What's Changing for RomanceLahoma & RDR 2026?!

Heads Up, OKRWG! We have some big changes coming for the RomanceLahoma Writer Conference and Red Dirt Romance Book Event in 2026.

The biggest of which is our venue location! The previous venue saved the wrong dates for us for 2026 and signed a contract with someone else for our weekend, so we had to change locations since we were already contracted for those dates with our speakers. We know it sucks. Please join us in rolling with the punches.

New Location:

Sheraton Oklahoma City Downtown Hotel

1 N Broadway Ave

Oklahoma City, OK 73102

Second change: The Schedule

We are changing the format of the weekend so that the RomanceLahoma Writer Conference is on Friday and the Red Dirt Romance Book Event is all day Saturday. The price of the conference reflects this change and has been lowered. PLEASE NOTE: your conference still includes the banquets both nights.

Third Change: The Banquets

We are switching the Heart Awards Gala to Friday night to coincide with the writer conference on Friday since that is a writer contest award ceremony. The Keynote Address will now be on Saturday after the Book event and will be open to readers as well as writers.

Our 2026 Keynote Address theme: Passionate PJ Party

We will have a PAJAMA CONTEST with prizes presented for

Funniest, Sexiest(Safe for Public), & Best Bookish Themed

Final Change: RDR Signing Tables

RomanceLaoma Registration is no longer required to sign at the RDR Book Event. And to sign at RDR, you have to apply via the interest form and then once selected, we'll invoice your the cost of the table. Signing table prices have increased to closer to industry standard, though we are still lower than most book events the size of ours.

Why? Because being a nonprofit for romance writers in a world that looks down on books written about love and relationship is hard.

After being denied grants 3 times this year, we no longer want to rely on that for our funding. Nor do we want to have to keep asking our members for money all the time. So we're making the RDR Book Event a major fundraiser where we bring in big name authors and sell different level tickets to readers.

We will continue to keep the RomanceLahoma conference as low cost as possible for our members, but we will not be including a signing table at RDR in that member perk. We apologize if that makes any of you unhappy, but none of what we do is possible without funding and this is the best way we've come up to raise those funds.

We thank you all for your continued support of our mission and the adjustments we make to make achieving that mission a reality.

Happy Writing, Guild!

Sabrina Fish, President

Oklahoma Romance Writers Guild