RWA: Social Formation and Big Names Speak

Claire Ryan reports that

Dr. Natalie Tindall, RWA Academic Grant Committee Chairperson, and one other committee member resign. (Information received by email from Dr. Tindall)

Staying with the academic perspective, Dr Jodi McAlister has commented that

From an academic perspective: one thing I already knew but that this debacle has made even more clear to me is that to studying the literary sphere is just as (and often more) important than studying texts themselves.
The "genre worlds" approach (Fletcher, Driscoll & Wilkins 2018), which holds that a genre world is comprised not just of a body of texts but also by a sector of the publishing industry & a social formation/s, is going to be *very* useful in parsing this in future scholarship, imo

Of particular relevance to this situation is Fletcher, Driscoll and Wilkins's comment that

A genre world is a social entity defined by interaction between its participants. This kind of interaction includes (but is not limited to) discussions and feedback with writing buddies and writing groups, mentors, and editors both pre- and postpublication, discussions and panels between authors and readers, and reader feedback given to the author directly (via social media or “fan mail”) and indirectly (via reviewing sites such as Goodreads). Genre worlds also “distinguish between significant and peripheral participants” (Becker 35), and an author is less likely to be influenced by a single reader than to be influenced by an editor or peer. (1008)

Here's a letter to the RWA signed not "by a single reader" but by over 1300. A similar letter, from reviewers and librarians has also been sent. But since writers' peers are clearly extremely important, it might be relevant to see what some of the "big names" of romance have to say about the RWA crisis.

Beverley Jenkins has been speaking out about this from the start. Here's one of her earlier tweets, with the #IstandwithCourtney hashtag:

Suzanne Brockmann expressed her support for radical change from the 24th onwards:

and on 2 January posted a letter to the Board which, among other things, contains a statement that she is "ashamed to be associated with an organization that is currently working hard to show the
entire world that it's willing to go to extremes to protect the white supremacy at its foundation."

On 29 December Nora Roberts issued a statement (archived here, which I'm mentioning because her website was loading rather slowly) about the developments at RWA:

Writer, the middle word in Romance Writers of America, is a word without gender, a word without color or race, a word without sexual orientation, without creed. We’re writers, and as such must expect to be treated, must demand to be treated, fairly and equitably by our professional organization.

That's just part of her post, in which she outlines why she left the RWA some years ago and concludes

Let me add, as a personal note, that over the course of my life, the course of my career, the couple hundred books I’ve written, I may have–most likely have–said or done or written something that was offensive, racist, homophobic. Without intent–but intent doesn’t mean a damn to those hurt. So I’ll apologize without qualification.
I hope I’ve learned along the way. I intend to continue to learn and do better.

One assumes that the RWA holds/held these authors in high esteem, since they're Past Recipients of the RWA Lifetime Achievement Award: Suzanne Brockmann (2018); Beverly Jenkins (2017); Nora Roberts (1997).

Roberts is also a member of the RWA Hall of Fame, as is Julia Quinn. Julia Quinn has commented that "members of RWA leadership acted inappropriately and in violation of many organization rules" and has therefore signed the petition to recall the President of RWA.

Lisa Kleypas, a two-time RITA-winner is also among the Romance Trailblazers for her "Popularization of the non-aristocratic hero in historical romance" and "Early historical fat representation." In 2018 one of her novels was criticised for orientalism. Kleypas responded by writing that:

In my life, I’ve had a lot to learn AND unlearn. All I can say is, I’m sorry. Thank you for helping me to understand the lack of awareness I had about this issue. Obviously I would never want to hurt anyone by perpetuating an offensive stereotype, especially about women from a culture I respect so tremendously, and I feel terrible about it.
I will make changes to the book immediately, so all future editions will be culturally sensitive and mindful of how every single character is portrayed. Thank you again for making me aware of this and teaching me something I needed to understand, both as an author and as a person.

Kleypas has also signed the recall petition.

J. R. Ward, who has been "nominated for multiple RITAs, and won three times" has written (on 31 December) that the current events and the revelations that have come out as a result of them have opened her eyes to much that she was not aware of:

My relationship with RWA was awesome and uncomplicated because I’m white and I’m heterosexual and I’m physically able. I didn’t know any of that other sh*t was going on because I’m white and I’m heterosexual and I’m physically able. I didn’t look any further than my own experience because I’m white and I’m heterosexual and I’m physically able- and all of that means I don’t have to.
And that’s white privilege in action right here.

