The BIG Awards Ceremony!

posted by hackey hudjson

Tonight's the night! Saturday night of RWA's National Conference is the BIG awards ceremony! This is the ceremony where romance writers honor their own with the Rita and Golden Heart awards, our industry's equivalent of the Oscars, Emmys, or Grammys.

As you know, the Banditas were all finalists in the 2006 Golden Heart contest. That is where we "found" each other, and so this award has a very special place in all our hearts! In case you didn't know, the Golden Heart contest recognizes outstanding unpublished romance manuscripts in ten different categories. Up to 1200 entries are judged by members of RWA and are narrowed down to around 100 finalists. Editors from acquiring romance publishers judge the final round, and winners receive a beautiful pendant.

This year, our Bandita KJ Howe is a finalist in the Contemporary Series Suspense/Adventure category. KJ is a fantastic writer and we are all pulling for her to be the BIG WINNER in her category tonight!

Did you know the Rita award was named for RWA's first president Rita Clay Estrada? (Be sure to file that away for future trivia contests.) This award is for outstanding published romance novels and novellas and the contest has twelve categories. Once again, approximately 1200 entries are narrowed by judges to about 100 finalists. Winners receive a beautiful statuette much like an Oscar or Emmy.

This year A Not-So-Perfect Past by our Bandita Beth Andrews is a Rita finalist in the Contemporary Series Romance category. So many of us Banditas and BBs LOVED Nina and Dillon's story and we will all be hoping that our Wonder-Beth will be the first Bandita to bring home the lovely Rita statue!

There are many wonderful writers and books up for Golden Heart and Rita awards this year. By this time tomorrow, it will all be over and the winners will be announced. We'll get to see all the fabulous pictures and share the triumphs. But they are ALL WINNERS just to have been finalists!

Awards are so much fun! We all deserve to win one once in awhile. For instance, Posh, Jo-Mama, and I, along with Lars, Marcus, Zach, and Paolo all deserve a "Holding-Down-The -Fort" award! What about you? What kind of award would you create and who would win it?Source URL: https://violeta-diario.blogspot.com/search/label/RITA
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The Winning Season...

by Donna MacMeans


Everyone has been a little high strung in the lair this week.


You might recall that a contest, RWA's 2006 Golden Heart contest, brought us all together so many years ago.
Now, one usually doesn't enter the Golden Heart without having had som
e success at smaller regional contests. Consequently you could say that the banditas are a collection of successful contest sluts.


I'm afraid the sluttiness doesn't go away once one becomes published. There's a whole array of regional contests for published authors. While the prize in an unpublished contest is often an editor read - for the published author, it's just another credential to add to their biography (and sometimes a framable certificate or plaque). But the grand prize remains RWA's RITA contest which earns the author, besides bragging rights, a
golden statuette.


So why are we antsy in the lair? Thursday is the day the finalists in the Golden Heart/RITA contest are announced. First the finalists receive a phone call, then the names go up on the contest website and the congratulations begin flying. This year the winners of the Golden Heart and RITA contests will be announced in late July at the RWA convention in Nashville. Of cour

se, we'll announce any bandita finalists here and post their good news on the scroll. For more information on the RWA convention, follow this link: www.Rwanational.org


The nice thing about the Golden Heart/RITA contest is that much like the Academy awards, the contest is judged by peers. For the Golden Heart, scores are collected from five RWA member judges to determine the finalists. A panel of editors determine the winner. For the RITA, scores are collected from five other published author judges to determine the finalists. Then another panel of author judges chose the winner.


But while we wait for Thursday's announcement, I thought I'd explain some of the differences between the big published author contests.


Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Awards - Every year the reviewers at Romantic Times Book reviews magazine nominate various books/authors for a variety of awards. The reviewers choose the winner in each category and announce the winners at their convention (which this

year will be in Columbus, Ohio) in late April. The nice thing about this contest is that there is no entry fee or submission process. If you've published a book in the past year, you are
automatically entered. This year we have three banditas as finalists: Christine Wells/ Wicked Little Games, Anna Campbell/Tempt the Devil and Kate Carlisle/Homicide in Hard Cover. As I'll be at the RT Convention next month, I'll be cheering loudly for my fellow banditas to win. For more information on the RT convention, check out this link: http://guest.cvent.com/EVENTS


RomCon - This is the first year for this contest, but the prizes are simply amazing. This is the only contest with a significant financial award for the winner, but it is an expensive contest to enter and, unlike the RT award, one must enter. Like many of the smaller regional contests, the judges are screened readers. The finalists will be announced next month on April 30th. The winners will be announced at the RomCon convention in early July in Denver. For more information, check out this link. http://www.romconinc.com/


So my question for you is - do contest wins or finals make a difference to you as a reader? Not everyone enters their books into contests due to cost factors. We banditas enjoy the validation that a contest win or final can bring. Are you a contest slut? How about in another venue? Before I started writing I used to enter my paintings in local art shows. I guess once a slut, always a slut (grins). So what do you think?
Source URL: https://violeta-diario.blogspot.com/search/label/RITA
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The Vision Thing

by Nancy

An article in the newspaper reminded me that tomorrow, July 20, is the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. I remember seeing Neil Armstrong step down onto the surface of our planet's nearest neighbor. Even then, with my scifi geekdom in the budding stage, I thought this was way cool. And what took us there was vision. Imagination. The ability to see beyond "can't" to "could" and then "is." A wonderful book about the power of vision to transform one's life is October Sky by Homer Hickam, which became the moving film Rocket Boys, starring Jake Gillenhaal and Chris Cooper. The New York Times quoted Frank Borman as saying that if the moon landing had been more about vision and less about rocks, the space program might've made great strides in the interim. That's probably debatable, but for me, it was always about the vision thing.


Last night, RWA honored its RITA and GH finalists, writers whose visions touched the hearts of judges. They saw what characters "could" be and do, who mined the human potential for love and turned the ore into stories of triumph over emotional pain. As I write this, a week before you'll read it, I don't know who the winners are (will be? were?). On behalf of all the banditas, however, I congratulate them and the finalists. Not everyone can win, but everyone can sell and ascend the bestseller lists, and I wish all of you the best of luck.

The space program and the awards ceremony each resulted from careful planning and a lot of effort, albeit of different types. Sometimes, though, "stuff happens," as the saying goes, and leads to amazing results.




One example of such serendipity is the career of Greg Mortenson. His memoir, Three Cups of Tea, has been on the New York Times bestseller list for two and a half years. I attribute this success to the vision of positive change the book offers.


An experienced mountaineer, Mortenson set out to climb K2 in the Himalayas as a memorial to his deceased sister. His climb ended prematurely when a companion developed altitude sickness. Mortenson and another man carried him down the mountain, a trek that left Mortenson in rough shape as well. Disoriented and sick, he wandered away from his group and stumbled into a remote village in Pakistan. The people there took him in, fed him, and put him to bed. When he recovered, they showed him around their village. One of the things he saw was a circle of village children in a field, doing their lessons together--outside because they had no school and together because they had no teacher. And he realized building a school for these children would be a much better memorial to his sister than climbing a mountain.

Getting the school built did turn out to be a steep climb. No one with influence had ever heard of him, and raising money proved to be very difficult. But he did succeed in building the school, for girls as well as boys. As the building neared completion, people from a neighboring village arrived to ask if he'd build a school for them, too. One school led to another and another until building schools in that part of the world became his life's work. A failed effort to climb a mountain led to a vision of what could be and a step forward for some of the world's poorest people.

