, much more diverse than these snapshots suggest (plus I have so many problems with the methodology of the RWA ‘research’ anyway, let alone my complete lack of faith in the RWA’s objectivity in collecting and interpreting data). Although I think that the Internet has done a good job at showing how many sub-groups of Romance readers there really are (and how sharply we diverge from the RWA average), it doesn’t seem to me that mainstream publishers are at all in touch with this diversity. And I so wish I knew how that gap could be effectively bridged (especially before historical Romance dies an unnatural and early death because publishers can’t figure out why these books aren’t selling).
The good news is. . . I think there was sort of a general membership rebellion after this last RWA administration. Really. People were pi-yassed.
And regardless of what the organization itself wants, the organization doesn’t judge these contests. Individuals do. I can tell you I was pretty shocked when I finaled in the GH. My heroine isn’t an untouched maiden, and she doesn’t give a shit. She’s rich. She’s the sister of a duke. She can be selfish. Basically, the world can go fuck itself as far as she is concerned. I can assure you that this book didn’t always do well in contests. People found her “unsympathetic” (read: not a martyr.) A judge once commented, “She doesn’t seem to regret what she’s done.” Yeah, bitch. That’s because she doesn’t. I think you’re missing the whole point of the story!
So it isn’t *always* about conforming for the contests. Sometimes you can surprise them into voting you thru. Shock and Awe. *g*
I totally agree that the RITA categories need to be overhauled. Trying to figure out if your historical is a long or short is impossible. The ‘rules’ say 95,000 words or longer is a ‘long.’ But no one knows if that means 95K words using the Word ‘word count’ tool or 95K words using the courier font/25 lines per page rule—both of which give you WILDLY different results. By one rule, my books are long; by the other, short. Every historical author I talked to was confused. RWA’s official line was ‘whatever your publisher says it is.’ What??? As far as I know, my publisher wasn’t counting. So in the end, the two historical categories are really just a crapshoot—you just randomly pick one, and then hope a judge doesn’t mark you ‘wrong category’ because they are interpreting long vs. short differently than you did! I think the long vs. short originally differentiated between ‘single-title’ length historical and ‘category-length’ historicals—but there are SO few category historicals anymore, I don’t see the point.
And the paranormal category boggles my mind. If you judge that category, you’re basically judging apples against oranges. How can a time-travel that’s basically a historical be judged in the same category as, say, a futuristic???
And Victoria, I judged your ms. in the GH’s last year, and let me say publicly that it was FABULOUS! Your win was well-deserved, and I was cheering for you in Reno!