downunder conference madness

Romance Writers of Australia's Hot August Nights conference. It was huge. It was awesome. It was exhausting. Sanitised pictorial evidence follows. You've been warned.

(Oh, and sorry, folks. The lj-cut just WON'T WORK. Apologies if you didn't want to scroll through this. Nothing I can do. LJ? You listening? Why is this function so FRICKIN' HARD to use?)

We began with the Friday night cocktail party, sponsored by the good folks at Harlequin and themed 'Arabian Nights'. A good time and much free alcohol and nibblies were had by all.

Here's the incomparable and resplendent 'Queen of Romance', Valerie Parv, and me. 

My costume? Think yourself lucky you can't see the white stay-up fishnets and the red whore heels. What does this excellent tarty outfit have to do with Arabian Nights?? Well, besides that teddy bear having come all the way from Kandahar?? I'm the Sheikh's Reluctant Dead Keen Virgin Bride, of course.

A Harlequin-themed joke. Ha! The H&MB folks were so flattered, they awarded me the costume prize. I now have a hawt-man-titty-shaped bottle of chocolate schnapps on my desk. Awesome!


Oh, okay. Here are the fishnets. A warning, you got. And, me and my best buddy AJ.

Some fab costume action that probably really should have won the man-titty schapps:

On Saturday, there were, well, you know, workshops. I attended an excellent one on emotional punch by historical author Anne Gracie, and a fascinating talk by Superintendent Shane Chelepy from the Queensland Police.

And then the awards dinner on Saturday night, where my best buddy AJ Macpherson won the Emerald Award!!! for best unpublished manuscript. She is so AWESOME. She didn't win any man-titty schnapps, though.

Here's Avalon author Elisabeth Rose, AJ and the Big Green Trophy of Glory, me basking in AJ's reflected triumph, and Eos author Tracey O'hara (

traceyo

 ) all from Canberra.

After that, Sunday was a bit anti-climactic. I talked on a panel of newly signed authors, with 

traceyo

 , Ellora's Cave author Mel Tescho and others. I hope those who attended got something out of it.

Conference was awesome. Now, I'm tired. Tomorrow. I'm off to Auckland to the RWNZ conference, to do it all again :)