Conference time and a wonderful award

 I just got back from a weekend away at the RWNZ conference in Wellington.

It was pretty great on several levels. I hadn't been to a writers conference in years. I think it was 2015 that I last went. That is so long ago! I'm not sure why I never went to any after that. Work. Broke aka no money. Feeling miserable about the writing. Who knows. But I'm so glad I went to this one.

It was great that we were actually able to attend a conference in person when so many people across the world can't do that in these Covid-19 times. Apparently the Australian Romance Writers have had to push their conference, meant to happen this week, traditionally a week either side of ours, out to December because of lockdown in Queensland. It was neat catching up with old writer friends, meeting new people and learning more about the business which is an evolving one and honestly, hard to keep up with at times. I'm amazed at how many writers there are indie publishing, many very young, and doing well, and how wonderful it is to do that when 20 years ago it didn't exist and only the lucky few made it to publication by the traditional route. 

And it was especially PRETTY BLOODY GREAT because...

Bringing Back Emily one first place in the Koru Awards - Best Book in the Short Book section!!Wow!It was announced at the awards dinner and you hope you're going to win but you never expect to and I never expected to, but I did and I'm pretty happy about that. I have a trophy, a certificate and its just so wonderful to know the reader judges loved the story.

Anyhoo, it was great to be back at a conference and very importantly, to come away with the motivation up. I'd forgotten all about that aspect of it but its very, very true. There is something about just talking about the business, the writing, the publishing, and getting ideas. I brainstormed a series and came away with some fabulous new ideas which I really should have thought of on my own, but didn't. The power of the collective minds of creative people like authors can not be underestimated.

If  you'd like to see more about Bringing Back Emily, here's the link to the page on Amazon.