RNA Lifetime Achievement

The Romantic Novelists’ Association has been blessed with the support, through membership and friendship, of many people – publishers, editors and agents and other industry professionals. Many have talked at our functions, helped fund our activities and given a chance to our new writers over the years. And a great many romantic novelists have brought immeasurable pleasure to countless people around the world through their wonderful stories, flawlessly told.

In the world of literary prizes there are precious few that are given out to the backroom staff – the people whose names never appear on the covers of books and only occasionally in the ‘acknowledgements’ and yet, without whom most authors couldn’t function. Equally, there are few prizes for books whose sole purpose is to entertain. Genre fiction, which does this unashamedly, tends to get more brickbats than gongs–although the sales figures for crime, romance and the other popular genres remain satisfyingly large.

With the RNA’s Lifetime Achievement Awards we can formally and publicly honour these people who have done their best to promote romantic fiction through their writing, or by supporting the RNA and our authors. 

The RNA’s first Lifetime Achievement Awards honoured Lucilla Andrews, Rosamund Pilcher and Mary Stewart at a glittering event in the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh in August 2006. 

The RNA then decided to present Lifetime Achievement Awards on a regular basis and to include them in the London awards event. Awards were made in 2009 to independent publishers Judy Piatkus and John Hale. 

In 2010, Lifetime Achievement Awards were presented to authors Joanna Trollope and Maeve Binchy.