Note: This topic may be seen as political, but since it's definitively related to books I hope it won't be moved to the Politics and Religion subforum.
Romance Writers of America (RWA) is a trade organization for (you guessed it) romance writers. It's currently having a dramatic meltdown over their handling of racism and other bigotry.
What's happened is briefly:
- In August, a publisher (Susan Tisdale) files an ethics complaint in RWA against an author (Courtney Milan), because Milan (among others) has criticised Tisdale for keeping an aquisition editor on staff who has a history of supporting racist statements.
- Later an author (Kathryn Lynn Davis) files an ethics complaint against Milan for describing one of Davis' books as racist.
- The ethics complaints are handled by RWA in an irregular way (the regular etics committee is bypassed and a special committee appointed). After recommendation from the etics committee, the board votes to suspend Milan from RWA for a year, and gives her a lifetime ban on holding office in RWA.
- When this desicion becomes public in late December, it is massively criticised. A lot of people leave their offices in RWA, and a lot of members leave. The board reverses its desicion.
- There is now a lot of criticism of how RWA's board has handled this situation, a petition to recall the president-elect has been submitted, signed by more than 10% of the members, and there is discussion on whether RWA can be salvaged or a new trade organization is needed.
(A lot more details and links here:
https://www.claireryanauthor.com/blo...ion-of-the-rwa )
It will be interesting to see how this plays out!