ARRC2011 Wrap Up

Keri Arthur and myself at the Awards Dinner

Nalini Singh and myself at the Awards Dinner

Erica Hayes and myself at the Awards Dinner

I had this post languishing half-written in my drafts. I've rephrased some sections because I am no longer posting it on the Monday after ARRC. I apologise for the delay in posting.

I have uploaded my photos to flickr (yes, I now have an account and will be cross posting photos between my blog, fickr and facebook) and you can find these {here}. Kat has also uploaded a lot of photos to her flickr. You can find these {here}.

Anyone who followed me on twitter last weekend knows that I must have been at ARRC, as most of my tweets contained the #ARRC2011 hash. I couldn’t afford the meet and greet on Friday night, or the Saturday panels, but I did attend the Awards Dinner and the Sunday panels. Just that sneak peak into the ARRA world was enough to get me hooked. I only joined ARRA a month or so ago (after two years of loosing forms) and wish I had have been there from the start. The association is made up of so many amazing women (and a man or two) and it is such a positive environment. There were of course undercurrents, but nothing overt – as someone who has been a key member in organisations in the past, it was quite impressive not to see infighting or the like. Even the AGM ran smoothly! (I used to be VP for a university Archaeology society – that is damn impressive, okay?) I was bitching and moaning about the price of ARRC before I attended, even though I know it takes a lot of money to organise a conference and that ARRA is a not-for-profit member organisation. I will no longer complain about the cost.. I came away with free books. Lots and lots of free books! I now have the first 3 books of Rachel Vincent’s Soul Screamer series and Kissing Sin by Keri Arthur. I actually already own Kissing Sin, however, I asked Keri to autograph it for Gail at the Awards Dinner ;D I was at table five with Lami, Maria, Marg and …. ERICA HAYES ^_^’ We had a number of other authors at our table but I wasn’t familiar with their work. Which isn’t really all that surprising considering my main subgenre of a romantic persuasion is paranormal romance, although I do dabble with category and contemporary. It was lovely meeting so many fans of the genre, conversing with authors (my friends and I monopolised Nalini for a while at the Awards Dinner) and just generally having fun! Christine Darcas won the blingoff. She was sitting opposite me at dinner and she keep distracting me with all her shine! I won’t go on about who won what. I suggest you read Book Thingo’s blog for the full run down: http://bookthingo.com.au/arrc11/

My favourite panel to attend was the Fantasy, Science Fiction and Futuristic Romance panel. It was quite interesting because it was my genre, the authors had similar reading backgrounds as myself, and, I also found out, nearly all of them have used Jungian theory to the writing (which is what I have been doing myself - fascinating man, fascinating theories!).

Karen Simpson Nikakis, Kate Cuthbert (MC), Keri Arthur, Erica Hayes, Denise Rossetti & Nalini Singh

A selection of my live tweeting from the Sunday panels at ARRC:

***

I didn't have time to draft a write up about our Sydney Book Blogger Meet Up at the Art House on the 24th, however Marg has written a great blog on the topic. You can find it here: {link}
It was lovely to finally meet @awritingjourney, @MargReads and @Vaveros, as well as catch up with other twitter friends and meet new ones. The last few of us actually got kicked out of the bar, and @bookthingo, @my_leage, @Hesitent_Sarah and I ended up standing on a street corner chatting until the cold chased us home.