Tag Archives: RNA

The Stone’s Heart RNA Award Nomination

Award, Fantasy Romance, Out and About, , ,

I’m over the moon to share that The Stone’s Heart, the sequel to The Queen’s Wing by Jessica Thorne has been nominated for the Romantic Novelists Association Fantasy Romantic Novel Award. It’s an amazing shortlist and I’m so delighted to be on it. All the details and all the nominations are on the RNA website here.

We are delighted to announce the shortlists for the prestigious 2020 Romantic Novel Awards in what promises to be a spectacular year for the Association, as we celebrate our 60th (Diamond) Anniversary. Writer and performer Jenny Eclair will present the Awards during a ceremony at Leonardo Royal London City Hotel on Monday 2nd March.

I adore this book and its heroine, Petra. It’s pure Space Opera and Petra herself is kickass and vulnerbale at the same time. I’m absolutely honoured and can’t wait for the party. Fancy gúna has been bought and the golden glittery shoes are making a comeback. Such and adventure.

Thanks so much to Bookouture, my editors Kathryn and Ellen, and my agent Sallyanne, and to all my friends and family.

RNA Conference 2017 (Harper Adams) #RNAConf17

news, Photo Moments, RNA, Writing Life, , ,

I spent last weekend at the wonderful RNA Conference in the beautiful setting of Harper Adams University.

The conference is always a whirlwind and when I decided to go for a long weekend rather than just the basic conference I made an excellent, if exhausting choice.

I arrived quite late on Thursday evening and after some fun and games finding the halls of residence with the help of the nicest taxi driver, met up with my usual flatmates, aka Kate Johnson, Immi Howson, Rhoda Baxter, Janet Gover and Alison May. Aka The naughty kitchen. More on that later.

Friday morning allowed us some time to explore the campus and Janet kicked things off with a talk on image manipulation, the first of many highlights.
We all gathered in the main lecture theatre, where I ended up spending rather a lot of time. The panel on the current state of the industry was fascinating and entertaining. It also felt like the most positive of these I’ve attended in a number of years. Things are looking up in the world of Romantic Fiction.

On Friday night there were drinkies. But not too many as I gave a talk on School Visits first thing on Saturday morning. It went very well until the computer decided to apply Windows updates in the middle of the talk, rebooting everything, including my slideshow. But apparently it wasn’t just me. The university has a Saturday morning routine, it seems. I may have gone for a bit of a lie down afterwards!

Other talk highlights over the weekend included Alison May and Bella Osbourne’s Plotter vs. Pantser talk (hilarious, with added aliens), Immi as the sparkly gazelle in the RNA Have Your Say discussion, Fiona Harper’s wonderful workshop on character development, a panel on how to be a helpful author featuring Julia Silk (agent), JB Johnson (bookblogger) & Julia Williams (editor and author) and Kate Johnson’s Guide to Worldbuilding.
Saturday evening was the Gala dinner, when we all put on our finery, have a wonderful meal and great conversation. It’s also the night that the Elizabeth Goudge prize is awarded. This annual competition is always held at the conference, and is hotly contested.

This year the theme was “Runaways” and the entry had to be 2000 words from the beginning of novel. I was absolutely delighted to be announced as the runner up with the opening to the as yet unwritten (apart from those 2000 words) sequel to the Space Opera.

Even better news was that Immi was the winner so we got to celebrate together. Here we are with Jill Mansell and RNA President Katie Fforde.

The naughty kitchen may have imbibed a few drinks that night. But I was not the last to bed. 😀

If you have never been to a writing conference I cannot recommend the RNA one enough. You’ll never encounter a more helpful, supportive and creative group of people.

2010 and onwards

Life Happens, links and stuff, New releases, Octocon, PCon, Publications, RNA, Wexworlds, Writing Life, , , , , , , , , , , ,

(Yes, I’m late. Why does this surprise you?)

Well, it’s been quite a year. Let’s see if I can sum it up… er…

In January The Wolf’s Mate came out as an ebook, the novella tracking the further adventures of Jeren and Shan from The Wolf’s Sister sporting a gorgeous cover from Natalie Winters.

In February I finished the first draft of The Wolf’s Destiny.

March brought the Pheonix Convention or Pcon which is always awesome fun.

April and the awesome news that May Queen had sold to Dial Books for Young Readers. OMG the stress and excitement.  Then there was a blurr of contracts, rewrites, and a variety of things I’d never imagined.

In May Soul Fire came out in print. I was so busy I almost missed it. Poor neglected book. Paranormal Romance with sexy sidhe should never be neglected. If you missed it, you might like to go and look now. It also has a magnificent cover. I’ll wait.

Spent most of the summer writing Graffiti Angel and editing The Wolf’s Destiny. In July I went to the RNA conference in Greenwich which was incredibly fun! And just a bit glam!

Sad news reached me in August that my wonderful super-agent Colleen Lindsay was giving up agenting but luck was with me and the equally fantastic Suzie Townsend won the wrestling took me on and things have been going swimmingly since then. And I can still have random chats with Colleen about Dr. Who and mad cats whenever! 🙂

September… I think I lost September somewhere. Checked down the back of the sofa but no joy.

October means Octocon. George R. R. Martin was Guest of Honour. Met so many wonderful people! <3 to you all. I was also a Geek of the Week.  At the end of October we went to Ashford Castle for a Harry Potter night. It was awesome!

November was Wexworlds which was a winter wonderland edition as all the snow in the world decided to fall on Wexford that weekend. We met, among others, Eoin Colfer which made my son’s decade (a feat as he’s not quite a decade old)! It also brought rewrites on May Queen which are now all done.

December brought Songs of the Wolf to print, The Wolf’s Sister and The Wolf’s Mate collected together for the first time with another lovely Natalie Winters cover. My first and latest Samhain novella together. Pretty! And a freakin’ unbelievable amount of snow! I mostly hibernated. This also meant I got the second round of edits on May Queen finished early (Yay me!) and sent them back.

So what next? Well, we’ll have to see what 2011 brings. I’m off to Rome for a libraryland conference this week – will be sure to bring back photos. Many many photos. And tonnes of inspiration. I’ve started working on Forest King, the sequel to May Queen, and a number of other things (of course). Looking forward to the Pen dinner in February and PCon in March – anywhere writers gather really. RNA conference is in Caerleon this summer and as plans stand I’m definitely going. It’s only a ferry ride away. Ok, a ferry ride and a drive/train, but close enough. And this is the year we will knock May Queen into its final shape.

It’s shaping up to be an exciting year. Can’t wait.