It’s been quiet here since I spent October finishing a book draft, then jumped directly into Nanowrimo to write another one which is just about finished and I was going to come back in the New Year with the reading lists and new reviews and whatnot but here’s what needs to be said right now: my professional organization, the Romance Writers of America, has made the decision to uphold an ethics complaint against author Courtney Milan, to censure her, to remove her membership from the organization for a year, and to ban her from any leadership position in the organization for life.
“Wow,” you might be saying if you haven’t been following along on social media already, “this Milan person must have done something pretty rotten!”
Here’s what she did: served on the RWA board for four years, fought for diversity, received an award from the RWA for fighting for diversity—and joined others on social media discussing racism past and present in August 2019, including posting screenshots from a particular book and calling it “a fucking racist mess.” Short context from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books is here and you can read longer context and links to the complaints, the supposedly supportive screenshots from Twitter, and the RWA ethics committee decision at Laura Vivanco’s blog. Dr. Vivanco also posted context for the initial mess which spawned the current one in August.
Long story short, the RWA has officially come down on the side of “pointing out racism with rude words is worse than acting in racist ways” and it is no longer my professional organization.
The rotten cherry on top is that they dropped the decision on December 23, when many people are heading into winter holiday festivities. But, you know, also the moment when many are deciding whether to renew membership for the coming year. I will not be renewing mine and have sent the following message to the RWA leadership.
To the President and Board of the Romance Writers of America,
When I started taking my writing seriously in 2011, I was writing science fiction and fantasy and pursuing independent publishing. I wanted to develop my craft. I wanted to find other writers. I started following blogs and discussion groups, and I looked into joining the Science Fiction Writers of America. But everywhere I looked, there were horror stories about the mysogynistic sexism inherent in the speculative fiction world in general, and in the SFWA in particular. I chose not to join the SFWA.
After the 2016 US presidential election, I needed hope. SFF dystopias seemed less like a fantasy and more like everyday reality. I turned to romance, both in my reading and in my writing. I had always heard that RWA was an incredibly open organization, welcoming to all and especially supportive of indie writers. I paid my dues to join both the national organization and my local chapter. I was incredibly excited when my past indie work qualified me as a PAN member, and I was giddy after attending the Emerald City Writers Conference, particularly in 2018, when the whole thing was themed around diversity.
How naive I was to assume that theme might extend beyond a three-day regional conference! Despite repeated conversations about diversity and progress, the RWA does not appear to be moving forward, but backwards with its decision to censure Courtney Milan for pointing out racism within its ranks. If it’s more acceptable to be unapologetically racist than to point out racism, then count me out. Add this to the revelations that numerous other ethics complaints were swept under the rug and left unaddressed, and the repeated comments within the romance community stating that these sorts of issues have been ongoing in the organization for not years, but DECADES—and I will not be renewing my membership to this organization.
For an organization supposedly promoting a genre which centers around hope, I see very little hope at the moment. I cannot even imagine the pain felt right now by Ms. Milan, who has worked so hard to fight racism within the organization, and the numerous authors and readers of color who have had their hope of professional representation and camraderie crushed by this deeply unethical decision. What a terrible holiday present. Shame on all of you.
SFWA’s membership and board has done a lot of hard work to drag their organization into the 21st century—perhaps it’s time I take another look at joining their ranks.
If you haven’t read any of Courtney Milan’s work, I recommend the Brothers Sinister series. It was one of the series which kept me up way too late and got me into romance. For other romance reads by authors of color, see the fine recommendations from WOC in Romance.
I dropped RWA years ago, and just stumbled upon this scandal yesterday. Your piece is well written, sad it had to be said.