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.

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.

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.

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…

Wanted: Author Sites

Sarah Wendell is looking for two or three author websites she can critique and use as examples in her AUTHOR PLATFORM 101 workshop. If you’re heading to Sarah’s workshop on Sunday, November 4th, and interested in volunteering your site then post your name and your website address in the comments of this post. We’ll pass the details of the  first three volunteers on to Sarah for use in her workshop.

Want 5 Minutes with an Editor or Agent?

The GenreCon Pitching Program is your chance to sit down with an editor or agent to talk about your completed manuscript. We’ve got editors and agents representing a diverse range of genres accepting pitches across Saturday and Sunday of the conference, and we’re open to applications to take part in the pitching program until midnight, 24 October if you’d like to secure your spot. A complete list of the editors and agents involved can be found on the Pitching Program page under Program and Events.

The GenreCon Program is live!

It’s going to be a big weekend – six industry workshops, thirteen discussion panels, a series of feature events that includes presentations by some of our special guests, the Opening Night Cocktail Reception, and the Pistols and Parasols Banquet. We’re covering everything from creative practice to online platform, to researching your fiction and building your career.

More importantly, the program will feature over fifty generous genre writers and professionals who have agreed to donate their time and expertise to make the GenreCon weekend a fantastic experience. We asked the community to be involved and were overwhelmed by the response- thank you all!

If you want to get a taste for GenreCon before the convention hits, feel free to join the discussion happening on twitter. We’ll be using the hashtag #GCoz for all the convention discussion before, after, and during the GenreCon weekend.

Still haven’t got your GenreCon pass? We’ll be taking online registrations until October 31st and tickets will be available at the door. Opening Night Cocktail Reception and Pistols and Parasols Banquet tickets must be purchased prior to the event.

I’d like to know more about:

• Feature Events

• Workshops 

• Discussion Panels 

• Special Guests

• Program Participants

What have we got coming up? Well, it’s a combination of three things:

1) Presentations by Industry Specialists

There’s a series of presentations and discussions scheduled throughout GenreCon, including the following:

Ginger Clark: THE CHANGING ROLE OF THE AGENT

What is the role of the agent in the evolving publishing marketplace? Ginger Clark talks about the changing dynamic between publishers and agents, what authors should expect from agents in the future, and how you can establish and maintain a positive relationship with your agent during this period of publishing turmoil.

2) Workshops with Talented Writers and Specialists

GenreCon is a chance to hone your craft with some of the most talented genre writers in Australia. The following are just two of the six workshops on offer during GenreCon.

GETTING YOUR CHARACTER MOVING

Say goodbye to static scenes and get your characters in motion, learning how to direct your scenes with writer and theatre director Karen Miller. Uncover the secrets actors use to block dramatic action, and how these techniques can be used to stoke the drama in your own work. Learn when to use body language to best effect, how one character’s movements should affect anothers, and when it’s best to stay still instead of cutting lose.

RESEARCHING HISTORICAL FICTION

Join award-winning author Anna Campbell as she explains how to transform history into fiction. Learn what resources to search out and which details are best used to make your fiction come alive and transform history into a compelling story.

 3) Great Discussion Panels

Between our special guests and our generous program volunteers, we’ve got a great program full of panels addressing craft, business, and research questions that every genre writer faces over the course of their career.

PRACTICAL WORLD-BUILDING

Losing yourself in an intricate and impeccably crafted world is one of the greatest reading pleasures. Learn the art of creating compelling and absorbing worlds with three master world-builders. Whether it’s a stylised representation of our own world, or a place with its own history, magic, culture, and geography, our panelists will give you the tricks, tropes, and practical tools needed to craft the perfect setting for your works.

Chair: Rowena Cory Daniels; Participants: Anna Campbell, Joe Abercrombie, PM Newton

NOT JUST A NARRATOR

These days writers are more than just storytellers – they’re critics, bloggers, podcasters, and other contributors to a community of readers that exists both online and off. We bring together a panel of online community leaders and authors to discuss the best way to engage with these communities – and the mistakes that can quickly alienate them.

Chair: Kate Cuthbert; Participants: Sarah Wendell, Ellen Forsyth, Kirstyn McDermott

CAPTURING THE MOOD

Place can be more than just window-dressing of a story – in the hands of a skilled writer it’s an evocative tool that can be as compelling as the bravest protagonist. Join our panelists as they serve as tour guide for some of the evocative settings they’ve used in their work and discuss the research and experiences that went into their fiction.

Chair: Damon Cavalchini; Participants: Jason Nahrung, L.A. Larkin, Bronwyn Parry

On top of this, the weekend will also have networking opportunities like the Pistols and Parasols Banquet on Saturday night, a pitching program that will put you up close with the publishers, and plenty of conversations in the café and bar.

GenreCon is proud to announce the first of this year’s industry guests: Joel Naoum from Momentum Books.

Joel  is a Sydney-based book publisher, editor, blogger and writer. He is running Pan Macmillan Australia’s new digital-only imprint Momentum and recently completed a three-month stint in London for the Unwin Fellowship researching digital publishing experimentation. He is passionate about the possibilities that social media and digital publishing opens up for authors, publishers, booksellers and the whole book industry and is especially excited to work with genre fiction authors in this new role.

Community Partners Wanted

We want to get the news out about GenreCon to as many writers as possible, but we’re also looking for ways GenreCon can connect aspiring writers to the organisations and groups that are there to assist writers and their  careers. We invite any non-profit writers groups or professional organisations, large or small, to get in touch with the GenreCon Team to discuss the benefits of becoming a GenreCon Community Partner.

Advertise at GenreCon

Want to get the word out about your organisation, book, or latest project? GenreCon offers a range of exciting adverting options ranging from display ads in our conference program to online advertising and inserts in our conference bag. Advertising with GenreCon ensures your message will be seen by our diverse membership of passionate emerging and established genre writers from around Australia. For booking details, pricing, and more information download a copy of our advertising prospectus (PDF).

We’ve got a lot of great guests coming to GenreCon (and a few more to be announced over the course of August), but we’re also interested in hearing from writers, publishers, and editors who may be interested in participating . While we’re already in the process of putting together the conference program, it’s not to late to volunteer if you’re planning on attending.

If you’ve already volunteered – Thank You! We’ve been blown away by the response to GenreCon thus far, and the generosity of the many professionals willing to offer their time and experience. Members of our programming team will be in touch in the coming weeks with more information about how we’d like to program you during the convention.

Finally, for those of you who just want to know what the program is going to look like, we’ll be posting details of some events over August and soliciting your input on what kind of topics you really want to see.

Discounted Accommodation Update

If you registered for GenreCon prior to July 31st you would have received a weblink to the discounted booking page at Rydges.com as part of your confirmation email. Unfortunately recent updates to the Rydges site have eliminated custom booking page as an option, so the weblink you were sent is no longer valid.

GenreCon attendees are still entitled to discounted booking rates at Rydges Parramatta during the convention. To receive 10% off the best available rate at the time of your booking, just enter the GenreCon code QWCCWP into the corporate ID section when making your booking (see example below).

What Do You Want to Know About the Con?

We’ve been quiet about GenreCon for the past couple of months, setting things up behind the scenes, but August is the month when we’re going to be making some noise. All through the coming month we’re planning on posting a little bit more about GenreCon, its guests, and the program to whet your appetite for what’s coming.  If you’ve got specific questions you want answered, let us know in the comments and we’ll make sure they’re answered.