Plenary session two: New York, New Directions – Panel discussion

Alison Ahern (moderator) Helen Breitwiesser – literary agent, owner of Cornerstone Literary Agency Monique Patterson – exec editor at St Martin’s Press Alexander Sokoloff – thriller writer and script writer Eloisa James – regency writer and university professor Birgit Davis-Todd – Senior Executive Editor, Harlequin Alison opened by asking the panel what they thought will […]

Breakout Session 2: Engaging Your Reader – Anne Gracie

Presented by the wonderful Anne Gracie. There must be a psychological motivation for a character to change, in order to get their happy ending An engaged reader is intrigued by characters in a story  they work to discover a character’s secrets they will wonder about motivation for various acts will read forward, putting clues together […]

Breakout session one: Putting the thumbscrews on your thriller – JJ Cooper

JJ Cooper has written two action thrillers – 17 years in Australian army – 2 tours in East Timor, 1 tour in middle east – was an army interrogator General tips: – write and edit until you are sick of reading your own writing – people read for escapism, but we also write for escapism […]

Panel discussion: Beyond the Big Six

Panelists: Caroline Comito (writing as CJ Archer – self published and Montlake digital imprint) Shannon Curtis (Carina Press) Denise Rosetti (Berkley publications and Elora’s Cave) Elisabeth Rose (Avalon Books, Whiskey Creek Press (digital) Amazon’s Montlake digital imprint) Annie Seaton (Lyrical Press, Entangled, and self published) Kandy Shepherd (Berkley Sensation and self published) Paths to publication: […]

Keynote address 1: Channeling Jane: Eloisa James

Eloisa James:  Channeling Jane PhD,  Professor in Shakespeare at Fordham University in New York Writes Regency romance, married to an Italian Knight (really!) 1. having motivation for writing is not enough, you need to work at it 2. what you write about has to come from your own life experiences, no matter what genre you […]

Conference Day One

I’ll put the rest of the Screenwriting Tips for Authors up another time.  I was at the Harlequin cocktail party and then out at dinner with friends, and it is now late.  Had a great day. Here is my timetable for tomorrow 8.30am – Welcome, First Sales and Little Gems Anthology Launch 8.50am – Keynote […]

Screenwriting tips for Authors workshop – part 1

Three act structure used in movies and books comes from plays has been used for more than 2,000 years also used in novels adapted for movies As authors, or playwrights or screenwriters, we need to follow this structure because readers – our audience – expects it.  We deviate from it at our peril. Part of […]

Writing workshop – homework

The presenter of the Screenwriting Tricks for Authors Workshop, Alexandra Sokoloff, sent attendees an email last week asking us to prepare some homework prior to the workshop. The questions were as follows: 1.  What genre are you writing in?  Giving this is a romance convention, what subgenre are you writing in? 2.  Make a list […]

Penguin special event

Oh yeah the Penguin special event. This was a bit of a mystery, we weren’t sure what kind of event this was. Well, in a very interesting development, Penguin announced it’s new digital imprint, Destiny Romance.  It is going to have a strong Australian author focus apparently – there are 5 Australian authors in the […]