Two hundred thirty-three years ago, a handful of men in Philadelphia dared to challenge the world's greatest empire and most powerful navy. As Abraham Lincoln said at Gettysburg, they "brought forth a new nation, one founded in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." As a society, we don't always live up to that ideal, but it's out there as a model, something for us to strive toward. A vision. Granted, those early patriots had help from France, which never missed a chance to bedevil England in those days, but the vision was theirs, and it was so powerful that a French marquis (Lafayette), a German baron (von Steuben), and a Polish count (Pulaski) sailed over to help lead the army. It remains so powerful that Independence Hall is a World Heritage site and people from all over the planet come to see it.



Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and the other women at Seneca Falls, NY, in 1848 had a vision of women controlling their own earnings, making their own decisions as to whether to work outside the home and, most important, helping to choose their nation's leaders. That same vision propelled Martin Luther King's efforts for racial equality and shaped his stirring "I Have a Dream" speech, one of the jewels of American rhetoric. As a result, African Americans count as "whole" people instead of 2/3 in the census, and all Americans of legal age can vote.





Vision doesn't just apply to national affairs but to entertainment and daily life as well. Imagination and science together gave us refrigerators and vacuum cleaners and artificial joints, among other things. An electronics salesman from Germany, Hugo Gernsbeck, was among the first to imagine television. Gernsbeck believed science would produce a utopian world. In his 1920s electronics catalogues, he featured various products and wrote commentaries on their potential. He coined the term "scienti-fiction," which became "science fiction," and helped create fandom via his magazine Amazing Stories. The SFWA Hugo award is named for him. Amazing Stories was most popular among geeky boys, possibly including two kids from Cleveland, Ohio, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. And if you're a true geek, you know that Siegel and Shuster created Superman and spawned a comic book genre beloved by millions around the globe.

Walt Disney looked at the potential for electronics differently, applying it to sound recording and animated movies. He believed in it so strongly that he sold his car to pay for re-recording the sound on his landmark cartoon, Steamboat Willie. A visit to Coney Island, which was then declining in popularity, convinced him there was an appetite for rides and imaginative entertainment, especially if delivered by cheerful staff in a clean environment, and he shared Gernsbeck's belief in technology as a way to deliver a better life. Exhibits in Tomorrowland still explore that possibility.

Those exhibits rely on computer technology, which owes many of its advances to two geeky kids who rose from obscurity to become gurus of the computer world--Bill Gates of Microsoft and Steve Jobs of Apple. We can argue about evil empires and overpriced gadgets, but vision carried both of these men to the top of their field and provides convenience (along with occasional bewilderment and frustration) to millions of people.

Another business icon frequently mocked is Martha Stewart. We the homemaking-challenged don't relate very well to Martha but can still admire her talent. She realized there was a market for ways to make life easier or prettier or tastier and built an empire showing people how to create gorgeous lifestyles. She offered a vision of a nicer, more comfortable life that many people loved. Everyone now marketing homemaking product lines, magazines, and cookbooks is following in Martha's footsteps.

Also mocked despite booming business is romance fiction. If you've watched some of the YouTube videos about romance succeeding in the economic downturn, you may have shared my desire to send a really muscular, well-armed hero or kick-ass heroine to have a word or two with the TV people. But not everyone sees romance as something to apologize for. In 1980, 37 writers shared a vision about romance and came together to form an organization supporting a genre the world at large dissed. And still does. In Houston, Texas, Romance Writers of America was born. And here we all are, as the saying goes, in or trying to be in the business of romance.

Two business owners from Ohio achieved something that changed the way people travel. At Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright doggedly pursued a vision dating back to Da Vinci and beyond, the idea that human beings might fly. One December day in 1903, their glider "slipped the surly bonds of Earth," as RCAF Flight Officer James Gillespie Magee expressed it, for 12 seconds. Aviation was born. Climbing the hill to the Wright Brothers memorial requires fighting high winds all the way. Sand blows from the beach and the dunes, a stinging bombardment at times. The National Park Service site is a great place to fly a kite if the opportunity arises, just FYI. Dealing with that wind demonstrates why the Wrights found Kitty Hawk so suitable for gliders.

