RITA Award


The RITA Award is the most prominent award for English-language romance fiction. It is presented by Romance Writers of America. The purpose of the RITA Award is to promote excellence in the romance genre by recognizing outstanding published novels and novellas. It is named for the RWA's first president, Rita Clay Estrada.

Controversy

The RITA Awards, like the English-speaking romance fiction industry as a whole, are overwhelmingly dominated by white authors. This caused controversy in 2018 when Alyssa Cole's An Extraordinary Union, a novel about interracial romance during the American Civil War, made no appearance in the RITA Awards finalists despite winning multiple other awards. Instead, all finalists were about white women, of which all but one fell in love with British aristocrats. In response, the RWA board noted that less than half of 1% of finalists were by black authors, of which none had ever won the award, and expressed a commitment to improve the diversity of the award. The board issued an apology after the 2019 finalists again did not include any persons of color or LGBTQ+ persons. RWA cancelled the 2020 RITA Awards after several contestants and judges withdrew due to diversity concerns.

Procedure

The RITA Award opens for entries in the fall. Entrants must supply five printed books by the posted deadline. Each title is judged by five separate judges during the preliminary round. Finalist are announced in mid-March. Winners are announced at the annual award ceremony, held on the last day of RWA's National Conference, which is normally held in July. Winners receive a gold statuette, book editors receive a plaque.

Categories

The award categories, effective 2017, are:

Best First Book

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