Latest News: Anne Gracie! Discount Room Rates!
Some important news: Rydges South Brisbane have agreed to offer a special rate $229 a night on Superior Twin share rooms for GenreCon Attendees during the conference. Details on the special rate are included at the end of this update, but there’s been a steady stream of questions about accommodation of late, so we wanted to make sure the news got out.
That said, without further ado…
GENRECON 2013 WELCOMES ANNE GRACIE
We’re also very pleased to announce that romance author Anne Gracie will be a guest at this year’s conference.
Anne Gracie spent her childhood on the move when her father’s job took them around the world. The gypsy life taught her that humour and love are universal languages and that favorite books can take you home, wherever you are.
She’s been spinning stories since she first sat in a sand-pit and pinned down a pet for an audience. However ordinary people didn’t become writers — they were sensible and got ‘real’ jobs. Anne wrote her first novel while on long service leave, backpacking solo around the world. Writing is now her ‘real’ job.
With ten books published by Berkley USA and now Penguin Australia, Anne is a nationally bestselling author in the USA. She’s also a former president and honorary lifetime member of Romance Writers of Australia, a three time RITA finalist, has twice won the Romantic Book of the Year (Australia) and the National Reader’s Choice Award in the USA. Her books have been translated into sixteen different languages, including Japanese manga editions.
As well as writing, Anne has had a lifelong interest in promoting adult literacy —it started when she was at university— and up until recently, she kept bees.
Visit her website at www.annegracie.com
GENRECON ROOM RATE AT RYDGES SOUTH BANK
This year’s GenreCon may be taking place at the State Library of Queensland but there will be plenty of after-hours gatherings taking place at the nearby Rydges South Bank just a short walk from the library. Some of these are official, such as the Banquet on Saturday Night, but they also include the less-official parts of the conference that occur whenever writers gather in one place (particularly, lets be honest, when there’s bar where we can gather and talk shop).
If you’d like to be close to the after-hours action, Rydges South Bank has recently come aboard and offered a special rate of $229 a night on block of Superior Twin share rooms (all other rooms available at best daily price). GenreCon guests should book direct with Rydges South Bank by email or telephone and quote “GenreCon Queensland Writers Centre” for the discount rate. To make reservations, call Rydges South Bank on 07 3364 0800 or email them at reservations_southbank@rydges.com.
As always, if you’ve got any questions or suggestions about the conference, please let us know.
Read MoreWelcome Kate Cuthbert and a Registration Update
It’s been two weeks since GenreCon 2013 opened for registration and the response from Australia’s genre writers has been…well, fantastic. Every time we check in on the conversation taking place on the #GCoz twitter tag or add another name to the list of attending attending members, we get a little bit more excited about kicking things off on October 11th.
GENRECON 2013 WELCOMES KATE CUTHBERT
We’re pleased to welcome our third GenreCon guest this week - Escape Publishing’s Kate Cuthbert.
Kate Cuthbert has written about romance for almost as long as she’s read them. Starting with a Master’s thesis for her MA in Writing, Editing, and Publishing, Kate has written book reviews and romance-focused features for the Brisbane Courier-Mail, All About Romance, Bookseller and Publisher Magazine, the New York Journal of Books, the Australian Romance Reader’s Association, and Booktopia. While doing all that writing, Kate also held down a day job, working as an editor in genre fiction, children’s books, mass market publishing, magazine, and corporate and academic publishing. She now heads up Harlequin Australia’s digital-first imprint, Escape Publishing.
REGISTRATION UPDATE
We knew the early bird tickets to GenreCon were likely to go fast, but it turns out they sold out even faster than we’d predicted, with the first fifty registrations for this year’s conference occurring in a little under twenty-six hours. The price for weekend prices has now risen to our Discounted Rate of $250 until July 31, with special rates still available for concession card holders and publishers/agents interested in attending the conference.
You can register now at our online registration portal or get more information about our registration prices and ticketed events.
Read MoreGenreCon 2013 is Go!
For those of you who missed last year’s show, here’s the official pitch: the AWM GenreCon is a three-day conference for Australian writers and professionals working within the fields of romance, mystery, science fiction, crime, fantasy, horror, thrillers, and more. One part party, one part celebration, one part professional development – GenreCon is the place to be if you’re an aspiring or established writer with a penchant for the types of fiction that get relegated to their own corner of the bookstore.
This year’s conference will kick off on October 11th at the State Library of Queensland and feature a mixture of workshops, presentations, panel discussions, and pitching that made our inaugural event a success. More importantly, we’re now open for registrations and offering a special early-bird deal to those who get in fast.
GenreCon 2013 Welcomes Chuck Wendig and Anita Heiss
We’re pleased to announce our first two guests for the 2013 GenreCon – Chuck Wendig and Anita Heiss.
Chuck Wendig is the author of the published novels: Blackbirds, Mockingbird, Double Dead, Bait Dog, and Dinocalypse Now. He’s contributed over two million words to the game industry, and was the developer of the popular Hunter: The Vigil game line (White Wolf Game Studios / CCP). He was a frequent contributor to The Escapist, writing about games and pop culture. Much of his writing advice has been collected in various writing- and storytelling-related e-books.
Dr Anita Heiss is the author of non-fiction, historical fiction, commercial women’s fiction, poetry, social commentary and travel articles. She is a regular guest at writers’ festivals and travels internationally performing her work and lecturing on Indigenous literature. She is an Indigenous Literacy Day Ambassador and a proud member of the Wiradjuri nation of central New South Wales.
Of course, we’re not done – not by a long shot. Stay tuned for additional guest announcement in the coming weeks.
Early-Bird Registrations Available Now
We’ve now opened registration for this year’s GenreCon and we’re offering weekend passes at the special Early Bird rate of $190 to the first 50 registrations. Prices will rise to $250 or more once these first fifty tickets are gone and last year they sold out fast.
You can register now at our online registration portal or get more information about our registration prices and ticketed events.
Read More
2013 Registration Opens Tuesday, February 5th
We’ll be announcing our first round of guests and opening online registration for the 2013 GenreCon will go live on Tuesday, February 5th, at 4:00 PM Brisbane time. Once again we’ll be offering the special, early-bird rate of $190 for a weekend pass to the first 50 registrations, after which registration will rise to the standard attendee rates.
Read MoreSave the Date: October 11-13, 2013
It was around this time in 2011 that the GenreCon team got together and said, “wouldn’t it be great to have a national conference for genre writers?” and started laying plans for the inaugural event. This year we don’t have to ask that question – the enthusiastic response we got from Australian genre writers, editors, agents, and publishers confirmed that GenreCon will be back in 2013.
If you’re interested in coming along you’ll want to save the date from 11-13 October, 2013. We’ll be making the formal announcement regarding guests, program participation, and registration at the end of January, but we’re releasing the date early for those of you who like to start planning early. The venue for next year’s conference will be the State Library of Queensland, which offers us a mixture of intimate workshop spaces and auditoriums in addition to a dedicated conference hub where attendees and participants can gather. The Library also has one or two surprises that make it ideal venue for a gathering of genre writers, but we’ll have more about that after the January announcement…
Read MoreOur Community Partners