North Carolina and Ohio battle over who can legitimately claim to be "first in flight" and "birthplace of aviation," as our license plates state, with Ohioans noting that the flight took place at Kitty Hawk but a lot of the groundwork was done in Dayton, at the Wrights' bicycle shop. There's a replica of the 1903 glider at Kitty Hawk, but the original is in the Smithsonian. I hope to see it between the time I write this and you read it. Pieces of wood and fabric from the original plane went to the moon with the Apollo 11 astronauts.

And that little factoid brings this blog full circle. What visionaries do you admire? Who looked beyond "don't" and "can't" to "could" and then to "is?"

I'm traveling today and hope to be home mid-to-late afternoon. So be please don't think I'm ignoring your comments. I promise I'll respond as soon as I can. I'm giving away a package of books, which I can't name because I don't have them at the time I'm writing this, from RWA to one commenter today.Source URL: https://violeta-diario.blogspot.com/search/label/RITA
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It's That Time Again...

By Kate
RITA and Golden Heart calls are going out today! Somebody's going to get THE CALL!!!

If it's you, we want to know! Leave us a comment and we'll celebrate with you!!

But meanwhile, the Banditas are on edge. Even if we don't have an entry in the contests this year, we're nervous for our friends. How can we pay attention to anything but the telephone? Will it ever ring?

We can all relate, right? After all, we Banditas met when we all finaled in the Golden Heart in 2006. I'll bet we all remember that day, right? Good things happen on RITA/GH Day, right? But it’s very stressful! It means so much! Who has time to blog???

Deep breaths, everyone.

Since we're all in a tizzy and unable to concentrate, today's post won't be about the weather (It’s a sunny 74 degrees today and I wore a wool jacket. *sigh*) or deadlines (Ack! Don't ask! The book’s due this week!!) or the core emotional theme of my book (huh?) because nobody cares! We're all staring at the telephone!

I think we need a small distraction while we wait for the phone to ring, so I've got a pop quiz for you! You’ll like this quiz. It’s all about our favorite books and authors.

I’ll go first.

What book is on your nightstand now? Jennifer Lyon’s BLOOD MAGIC

What was your favorite book when you were a child? Cinderella

Who are your top five authors? Nora Roberts, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Pat Conroy, Robert Crais, Julie Garwood

What book did you fake reading? One Hundred Years of Solitude

What book did you buy for the cover? Hmm. Have I ever done that?

What book changed your life? Catch-22

Favorite line(s) from a book: I'm thinking, I'm thinking. Any suggestions?

What book would you most want to read again for the first time? The Prince of Tides


Whether you take the quiz or not, one random commenter will win a $15 Amazon gift certificate!

And don’t forget to let us know if you GOT THE CALL!!!Source URL: https://violeta-diario.blogspot.com/search/label/RITA
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Kristan Higgins in the Lair!

by Joan

The Bandits are pleased to welcome award winning author Kristan Higgins to the Lair. Kristan’s HQN title “Catch of the Day” won the 2008 RITA for Single Title Contemporary at the RWA conference in San Francisco. Kristan’s wit and heart are expertly woven into the most entertaining, wonderful stories of life and love that I’ve read in a good long while.

Welcome to the Lair, Kristan!

Thanks for inviting me, Joan! Ahoy, Bandits!

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I'm the product of good old American middle class normalcy. Nice nuclear family, wholesome upbringing, dogs, horse, tree fort, stuff like that. Small liberal arts college, English degree, low-paying but interesting jobs. I'm married to a great guy, live in my hometown, am mommy to a lovely daughter and adorable son. Not too exciting to read about, but definitely wonderful to have!

I think my defining trait is that I'm a hard worker. Goes with being a Connecticut Yankee. We tilled the rocky soil and got stuff to grow. We're not whimsical people...you say you're going to do something, you get to work! That's something that's served me well as a writer...I'm not sentimental about my own work. It's just my job to make it as good as I possibly can. I love my books, of course, but I'm also my own sternest critic. It sounds harsh, but it actually saves me a lot of time.

