CONFERENCE: RWAustralia (part 3)

For the last few years at our annual conference, the Romance Writers of Australia have held a joint book signing event with the Australian Romance Readers Association. This year was no different.

ARRA volunteers and the UWA Co-op Bookshop were outstanding in their roles as organisers/ushers and conference bookstore.

At the ARRA Book Signing

A huge 160 romance readers turned out for the Saturday evening event! Hats of to all the WA'ers who took the time to come and take part - you are awesome!

Angela Verdenius

Eden Summers - erotic romance author

YA author - Kaz Delaney

Michelle Diener - historical romance author

Juanita Kees - Escape author

Also attending the event were 65 Australian romance authors as well as 9 international romance authors - Julia Quinn, Nina Bruhns, Caitlin Crews, Maisey Yates, Susan Stephens, Nicole Flockton, Carole Mortimer and Jackie Ashenden, as well as well-known blogger Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.

YA author - Ebony McKenna

Shambles put in an appearance, too!

 A swag of Dark Side DownUnder authors made an appearance!

Eleni Konstantine

Jenny Schwartz

Shona Husk

S.E.Gilchrist

Denise Rossetti - one of my fav authors!

It was wonderful to meet so many readers and I everyone went home with a swag of great books and fun memories/photos!

Maggie Gilbert - YA rural romance author

The effervescent Paula Roe

 

Romantic suspense  RITA finalist - Bronwyn Parry

During the conference our guest editors and agents held a couple of awesome panels where they spoke about their company and role and listened to some cold reads then explained what appealed to them about the work or what could have been improved to grab their attention more.

Agents & editors pitching to authors

Survivor Island - cold reads at conference

To finish off, I'd like to showcase the awesome Awards night setting put on by the Esplanade staff and RWA conference committee - desserts & coffee - the tables were gorgeous (my photos don't do it justice).

An ethereal, underwater atmosphere!

The scrumptious desserts on offer at the Awards dinner!

Next year, the Romance Writers of Australia conference will be in Sydney (at the Novotel, Sydney Olympic Park in Homebush).

The theme - "Romance Rocks!"

And didn't the ballroom fill with gasps and cheers when two of our guest speakers were announced - thriller writer and writing craft author, James Scott Bell, along with award-winning, best-selling romantic adventure author, Cherry Adair.

You can check out more details about the conference here.

CONFERENCE: RWAustralia (Part 2)

As promised, here are some highlights from the Romance Writers of Australia/Harlequin Cocktail Party where the theme was "Nautical or Nice" - high seas, lows seas or along the coast everyone who attended made the effort to dress up in some way to fit the theme.

Pirates galore!

The only Viking brave enough to show!

Ahoy, matey!

Fair maidens, Devil from the Deep (book title) & more pirates!

The lone palm tree of the night

A touch of pirate

A mermaid (aka Anne Gracie)

My favourite of the night (outside the life-sized cutout of Captain Jack Sparrow?) - Anne Gracie's shoes!!!

My roomie - Imelda with Jack!*

Anne Gracie's awesome shoes!

Next post - the RWA/ARRA Book Signing and a couple of conference highlights!



* Photo sourced from Wine, Women & Wordplay (Imelda's blog)

CONFERENCE: RWAustralia (Part 1)

I had never been to Western Australia, so this year when the Romance Writers of Australia conference was going to be in Fremantle, WA, I jumped at the chance to see more of my home country. And wow, it was worth the turbulence-filled trip over to the west coast!

The conference was held in the beautiful Esplanade Hotel, right down on the waterfront of Fremantle and within walking distance of so many restaurants and cafes. It made for a great excuse for going out for coffee and meals!

The Esplanade

A friend and I discovered Joe's Fish Shack the first night we were there - I highly recommend going there for a night or three, if you're ever in Fremantle. The service, the ambiance, and the food are well worth it.

Joe's Fish Shack

Inside Joe's - old memorabilia of all things coastal & local

I had a few cocktails, and could not go past the seafood chowder (yes, I ordered it three nights running!).

