Ahh, Brissy, what a warm and friendly city. And made even better by the staging a few weekends ago of GenreCon, the conference designed for that most excellent of authorly species, Genre Writers. I’ve been a quite a few Romance Writers of Australia conferences now and GenreCon was a lot like one of those, except it had men. A lively, lovely lot of them too. It also had, thanks to the irrepressible Alex Adsett of Alex Adsett Publishing Services, karaoke, an event from which my voice didn’t recover for a week. A week of gravel-throat and I didn’t even get to sing Dancing Queen or Paradise by the Dashboard Light. Although I did get hear editor and writer Patrick O’Duffy do the most amazing deep-voiced version of Total Eclipse of the Heart imaginable.
But I’m getting ahead of myself…
Friday: The Start of Sleep Deprivation
Before karaoke and the conference proper, there was lunch on Friday at GOMA Restaurant with romance authors Amy Andrews, Anna Campbell, Keziah Hill, Rachael Johns, Bronwyn Parry, Helene Young and myself where much prosecco was drunk, rabbit terrines savoured, desserts drooled over, and happy birthday and Frocktober ditties sung. There may have also been unsubtle mention of the Penis Beaker Debate and He of the Mighty Wang (Amy Andrews’s fault). Personally, I think we added a nice splash of colour and noise to the restaurant although I’m not sure the staff would agree, but at least they were good sports about our rowdiness.
Friday night was the opening night reception on the State Library of Queensland’s aptly named Queensland Terrace. Fantastic venue, partially open to the sub-tropical air and a great area in which to mingle, sip wine and eat naughty things.
This was followed by a trek back to the bar at Rydges South Bank, the official conference hotel, then cabs into town to Fat Louie’s for some karaoke where so much silliness was had that this may become tradition. I hope so, although if next time anyone tries to make me sing Summer of ’69 again there will be reckoning…
Saturday: Brain Awakenings
Saturday opened with the Power of Genre Fiction, featuring speeches by Anne Gracie, Kathryn Fox and John Birmingham to well and truly put us in the mood. I then attended Rule of Knowledge author Scott Baker’s Worth A Thousand Words workshop which I found brilliant. Scott has spent the last year working with Peter Jackson on the Hobbit films and was also a consultant in the film industry as well as lecturing at the Australian National University in digital video. How well he knows his stuff was shown in the booktrailers he made which are nothing like I’ve ever seen and, quite frankly, amazing.
In fact, this was such an interesting session that I’m considering writing a separate post on it, so stay tuned! After lunch I attended the Writing Fast workshop with Anne Gracie, Charlotte Nash and Anita Heiss, hosted by Denise Rossetti. Thank goodness for Anne making me feel semi-normal over my painful writing process, because Charlotte Nash’s super speedy production levels just left me feeling completely inadequate and even more depressed about my output. But you know what? We all have our processes. I’m slow and horribly pedantic, but I get there in the end. Time to stop beating myself up about it.
Writing Fast was followed by What Writers Get Wrong with Helene Young, Kathryn Fox and Deborah Burrows. My take away from this was that if you don’t know something, then ask. People tend to be fascinated by this strange writing business and are usually delighted to help.
John Connolly In Conversation was the last Saturday session and it was funny and fascinating, with the auditorium completely charmed and engaged. One point John made that struck me enough to write down was: In genre fiction, it’s the characters the readers care about, and authors can and do make a living off this affection and investment in character. An important thing to remember when writing.
Dinner at Rydges was a great night with crackup author and Terrible Minds blogger Chuck Wendig entertaining the crowd with his 25 Reasons Why I F**king Love Genre Fiction followed by a Q&A with Escape Publishing’s Kate Cuthbert. And then, surprise-surprise, another, even later night gasbagging in the bar.
Sunday: Can We Do It Again?
Sunday’s Plenery Session was The Future of Genre Fiction, featuring agent and contract lawyer Alex Adsett, Leanpub’s Peter Armstrong, and author and academic Anita Heiss. Alex, seemingly unharmed and in good voice despite Friday night’s karaoke-ing, gave a great overview of industry changes (including a handy tip about reversion clauses on print rights with digital deals), while Anita’s discussion about targetting her audience was equally thought-provoking.
But it was Peter’s rundown of the history of genre fiction and serialisation which had my mind a-spinning and triggered an excellent discussion with good buddy and GenreCon roomie Rachael Johns as we headed back to the hotel to check out, and which so caught us up that we missed the next workshop. A bummer because by all accounts Beyond Rippling Muscles and Uzi 9mms was a hoot.
Post another excellent lunch (the food was fabulous at GenreCon!) I attended the Thinking Like A Pro workshop with John Connolly, Valerie Parv and Keri Arthur, followed by Know Thine Enemy with Chuck Wendig, PM Newton and Kathryn Fox. The fact that I stayed awake throughout both after an extremely late night proves how entertaining they were.
The Great Debate: Genre Just Wants To Have Fun was a blast. John Birmingham opened strongly with a story about a certain literary author’s pillow problems that had everyone laughing, only to be neatly countered by Anne Gracie with her “Paris” jibe.