Like Roberts, she acknowledges potential issues within her own works:

I am sure over the course of the books I’ve written that there are things that have been microaggression
s or been ignorant or offensive. I’m sure I’ve done things that are all of that in personal or correspondence. I want to put a stake in it right here that I am apologizing for any of those mistakes. I’m trying to learn and be better and do better. I am not going to get it right, now or in the future, but I am committed to keep trying and keep learning, and I am so grateful for the POC in my life who are helping me along the way.

I'll add more statements if I come across them. Here's an article from 30 December in the New York Times. As of this date, the RWA "Board and Staff" appeared unmoved

 
The full archived text of that statement can be found here. But here's part of it:

"We do not take positions for or against specific literary criticism [...] We do, however, have explicit policy for our members' professional conduct. [...] In accordance with RWA policy, the Ethics panel met and delivered its report to the Board, dismissing all charges against Ms. Milan except one: a violation of the association's express purpose of creating a "safe and respectful environment" for its community of writers. [...] RWA is not alone in trying to balance free speech with civil discourse and the damage - personal and financial - its absence can do. It is, however, up to us to find a pathway forward to meet the competing needs of free expression without subjecting our members to harassment, intimidation, and financial loss. [...] In an abundance of caution over confusion regarding RWA's policies and procedures, the complaint against Courtney Milan has been closed and no action is being taken at this time. [...] Our members have strong opinions, which we applaud. But when expressed inappropriately, and in some cases far worse, by our organizational leadership - past and present - these can result in personal and financial harm to members.

This would appear to:

a) continue to characterise certain forms of literary criticism as "unacceptable behavior" which can be construed as "harassment" and "intimidation"
b) does not appear to apply the same criteria to racist primary texts as it does to literary criticism
c) does not address the "personal and financial harm to members" caused by actions of RWA members and staff, as detailed online over the past few days.

[And editing again to add that an article about the situation was published in The Guardian on 31 December.

Another article appeared on 2 January on NBC News's website, written by Mikki Kendall, who summarised the situation thus:

The complaint against Milan was fundamentally that her criticisms — accurate though they were — had cost other writers opportunities by drawing attention to their flaws. So the real issue isn't whether her criticism about racist elements in other writers' work was accurate, but whether some writers might lose money because of those criticisms.
This is about writing, but it is also about our culture and whether we want the people who have traditionally influenced it to continue to do so without engaging with the consequences their work might visit on other communities.

An author statement by Caroline Linden, also from 2 January, outlines suggested norms for authors with regards to reviews:

I don't think saying a book has racist content is bullying. I don't think the vast majority of reviewing is bullying, if the reviewer honestly believes what she writes. Authors may hate what the reviewer says, may think the reviewer is mean or too picky or flat-out wrong, but that is part of being an author. You put those words and that story out there, and the world gets to comment on it. It ain't all five-star raves.

Olivia Waite used her column in the Seattle Review of Books to discuss the crisis. And archivist Steve Ammidown, at the Bowling Green State University's Popular Culture Library, is trying to archive all the relevant online posts.

On 4 January an interview with Kathryn Lynn Davis was published in The Guardian (their second article on the RWA crisis). In it Davis

said she was “encouraged” by the administration of Romance Writers of America (RWA), a trade association for romance writers, to file a formal complaint against Milan, an influential former board member and diversity advocate. She now feels she had been “used” to secure a political outcome that she had never intended.

She also clarified that, contrary to what was written in her complaint, "she did not have and lose a written book contract, but that a publisher had delayed further discussion of a potential contract in the wake of the controversy." Davis also states that she "decided to make some changes to the novel Milan had criticized [...] and that she has republished edited ebook versions."

As noted in the article, literary agencies have also been withdrawing support from the RWA. Claire Ryan, who is still keeping track of events, noted that on 3 January

• Jessica Faust of Bookends Literary Agency makes a statement that the agency will not be participating in RWA events until changes are made.
• The Nancy Yost Literary Agency withdraws from RWA membership and requests a refund of dues.
• Gallt and Zacker Literary Agency publish an open letter to the RWA stating that they will not attend any RWA events until the current leadership is replaced and there is a full audit into the complaints against Courtney Milan. The open letter is signed, at time of posting, by thirty six agents from notable agencies.