An Aussie Gold - my fav cocktail at Joe's

To-die-for Seafood Chowder!

I also shared a Seafood Platter for One with my friend as well as tried the grilled sea perch.

Upmarket fish 'n' chips! Yummo!!!

My friend and I also took a turn or ten on the Skyview Ferris Wheel the first night when we wandered the waterfront. It gave a great view of the foreshore and the lights of Fremantle.

A great way to check out Fremantle up high

Next post I'll share some of the highlights of the RWA/Harlequin cocktail party!

CONFERENCE: RWAmerica (Part 2)

Some of the wonderful moments for me of the RWAmerica conference was the chance to take part in the Literacy Autographing and Berkley signing events. I got to meet some readers I've known via Facebook, Twitter and my newsletter. It was awesome meeting you!

Fellow Aussie author, Erica Hayes

Local Aussie author & RITA finalist!

From memory, the Literacy Autographing raised a massive $57000 for a local Atlanta charity - an amazing effort!

Kiwi author, Louisa George

I also had my own fan-girl moments with some of my favourite authors.

I met up with Joss Ware again at the Literacy Signing

C.L.Wilson, Nancy Northcott & I

Meeting Kristin Callihan!

My luggage was filled with an extra 4kgs of books collected from the free publisher signings - I didn't think I'd picked up so many!

My writing buddy, Bec McMaster at the Sourcebook signing

As Chris took part in her Golden Heart experience, the tension grew the closer we came to the Awards Night dinner. I don't know who was more nervous - her or me! LOL It was an awesome moment to see her name and picture up on the large Jumbotron screen in the ballroom!

Erica Hayes, Chris Taylor, Bec McMaster & Bronwyn Parry on the Awards night

Celebrating achievements, birthdays and fun times with the Aussie contingent at RWA, Atlanta, GA.

The week in Atlanta went too quickly and I look forward to my next trip to the USA, whenever it may be.

CONFERENCE: RWAmerica (Part 1)

This year I undertook a 26+ hour flight across the Pacific Ocean to attend my second Romance Writers of America conference ever.
It was a momentous occasion for many reasons, least of all attending workshops and listening to industry professionals talk about all things writing.

My writing buddy, Chris Taylor, was a Golden Heart finalist in the Romantic Suspense category and I loved sharing her excitement and being there as support as she walked that journey.

Chris celebrating her birthday in Atlanta

Joanne & I at RWA

I also wanted to be there as a cheer squad for another Aussie Golden Heart finalist, Joanne Lockyer and RITA finalist, Bronwyn Parry.


For the first time, I met my agent, Elaine Spencer (from The Knight Agency), and my editor, Leis Pederson (from Berkley) - finally! After two years of emailing them back and forth meeting them was scary and exhilarating but wonderful.

I caught up with some of my Golden Heart Unsinkable sisters and some other friends I made in 2010 when I came to the Orlando, FL conference.

And, it was also a chance to have a few fan-girl moments of my own as I met some of my favourite authors during the conference.

But first, let me show you where we stayed - the lovely Marriott Marquis in Atlanta, Georgia.

This is the view taken from my floor looking back down to Level 1.

The central column of elevators.

The view from my room of Atlanta.

I met a couple of readers at the RWA Literacy Autographing - May and Wendy!

Wendy is also a writer!

May and I

And, of course, I couldn't not share a few shots of the food and drinks consumed during my week there...

Scrumptious dessert

Mouth-watering main meal

My fav.cocktail of the trip - a Mohito

Another cocktail

And I'm going to skip to the end of my stay in the USA - to Los Angeles, CA (where I was stranded for a day after delayed flights, yeah, I know, it's tough, but Chris and I had to fill in time somehow!) - and show you some of the sights our tour covered in the City of Angels.

Make it so!

I found him!!!

A $4.2m Maserati in Beverly Hills

The Viper Room

Venice Beach

After the 30 degree Celsius humid heat of Atlanta, the 30 dry heat of Los Angeles was lovely!

Beverly Hills town hall

Join me for another installment of CONFERENCE: RWAmerica (Part 2) tomorrow.