Why Judge the RITAs?

This year, as always, I signed up with Romance Writers of America to judge the RITA contest. I received my package of books, unpacked them with great ritual, and then dove in eagerly. Now, just a few short weeks later, I'm coming to the end of my journey. This is both good and bad. I'm always excited to receive my box of books from RWA, but I'm also happy to reach the end of the stack and resume my regular reading schedule.

Today, as I hover on the cusp of the completed task for yet another year, I thought I'd blog about the reasons I keep signing up year after year, even in the years when I don't enter the contest myself.

5. Free books. Anybody who's a book lover can appreciate the allure of free books. Anybody who grew up in a day without online shopping and e-books can appreciate the allure of books delivered to your doorstep. It never gets old for me.


4. New Authors. I'm not gonna lie, not every book I get in my bundle is a keeper. Some are very good, some are excellent, and some ... aren't. But every year I discover at least one author new to me that I want to read again. In a world where mediocrity is rewarded with alarming frequency, that alone is worth the time and energy it takes to read a panel of books.

3. The chance to give. It's very easy to live a narrow little life. We're human. It happens. As a writer pursuing an occupation that is, by its very nature, solitary, it's very easy to focus on me, my problems, my books, my issues, my trials and tribulations. Life's a whole lot better when I can step outside of myself for a little while and think about somebody besides me. Judging the RITA contest every year is a chance to do that -- unless, of course, I get wrapped up in how it's going to affect me!

2. It's for RWA. I've been a member of RWA since sometime in early 1993. I've served on the chapter level and I've served at the national level. I admire and respect the professional staff in Houston, and I admire and respect the people who give their time and energy to serve on the board and on committees every year. As long as RWA chooses to have a contest, they can count on me to do my part.

1. A legitimate excuse to read during work hours. Nobody can raise an eyebrow when they find me sitting in my chair with a book. Not that anyone in my house would raise an eyebrow. I raised my kids right, and my grand-kids are being brought up right too. Nothing makes my heart happier than to have the two year-old toddle over to the bookcase and then run to me saying, "Want book! Want book!"

So tomorrow or the next day I'll log in and submit my score for the last book in my stack, and the moment will be bittersweet. I'm finished! I'm finished!

.... but wait! That means I'm finished

Writing: A Magical Journey

I'm going to take a minute to plug my local chapter's upcoming conference for writers -- and not only because I'm going to be there, or because I'll be giving a workshop during the PAN/PRO sessions on rediscovering the joy of writing. I'm going to plug the conference because it's always a good time, always informative and, once again, this year's line-up of speakers is stellar. Besides that, Park City is an incredible place to be at any time of the year. Hope to see some of you there! _____

“Writing: A Magical Journey”

~~Romance in the Mountains~~ 2009 Heart of the West Writing Conference Romance Writers of America® Utah Chapter

October 9 & 10, 2009 at The Lodges at Deer Valley in Park City, Utah

Featured Author and Keynote Speaker Rachel Gibson New York Times Bestselling Author 2009 RITA Award Winner for Best Contemporary Single Title Romance Four of her novels were named among the top ten favorite books of the year by Romance Writers of America. Some of Rachel's other awards and achievements include The Golden Heart award, the National Reader's Choice, Amazon Editor's Top Pick, Publisher Weekly's Quill nominee and Borders bestselling romantic comedy for 2006.

Awards Luncheon Keynote Speaker RaeAnne Thayne Author of more than thirty books for Bantam Loveswept, Silhouette Intimate Moments/Romantic Suspense and Silhouette Special Edition. Awards include: 2009 RITA Finalist, and two previous RITA nominations.