All this provides support for the genre worlds model with respect to norms and behaviours. Davis still seems to be implying that Milan was in the wrong for how she expressed her criticism: Davis says she has now made changes to her novel not because of Milan's comments but because "people have contacted me and have told me calmly what it was that offended them" (emphasis added). However, it is evident she has has felt the pressure of the behaviours being modelled by significant authors and the weight of the opinions of other significant players in romance publishing.]
---

Fletcher, Lisa, Beth Driscoll, and Kim Wilkins. ‘Genre Worlds and Popular Fiction: The Case of Twenty-First-Century Australian Romance’, Journal of Popular Culture 51.4 (2018): 997-1015.

RWA and Broader Concerns

Australian romance scholar Dr Jodi McAlister has

been wondering about how the RWA implosion is going to function as a paratext to the romance genre in the years to come - that is, how is this going to affect the romance novels that are written and read, going forward?
RWA is a national organisation, but there's no getting away from the fact that North America (and especially the US) is the dominant centre and marketplace for romance publishing.
The impacts of this are not only going to be felt among the RWA membership, but will almost certainly ripple through to most of the rest of the Anglophone romance writing world. But what will those impacts be?

It's because of the importance of the RWA to the genre as a whole that I feel it's important to keep recording some of the details of the current crisis here at Teach Me Tonight, even if all of those details don't seem directly about the academic study of romance.

I didn't want to keep updating my previous two posts about the RWA (1) and (2) so I'll add some updates here.

There was coverage on 27 December from The Seattle Times and since it's an AP article it appears in the same form in The Washington Post. The article is focussed on the situation as it relates to Courtney Milan. This does not mention the fact that the RWA appears to have created an Ethics Committee for this process which by-passed the existing Ethics Committee. Rachel Grant (who was on the Ethics Committee) states that a new committee was created "without informing the existing committee that was never informed of the complaint"

In addition to the implications of the specific complaints against Courtney Milan, the details of the ruling against her, concerns about the processes according to which it was handled, etc

there are broader concerns about how complaints have been handled and used in the past:

1) There is at least one account of a "similar use of complaint as retribution against marginalized authors speaking out against racism in a RWA chapter" (retweet by Alyssa Cole of complaint against Diana Hicks)

Sally Kilpatrick suggests that the complaint was never formalized but that nonetheless "the RWA wanted the then president to ask Diana to resign"

2) By contrast, it appears that formal complaints made by marginalized authors/about discriminatory language used to refer to people from marginalized groups did not reach the Ethics Committee and neither was further action taken.

Katee Roberts reports that she asked the RWA Office about this in relation to complaints by Olivia Waite and received the message that "Olivia Waite's Ethics complaints in fact were reviewed by the office. The subjects of those complaints subsequently resigned their membership and at that point, there were no longer matters to bring to the Ethics Committee."

However, according to Olivia Waite "the person I reported for saying queer women were as repulsive as alcohol addiction (on the RWA forums!) has not withdrawn, as staff claims. Not only is she an active member, she is currently the treasurer of her local chapter."

[Edited to add: Olivia Waite points out a loophole in the procedures which may have allowed the Executive Director to process complaints informally rather than sending them to the Ethics Committee through the formal procedure. However, the use of the informal procedure is supposed to involve the consent of the complainant, and Olivia Waite did not consent to it. Robin Covington corroborates that the staff have "strenuously urged" the "use [of] this informal process but I refused. When I did I was encouraged to drop them [both complaints]. Neither went anywhere."]

Concerns have also been raised about:

1) The interpretation/application of the membership requirement of “proof of serious pursuit” of a career in romance writing, as detailed by Xan West here and another case which is linked to on this thread.

The rejected applications contained the requisite "central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending" (RWA definition of romance).

Karin Kallmaker was refused entry to PAN (the Published Authors Network) despite being a multipublished author:

I joined/rejoined RWA I think a total of 4 times in about 25 years. The first 3 times I had to go through hoops and each time I was not allowed access to the PAN forums. The 4th time I finally was. So I have to wonder.
The first time they rejected Naiad as an appropriate publisher for some technical contract based reason (lack of advance?). Naiad was the largest lesbian press in the world that produced 30+ books a year, more than half romance.
The second time I think the same thing happened and I had 10 books to provide them as proof I wrote romance.
The third time they ruled that I was a publisher because I said that my publisher occasionally asked my opinion on a manuscript, maybe 1-2 times a year (this was long before I joined Bella Books as a consultant).
The 4th time I finally got access to the PAN forums.
It didn't occur to me these were trumped up reasons because nobody wanted the words "lesbian" and "queer" showing up on the forums. That's the insidiousness of discrimination - sometimes you just don't know so you blame yourself wrongly. 

