For those who don’t know, The
Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA) hold an annual conference bringing
together a number of romance writers both published and yet to be published
together. Some authors are independently published while others are
traditionally published. It was lovely to see some men there who write in this
genre. Throw into the mix some people enrolled on the New Writers’ scheme due
to submit manuscripts for critique and worrying themselves into a frenzy (me).
Over all there’s a pretty mixed bag of writers. And, as if that wasn’t enough
there’s also some industry professionals! Attendees even had the
opportunity to book 1-1 sessions with agents and editors. I wasn’t brave enough
this year but definitely next year!
I attended the conference,
held at Harper Adams University in Newport, UK from 14th – 16th July
although there was an option to arrive on the Thursday too and leave on the
Monday. Other commitments though didn’t allow me to do that but I was more than
happy with the number of events I attended during the duration of my stay.
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| Harper Adams University |
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| View from my room |
Arriving at Harper Adams
University on Friday I was a little nervous. This was the first conference
I have attended as I’m a relatively new member of the RNA, only joining this
year as part of the New Writers Scheme. After checking in and finding my accommodation
on the university campus I was really thrilled to pretend to be a student
again and staying in halls. The accommodation was more than adequate with lots
of lovely friendly people in my block.
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| the lovely Laura James looking all sparkly! |
After a stroll around the beautiful
grounds and bumping into the lovely Laura James who I’d met previously at the
Festival of Romance a few years ago, I made my way to collect my name lanyard
and goody bag from The Weston Centre on campus where the talks and panels would
be taking place during the conference. I was warmly greeted by lots of lovely
people and I immediately felt right at home! One of the first people I did get
to chat to was the lovely Lynda Stacey as I helped her deposit some promo
materials into approximately 250 goody bags!
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| Lynda and I getting to know one another better! |
Lynda and I had never met before,
but have been online friends for a while now. We became firm friends during the
conference and she just took me under her wing for which I will be eternally
grateful. I know I can be a bit gobby online but I’m actually pretty shy!
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| can you tell I'm excited? |
On Friday I attended a really
interesting talk given by Felicity Trew on the role of an agent and how to
write the prefect submission letter. Felicity, an agent herself really gave me
food for thought and I hope to someday put her advice into practice. They do
say first impressions last and from what Felicity was conveying, that
submissions letter definitely needs to make a first good impression. After tea
and coffee came the official welcome talk with a lovely welcome from Nicola
Cornick, the RNA chair and Alison May Vice Chair. There then followed a very
interesting panel discussion on the State Of The Industry which was chaired by
Nicola and included Rosie de Courcy (Fiction Publisher at Head of Zeus), Isobel
Dixon (Agent), Broo Doherty (Agent), Sam Missingham (founder of Lounge Books)
and Emily Yau. (Commissioning Editor at Ebury). Although I’ve been involved in
the bookish world for a number of years now, coming at it from an author’s
perspective has really opened my eyes and I found this talk very interesting.
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| The wonderfully mad Annette Hannah! |
So, after an informative
afternoon it was time for drinks and dinner. Thanks to John Jackson for inviting
me to sit down in the beautiful evening air and partake of a lovely drink with
some equally lovely people. The evening was spent getting to know lots more
people, particularly the other newbies in a nice little get together hosted by
the wonderful Kate Thomson before heading back to the accommodation block for
lots of laughs and standing outside chatting like a load of teenagers and
cackling like witches! You know who you are Annette Hannah and Jenni Keer!
Then, an early night before exhaustion totally floored me!
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| Cheers! |
On Saturday after breakfast
Imogen Howson hosted a lovely get together for those of us on the New Writers’
Scheme. It was lovely to hear my dear friend John Jackson, a recent graduate
from the scheme and due to release his first book in October, chat about how
much the scheme helped him. John has just secured Crooked Cat as his
publisher and I’m very excited for him. He gave some great advice and Imogen’s
talk really helped put my mind at ease about submitting my manuscript (I have
until the 31st August to do this so eeeek!)
After tea and coffee Bella
Osborne and Alison May gave a brilliant talk on Plotter Vs Pantser and the
different approaches we all have to writing. It was such a fun session and
extremely enjoyable. I’m in team Bella and I’m 100% a Plotter. Sorry Alison!
This was then followed by a talk by Joanna Maitland and Sophie Weston from
Liberta on adding sparkle to your manuscript! I’m not altogether sure I got the
exercises they gave us right! Even though I wrote almost something identical to
Annette Hannah’s we didn’t copy off one another. Honest!
