Anyone in romancelandia knows that RWA has a stinky track record when it comes to diverse romance of many different varieties. (Or if you don’t, you probably could do some reading to get yourself up to date.)
Racism, homosexual hate, bisexual hate, and so many other forms of dislike and hatred that it’s exhausting to think about much less try to list them all.
I almost canceled my RWA membership this year after hearing how some marginalized authors were treated last year at the conference.
I ended up renewing it after reading a release they made about a commitment to fixing the problems. I did it because I want to be able to enter my Bloodbound (my most recent release,) in the RITA next year. I don’t expect to win that either, it’s for the experience. It might final, that one is excellent enough that The Ripped Bodice chose it for display, and it’s more mainstream.
I had entered my Hugo Nominated Ilavani in the RITA awards contest for 2017. I never expected to final, that’s not why I entered. (I did final but that wasn’t why I entered it.)
I entered my story because I believe in it, and I have a bit of a hesitancy about putting myself and my work forward. Entering my book in a blind-judge contest was a good test of that for me.
It actually surprised me that it got some high scores, it got more high than low (lowest and highest scores are thrown out). I’ll be the first to admit that the science-fantasy aspect of Ilavani is not going to be close to everyone’s taste, nor will be the kink or the genetic engineering, or the queer content.
Going forward there are spoilers for Ilavani.
It did absolutely surprise me that one of the judges marked it very low and said it wasn’t a romance.
Whut??
Everyone who enters the RITA has to judge the first round of books. (That was another reason I entered, for the experience of it.)
We have to answer these three questions and give a numerical score of something like 9.6 or 2.7.
Is the love story the main focus of the book?
Is the resolution of the romance emotionally satisfying and optimistic?
Does the entry fall within the category description?
Now for the spoilers.
Is the love story the main focus of the book?
Ilavani is a polyamorous romance with queer, mixed-race, autistic leads. Here’s the blurb (and the links to places you can learn more about it if you’re interested).
The first installment in a long-running, science fantasy series based in a queer, pagan, polyamorous, universe.
3800 years in the future.
Maëlcolm is a skilled BDSM trainer, a spy, and unfortunately, a prince.
Cameron is Maël’s older brother, titular heir to their father’s kingdom and in love with his enby bodyguard, Li.
Kat is an enslaved person. A genetically modified being created for one purpose, and one alone. To please her masters in bed.
Los is a gifted Companion, the only thing that makes him happier than practicing his calling is loving Maël, the one man Los can’t have an official relationship with.
If Maël doesn’t give up his calling and do as the Ard Righ demands, his family loses everything.
If Cam doesn’t do what he needs to do to become worthy of the throne by the Ard Righ’s stringent standards, their family may be executed.
If Kat, autistic, touch-averse, and afraid, chooses to fight her fate, she’ll die.
When an artificial intelligence named ‘the high king’ is at the helm, the cost to human hearts may be impossible to bear.
You can buy it when I get it rereleased.
You can read the first chapter here if you’re so inclined.
Back to my point.
The two princes must save their father’s kingdom, that’s the underpinning plot of the book, which every book needs, something to drive the characters. The focus (what the story is really about) is the two polyamorous romances going on in the book, and more specifically, the formation of the younger brother’s polyamorous relationship.
Cam, the elder brother, is in love with his enby bodyguard Li. Xie can’t give him the only thing he politically needs, an heir. This is the tension between them, their thing to overcome. Cam falls in love with one of his honoured breeding partners, this is another part of their journey, and a rather romantic one. I show some of the problems polyamorous relationships can have in their story.
The main character is obvious to whoever reads it. Mael is the younger brother, the one who was always indulged because he was the lucky number 13. In Ilavani he has to face the fact that due to political assassination, he’s now in direct line for the throne and it’s a race with his beloved brother Cam to see who can reproduce first. Whoever does, wears the crown, and Mael doesn’t want the crown. He’s autistic and fears he wouldn’t do well with it.
It’s a HORRIBLE time for the gray-aromantic Mael to fall in love. But that’s exactly what he does.
He falls in love with his last BDSM student, Kat, an indentured servant and a recent import to their planet. Falling in love with her makes Mael realize that he’s BEEN in love with his first student and lover Los for decades. (These peeps are pretty long-lived, they’re basically genetically created elves.)
The *entire* character journey for Mael, Kat, and Los is about love. It’s about working through the problems and choices they’re confronted with by each of them being in love with the other. So please, someone explain to me exactly how this polyamorous M/M/F relationship isn’t the main focus of the book?
Did the judge even read it? My guess is that they didn’t, or they let a personal prejudice against polyamorous relationships or queer relationships get in the way of a fair score. If that’s the case then RWA *really* needs to investigate that judge and ask for explanations, which is part of the agreement we all signed when we entered our books.
I have massive issues with Christianity, and fade-to-black romances bore me to tears, (I got more than my share of both of those for my judging packet) but I still rated all the books I was sent fairly based on the laid out rules of the contest.
Given that I am not the only person whose book with a marginalized aspect or relationship structure scored low and got a *not a romance* tag, (see here, and here) I think RWA needs to take a close look.
Polyamory is the open, honest ability to love more than one person.
It’s something a lot of people live, it’s something people are crying out for representation in our favorite genres of romance and erotic romance.
Someone who can’t accept that, who would call anything BUT a heteronormative, monogamous white man with white woman book NOT A ROMANCE… well, maybe they shouldn’t be judging a contest like the RITA?
If more than one of the five judges had said ‘not a romance’ maybe I’d question as to whether I did my job as an author well enough with that book. But the other four judges ranked it middle of the road or very high and all of them said yes to the questions.
Is the resolution of the romance emotionally satisfying and optimistic?
Ilavani is the first book of a trilogy. It’s still a romance. Each installment is going to (and in the case of Ilavani does) have an HEA (happily ever after) or an HEFN (happily enough for now). Those are the requirements of the genre. A book cannot be billed as a romance without having that. It’d be something like romantic suspense or fantasy with a strong romantic subplot, but it wouldn’t be a romance.
Romance *has* to have that HEA or HEFN. Ilavani does. At the end of Ilavani, Mael begs Kat to accept him as he is, a prince, with this horrible burden he has around his neck (spoiler). He asks her to spend her life with him, he frees her. How is that *not* emotionally satisfying? How is it *not* optimistic? Kat is even plotting how to make sure the guys’ relationship stays strong. So it’s not even because the polyamorous aspect isn’t complete. It’s complete enough *for now*.
Does the entry fall within the category description?
The category class I entered for Ilavani was erotic romance. Ilavani is *the* most erotic piece I’ve ever written. It has so much character driven sex in it people have written to me to tell me it’s their favorite bedroom aide d’amour and it’s saved six marriages (that I know of).
Erotic. Check!
Romance… it’s all about the characters, Mael, Kat, Los, Cam, Li, and Mai. These are the two intertwined polyamorous relationships. This is a family of choice. This isn’t erotica (I have no problem with erotica, erotica is awesome, I even write it, but it’s defined as *the sexual journey of the characters* NOT the *emotional journey of the characters*. Erotic romance is the latter. My book is about the emotional journey, of people falling in love when they shouldn’t while they are trying to save their kingdom as they know it. (While graphically boinking one another’s brains out in various kinky fashions.)
My book is definitely erotic romance.
I question the veracity of this judge’s answers. If it were just me, I wouldn’t make a stink, but with several other authors that I know of getting poor scores and/or the ‘not a romance’ tag for race or for polyamory, or for bisexuality… well. I think we can see the actual problem isn’t that our stories aren’t romances.
The actual problem is something far darker and much more disgusting.
It’s bigotry.