2) Inequality in other contexts, including one Chapter of the RWA paying "black speakers half the rate they usually pay"

Melissa Blue, one of those speakers, gives more details here.

Here are some reader responses, from Wendy the Super Librarian , Smart Bitches Trashy Books and from Lynn Spencer at All About Romance.

An open letter has been composed, from readers to RWA. It will remain open to signatories until 29th December. I have added my signature to the letter.

In an astonishing turn of events, communications have now been released from both the former and current presidents, respectively Carolyn Jewel and Damon Suede. These suggest that the Board made its original decision on the basis of information provided by current RWA president Damon Suede (at the time the Board members had not seen the original text of the complaints):

Here's Courtney Milan's thread. The text of Carolyn Jewel's letter is provided by Alyssa Day.

The above image is only part of the message from Damon Suede, which can be read in full here.

[Edited to add: another surprising fact emerges from a different communication sent by Carolyn Jewel to Carrie Lomax.

One of the things stated is that "The complaint that was made public was only the starting point and does not represent the totality of what the Ethics Committee considered." Jewel adds that "The Ethics Committee then reviews the complaint, the accused's response, and any evidence provided and conducts a thorough investigation of the matter." Claire Ryan has transcribed this communication in full here, along with a time-line of events.

This means that it is unclear both exactly what the Ethics Committee considered and what information was provided by Damon Suede to the Board.]

RWA turmoil continues

One indication of the seriousness of the situation underlying the decision made against Courtney Milan, was the resignation of one of the Board of Directors on 25 December

As shared by Alyssa Cole, Chanta Rand stood down as a Director-at-Large, having voted against accepting the Ethics Committee Report.

This was followed, on 26 December, by the resignation of a large group of the Board, who cited a lack of trust and confidence in the RWA leadership:

Today, I — along with former board members Denny S. Bryce, Pintip Dunn, Seressia Glass, Tracey Livesay, Priscilla Oliveras, Erica Ridley, and Farrah Rochon — resigned from our positions as Directors at Large, because we no longer trust or have confidence in Romance Writers of America’s leadership.
Our resignations give us no joy or relief. All of us have volunteered our time to this organization to help propel it forward and to do our best to represent membership – all membership.
We believe this should never have gone to members of the Ethics Committee. We extend our sincere apologies to Courtney Milan and the romance community.

That's from Facebook and came after the RWA announced that the Board of Directors had

rescinded its vote accepting the findings of the Ethics Committee report and the consequent penalties against Courtney Milan pending a legal opinion.
RWA reiterates its support for diversity, inclusivity and equity and its commitment to provide an open environment for all members.

A great many others have resigned as members and/or as RITA judges. In the process, many irregularities have come to light in the way that some members, and some complaints to the Ethics Committee, have been treated over the years. Here's just one example, from Professor Piper Huguley

Some hard questions must be asked about the role that RWA staff played in this. In the midst of this uproar, my mind goes back to the 2013 Rita/GH reception and how I was blocked from entering EVEN THOUGH I had on my pink ribbon. I was the only Black finalist on either side.

Xan West has written a post with links to many of the issues raised, and details of their own experiences. Ivy Quinn's post here, while from 2017 and specifically focused on Linda Howard, gives some more perspective on the background to the current crisis. Racheline Maltese offers a succinct summary:

One of the things that’s happening w RWA right now is that people are comparing notes and regardless of their views on any one incident are seeing a pattern emerge.
That pattern highlights an organization deeply invested in racism and homophobia while prioritizing the comfort of white, straight, “Christian” members ... all presumably in the name of making Romance “respectable.”
But the respectability battle doesn’t help us as authors and business people. RWA has now spent more than a decade throwing marginalized members under the bus in the name of helping a small handful of authors avoid genre shame by getting to say they weren’t like the rest of us.

Edited to add: The New York Post has published an article about the whole situation, as has The Mary Sue. 

CIMRWA (Cultural, Interracial, and Multicultural Chapter of Romance Writers of America),

a chapter dedicated to advocating diversity and inclusion within RWA and publishing as a whole wrote to the national committee today officially calling for the resignation of the president, president-elect, & executive director

Their detailed response email to the RWA can be found further down the thread. They have been joined in this request by 28 "local RWA current and incoming chapter Presidents", whose full letter can be found on this thread.

The RWA have issued a couple of statement documents.

