by Anna Campbell
One of the really fun parts of being a writer is getting out and about to meet readers and other writers. On the weekend of the 17th and 18th May, I headed a couple of hours south to the Literati Festival which is put on every year by the wonderful folk at Gold Coast Libraries.
In 2013, there was a huge romance presence at Literati which was held at the brand new Upper Coomera Library. Apart from me, we had queen of romantic suspense Helene Young, New York Times Bestseller Keri Arthur, and author of clever, funny contemporary women's fiction Lisa Walker. There were 14 authors altogether, including thriller writer L.A. Larkin and Y.A. writer Paula Weston.
I was invited to take part in two panels. The first was called A Recipe for Romance and was designed for people writing romance (or at least contemplating it!). Here's a photo of me with the moderator Louise Pieper of Gold Coast Libraries and Helene Young who looks elegant as always! We had a small but very enthusiastic group of participants, including Destiny author Jennifer St. George who added the perspective of someone published in category romance. There's a photo of Helene and me with Jen below the dawn shot.
The kind folk at Literati had put all the authors up at the very
swish Watermark Hotel in roadwork-plagued Surfers Paradise and we all congregated there for a wonderful
dinner. It was lovely to have a chance to catch up with everyone in such
an informal setting - although my attention focused mostly on the
spectacular dessert buffet!Slightly the worse for wear, I was up early the next morning and managed to walk the couple of blocks to the beach. Isn't this shot of dawn at Surfers Paradise gorgeous? It was a perfect, although chilly day to come.
Moderator Louise Pieper ran a really fun session with me, Helene, Keri and Australian women's fiction author Lisa Walker whose books include the wonderfully named LIAR BIRD. This panel was mainly designed for readers, so we covered things like our writing journey, our daily lives, and where we get our inspiration.
As you can probably tell from the photos, Literati was huge fun. I think it's such a great thing that Gold Coast Libraries make such events available to their locals - not to mention everything was free!
So have you ever met one of your favorite authors? If so, please tell us about what happened. If not, who would you like to meet? And why?
12 comments:
A fabulous time was had by all, Anna! So lovely to catch up and wonderful to see such a strong romance presence :)
Helene, love the photos of all of us! Look forward to working with you again.
Hey, guys, yesterday I discovered this video of me with Helene filmed at Literati. Just in case you want sound and movement with your blog! http://vimeo.com/67367772
It looks like you had such a fun time. I need my local library to organise something.
Mary, I'd love to come up to Toowoomba! I was so impressed with Gold Coast Libraries' organisation of Literati - it was a real credit to them and they treated the guests like we were gold! That's very nice!
I'm so green with envy right now. I want to see all of you but I'm from the other side of the Earth, so haven't had the chance to meet any of my favorite writer. I'd love to meet you all someday. :)
Lory, I remember how exciting it was to go to my first RW America conference. It was like seeing my bookcase come alive! VERY exciting for me! Hope you make it to meet your fave writers one day!
I am so sad to say that I have yet to meet any of my favorite authors in person and that makes me sad. One day, I hope to get to a conference and “fix it.”
I would love to meet Anna Campbell because she and I seem to have the same sense of humor and I know we would have a lot laughs as we discussed her novels. Oh yes, this would be over a pot of tea and some Tim Tams!
I’d also love to meet Karen Ranney. She and I have become great friends online and have had lots of chats on Facebook and email. Again, we share the same sense of humor. Can you tell that humor is very important in my life? :-)
You ladies look like you are having so much fun. Your smiles make me smile!
Connie, I hope you get to meet your authors in person one day! I still have you booked for that cup of tea! How lovely that you and Karen have established such a lovely friendship. The internet does some nice things, doesn't it? It was a gorgeous weekend - had a wonderful time!
I've never met any of my favorite authors.
I would dearly love to meet all the lovely
ladies of the Lair (the Romance Bandits
Blog) one day!
Pat C.
Pat, we'd love to meet you too. The Banditas en masse are huge fun!
Thanks, guys, for checking out my post and commenting! Always fun to talk to you all! See you next month when I'll be talking about my new novella DAYS OF RAKES AND ROSES which is out 2nd July!
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