Many authors say they’ve been writers all their lives. How about you? When did you start writing?

I didn't start writing fiction until about eight years ago, but I'd always worked as a writer, which definitely helped when I did sit down to write a novel. I didn't have to learn about things like "show, don't tell," having come from advertising world. As a copywriter, I wrote every day. I had to write bright, vivid copy that got your attention, and I had to do it on a deadline. I was lucky, because when I started writing fiction, that muscle was already pretty developed.

But despite the lack of any real fiction writing until not too long ago, I feel like I've been a writer since I was a teenager. See, I read Gone With the Wind when I was 13. My copy was 1042 pages long, and I spent 1041 pages believing that Scarlett and Rhett would get back together. When the ending came, I was, no exaggeration, devastated! Being 13, I had no appreciation for subtlety, so I spent much of my teen years imagining that famous couple back together...all those missed opportunities taken, Scarlett's stubbornness abating for just a minute, Rhett's pride dropping enough to say those three difficult words. I read Gone With the Wind 14 times. In a row. This should give you an idea of my teenage years. Picture me, glasses, bad perm, a bowl of ice cream by my side, sitting in the cellar on a hot summer day, reading. (Now that I think of it, the only difference between then and now is that my hair is better...)

You do a masterful job of crafting a heroine you want to cheer for as well as a hero you long for. Which do you find easier to write?

Thanks for the 'masterful,' Joan! So far, I've written in first person, so I'd say the heroines are easier, since I'm right there in their heads. I do love the heroes, of course. First person is fun, because everything that the narrator states is true may not be. That's why I love writing that way...if, for example, I'd given Malone in CATCH OF THE DAY his own point of view, he wouldn't have been nearly so interesting. In my opinion, anyway.

One of my favorite parts of writing is when I outline the hero's character. I always swore I'd never write a brooding alpha male...I've found that if I've sworn not to do something, it probably means I should do it. So I figured, what the heck? Let's do a brooding alpha male. But I wanted him to have reasons to be a loner, to be brooding, to be reluctant to talk about...well, in Malone's case, to talk about just about anything. I figured his actions would tell the readers everything. Making up his history, family background, personality...that was fun. My heroines tend to come to me fully formed, but the heroes take a little more time. It's amazing, too, how true it is...your characters take on a life of their own. Sometimes it feels like I'm not really writing...I'm channeling.

How did puppies get to be the focus of your covers?

The marketing department at HQN loved Digger, the dog in my first book (FOOLS RUSH IN). And who doesn't like a dog? That cover was so charming that the publisher ran with the theme. I hadn't deliberately decided to have a dog in every book, but I do love dogs (Digger is actually based on my own sweet dog of the same name). I don't think I'm going to have a dog in a book just for the sake of it, but I write about women who are looking for commitment. Having a pet shows commitment, so it feels natural that my heroines are also pet owners. In the book I'm writing now, I think I'm going to have a cat. This is a blatant suck-up move for my own two cats, who adore and snuggle with my children but ignore me unless they need to go out. And in. And back out. And in again. I'm just the doorman in their eyes.

The You Tube video of the trash talking ST finalists was hilarious. Did you find it hard to embrace your inner Soprano?

My inner Soprano is alive and well! Actually, I've always loved doing different accents (you should hear me reading Harry Potter to my kids). But doing it for public viewing...much, much harder! I had to send my family out of the house for the filming. It took me about 10 tries. Originally, I'd wanted to have my own dog in the clip, but he kept licking my face or jumping off the couch, so I had to go with a prop. I actually had someone approach me at the National conference, not because she'd read my books, but because she recognized me from the video.
:-)
(Joan: Gulp, {sheepish look})

What did it feel like to win the coveted RITA award?

