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.