Romance author, Ally Blake, loves strong coffee, bingeing on Netflix, fluffy white clouds in bright blue skies, when a favourite song comes on the car radio that she hasn't heard in ages, and the glide of a cheap, soft, dark pencil over reeeally good notepaper.

She also adores writing love stories. With readers delighting in the "sprinkle of effervescence" she adds to her books, her "fairy tales for grown-ups", and having sold over four million copies of her novels worldwide, she truly is living the dream.​

Alongside one handsome husband, three sparkly kids, and too many animal companions to count, Ally lives and writes in the leafy western suburbs of Brisbane, Australia.

GET TO KNOW THE PRESENTER:

All-time favourite book? - Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. If talking romance, then Welcome to Temptation by Jenny Crusie

Current favourite book? - Let's go with a couple of amazing non-fictions - Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert (for sparkle) and How to Be Perfect by Michael Schur (creator of The Good Place) (for gorgeously penned empathy and thoughtfulness)

Favourite tropes? - Friends to lovers, grumpy sunshine, boy next door, hero falls first

Favourite movies? - Funny Girl, Cyrano de Bergerac, Aliens, Field of Dreams, Pillow Talk, How to Steal a Million, When Harry Met Sally, The Way We Were (and I could go on ;))

Favourite TV shows? - The West Wing, Gilmore girls, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel... 

Random fact about Ally: My word of the year is SUNSHINE!

with Clare Connelly - sponsored by Harlequin Australia

On the 50^th Anniversary of Mills & Boon in Australia, Clare Connelly and Ally Blake - successful category romance writers (and passionate defenders of the genre) - will take attendees on a whirlwind trip through category romance. Offering a succinct foundational introduction to this very specific, reader-expectation driven style of romance, this workshop will cover – the types of categories and editorial requirements for each, big hitters in the industry, pathways to publication, tropes, types of heroes, and consent/power dynamics.

Ally and Clare will share on-the-ground insight from the biggest publisher of category romance in the world, with the up-to-date wish-list via the UK office (as well as how to work this out yourself by looking at Amazon and on their websites). What’s selling? What should you be writing right now to give yourself the best chance of success?

They will also share how they have managed to sustain careers in category romance, through the shifts and changes in the industry—by writing multiple books a year, across sub-genre, juggling plotting/planning with writing and revising, sometimes all at once.

The talk will come with downloadable workbook/notes outlining the information covered, plans for where attendees can look to next to up their category romance game, and time enough to answer any burning questions at the end! Questions can also be submitted ahead of time to make sure we cover them on the day.