Pages

Friday 11 August 2017

Romance Writers' of America Conference: Well Worth The Trip!

In late July I headed off to Orlando for my first ever RWA (Romance Writers' of America) annual conference.  My debut novel, Close To You, was a finalist in RWA's RITA awards which was a huge honour but I was a little nervous as this was my first ever general market conference and, as many of you know, the romance genre is very *ahem* varied in terms of its content with inspirational romance being just a tiny subgenre in the whole romance market.

It was also my first ever trip to Orlando and I can vouch that the heat and humidity of Florida mid-summer was a bit of a shock coming from mid-winter New Zealand (but a very nice one!)

I needn't have worried! The conference was one of the best I have ever been. Great location, incredible classes and workshops, friendly staff and attendees and (from the view of an outsider) it all went off without a hitch which is no mean feat with 2000 attendees!

I highly recommend this conference for any romance writers. I'm definitely hoping to make it back to Denver next year :)


Slight hitch... after 29 hours of travel I made it to Orlando but my bag was still in Houston! Thankfully years of business travel had taught me to always pack my carryon with a pair of pyjamas, essential toiletries and a change of clothes.



If one must be jet lagged then recovery doesn't get much better than this!


PAN stands for "Published Author Network". RWA tier some of their workshops at their conference for different levels of authors.


With Harlequin Heartwarming author, Laurie Tomlinson, at the RITA Awards.


Flowers from my husband to celebrate my RITA final


At the huge book signing (over 200 authors participated!) that RWA hold of the final day of the conference to raise funds for a literacy charity.


Has anyone else been to a writers' conference this year? How did it go? Or if you've got one on the horizon what are you looking forward to most?

Kara Isaac lives in Wellington, New Zealand. She is the author of Close to You, a RITA Award Double Finalist, and Can't Help Falling, an RT Review Top Pick. Her latest book Then There Was You released on June 22. When she's not chasing three adorable but spirited little people, she spends her time writing horribly bad first drafts and wishing you could get Double Stuf Oreos in New Zealand. She loves to connect on her website, on Facebook at Kara Isaac - Author and Twitter @KaraIsaac






2 comments:

  1. Kara, I'm so pleased you had a blast. There's real value attending writers conference that include both believers and non-believers. We can learn lots from both camps.

    And Orlando is a fab place to conference. Did you get to any of the Disney theme parks?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Ian. No, I didn't! I had one free day before the conference and I did think about it but ultimately decided that trying to recover from jet lag while standing in long lines in 35+ degrees and 100% humidity probably wasn't the smartest idea!

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.