Today’s a big day in the romance writing community – it’s the announcements of the finalists in the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Awards for unpublished manuscripts, and RITA awards for published manuscripts.<\/p>\n
Members of the RWA Board have the very pleasant task of contacting the finalists by phone to notify them, although its such a thundering honour to final, that they probably get ear damage from all the squeeing! The calls are supposed to start at about 8am on Thursday morning, US time – but since that’s the wee small hours Australian time, some of the board members phone Australian finalists early, while we’re still awake on our side of the world – although the finalists are supposed to keep it to themselves until the ‘official’ calling time begins.<\/p>\n
Before I went to bed last night, there were already a few unofficial announcements on Australian loops, and I was thrilled to see two friends are RITA finalists, and to hear of at least three Golden Heart finalists. Australians are usually well-represented in the finalist lists, and this year is looking good, too!<\/p>\n
Of course, I’d been hoping for the phone to ring all afternoon, as Dark Country was entered in the RITAs. But alas, it stayed silent. It was a slim chance, I knew, and I hadn’t been holding my breath. So I went to bed about 11pm, but lay awake for a while, finally drifting off at about midnight.<\/p>\n
The phone woke me at 12.22am. And it wasn’t someone from Gordon’s work with a network breakdown. It was a lovely lady from RWAmerica, to tell me that Dark Country is a finalist in the romantic suspense category of the RITAs!<\/p>\n
It’s now 1.30am, and I’m still grinning from ear to ear, and unlikely to go back to sleep for a while!<\/p>\n
I’ll put up a full list of Australian RITA and GH finalists later today, when they’re all announced. <\/p>\n
ETA: The full lists of finalists are now on the RWAmerica website – RITA Finalists<\/a> and Golden Heart Finalists<\/a>.<\/p>\n Super congrats to all the finalists in both awards! And special congratulations to the Australian finalists: in the RITAs, Elizabeth Rolls, and Kelly Hunter; and in the Golden Heart, Kylie Griffin, Vanessa Barneveld, Gabrielly Luthy, and Robyn Enlund. <\/p>\n That’s three Australians (including me) in the RITAs and four in the Golden Heart – what a great showing, Australia!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today’s a big day in the romance writing community – it’s the announcements of the finalists in the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Awards for unpublished manuscripts, and RITA awards for published manuscripts. Members of the RWA Board have … Continue reading