The first is a "statement to members" (archived here as a Google doc and here from the RWA website) in which it is revealed that the Executive Board President, Carolyn Jewel, has resigned. Despite the demands of the local RWA chapter Presidents, Executive Director Carol Ritter and the President-Elect (now President) Damon Suede remain in place. The second document addresses Code of Ethics Process and Procedure (archived here as a Google doc and here from the RWA website) but does not address how a new Ethics Committee was formed specifically to deal with the complaints against Milan, without the knowledge of the existing Ethics Committee, or the many other issues which have now come to light. The previous President, HelenKay Dimon was clearly unimpressed:

Do better or I’ll start talking about my last day as president, 8/31. The arguments I had. The fight about the improper use of the ethics committee. My concerns about bias. How we veered from our common practices. This disaster could have been avoided.

Romance reader Ridley asked rhetorically whether all of "the board members who aren't white have resigned, and the white folks who remain will choose replacements?" To give Courtney Milan the last word about the RWA responses:

On second thought, I actually think that letter says a lot. I think the between the lines is “sorry marginalized authors if you can’t stay with us because you’ve lost trust, but we will be here for the rest of you.”

Racism, Literary Criticism and a "Safe and Respectful Environment"

In the same year as the Romance Writers of America finally awarded RITAs for the very first time in its history to African American authors, and when they were instituting new procedures in the RITA judging process to reduce bias, I'm very sad to have to report that the RWA Ethics Committee, and its Board in upholding the recommendations of the Committee, have taken a massive step backwards.

Alyssa Cole reported on Twitter that RWA had notified Courtney Milan "they'd agreed with ethics complaints filed against her for calling out racism." As reported at Smart Bitches Trashy Books (who link to the various documents in the case)

RWA has “moved to accept the findings of the Ethics Committee” and has recommended as penalty that Milan be suspended from RWA for a year, and be banned from holding any leadership positions on the national or chapter level.

One complaint was filed by Suzan Tisdale, who wrote that "Recently, someone on twitter accused one of my acquisition editors –Sue Grimshaw --of being a racist. This happened after they discovered Sue Grimshaw had liked a tweet on twitter." The circumstances surrounding this were discussed at length, at the time, here at TMT. Another key part of Tisdale's complaint was that

Ms. Milan began tweeting screenshots from a book that Kathryn Lynn Davis wrote in the 1990’s titled Somewhere Lies the Moon. [...] In these tweets, Courtney alleges the book is racist, inaccurate [...] Her allegations of racism are not based in any kind of fact or truth. Ms. Davis has a master’s degree in History and immersed herself into the Chinese culture for six years before she even began to write the aforementioned novel. Keep in mind, this book was written and published in the 1990’s.

The allegations clearly are based on a "kind of fact" since Milan was performing literary criticism of a text, and she provided screenshots of the parts of the text in question which she felt perpetuated racist tropes/stereotypes. Quotations from a primary text constitute a "fact" in literary criticism.

It is suggestive that Tisdale felt the need to ask the RWA to "keep in mind" the publication date of the novel. The implication here is that novels from this period should not be held to the same standard as novels with a more recent publication date. Could this be a tacit admission that novels published in the 1990s, including this one, were more likely to include racist elements? [Edited to add: perhaps Tisdale was echoing Kathryn Lynn Davis's complaint to the RWA, in which Davis defends her book by stating that "The book [....] was written in the 1990s and is historically accurate, which makes it both immune from and irrelevant to current judgments of racist literature." Davis is wrong regarding both immunity and irrelevance: here's just one example, by Hsu-Ming Teo, of analysis of a romance novel from the past which discusses its racism and outlines its ongoing relevance in the decades following its publication.]

Since Tisdale mentions Davis's degree, it's also worth pointing out that, as recent debates about racism in medievalism and academia more widely make all too clear, academic credentials are no guarantee of an absence of bias.

So, Courtney Milan has been highlighting racist behaviour and racism in the text of romance novels. As a result, the RWA's Ethics Committee

determined that Ms. Milan’s comments were in violation of the organization’s expressed purpose of creating a “safe and respectful environment” for its community of writers. Most particularly, the committee considered the legal phrase of “invidious discrimination,” defined as “By word or deed likely to arouse, inflame,or incur resentment or anger in others; tending to cause discontent, animosity, envy; words that created an unjust comparison or were unfairly discriminating,” as being applicable to this case.

Considering the imbalance in the RITA awards, which are supposed to reward excellence in the romance genre, one might well ask whether promotion of these awards has included a great many "words that created an unjust comparison or were unfairly discriminating."

