Less Than Magic
You may perhaps have heard about RWA, the Romance Writers' Association. It's an organization that brings writers in contact with other like-minded writers and is well known to help give authors just starting out a boost, through contests, feedback, and the interactions with more established writers. They're not strictly romance authors; as long as the writing has strong romantic themes, it counts. There are more than a few sci-fi and fantasy novels in there, too, as the heroes and heroines not only have to sort out their love lives but save the world while they do so.
There are hundreds of local RWA chapters around the world, and these local chapters have in-person meetings, hold contests, and give a more personal form of support than the big national chain could do. Formal RWA rules state that for contests, individual chapters can make their own judgements regarding genre. The Romance Writers Ink chapter of RWA, located in Oklahoma, have taken it upon themselves to declare that for their More Than Magic contest, they will "no longer accept same-sex entries in any category." When they were questioned about this rule, one official stated that "some members of the chapter felt 'uncomfortable' with same-sex entries." Courtney Milan has an excellent rant on this:
Apparently, it’s possible for the MTM contest to get entrants’ books in the hands of diverse judges from multiple RWA chapters who are comfortable with all types of romances and heat levels. You can write M/F erotica. You can write M/M/F. You can write about aliens from another planet who have tentacles, or barbed sexual organs. You can write degrading rapes. None of those things are barred from entry in the More than Magic contest, and if you write them, they’ll try to find judges who are predisposed to like your books.
But they won’t do that if you write same sex romance-even if it’s a sweet romance with no sexual contact whatsoever. No-when it comes to same sex romance, the fact that they might be able to identify judges in their chapter or outside of it who would be willing to read same sex entries and judge them fairly somehow becomes irrelevant. In that instance, the majority gets to say that those entries don’t belong.
Milan suggests everyone send a statement to Romance Writers Ink by boycotting their More Than Magic contest. She suggests that writers not enter, that agents and editors refuse to act as judges. After all, participating is implicitly agreeing with their bigoted terms. Sarah of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books adds "Just because you take the turd out the punchbowl doesn't mean we forget the turd was there to begin with. Same applies here: even if they change their policy, I know that the members of Romance Writers Ink are "comfortable" with discrimination, and I know that theirs is not a chapter I'd recommend for an aspiring writer of romance."
And I can think of no better way to wrap this up than by using the eloquent words of Sonomalass: "Discrimination is wrong, and hanging a blanket “no gays” sign on your contest is no different from 'no Blacks' or 'no women' - highly ironic in a genre that is routinely underrated because it is a 'women’s' genre."
There are hundreds of local RWA chapters around the world, and these local chapters have in-person meetings, hold contests, and give a more personal form of support than the big national chain could do. Formal RWA rules state that for contests, individual chapters can make their own judgements regarding genre. The Romance Writers Ink chapter of RWA, located in Oklahoma, have taken it upon themselves to declare that for their More Than Magic contest, they will "no longer accept same-sex entries in any category." When they were questioned about this rule, one official stated that "some members of the chapter felt 'uncomfortable' with same-sex entries." Courtney Milan has an excellent rant on this:
Apparently, it’s possible for the MTM contest to get entrants’ books in the hands of diverse judges from multiple RWA chapters who are comfortable with all types of romances and heat levels. You can write M/F erotica. You can write M/M/F. You can write about aliens from another planet who have tentacles, or barbed sexual organs. You can write degrading rapes. None of those things are barred from entry in the More than Magic contest, and if you write them, they’ll try to find judges who are predisposed to like your books.
But they won’t do that if you write same sex romance-even if it’s a sweet romance with no sexual contact whatsoever. No-when it comes to same sex romance, the fact that they might be able to identify judges in their chapter or outside of it who would be willing to read same sex entries and judge them fairly somehow becomes irrelevant. In that instance, the majority gets to say that those entries don’t belong.
Milan suggests everyone send a statement to Romance Writers Ink by boycotting their More Than Magic contest. She suggests that writers not enter, that agents and editors refuse to act as judges. After all, participating is implicitly agreeing with their bigoted terms. Sarah of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books adds "Just because you take the turd out the punchbowl doesn't mean we forget the turd was there to begin with. Same applies here: even if they change their policy, I know that the members of Romance Writers Ink are "comfortable" with discrimination, and I know that theirs is not a chapter I'd recommend for an aspiring writer of romance."
And I can think of no better way to wrap this up than by using the eloquent words of Sonomalass: "Discrimination is wrong, and hanging a blanket “no gays” sign on your contest is no different from 'no Blacks' or 'no women' - highly ironic in a genre that is routinely underrated because it is a 'women’s' genre."