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RWA Lifetime Achievement Award

One of the highest honors RWA bestows is the RWA Lifetime Achievement Award. This award is presented to a living author in recognition of significant contributions to the romance genre. To qualify for the award, the recipient's career in romantic fiction must span a minimum of fifteen years. Recipients must in some way continue to promote the romance genre, teach romance in fiction, or publish romantic fiction. In 1994 a new requirement was added, that recipients must maintain active RWA membership. Authors are nominated for the award by RWA members and selected by the Board of Directors.

To nominate a member for the RWA Lifetime Achievement Award, email [email protected].

2019 RWA Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient

There will not be a Lifetime Achievement Award recipient in 2019.

Past Recipients of the RWA Lifetime Achievement Award

  • 2018: Suzanne Brockmann
  • 2017: Beverly Jenkins
  • 2016: Robyn Carr
  • 2015: Carole Mortimer
  • 2014: Bertrice Small
  • 2013: Mary Jo Putney
  • 2012: Brenda Jackson
  • 2011: Sharon Sala
  • 2010: Debbie Macomber
  • 2009: Alison Hart
  • 2008: Vicki Lewis Thompson
  • 2007: Linda Lael Miller
  • 2006: Susan Elizabeth Phillips
  • 2005: Linda Howard
  • 2004: no award given
  • 2003: Heather Graham
  • 2002: Maggie Osborne
  • 2001: Robin Lee Hatcher
  • 2000: Rita Clay Estrada
  • 1999: Rosalyn Alsobrook
  • 1998: Sandra Brown
  • 1997: Nora Roberts
  • 1996: Anne Stuart
  • 1995: Jayne Ann Krentz
  • 1994: Ann Maxwell, aka Elizabeth Lowell
  • 1992: Mary Stewart
  • 1991: Barbara Mertz
  • 1990: Phyllis A. Whitney
  • 1989: Eleanor Burford Hibbert
  • 1988: Kathleen Woodiwiss
  • 1987: Patricia Maxwell, aka Jennifer Blake
  • 1986: Roberta Gellis
  • 1985: Virginia Myers
  • 1984: Ethel Bangert (Virginia Mann)
  • 1983: Virginia Nielsen McCall

 

Historical Note: from 1983 through 1989 the award was called the Golden Treasure. In 1990, it was changed to the Lifetime Achievement Award.