Breakout session 3: Bringing the Regency to Life

Jennifer Kloester – Waves of Muslin: Bringing the Regency to Life Georgette Heyer: 1902 – 1974 40 years since she died, yet sold over 1 million books last year in the UK alone Heyer was incredibly private.  Never gave an interview, never did a book signing, only signed a few books for friends. The Heyer […]

Breakout session 2: Evoking the scene: effective dialogue for writers

Julia Quinn – Evoking the scene:  effective dialogue for writers Dialogue affects every asplect of your manuscript from voice to characterisation, pacing to point of view Dialogue has two parts:  how you speak and what you say – We are not writing screenplays, we are writing novels – Placement of tag lines can depict who […]

Breakout session 1: The Selkie Song

Juliet Marillier – The Selkie Song Elemental lore and creatures In folklore and mythology, each element – earth, air, fire, water- has its share of uncanny beings. Elements in a subsistence culture People were dependent on the elements for survival – flood, fire, landslide or storm could wipe out a settlement, sink a fishing fleet, destroy […]

RWA conference Day 1 – Paths to Third Party Publication Panel Discussion

Alex Adsett (moderator), Abby Zidle (Simon & Schuster NY), Nina Bruhns (Entangled Publishing), Sheila Hudgson (Harlequin Mulls & Boon London), Bernadette Foley (Hachette Publishing), Kate Cuthbert (Escape Publishing), Alisa Krasnostein (Twelth Planet Press) Kate:  Escape – Harlequin’s digital first imprint.  Looking for riskier titles, niche titles, cross genre, also traditional romance.  Submit via website, agented […]

RWA Conference Day 1: Harlequin Sponsors address

Margaret Marbury (Vice President, Harlequin Single Title – HQN, Mira, Luna) and Sheila Hodgson (HMB London) – signed more than 40 new series authors this year – global writing contest ‘so you think you can write’ – Think Support – start to finish support – end to end career support – last year launched Harlequin […]

RWA Conference day 1: Keynote address: Julia Quinn

Julia Quinn gave the opening keynote address. Dream:  to be an organised person – some people can live in glorious chaos and yet put their hands on everything instantly.  She is not one of those people. – when she loses something, is forced to clean in order to find it – having a ‘To Do’ […]

Romance, Romantic Love, and the ‘want of a fortune’

Helen Fordham (Notre Dame University) and Barbara Milech (Curtain University) – Romance, Romantic Love, and the ‘want of a fortune’ – Contemporary popular romance has a generic history – it is anchored in the rise of the novel – like the 18th century novel, popular romance purveys bourgeois assumptions and values in regard to women, […]

Sex and Sensibility: The pursuit and recognition of reality through analysis of romance fiction in popular culture

Bridget Ransome (University of South Australia) – Sex and Sensibility:  The pursuit and recognition of reality through analysis of romance fiction in popular culture – The notion of ‘culture’ is often applied to such things as classical works of literature, music and the arts, with the term ‘cultured’ considered applicable to an elite level within […]

Destabilising Divides and Re-imagining Subjectives: The Romance of Eloisa James

Helen Fordham (Notre Dame University) – Destabilising Divides and Re-imagining Subjectives:  The Romance of Eloisa James First of all, there was a session between Jennifer Kloester’s Heyer panel and this one. Dr Rachel Robertson of Curtin University did a presentation called Counting on love?: mental illness and romantic engagement in Toni Jordan’s Addition.  It was […]

Writing History, reflecting history: Georgette Heyer’s Recency Novels in Context

Dr Jennifer Kloester (University of Melbourne) –  Writing History, reflecting history:  Georgette Heyer’s Recency Novels in Context b 1902 d 1974 – has never been out of print since 1919 (The Black Moth) – changing perceptions of her work – her own, publisher, reader – 20th century woman with Edwardian perceptions – wrote novels in […]