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Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Christina Hollis—What A Holiday!

Who says conferences are boring? The Romantic Novelists' Association's 2018 Conference held at Leeds Trinity University over the weekend of 13th-16th of July, was anything but dull. 

Our annual get-together is the perfect excuse to meet up with like-minded writers from all over the world. Most of the delegates are from the British Isles, but this year we had three stellar writers visiting from the United States; Andrea Penrose, Mary Jo Putney and Patricia Rice. They and their fellow member of the Word Wenches blog, current RNA Chair Nicola Cornick, held a panel entitled  "Two Nations, One Language of Romance?"

The RNA does a fantastic job each year, putting together a programme of talks, panels and entertainments. They make sure there's something for everyone. The only problem is, with so many things on offer it's often hard to choose. I made a big mistake in choosing a talk about self-publishing instead of one called From Baby-Wipes to Burlesque.  My friend went to the burlesque session and it turned out to be a workshop! There was dressing up and dancing involved, which was a lot of fun. 

There's been some bad news this week about my own dancing (although "dancing" isn't quite what I'd call my efforts!) which I told you about last month. After four weeks when attendances at Adult Ballet were down to me, one other dancer and the teacher, classes in our village have sadly come to an end. It's such a shame. Twenty-two people signed up when classes were offered, but no more than four of us ever turned up. That was on the first night—and three of those four were me, DD, and Son Number One! Are local events better supported where you live?

2 comments:

dstoutholcomb said...

They are if you have to pay for them...

denise

Christina Hollis said...

Sadly, around here it seems to be getting people out of their houses after work that's the problem. Free events sometimes get a few people, but paid events like the ballet lessons, attract hardly anybody :( Thanks for commenting, Denise.