Certainly, as many people (including May Peterson) have pointed out, racism in the RWA means it has not been a "safe and respectful environment" for many writers and "that racism, both covert and overt, institutional and individual, absolutely expose[s] RWA members of color to hostile and unsafe conditions and potential damage to career and reputation."

Since I am not, and have never been, a member of the RWA, I don't feel it's my place to offer suggestions to those who are. However, I do want to point out that the RWA awards academic grants and

The objectives of the program are:

1. To support theoretical and substantive academic research about genre romance texts and literacy practices.
2. To encourage a well-informed public discourse about genre romance texts and literacy practices.

In the context of this ruling by the RWA Board, in which criticism of racism in a text was part of the evidence against Milan, I'm not sure how academics can "encourage a well-informed public discourse" about romance fiction without running the risk of the RWA deciding that the research is lacking in respect towards its members. I have never applied for one of these grants and had not thought of doing so in the future, but this latest episode in the RWA's history makes me wonder if romance scholars as a whole need to consider whether receipt of one of these grants will henceforth involve tacit approval of the RWA's stance with respect to Milan and criticism of romance authors and novels.

[Edited to add: I'm not sure how many romance scholars are still using the RITA awards when trying to create a corpus for study, but given the biases which have been revealed in the competition's procedures, we probably shouldn't be doing so, at least not unless we take them into account/are wanting to investigate those biases.] 

[Edited again to add that Caitlyn Lynch has brought up an interesting point: in the future, in the light of this decision by the RWA Board,

Are RWA going to take into account the applicant's history of critique of issues like racism, homophobia, ableism etc when considering who to award grants to? Will applicants be eliminated if they have previously been critical of RWA members, and IF NOT, would members ... have a case against the org itself, for 'contributing to the unsafe environment' by KNOWINGLY giving a grant to applicants with a known history of critiquing RWA members? Catch-22.]


[And I'm going to add a few more links, for posterity:

Copied from SBTB and Alyssa Cole's thread:

• The formal complaint from Suzan Tisdale
• Part II of complaint
• Courtney Milan's response to Suzan Tisdale's complaint
• Formal complaint from Kathryn Lynn Davis
• Courtney Milan's response to Kathryn Lynn Davis's complaint
• RWA’s Ethics Committee Report
• Result of RWA Board’s vote on the report (this one's saved at the Internet Archive here)

and


The Wrap's Writeup:
https://www.thewrap.com/romance-writers-courtney-milan-suspension-racist-mess/

Which is reported by Kirkus.

And another edit, to add the latest comment from RWA:

Early on the 25th of December (UK-time) the RWA tweeted that

At a meeting today that identified a gap between policy and process, RWA’s Board of Directors rescinded its vote accepting the findings of the Ethics Committee report and the consequent penalties against Courtney Milan pending a legal opinion.
RWA reiterates its support for diversity, inclusivity and equity and its commitment to provide an open environment for all members.

Various people have pointed out on Twitter that this is not an apology. It is not clear what type of legal advice RWA are seeking, or why they are seeking it. 

I have posted a further update in a new post.

Johanna Lindsey Has Died

Romance novelist Johanna Lindsey died Oct. 27 in Nashua, New Hampshire, according to family members. She was 67. [...]

In 1977, Avon Books published Lindsey’s debut novel. (Dayton Daily News)

That first novel was Captive Bride and her most recent novel was Temptation's Darling (2019), published in July.

Together with her well-known contemporaries Kathleen Woodiwiss, Rosemary Rogers and Bertrice Small, Lindsey’s work was an integral part of the ‘Romance Revolution’ which injected sizzling sex scenes into the pages of the romance novel. It was a revolution that contributed to the Americanization of the twentieth-century romance novel. (Hsu-Ming Teo)

A New York Times obituary which I can't access can be found here. However, many readers expressed dissatisfaction with it:

Ella Drake, for example, said it "didn't even try to say what Johanna Lindsey meant to the romance genre and her readers."

Nancy Bozeman pointed out inaccuracies in the obituary, including a typo in the name of Lindsey's first published novel.

Sulheika Snyder observed that Lindsey's "impact on the genre, on writers who came after, was enormous." More responses can be found on this Twitter thread. The Browne Popular Culture Library has tweeted pictures of some of its archival material relating to Lindsey.

Here's an obituary by Kelly Faircloth at Jezebel and another by Maureen Lee Lenker at Entertainment Weekly.