The RNA open discussion was really interesting as everyone was given the opportunity to take part in a
chat about the future of the RNA and what changes might be coming in the
future. It was great to find out a little bit more about the organisation and
who is involved. I’m already in love with the RNA and love everything about it!
Tea and coffee again (yes there is a
foody theme) and it was straight into a talk given by Fiction Editors Emily
Ruston and Jenny Hutton from Ruston and Hutton on the theme of Deconstructing The Revisions Letter. I know as part of my critique I’ll be receiving suggestions
for revisions in the next few months once I get my finger out and actually
submit my manuscript to the New Writer’s Scheme but this talk actually did take
some of the fear out of it all for me and helped me understand a little bit
better what some of the jargon means.
After a really exhausting but enjoyable
day it was time to go get beautified for some drinks and the gala dinner! We
all certainly scrubbed up well and had a wonderful meal followed by the announcement
of the Elizabeth Goudge award runner up (Ruth Long) and winner (Imogen Howson).
Lots of congrats and happy tears for these two lovely ladies. As with the
conference up to this point, everything ran like clockwork and the meal was not
only delicious and catering for us vegetarians but the waiting staff were
simply lovely. Then, it was time for the famous kitchen parties in the accommodation
blocks. Thanks to Milly Johnson, Chrissie Bradshaw and Lynda Stacey for
hosting and ensuring that I laughed until I cried. Oh and on the stroke of midnight everyone sang happy birthday to me!
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| Me, Chrissie Bradshaw, Lynda Stacey, Ros Rendle & Milly Johnson on our way to dinner! |
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| Dressing up time! |
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| John Jackson and Jenni Keer lurking in the background! |
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| Fun with Chrissie Bradshaw |
Sunday saw me up bright and early with
the wood pigeons (Not!), packed up my case and headed for breakfast. It was of
course my birthday that day but there was no chance of keeping a low profile as
lots of lovely birthday wishes were given. Then I hot footed it to a very
informative talk on dialogue given by the lovely Liz Harris. Another extremely
informative talk that left my head buzzing with ideas. Tea and coffee (again) and then I attended a
talk given by Fiona Harper about building characters from the inside out. Fiona
was able to offer lots of top tips and provided us with really useful tool to
help build and develop characters. I’ll definitely be using this!
And then, my big debut. I was
part of an industry panel alongside Julia Silk (Agent ) and Julia Williams (Editor)
and hosted by the ever lovely Alison May. I’m pretty sure those attending could
see my knees shaking with nerves. But, Alison quickly put me at ease and I
really rather enjoyed it. I did have one heart stopping moment when the floor
was open to questions and Jill Mansell put her hand up for a question directed
at me. THE wonderful Jill Mansell wanted to ask me a question! She did of course
want to know where I’d bought my sandals! Thanks so much to Jill for totally
helping me relax even further into the session. It was the best question of the
day! By the end of it all I could have carried on chatting the rest of the day!
I loved it! It was great to chat to authors about the best way to approach book
bloggers and how to work with them better. I am going to write a separate post about
this more in depth so keep an eye out for that. Hopefully people will find it
useful. I’ve received some positive feedback about the panel and that has
really boosted my confidence.
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| Me pretending to know what I'm talking about! |
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| Alison May, Julia Silk, Me, Julia Williams |
After lunch, I had one last
talk to attend with the wonderful Mandy Baggot who decided to sing us through
some technical difficulties while we waited for her presentation. That girl can
sing! It was very interesting to hear about Mandy’s journey from self-publishing
to traditional publishing. Lots of food for thought!
And so, with heavy heart my
conference time had come to an end. I was totally gutted to be leaving all my
friends behind. The RNA conference has been the highlight of my year and has
been an invaluable experience to help me grow as a writer. I’m still not sure
what path my career will take or how the journey will progress but I do know that
chatting to other writers and attending the talks has left me feeling a lot
more confident and so inspired. I cannot wait to get stuck into my manuscript
again and send it off for the critique. I think I’m prepared for the notes that
will come with it but I’m not as frightened as I was before the conference.
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| goody bag and name lanyard! |
The conference was one of the
best organised things I’ve ever attended. Everyone was provided with an
information pack a few weeks prior to the conference and this proved invaluable
to me as it was loaded with information about the speakers, panelists and the
schedule for each day. It even had a campus map! Each day of the conference ran
with military precision and the atmosphere was one of support, friendship and
lots and lots of laughs. Every single person there was warm, friendly and
welcoming and so supportive of one another. I know I’ve made some lifelong
friends and I can’t wait to share their successes!
