President’s Letter
From the writing desk of Monica Jorgensen
Hello!
I can’t believe it’s already April. Somehow the year is flying by faster than a perfectly paced third act! As we settle into spring, it’s the perfect time to start thinking about new opportunities, and one of our favorites is just around the corner. The Stiletto Contest officially opens for submissions on May 1st, and we’re thrilled to share that Entangled Publishing will be a Final judge for the unpublished division. If you’ve been polishing your contemporary romance manuscript, this could be your moment. So get those pages ready!
This month, CRW is going to the LA Festival of Books. We have many authors sending books to sell and four members that are signing live. If your in the area, drop by. We will be in Romance Alley, the Teal section, booth 337. This month we have our third article from our Publishing Partner, Editor Tony Le Calvez. Also, if you haven’t checked out his webinar on editing, watch it here. Tony will be be doing a live chat on Facebook May 9th at 12pm PT/3pm ET.
Remember, we are highlighting members books (Member Spotlight Series) that fall within a theme all year long. See below for more info on this!
In February, we introduced the President’s Pick. Each month, I invite you to read with me and then participate in a book chat. We’ve read about building a series and writing blurbs. This month we will be reading The Ultimate Guide to Book Marketing by Nicholas Erik. It’s $5.99 on Kindle unlimited. On April 26th at 10am Central Time (8am Pacific Time, 9am Mountain Time, 11am Eastern Time), join the zoom and let’s chat about the book and everything marketing related.
This month you will also be getting an email to vote on updates to our bylaws. You can see the proposed changes and vote here.
And as always, keep writing, keep dreaming, and don’t forget, your story might be the one we’re all talking about next. You’ve got this.
Monica
2026 Stiletto Opens May 1st!
The 2026 Stiletto will be opening for submissions May 1st. More info will be coming on the website and social media. We are super excited to be welcoming Entangled Publishing as a Final Round Judge for the unpublished division.
CRW is going to the LA Festival of Books!!!!
Contemporary Romance Writers will be participating in the Los Angeles Festival of Books on April 18–19, 2026.
If you’re in the area, come and celebrate with us. Here are a list of participating members:
Kathleen Samuels (signing Saturday 10am-12pm)
Melissa Naatz (signing Saturday 12pm-2pm)
Sarah Vance-Thompkins (signing Sunday 10am-12pm)
Benna Bos (signing Sunday 12pm-2pm)
Anne Stone
Hannah Rose
We’re so excited to showcase the amazing talent within Contemporary Romance Writers!
Publishing Partner
Tony Le Calvez – Editor
The Power of Voice: The Value of Sounding Human Amid AI
A young author shared her manuscript with me the other day, looking for feedback on her writing. I flipped through the pages impressed by the impeccable formatting and colorful graphics, but as soon as I started reading through a paragraph, I realized something was off. I think she saw my expression change because without me asking, she stated, “I used ChatGPT to help come up with some of these sections. Do you think I should disclose that?”
AI can be a great tool to help bolster your writing and improve your mechanics, but it cannot replace a writer’s true function: being a storyteller. The greatest storytellers in literary history are not remembered for having the best grammar or manufacturing sentences with the precision of a super computer; they are remembered for having a voice worth remembering. By imbuing a recognizable and unique voice into the story, it’s as if a part of their soul lives on in their writing.
If it were not for Mark Twain’s voice, Tom Sawyer would be no different than any other trouble-making kid at summer camp; if not for Jane Austen, Emma would be a capricious, wealthy, unrelatable socialite playing cards in the drawing room all day; if not for Mary Shelley, Frankenstein’s monster would be the next villain in a Marvel movie. A story is only as interesting as the storyteller. If you’ve ever heard a 6 year-old try to tell you about their dream, you’ll know what I’m talking about.
Writing, like any other art form, requires practice. Sitting down every day for twenty minutes and responding to a prompt, working on your manuscript, or even just journaling activates the creative part of your brain and works it like a muscle. As you continue to practice, you pick up habits and repeat things you know how to do well, and you develop a style. When you get so comfortable with your style that it becomes effortless, you begin to push the limits of how creatively you can use that style, and then you begin to have a unique voice.
That said, AI can be a useful tool to help learn the functions of language and apply them to your writing. If a sentence you wrote doesn’t seem to flow the way you want it to, I don’t see any harm in plugging it into ChatGPT and asking, “what is grammatically incorrect with this sentence?” Then the computer can explain to you why your sentence isn’t functioning, and you can learn for next time how to craft a stronger sentence.
Utilizing grammar correctly is an important tool to bridge the gap between your mind and the reader’s by agreeing upon conventions and rules of communication. But, ultimately you are still trying to connect two minds. By using AI to generate whole sentences in your book, that connection is lost, and the storytelling loses its human element; it loses its soul.
It’s my philosophy that if you’re going to write a book, you should write it yourself. While having a final, polished project in the blink of an eye can be tempting, the truth is that art is meant to be practiced. A musician who doesn’t love to practice will never be ready to perform. Writing is about falling in love with the craft, with working on a sentence until it says exactly what you want it to say, with drafting and redrafting until you’ve re-written a story nine times. AI might help you get to the finish line quicker, but it doesn’t help you grow as a writer. As the kids like to say, you’ve got to do it for “the love of the game.”
Member Spotlight Series
Hooray for our member spotlight series!!!
Each month, CRW will feature select member books on our Instagram based on a rotating theme.
May: Slow Burn
May: It’s Slow Burn, baby. To submit fill out this form.
Questions, please contact Melissa at vp@contemporaryromance.org.
Please note: Selection is not guaranteed. Books will be curated based on fit and volume.
2026 Board Members
President: Monica Jorgensen
Treasurer: Emily Rex
Secretary: Michelle Lumpkin
V.P. of Communications: Dayna M. Reidenouer
V.P. of Workshops: Melissa Naatz
A Novel Celebration
A Novel Celebration is something we do to celebrate your wins over the past year. If you’ve complete a manuscript from December 1, 2025 to November 30, 2026, you can enter! What’s the prize, you ask? Five winners will be selected to get their 2027 membership free! You can find out the rules and how to enter below.
New Members
Please join me in extending a big, warm welcome to our newest members of CRW:
- Kate Glass
- Bay Sinclair
- Heather Triplett
- Samantha Le
Writing Sprints
Join in on our CRW-led writing sprints. We share reminders in the member Facebook Group. Not a member? Ask to join.
Every Tuesday: 9am ET | 8am CT | 7am MT | 6am PT
Sprints with Tanya on Zoom
Every Thursday: 7pm ET | 6pm CT | 5pm MT | 4pm PT
Sprints with Shannon on Zoom
Want to run sprints at a different day/time? Let us know!
Upcoming Workshops
Invest in your own growth as a writer this year! Here is the lineup of workshops we have for April 2026.
Member New Releases
Have a new release? Share it on our site and in an upcoming Member Newsletter here.
Author: Mariah Ankenman
Release Date: April 28, 2026
Author Website: https://mariahankenman.com/