Featured Editor Amanda Bergeron Avon Books, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Amanda Bergeron joined Avon in Fall 2008. Along with Executive Editor Erika Tsang and Editor May Chen she has worked closely with authors such as Lynsay Sands, Jeaniene Frost, Loretta Chase and Anna Campbell. She is looking to acquire all genres of romance, particularly Regency historicals and dark paranormals, as well as commercial women's fiction. http://avonromanceblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/four-things-amanda-bergeron.html

Featured Agents To Be Announced

Conference Registration is open between April 15, 2009 and October 6, 2009***

See Conference Highlights for details on: PRO/PAN Workshops Conference Schedule Pitch Appointments Author Panelists Extra Meal Tickets Miscellaneous Information

Authors Participating in Booksigning

Conference fee is $149 for URWA members and $165 for all others. To register, complete the online registration form. You may either pay via PayPal or check. Please see Registration and Fee Schedule to sign up. -OR- Make check or money order payable to: Utah RWA Mail check with a copy of your registration to: Utah Chapter of Romance Writers c/o Heart of the West Conference P.O. Box 997 West Jordan, UT 84084

Receiving the Emma

I love going to RWA's national conference each year, and when I'm not able to go -- usually for financial reasons -- I spend the entire week feeling very sorry for myself. I love meeting up with friends I only see once a year, meeting my editors face-to-face, participating in the Readers for Life Literacy Autographing, and attending workshops when I can. I love travel, and enjoy visiting new cities or going back to places I've been before. This year, I had a special reason to attend the conference. RWA's Board of Directors voted to present me with the Emma Merritt Service Award, which is presented for: "the accumulated body of work a member has contributed as a volunteer to RWA.The award is not only for service to individual chapters, but is intended to honor major commitments of service to RWA. A member may receive the RWA Emma Merritt Service Award only once in a lifetime." To say that I'm deeply honored is a serious understatement. Even though RWA President Diane Pershing notified me of the board's decision in March, I'm still shaking my head in disbelief. My friend, Jude, managed to snap this picture as I said thanks to the luncheon crowd (that gold blob in the lights is me.) And tonight, as I try to decide on the perfect spot on my office wall to hang the plaque, I want to say it again. Thank you! _______________________________ Copyright © 2009 Sherry Lewis

I’ve Finished my RITA Books!

Every year, members of Romance Writers of America donate hours of their time to judge RWA’s two major contests – the Golden Heart and the RITA. This year, I ended up with 7 or 8 books to read for the RITA (I’ve lost count) and I’ve been reading up a storm trying to finish every book and turn in my score. Last night, I finished the last book in my stack, and I’m deliriously happy.

Unlike past years, this year I ended up with a bunch of books that I probably wouldn’t have picked up to read if they hadn’t been sent to me in my contest packet. I get a few of those books every year. We all do. After all, what are the chances that you’re going to get a package filled only with books you’d pick out for yourself to read?

Like past years, this year I discovered a couple of treasures – books that surprised me for one reason or another. Books I enjoyed much more than I expected to. I also ended up with a couple I didn’t enjoy at all. That’s no surprise, either. It happens every year.

I enjoy the experience of judging books in the RITA contest, even if it is time-consuming and takes me away from my own TBR stack for a few weeks. But I’m also happy to get back to it when I’m finished :)

Time to Vote!

If you're a member of Romance Writers of America, you should be aware that voting has begun for next year's Board of Directors. I received an e-mail from the national office this afternoon, providing me a link and an individual election pass code so I could access the ballot. Once you're there, you can view the candidates' bios and vision statements, cast your vote, change your vote, save your vote and come back later. Just please don't forget to vote!!!! For the first time in 4 years, I'm not part of the election process. I have to say I'm having mixed feelings over it. I'm going to miss serving on the board. I'm going to miss the camaraderie with the other board members, I'm going to miss working with the incredible corporate staff that Executive Director Allison Kelley has put together. I'm going to miss being an integral part of what's going on in the organization. On the other hand, I'm going to like having a little more time to call my own. Time to spend . . . oh, I don't know . . . writing, maybe. To be fair, I can't say that my (ahem) slow writing schedule over the past few years has been board related, or even board caused. It's mostly been due to health issues that were misdiagnosed for about 3 years. But it looks as if the docs and I are finally on the right track, and now that we are, it will be nice to call my time my own as I get back into the swing of doing what I do. I'm also giving some serious thought to relocating during the coming year. I know it will come as a huge surprise that I've set my sights on Florida where Vanessa and Ian are making their home, along with the World's Most Incredible Grandbaby and, if the counter up at the top of my blog didn't give this away, the World's Other Most Incredible Grandbaby, who's on his/her way and should arrive in March. I know that people live on opposite sides of the country from their grandchildren all the time, and they survive quite nicely. Well, I've tried it, and I'm surviving it, but let's be honest here -- I don't like it. It's wrong. Sick, twisted, and very wrong. And since I can do what I do from anywhere I choose, there's no reason except fear of the unknown for me not to move. Well, there's also the lack of money, but getting back to work should take care of that issue. Which I can do since I'm not running for election this year! It's amazing how everything comes together, isn't it?