Well, I won't lie. It was one of the happiest nights of my life. Definitely in the top three. First of all, I got to wear a GOWN! I haven't worn a gown since my wedding day! That was prize enough. I really didn't expect to win...Rachel Gibson, anyone? The great Susan Andersen? Jennifer Greene? In fact, I'd say CATCH OF THE DAY was definitely a dark horse candidate. So when the presenter read my title, I was stunned, and just so, so happy. Floated around for days. Still can't quite believe it.

Your latest release “Just One of the Guys” features a beagle with a fireman’s helmet and your DH is a firefighter. Was he your inspiration?

Absolutely! I'd been waiting to write a firefighter hero, and I can't tell you how much fun it was to both honor and gently mock the firefighters I know, including my DH. My husband is definitely a hero. He's done amazing, extraordinary things...my son and I once watched him drag an unconscious man from a burning building. He's picked up severed limbs at accidents, calmed strung out teenagers, made hearts beat again, and he does those things with a grace and calm that are astonishing. That being said, he can't make our bed to save his life, and he refuses to follow directions when driving.

One of the best things about writing JUST ONE OF THE GUYS was having my husband read it. He doesn't read my stuff until it comes out, so it was awfully touching to see him get all teary-eyed when he read the dedication. It's to him, of course.

You share on your website that you like to bake. We have quite a few bakers in the Lair ::cough:: state fair winners ::cough:: What is your favorite thing to bake?

Ooh! I love to bake. I have a few blue ribbons myself! I love to bake apple pie, because it makes the house smell so good. Chocolate chip cookies are a specialty...let's see...banana bread, rice pudding, sponge cake. All my recipes are from my grandmother, who was an amazing baker. At Christmas, I make Hungarian cookies, which are so complicated and difficult that I always say if I don't cry, I'm doing something wrong. But the pay-off is wonderful, and I'm the only one in my very large extended family who bakes them, so I'm quite adored come December. In the book I'm working on now, the heroine is a baker. I feel it's my job as a good writer to eat as many pastries as I can...all in the name of research, of course.

Now I have a question for the Bandita’s and their BB’s. One of the things I hear a lot is that my books are “standard” romantic comedy…..my characters aren’t famous people, ex-military or extraordinarily gifted, and I tend to close the door on love scenes. What books have you read that veer off the beaten path but deliver the goods anyway? I have to confess that Loretta Chase’s “Lord of Scoundrels” did that for me. An ugly hero who had really, really good reason to shy away from love . From page one of that book there was a tension and electricity in that book that didn’t stop till the end. So how about you guys?

Source URL: https://violeta-diario.blogspot.com/search/label/RITA
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And They're Off!

Okay, Bandita Buddies. This is it. The Big Ticket. Our Annual Event.

The Banditas have left the Lair.






For the next five days, if you're looking for us, you'll find us at the Romance Writers of America's Annual Conference in San Francisco. We'll be stalking agents & editors, hanging out with old friends at the bar, attending workshops, hanging out with new friends at the bar, stalking our favorite authors, hanging out with total strangers at the bar...

You get the idea. :-)

Hope we see some of you there! But if San Fran wasn't in your budget this year, keep visiting us here in the Lair this week. The hackey hudjson have your back. We have cameras & internet access, so check this page over the next couple of days for breaking news, interesting tidbits, the latest gossip & possibly some of the coolest shoes ever. (That'll make sense in a couple days, promise.)

And stay tuned also to RWA's website on Saturday night, where the winners of the Golden Heart & RITA awards will be posted in real time. Anna Campbell is a double RITA finalist, Susan Seyfarth is a double Golden Heart finalist & Kim Howe is a Golden Heart finalist. Our own Louisa Cornell has a horse in the Golden Heart race as well, so keep an eye on this site: www.rwanational.org

See you all when we get back!Source URL: https://violeta-diario.blogspot.com/search/label/RITA
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