After several months of heated controversy and mass resignations by members and board members of the Romance Writers of America, the association has cancelled its RITA awards in 2020. In an announcement, the RWA said that "many in the romance community have lost faith in RWA's ability to administer the 2020 RITA contest fairly, causing numerous judges and entrants to cancel their participation." It expects the 2021 awards to encompass 2019 and 2020 titles.
The RWA added that it is hiring "a consultant who specializes in awards programs and a DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] consultant" and will seek member involvement in remaking the awards. "Recent RWA Boards have worked hard to make changes to the current contest, striving to make it more diverse and inclusive, relieve judging burdens, and bring in outside voices," but those kinds of changes have been "piecemeal," and the hiatus will allow the RWA "the opportunity to take a proper amount of time to build an awards program and process--whether it's a revamped RITA contest or something entirely new--that celebrates and elevates the best in our genre."
The move isn't a surprise after the turbulence of the past half year, which started when author Courtney Milan (the pen name of Heidi Bond), a former RWA board member and an advocate for diversity in the publishing community and in romance books, tweeted that a 1999 historical romance, Somewhere Lies the Moon by Kathryn Lynn Davis (which has a heroine who is half-Chinese, like Milan), was a "f*cking racist mess."
As recounted by the Guardian, Davis and Suzan Tisdale, a romance writer and publisher who has worked with Davis, filed an ethics complaint with the RWA, alleging cyberbullying by Milan and a loss of professional opportunities--a three-book deal--because of the tweet. (Davis later said that there had been no final deal; rather, discussions on a deal had ended.)
Bizarrely, at the time the ethics complaint was filed, Milan, the subject of the complaint, was chair of the RWA's ethics committee. The board, it says, asked her to resign and added members to the committee who had no connection with Milan.
On December 23, the RWA board suspended Milan from the RWA for a year and barred her from any leadership positions for life. In reaction, masses of members resigned and many on the RWA board left. The RWA quickly rescinded the punishment.
In the meantime, a recall petition for RWA president Damon Suede was submitted this week to the association, which has also hired a law firm to "conduct an independent audit of the recent matter involving its code of ethics and to make recommendations on appropriate adjustments moving forward on ethics policy and procedures."