Hall of Fame

Halls of fame are an American tradition. Every sport imaginable has its hall of fame. Most of us know the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio (and a separate College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Indiana), but there are also halls of fame for the best in soccer, hockey, tennis, cycling, bowling, swimming, motorsports, and so on. The same holds true for music. Whether your preferred genre is rock, country, classical, gospel, or blues, you can find a hall of fame dedicated to the genre’s high achievers. Inventors have their own hall of fame; so do songwriters, cowgirls, astronauts, ukulele players, and Texas Rangers. So why is there no Romance Writers Hall of Fame?

Now before you accuse me of sloppy research, let me add that I know the Romance Writers of America do have a Hall of Fame. But membership is based on a single criterion: “Upon receipt of her/his third (formerly the fourth) RITA Award in the same category, an RWA member is inducted into the RWA Hall of Fame for that category.” Some of the brightest lights in the romance writing galaxy are on the list—LaVyrle Spencer, Jo Beverley, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, and Nora Roberts (the first inductee and the only one inducted in multiple categories), but surely a genre that boasts more than 6000 published books a year has more than twelve writers (the number in the RWA HoF) who merit special recognition. RWA’s Lifetime Achievement recipients are a more accurate recognition of those who have contributed significantly to the genre. Recent Visiting Vagabond Vicki Lewis Thompson will become the twenty-fifth honoree on a list that includes writers who have shaped the genre over half a century or so, but even twenty-five seems too few to do justice to the genre’s history.

I’d love to see an International Romance Writers Hall of Fame, something along the lines of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame that from 1996-2004 inducted four writers annually based on “their continued excellence and long-time contribution to the science fiction and fantasy field.” I already have my nominees for the first inductees prepared.

1. Jane Austen

Not only do many, many romance readers suffer from advanced cases of Austen-mania, but romance writers, even some like Charlaine Harris who appear to have little in common with Jane Austen, acknowledge her influence. Regency writer Carla Kelly acknowledged her debt to Austen in an AAR column (August 2001): “In the odd moments when I manage a witty bit of dialogue or tweak a plot until it begs for mercy, I can wink and think to myself, ‘Thanks, Jane.’” Such tributes are too numerous to catalog, but they provide abundant evidence that Austen continues to contribute to the genre.

2. Georgette Heyer

Think of almost any character type or plot device that we associate with Regency-set historicals, and Heyer readers can point to a book where Heyer used it. The intelligent, independent heroine, the arrogant lord, the marriage of convenience, the innocent disillusioned, the heroine disguised as a male, the secret baby—all these and more are handled with skill and wit in Heyer’s books. Mary Jo Putney calls Heyer the inventor of a genre and Putney along with Judith McNaught, Catherine Coulter, Leigh Greenwood, and surprisingly Robin Schone acknowledge debts to Heyer.

3. Faith Baldwin

Not many of today’s romance readers know the work of Baldwin, but she was the Nora Roberts of her day, perhaps the most famous and financially successful American romance writer of the early twentieth century. A New York Times critic wrote in 1939, “There ought to be some sort of literary or at least book prize for Faith Baldwin. She can turn them out a mile a minute, all readable . . . all tops in her field.” (Sounds like a description of NR, doesn’t it?) Baldwin wrote eighty-five novels, several of which were turned into movies. She created a popular series, the Little Oxford books, that spanned generations. The series included Station Wagon Set (1939), Any Village (1971), No Bed of Roses (1973), Time and the Hour (1974), and Thursday’s Child (1976). Although the H/H in these books get their HEA, Baldwin did not shy away from issues such as infidelity, divorce, and career and family conflicts, infidelity.

4. Nora Roberts

Do I even need to explain this choice? Roberts has published more than 170 romances over the past twenty-seven years, more than 294 million of her books are in print, she’s almost a permanent fixture on the New York Times bestseller list (frequently in the coveted #1 position), and she is the public face and voice of the genre to those outside it. Her MacGregor books made history when The McGregor Grooms became the first Silhouette original title to hit # 1 on The New York Times bestseller list, Perfect Neighbor became the first category romance ever to hit The New York Times bestseller list, and The McGregor Brides became the first Silhouette single title to hit The New York Times bestseller list. Her success with series has been a major influence on the popularity of connected books, and the sales of her reissued titles have helped to extend the shelf life of romances.

Do you think we need an International Romance Writers Hall of Fame? Keeping in mind the criteria of excellence and significant contribution to the genre, who would you like to see included?