Lindy Cameron and Dianne Blacklock (gorgeous lady!) put in sterling efforts but the negative side, with their brilliant goblin story and Scott Baker’s clever revisioning of The Raven, were just too strong. And so it was proven that genre doesn’t just want to have fun. Which could be said for all GenreCon attendees, I think. We had fling your arms in the air and sing it out, loud and proud fun, certainly. We had karaoke, great food, met lovely old friends and made gorgeous new ones, but thanks to a fantastic program, excellent speakers and plenty of opportunity to network, we also learned an enormous amount. And for that I can’t thank Peter Ball, Meg Vann and their team of ninjas enough.
A wonderful conference. I’ll be back in 2015 with bells on.
Cathryn, what a great wrap up of a great weekend. Thanks for putting it up. I love all those photos – isn’t that a great one of Helene? Will definitely be at the next GenreCon!
Gorgeous pic of Helene, I agree. Thanks for the borrow of your lunch group photo. What a blast we had!
OMG – I’m so coming next time. Just so long as you put Karaoke on the menu! It was birthday weekend and difficult to leave the fam – as we have three over the two days. Mine. dad and a daughter.
Brilliant overview, Cathryn. One that had me salivating.
Thanks for letting me live it vicariously through you! xxxxx
Oh, we would have had such a ball with you there, Kerri! You’ll definitely have to come in 2015.
Happy birthday too, dahlink. I hope you and dad and daughter had a wonderful one.
What a fabulous wrap up, Cathryn, Some great photos too 🙂 It was wonderful to celebrate all things genre in great company. Looking forward to the next GenreCon – QWC are awesome!
Thanks, Helene. I knew I carted that camera around for something, if only to snap you looking completely gorgeous!
I hope the organisers know how much we appreciate their efforts. The whole weekend was brilliant and ran like clockwork. Everyone had a great time.
I haven’t done Karaoke in so long – if it’s to be a regular feature I’m definitely there. Sounds like a great weekend and sorry I couldn’t get there. And please please please do the post on Rule of Knowledge – I’d love to know more! Thanks for the wrap up Cathryn – it’s a virtual tour de force!
Here’s my teaser on The Rule of Knowledge: http://writenotereviews.wordpress.com/2013/10/15/teaser-tuesday-the-rule-of-knowledge-by-scott-baker/
Oh cool, thanks for that, writenote. The interview with Scott was great. Aren’t his trailers amazing? I’m looking forward to reading Rule of Knowledge too. Such a great premise.
If Alex Adsett has anything to do with it, Kate, karaoke will indeed be on again. I expect a lot more people joining in too.
Will do my best on the booktrailer post. Bear with me though. I’m neck-deep in edits so it might take me a while. I might also ask Scott if he’d like to contribute, seeing as most of the info will be his and he’s the man with the movie mostest.
Such an awesome write-up and photos. I’m coming to rely on your photos at conferences. You’re just so good at getting the important shots 🙂
The important shots being of all my lovely buddies, of course, Rach!
Actually, I took a bazillion more but so many turned out dead boring or blurred. My other half reckons it’s time I read the camera instructions. He may have a point…
Sounds like a fun and very worthwhile conference–thanks for posting such a comprehensive report. I’ll try for next year!
It was, Kandy. Not only fun but really informative. I came away with a lot of tips and inspiration. Hope you can make the 2015 conference. In the meantime there’ll be pop-up events next year to keep us going.
What a great read – it must have taken you ages to tag everyone. My husband has just read Scott Baker’s The Rule of Knowledge – he’s a tough critic but says it’s a fantastic read. Well, he said “pretty good” but that translates to “fantastic”.
Thanks, writenote! It did take a little while, which is why I didn’t get it up last week, but better late than never I reckon. Anyway, it’s rather fun to reminisce a bit after the event.
That’s good to hear about Rule of Knowledge. I’m thinking seriously of moving it to the top of my to-be-read pile and digging in.
Genrecon sounds fantastic! I’ll try to make it to the 2015 one! (I draw the line at karaoke though…)
Karaoke was a hoot, Kerrie! But the rest of GenreCon was completely fab too. Everyone had a great time and there’s so much we can learn from other genres. You must go to 2015!
Cathryn,
Great round up. Thanks.
Wasn’t Genre Con awesome??? I met so many authors writing loads of different genres. Great fun.
I know! It was a blast! And I was so disappointed not to include the photos I took of you, Suzi. None of them turned out how I hoped. I really need to read the instructions on the camera…
Thanks so much Cathryn. Love, Love, Love your blog. It makes up a little for those of us who couldn’t make it.
Thanks again.
Cathleen
Thanks, Cathleen. That’s really great to know you enjoy the blog. I’m hoping to have another post up next week about Scott Baker’s book trailer workshop, if you’re interested in that type of marketing.
Thanks for dropping by!
Yes that will be great Cathryn. I’m enjoying your blog because it’s comprehensive.
Best
C
Cathryn, that’s a great blog, and it captures the wonderful feel of GenreCon. It will be great to see you all there again in 2015,
Yes, GenreCon roll on 2015! It’s bound to be even bigger and better.
Thanks for dropping by, Sandy. It was lovely to catch up, even if only for a short time.