The winners of the 2021 Vivian Awards, which succeed the Romance Writers of America’s retired RITA Awards, were announced July 31.

The winners of genre interest follow.

Speculative Romance – Long

Works in which fantasy worlds or paranormal or science fiction elements are an integral part of the plot that are 80,000 or more words in length.

• A Stitch in Time by Kelley Armstrong

Speculative Romance – Mid

Works in which fantasy worlds or paranormal or science fiction elements are an integral part of the plot that are between 50,000 and 80,000 words in length.

• Betwixt by Darynda Jones

In 2020, as the new board of Romance Writers of America was recovering from the backlash of mass resignations of officers and loss of members following their predecessors’ attempt to censure Courtney Milan, one measure taken to signal their changing vision for the problem-ridden organization was to remake RWA’s annual awards and name them after founder Vivian Stephens, an African-American woman.