Photo credit: MLR Photo

Mills & Boon senior editor, Rebecca Slorach, has won the Inclusion Award for the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s annual Industry Awards for 2022. The awards celebrate the hard work and talent of any person, group or organisation who has championed the broad genre of romantic fiction in a positive way, with the Inclusion Award recognising the individual or organisation that has championed inclusivity in romantic authorship and publishing.

As Senior Editor at Mills & Boon, Rebecca actively seeks out and encourages new authors. This included launching the Mills & Boon Romance Includes Everyone competition to find LGBTQI+ protagonists, and the Love to Write competition to find new authors from underrepresented backgrounds. She recently published Georgia Toffolo’s bestselling Meet me in… series, which has sold over 100,000 copies; the Sunday Times bestseller Her Heart for a Compass from the Duchess of York; Amber Rose Gill’s summer romance Until I Met You; and the LGBTQI+ romance The Secret of You and Me by Melissa Lenhardt. She is equally proud to publish a range of bestselling romance authors including: Susan Mallery, Sherryl Woods, Robyn Carr, Naima Simone, Julia London and Eva Leigh. Next year she will publish debut author Emma Denny’s LGBTQI+ historical romance One Night in Hartswood.

She commented, ‘I am delighted and honoured to have been chosen as the winner of the RNA Inclusion Award. Mills & Boon prides itself on its commitment to publishing romance for every reader and to receive this recognition of the work we do, and the opportunities we create, for underrepresented authors is something I am really proud to be a part of. This is just the beginning of the opportunities to publish with us, and I am really excited to share what we have coming soon in romance.’

Laura James, the RNA Industry Awards organiser, added, ‘Congratulations to the 2022 RNA Industry Awards winners. Thank you for your love, passion and continued support for romantic fiction.’

Sue Moorcroft, Head Judge for the RNA Industry Awards, also congratulated Rebecca. ‘With such a wonderful set of shortlists it was always certain that the judges of this year’s Industry Awards would return an outstanding list of winners. Choosing between excellent candidates was an exacting task and I enjoyed being a part of the stimulating discussion around each and every nomination. My thanks to my fellow judges for the hard work and detailed research that went into the selection process, and to Laura James and Melanie Griffiths from the RNA for their efficient organisation. They made my job easy. Most of all – congratulations to the winners of these wonderful awards!’

The awards have been held for the past eight years and are highly respected in the UK publishing industry. The finalists are nominated by the full and probationary membership of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, with a panel of independent judges selecting the shortlists and winners.

The award categories for this year were as follows: The Romantic Bookseller of the Year, Inclusion Award, Indie Champion of the Year, Library or Librarian of the Year, Indie Editor of the Year, Cover Designer of the Year, Narrator of the Year, Media Star of the Year, Agent of the Year, and Publisher and/or Editor of the Year.

The winners of the ten awards were announced during the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s Winter Party and Industry Awards ceremony, which was held at the Leonardo Royal Hotel London City on Friday 11th November 2022.

Twitter: @BeckySlorach

This year’s awards were sponsored by ProWritingAid, a manuscript editing software programme with in-app video learning for writers