Tonight, 8-10 PM eastern, several RomVets (Lindsay McKenna, Cindy Dees, Diana Cosby, Teresa D'Amario, Elle James, and I) will be chatting at NightOwl Romance.

What is RomVets?

From the chat site:

ROMVETS was created in July, 2002, by retired USAF Colonel Merline Lovelace and her cohorts. Merline was one of the first women base commanders in the USAF!. There was an RWA conference in Denver. Some of our women vets who attended (and this is not a complete list), were Jo Ann Ferguson, Cindy Dees, Candace Irving, Susan Grant, Pam McCutcheon and Carol Umberger, among others. Jo Ann Ferguson remembers, ”We all were delighted to find each other, because some of us knew some of the people there, but no one had known everyone…or known they were ex-military. We met in a small bar and decided this one get-together had to be part of something bigger and lasting.” Merline formed the loop based upon all the women’s desire to have a place for writer vets.

Shortly after that, Lindsay McKenna joined the burgeoning group. The list decided upon a name for their web site two years later, in August, 2004. With the help of Pam McCutcheon, our favorite geek, she created the ROMVETS web site in October, 2004 and we were now online. From that small nucleus of a half dozen or so women vets, ROMVETS has grown to over eighty women! We call ourselves a "company" (because a company is comprised of 120 people) and we’re sure we’ll hit that number soon. This web site and list are exclusively for women veterans who have proudly served their country and who are also writers.

ROMVETS come from the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Army and yes, even the FBI. And, we have women on our list who have served in other countries, such as Carol Spenser, who was in the Canadian Air Force. Or Barbara Phinney, who was in the Canadian Forces/Army, and Judy Gill, another Canadian, who served as a nurse. Some of our writers were enlisted and some were officers. Some are active duty right now and serving over in Iraq. Some had twenty year careers and some had two or three years in the military. It really doesn’t make a difference because being in the military is a shared, common experience that stays a lifetime with an individual.

We boast military Academy graduates from the Air Force, Army and US Navy. These women were on the cutting edge of breaking down the male bastion that was entrenched in these academies and consequently, are part of a very rare few individuals who toughed it out to show them women were just as good—or better—than any man in the military. What a man could do, they showed a woman could do. And of course, every ROMVET was saddled with that challenge whether she was enlisted or an officer, also. This toughening up has been a blessing in disguise because as a writer, one must buck the odds, take a lot of rejections and still keep on going—our eyes on the prize—getting published.

Cool, huh?

So come to the chat tonight — there will be prizes, plus lots of fun with some really terrific authors!