Vivian Stephen’s name is mentioned inside every issue of the Romance Writers of America member publication, The Romance Writers Report, under the word, Founder.
Vivian Stephens edited for Harlequin, Dell (Candlelight Romances), Bantam and others. She bought authors such as Sandra Brown and Jayne Ann Krentz off the slush pile.
She established Women Writers of Color with the goal to assist African-Americans to write commercial fiction and get it published. She wanted to see popular fiction with people of color as the major characters, fiction that could break free of stereotypes of how African-Americans are supposed to be and portray African-Americans across the human spectrum.
Stephens pioneered modern American romance for the Harlequin American Romance, Harlequin Intrigue, and Harlequin American Premiere series. She’s responsible for opening the bedroom door and americanizing category romance. Stephens is also the editor responsible for the first modern African-American romance allowed publication at Harlequin books in 1098–Adam and Eva by Sandra Kitt.
Vivian Stephens and RWA at the beginning
From former RWA president and best selling author, Shirley Hailstock:
Vivian told me she used to get calls from writers everyday asking for her help in getting a book published. It took up so much of her time that she told Rita Clay Estrada that she was going to be in Houston at a certain time. If they wanted to meet with her, get a place and she would come. I think they got a hotel meeting room.
Eighty women showed up. Vivian spoke for several hours, telling them they needed to start their own organization since they were getting no respect from any other one. That was the founding meeting of RWA.
Five women met in Rita’s dining room and hammered out the rules of the organization and I believe sixty-three came to the first meeting when Rita Clay Estrada was president.
Rochelle Alers, a veteran African American romance writer, states in an interview:
“Long after I decided to become a writer and had written three full manuscripts with blonde heroines, I joined a group founded by Vivian Stephens called Women Writers of Color. Our purpose was to produce quality romance novels with African-American characters as the major players and get the major publishers to publish them. Vivian, who is the founder of Romance Writers of America and a true visionary, was our mentor. She tutored us through the process of writing and editing our manuscripts.”
(Woman Writers of Color is now defunct, their goal accomplished).
“I belonged to the NY/NJ/DE chapter and we met monthly for two years with Vivian Stephens. I completed two novels in that class and they are both now in print,” Hailstock said.
In 2000, Beverly Jenkins, the luncheon keynote speaker at the Romance Slam Jam, an annual gathering of black romance authors and readers, suggested recognizing achievement in African American romance with an award named after her former mentor Vivian Stephens, the Vivian Stephens Lifetime Career Achievement Award. The Emma award, to recognize excellence in African-American romance novels, is named after Emma Rodgers, a bookseller and the owner of Black Images Book Bazaar in Dallas who has made tremendous efforts to support African-American romance.
Since Vivian Stephens is not only the founder of RWA but the pioneer of modern category romance and the mentor and educator of many successful novelists and the driving force behind African-American authors and characters finally being allowed into the romance genre, at the 25th annual convention of the organization that she founded, many were shocked and felt slighted to see that Vivian Stephen’s accomplishments were ignored rather than honored. OJ Simpson received more attention.
Vivian Stephens currently lives in Houston, Texas and continues to teach romance classes and to mentor novelists.
If others have anything to add about Vivian Stephens, how she may have affected them personally, how she affected romance as a whole, or any mention of her accomplishments that might have been made, but overlooked, at the 25th anniversary conference of the RWA, please feel free to comment.
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Wonderful column Monica!
Well, if that doesn’t just take the damn cake! Thanks so much for posting this, MonicA. I’m new to RWA and had never heard of Vivian. I can’t imagine how they could have even considered holding a ceremony celebrating 25 years of the organization she founded without having her there, let alone, apparently, without mentioning her name. The makes it even more of a fiasco than I’d heard. Shaking my head.
I’ve heard of Vivian Stephens. She contributed a chapter to Kathryn Falk’s How to Write a Romance and Get It Published, which I first checked out from the library and then decided I had to buy. This was back in the mid-eighties. I was a high school student at the time.
Thanks so much for this education, Monica. That’s a past to be proud of, and one all RWA members should be aware of.
I read Kathryn Falk’s book years ago, when I first got it into my head that I wanted to write a romance. The memories! It eventually fell apart.
Vivian lives in Houston! How easy would it have been for RWA to get a photo and interview. I talked to her a couple times years ago and she is very helpful, open and warm while being direct and to the point also.
She’d read one of my books and told me very nice things. While my head was still swelling, she told me that I was no romance writer, but a mainstream fiction writer. Snap!
Thank you for posting this wonderful piece of RWA history, Monica. Vivian’s achievements certainly deserve a salute!
Ooh, that’s a good one. This is the sort we need to see more. I sometimes wondered about doing up a blog, profiling pioneers in the romance genre around the world over last few decades. Thanks, Monica, for putting a foot in my bottom to do something about it.
Thanks, Monica, for educating us. Here’s hoping this post will create some buzz and make people start asking why we’ve never heard of Vivian Stephens before now.
WTG, Monica! I’ve known that name since I first researched and found RWA, and it’s about time someone made note of her as you did.
Was great seeing you in Reno, by the way.
Thanks Monica! I think this ought to be an article in RWR.