President's Corner

JULY 2006

NTRWA President, Sherry Davis

Happy Independence Day!

Hello to everyone and a big NTRWA welcome to our new members! We had a great meeting in June with our PAN Round Table Critique. Thank you to all our published authors. I hope everyone who participated received the feedback they were looking for and those who weren’t quite ready to be critiqued had an opportunity to engage with our busy, prolific and generous published authors.

Next up: Mystery Writer Laurie Moore on Dialogue on July 15th at La Hacienda, 10:30am.

That said, I just finished reading the July RWR®, specifically the President’s article on volunteering, and thought it was time to spend a few minutes on the subject.

Volunteer--NT Needs YOU!

Our Annual Great Expectations Contest kicks off at the end of December. But before we start taking entries, we need volunteers to make sure it runs smoothly. You don’t have to be a member for any length of time to help out. Volunteer a little or a lot, it’s all appreciated.

The Contest is our main money maker. It funds the programs you see each month. Great contest = Great programs. :)  Category coordinators will be responsible for receiving contest electronic entries. They verify and notify the contestants their entry has arrived and get the entries to the first round judges. Coordinators are also responsible for getting the entries back on time from the judges and returning entries to the contestants. They verify scores and report to the chair who notifies the contestants who final. The category coordinators report to the chair if there’s a problem.

To date, we have nine categories which include Historical, Inspiration, Long and Short Contemporary, Mainstream with Romantic Elements, Romantic Suspense, Single Title, Specialized (F/F/TT/P), Steamy Hot, and Young Adult.  We always need volunteers. (Are you catching the theme in all this? :-) )

It would be great to have a full lineup of category coordinators at that time. Andrea and I hope to come back from National with a healthy list of eager editors and agents willing to judge our final round. So, please volunteer.

Until then . . .