rWA is suggesting the following changes to its categories:

9.2.6. BEST SHORT HISTORICAL ROMANCE BEST HISTORICAL ROMANCE TO 1820- novels or sagas that have a strong romantic element throughout. The word count for these novels is 40,000-95,000 words. Romantic historical novel with a primary setting up to the year 1820. The story may take place at any geographic location. The level of sexuality may range from sweet to extremely hot.
Judging guidelines: In this category, the love story is the main focus of the novel, and the end of the book is emotionally satisfying. : In this category, the story takes place primarily in years through 1820. The love story is the main focus of the novel and the end of the book is emotionally satisfying. If a book spans many years, the author should best determine the category in which it belongs. These novels may or may not contain a high level of sexuality.

9.2.7. BEST LONG HISTORICAL ROMANCE BEST HISTORICAL ROMANCE FROM
1790 – 1945- novels or sagas that have a strong romantic element throughout. The word count for these novels is over 95,000 words. Romantic historical novel with a primary setting in the years 1790 through 1945. The story may take place at any geographic location. The level of sexuality may range from sweet to extremely hot.
Judging guidelines: In this category, the story takes place primarily in years 1790 through 1945. In this category, the love story is the main focus of the novel, and the end of the book is emotionally satisfying. If a book spans many years, the author should best determine the category in which it belongs. These novels may or may not contain a high level of sexuality.

Rationale for changing historical categories: Again, the board wished to eliminate the word count problem. With numbers dwindling, we examined merging both short and long historical into one category but felt that the historical novel could grow in the future. We hoped to allow for the change in popularity of one time period over another by providing overlapping years. An author whose book spans many years should determine where the novel best fits.

I like the idea of getting rid of “short” and “long” historical–those keywords were holdovers, I think, from the days when there were a number of “category” romances. But those days are no longer. But what exactly happened to the times? So if you write a book set in 1817, you can submit to both categories? Why would you have one category that was all the Regency and the Romans and the cave-dwellers, and another that was Victorians and Georgians? Is that really what they intended?

UPDATE:  I e-mailed RWA Nationals and they said:  Yes.  It is intentional, because there are so many Regencies out there.  Well, okay!

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