The 2025 New England Readers’ Choice Awards contest for published authors recognizes excellence in published romance fiction. Sponsored by New England Romance Writers, the NERCA contest is one of the few judged exclusively by fans: librarians, booksellers, and devoted romance readers.

This year, the grand prize winner of the New England Readers’ Choice contest will receive two hours of Story & Character Development Coaching by Jeannie Moon of Five Harbor Literary! The first, second, and third place winners in each category will receive a web badge, as well as a printed award certificate. Winners will be announced on the NERW website and on NERW’s social media accounts.

Entries may be submitted only by the author or publisher, and must represent the author’s own original work published in novel or novella length.

CONTEST CATEGORIES

• Contemporary Romance: Long (above 80K words)
• Contemporary Romance: Short (40K-80K words)
• Erotic Romance
• Historical Romance
• Paranormal/Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Time Travel Romance
• Romance Novella (20-40K words)
• Romance with Religious or Spiritual Elements
• Romantic Suspense

We are keen to encourage quality, so suggest writers to check their stories before submitting using Prowritingaid. They have free and paid versions and are the best writing software we know to help improve grammar, readability and check for repetition, ‘sticky’ sentences and suggest alternatives.