We are thrilled to announce that, effective October 1, 2020, we have disaffiliated from Romance Writers of America (RWA) and are now operating as an independent tax-exempt romance writing organization under the name New England Romance Writers (NERW). NERW will continue to serve our members through education, networking, and advocacy, and will continue to educate the public about the breadth and diversity of the romance genre.
NERW’s disaffiliation from RWA is a major milestone for our organization, which had been an RWA chapter since 1987. We began discussing our future in January 2020, voted in March 2020 to disaffiliate from RWA by no later than September 30, 2020, and are now fully separated from RWA. This step represents many months of hard work and steadfast leadership by our present and former officers and directors.
NERW is proud that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is a cornerstone of our newly revised bylaws, mission, and values. But our journey isn’t over. Our leaders and members will be continuing our efforts to embed DEI within and throughout the organization.
We look forward to welcoming back former members and to meeting everyone newly joining us. If you write romance, you are invited to join NERW, regardless of your race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, body size, age, religion, ancestry, national or ethnic origin, immigration status, employment status, marital status, pregnancy status, ability or disability, genetic information, veteran status, socioeconomic status, and political affiliation. Give our friendly and knowledgeable community a try—dues for the remainder of 2020 are only $5. We hope to see you at one of our virtual meetings soon!
To learn more, visit our new website at https://www.nerw.org. You can receive important announcements by joining our interim email loop at https://groups.io/g/NERW-Interim, following us on Twitter at @NERomWriters, and liking our Facebook Page at @NERomWriters. Please reach out to NERW President Alexa Rowan with questions at [email protected].
Workshop Description: Search Engine Optimization. It’s an effective way to improve your web traffic. But when it comes down to it, where should we even start, what has the most impact and–how do you know if you’re even doing it right? In this workshop we’ll review five easy ways you can get more search traffic to your website, regardless of your web skill level. 
Workshop description: Tension is what keeps pages turning and makes a book of any genre satisfying. The tighter the tension, the more rewarding the ending. Incorporating internal and external tension into your characters and plot at every stage of writing from brainstorming to editing will keep the pages turning and the books selling. In this highly interactive workshop we’ll discuss how to create characters that create tension, how to manage backstory and plot and what are the ten best ways to keep the tension as tight as possible in your manuscript. 
Part 1
NECRWA’s first meeting of 2020 will be a Town Hall style meeting focusing on recent events within RWA and NECRWA’s future. (No, it will not be summertime like in the lovely photo, alas.)
We will not be voting on taking any actions at this meeting. Rather, NECRWA’s leadership will explain the options available to the organization. We will then seek input from the membership on how to proceed and will answer your questions as best we can. Members, please feel free to send us questions in advance, whether or not you are planning to attend the meeting. The meeting will be accessible electronically to members who are unable to attend in person via a Facebook Live session through the chapter Facebook group. Electronic access will unfortunately not be available to guests. Guests are, however, welcome to attend in person (payment of a $5 guest fee is required).
We hope you will join us on January 19th.