friday workshops

Friday 16th August 2024

Please note these workshops run concurrently and you will not be able to register for more than one.

                       WORKSHOPS

HINDMARSH ROOMBALLROOM 5MOSELEY ROOMS
8.00am Romancing Academia
Curated by Amy T Matthews
Become a Marketing Boss
Elana Johnson
Rock Your Writing Career
Cathy Yardley
10.30am Morning Tea
11.00am
Romancing Academia
Curated by Amy T Matthews
Become a Marketing Boss
Elana Johnson
Rock Your Writing Career
Cathy Yardley
12.30pm
Lunch
1.30pm
Romancing Academia
Curated by Amy T Matthews
Become a Marketing Boss
Elana Johnson
 Rock Your Writing Career
Cathy Yardley

3.00pm
End of Workshops


workshop summaries

Romancing Academia

Curated by Amy T Matthews

Flinders University and Assemblage Centre for Creative Arts are thrilled to host an academic symposium on popular romance studies as part of RWAus’ 2024 conference. Featuring the latest research from romance academics, and open to anyone with an enquiring mind who wishes to attend, this symposium will showcase romance in all its complexity and glory. The symposium will consider the rise of the contemporary rom-com and the enduring impact of the historical romance, as well as the cultural force of category romance, focusing on the power of the romance genre and its intersections with feminism, gender, sexuality, generic forms and formulas, ideologies and more. When a room full of experts in the field of popular romance studies bring their research into the same room, new ideas ignite. This will be a day of fun, excitement, and learning and sharing, throwing the intellectual spotlight on the most read genre in the world. 

Preliminary Schedule

8.30am
8.40am

9.40am
10.00am
10.30am
10.50am
11.10am
11.30am
12.00pm
12.45pm
1.45pm
2.05pm
2.25pm

2.45pm
3.00pm
Introduction & Housekeeping 
The Australian Convict Romance Novel: Narrating reparative histories of social and sexual justice for “Damned Whores”
Bad Romance: The Core Tropes of the Bonkbuster
MORNING TEA
Where are all the Blakfullas?
Queering Romance Tropes
The Arranged Marriage Trope in South Asian Diasporic Romance Fiction
A Real Bad Boy: How Colleen Hoover’s It Ends with Us Exploits Romance Tropes
LUNCH
Tales of Romance: Insights from 40-word romantic stories
Masculinity in Sports Romance
Cinnamon Roll Heroes
Reading the Romance in Australia: ARRA survey data (2009-2023) and the practices of Australian romance readers
Wrap Up
END OF DAY
A/Professor Amy T Matthews
Professor Hsu Ming Teo

Dr Jodi McAlister 

Melanie Saward
Justina Ashman
Sreepurna Datta
Lucy Rouse

Rebecca Stokes
Bee Jamieson
Abby Guy
Lauren O’Mahony

CLICK HERE to download the Symposium PDF program


Take your author brand to the next level! In this value-packed class, 4-time USA Today Bestselling Author Elana Johnson will share the proven promotional strategies and marketing tips which have made her a Top 100 Kindle Unlimited All-Star Author under 3 pen names, and a 7-figure author for the past 4 years. If you want to breathe new life into your backlist, convert readers into raving fans who buy all your books, and create buzz for successful launches, this class is for you.

You'll discover how to: 

  • Optimise your book listings for higher visibility and engagement
  • Run targeted and cost-effective marketing campaigns
  • Bank on your backlist, no matter how big or small
  • Create irresistible content for your fans
  • Foster an active relationship with your readers through social media and email lists
  • Execute a launch plan that maximizes exposure and gets results
  • Expand your IP so it's working for you in multiple ways
  • Capitalise on wide retailers (not everything is about Amazon)
  • And more!

Elana has sold over 8 million books worldwide and continues to build a passionate readership that eagerly awaits her next release - under 4 active pen names. She'll share real examples from her own hugely successful promotions as well as plenty of tips you can implement yourself without a big budget. You'll come away energised and equipped to take your marketing efforts to the next level - and it's not always about ads. Whether you're a new author or a seasoned pro, this class will help you expand your readership, drive consistent sales, and ultimately - be a Marketing Boss!


Rock Your Writing Career

Cathy Yardley

Morning session: Rock Your Plot
Whether you’re a plotter, a pantser, or somewhere in between, this session will help you better pin down what drives fully fleshed characters to want what they want, and do what they do, and then show you how to take that knowledge and create organic turning points to create a page-turning, keep-your-readers-up-until-way-too-late keeper… in way less time than you think.

We will cover:

    1.       Testing your premise (so you don’t have just a handful of tropes or a “cool idea”)
    2.       Goal, Motivation, Conflict – what it needs to do, and how to make it work
    3.       The Rock Your Plot 8 plot point approach
    4.       The importance of scene structure, and why disasters are necessary
    5.       Scene outlines (if a roadmap makes you feel good)
    6.       Just the guardrails (if you need flexibility)

This is an interactive session, so you’ll be able to ask plenty of questions.

Afternoon session: Rock Your Writing Life
If you’re trying to be a serious, hopefully profitable writer, especially a full time one, the expectations placed on you seem immense. Not only do you have to write, you need to either research and query (if you’re pursuing traditional) or you need to take on all the duties of being a publisher (hiring editors, cover artists, formatters if need be, and then wrangle with distribution and pricing.) Not to mention you need to somehow build a platform and promote your work across a variety of social media, a newsletter, etc. You need to not only be a writer, but a photographer, a video personality, a graphic designer, and a business person. All that, on top of whatever other roles you have in your life: spouse, family member, parent, employee. (If applicable, add to it being neuroatypical. For example, if you have depression, anxiety, or ADHD. Everything gets that much harder, and in my experience, many writers are dealing with something along those lines!)

Just reading all that is exhausting, isn’t it? How are you supposed to write the much-emphasized three or four books a year with all those obstacles? Or what if you’re just stuck?

In this session, we’re going to address the four main overarching reasons why you’re not writing (or not writing as quickly as you’d hope) and offer some insights on how to address them. These boil down to:

    1.       Issues with focus
    2.       Issues with energy
    3.       Issues with fear
    4.       Issues with process

Once we identify which issue(s) you’re dealing with, you’ll be armed with some broad approaches and specific solutions, based on what would actually work for you and your personality and lifestyle. 





Thinking of just attending a Friday workshop? You can do so via the link below!




workshop registrations


Early
(until COB 5th June)
Standard
(until COB 17th July)
Late
(until Conference)
RWAus Member
$300.00 $350.00 $400.00
Non-Member
$350.00 $400.00 $450.00

INCLUSIONS IN WORKSHOP REGISTRATION 

  • All entitlements for day of attendance
  • Attendance at booked workshop
  • All official documentation for the workshop
  • Morning tea and lunch as scheduled




rwa conference secretariat

Tel: +61 2 4319 8519
Email: rwa@willorganise.com.au 

#RWAus24



In the spirit of reconciliation, Romance Writers of Australia acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia, and their connections to land, sea, and community. We pay our respect to their Elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.