My first US writers’ conference this past weekend was quite something.
The New Jersey Romance Writers conference is one of the biggest of the RWA chapter conferences – somewhere around 300 writers took over a hotel and conference centre for a weekend devoted to writing, reading and romance.
What can I say – it was loud, it was fun and it was enlightening.
It can sometimes be hard to join a large group who mostly know each other – when you know no-one. But from the first “welcome” to the hugs at the train station on leaving, I was made to feel as if I belonged. And I guess I did.
I’ve been writing now for ten years or more – and hanging around with other romance writers, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that as a group – they are possibly the most friendly, supportive and warm-hearted people you’ll find anywhere. It must be all those happy endings…
I left the conference with invitations both social and professional – join a party, give a workshop or do a reading.
I also left with a suitcase full of books. In the past few weeks I’ve come to realise how few American romance authors ever get onto the shelves of UK bookshops. And vice-versa. There are so many of my favourite UK authors who my new US friends have never read. At the conference book signing, there were about 80 authors with books to sell. I hadn’t ever seen more than a handful of them in a UK bookshop. What fun it’s going to be discovering all these new writers.
There was a lot of work during the weekend as well. Workshops, discussions about markets and trends, meetings with editors and agents.
Although – to be totally honest – I’m not sure if dancing to ‘It’s Raining Men’ at the after conference party is technically work…. not in the strictest sense of the word.