In My Opinion ...

Okay, I finally saw the segment the Today Show did recently on romance while covering the 28th annual Romance Writers of America's national conference in San Francisco. I'd heard some good things about the segment, and I'd heard some bad things about the segment, and I was eager to see what the show had done. I'm told that Nora had a good interview with the reporter who covered the conference, but she wasn't completely happy with the snippet of her interview that aired. This is, of course, mere rumor because I haven't actually spoken with La Nora myself, but I'm told that she wasn't happy because, as always, the media focused on how many books she'd sold rather than on any of the other things she said during the interview. Nora is one of the genre's staunchest supporters, and I'm sure she said a lot of things we'd have loved to hear repeated on national television. Maybe we'd have heard them if the piece had been longer. I don't know ... maybe Nora's incredible sales record is what people want to hear about. If so, I don't get it. (No offense, Nora!) But, then, I don't get a lot of things, like why the world is so fascinated by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, or by Tom Cruise (shudder) and Katie Holmes. Or why "we" felt as if we owned Princess Diana, or .... well, just lots of things. On the other hand, I was delighted that the show interviewed the award-winning romance novelist, Beverly Jenkins. She may have only appeared on screen for a few seconds, but it was an important few seconds. For decades, the romance genre has been portrayed as white books by white women written for white woman. Beverly is just one of the many African-American, Asian-American, Latino and other multi-cultural women who write romance and fill the ever-growing market for multi-cultural romance. If you ask me, it's way past time to set the record straight. The other grumble I heard about the Today Show piece centered on a comment made by one of the show's anchors after the piece aired. The offending comment was something like, "Well now we know what career we should be pursuing in our spare time." And yeah, I know, they don't have a clue -- but who does? The only people who understand how damn hard it is to write a novel are the people who actually write novels. And the reporter did just finish talking about how romance authors are intelligent, insightful women who also practice medicine and the law and who have Ph.Ds and raise kids, which makes it sound as if we're all writing romance novels in our spare time. So I really can't blame the anchor. We just have to find a better way to get the message across, I guess. So it wasn't a totally bad piece (although at times it did make us look a bit like over-eager fans at a Star Trek convention -- not that there's anything wrong with being an over-eager fan at a Star Trek convention!) but it wasn't a totally good piece, either. It wasn't entirely accurate, but it wasn't entirely inaccurate, either -- which makes it your typical segment on the daily news, doesn't it? And I do think that Ms. Jansing tried to include some of the important points, in spite of the unfortunate "Sex Between the Covers" tag line and the "Sex and the City" tie in that I don't quite understand. And hey! it was the Today Show. Which says something, right? So I don't really want to complain about the segment because I'm thrilled that RWA managed to catch the attention of such a high-profile, highly respected program. I just wish that while they let us speak to the world for that minute or so, they'd let us say a bit more about the healing properties of our novels, about the many women who turn to romance for hope in times of despair, or for escape in times of stress. Or that they'd given a moment's notice to our conference theme: Romance -- Bridging the World, and mentioned that we're not just talking about American women, or white women, but about women of all races, all religions, all backgrounds, all education levels, all around the world. Or that they'd explained that the part where excited fans were seen storming the Bastille in search of romance novels was actually our annual Readers for Life Literacy Autographing, at which RWA raised over $58,000 which it donated to Pro Literacy Worldwide to assist in its efforts to erase adult illiteracy around the world. Ah well . . . maybe next year.