RWA GLBT Chapter?

[erastes]

I just got a pied wagtail on my birdtable!  Never had one of those before. 

Just had this pop up in my inbox.  I'm not sure how I feel about it at the moment. I'm all for subversion from within, but it's $100 to join--and with the pound so weak, that's like £70, a huge investment. Plus there'd be a fee for joining the chapter, and...well...I suppose I don't really want there to be a gay ghetto.  Granted there are other "specialist interest chapters" such as Gothic, Regency and Chick Lit - but all of those genres are universally accepted within RWA already. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, it's probably a good idea and Laura makes a good point, as always, but ... well, I don't know how I feel. I might just join the group and see what people are saying. Undecided and skint of Norfolk.

"Permission to forward to interested parties.
Authors of GLBT romance,

"I truly believe to achieve recognition for our genre within RWA we have to be a part of the official process and take part in the organization at a professional level. A few of us within the genre have created a google group to gage the interest in our community for support in establishing a GLBT RWA Chapter. Goals for this chapter include establishing a place to for authors of GLBT to network, learn more about what is happening in the romance industry concerning our genre, provide support and education for the authors, create a place for publishers and agents to reach the authors of this genre more easily, create workshops geared toward our writing needs, and possibly even organize writing contests at some point down the line.  These are only a few of things we can accomplish together.

If you write GLBT romance and are interested in creating and supporting a chapter that focuses on the GLBT romance genre please consider joining the group so that the degree of interest can be assessed.

You do have to be a member of RWA to belong to a special interest RWA chapter but for now, we just want to see if there is sufficient interest to warrant the large effort of creating, maintaining and promoting the chapter. Whether you belong to RWA, are thinking of joining the RWA or just want to know more about the possibilities, please consider clicking on the link below and joining us for discussion.

http://groups.google.com/group/rwa_rainbow_romance_chapter?hl=en
sincerely,
Laura Baumbach"