Tuesday, July 21, 2015

BookEnds Takes on #RWA15

For those who aren't a member of the romance community, RWA is the Romance Writers of America national convention. Each year it's in a new location and brings in close to 2000 writers, editors, agents and other industry pros. There are workshops, signings, appointments, cocktail parties and meet n' greets. The entire week wraps up with a giant awards ceremony.

Just typing that exhausted me.

This year RWA convenes in NYC and while that makes it more fun for the writers, it makes for more work for the rest of us. My week started on Monday and I have appointments and meetings through Saturday. It's exhausting, it's exhilarating and it's definitely productive. Like with any professional conference (Malice, Bouchercon, Thrillerfest, etc) I'll be leaving with a long to-do list.

All of BookEnds (including our intern James) will be traveling the halls of the Marriott. We'll be taking meetings, taking notes and posting a lot of what we're learning on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. So keep an eye out to learn not just what's hot in romance, but what's hot in all of publishing.

If you see any of us, make sure to take a moment to say hi. If we have a spare moment we'd love the chance to pull up a stool and talk.

--jhf


4 comments:

Hollie said...

RWA is one of the events I've been hearing about since I started working with CTR in 07, but a pipedream I don't think I can find a way to work towards.
It's one of the drawbacks of living in York (the original one) and I don't think "sweetie can we move to the US so I can join RWA?" is going to work on my husband.

BookEnds, A Literary Agency said...

Hollie: I know you don't need to move to the US to join RWA. It's a great organization with or without the conference.

AJ Blythe said...

I'm attending Australia's RWA conference in August (not related to RWAm). While I write cozy mysteries (okay, they do have romantic elements) I've found RWAus to also be a fabulous organisation with a totally amazing conference. It's a lot more intimate (about 300 attendees) but still has amazing workshops, pitch opportunities etc. I look forward to it every year and am very excited that it's only 4 weeks away.

Hollie said...

Really? 😀 I will look into that as soon as I get home. All the girls at CTR talk about the support and friendship they get from RWA, I'm very used to my friends living in my phone and netbook and I would love the chance to be a part of it.
Thank you.