Reader Blogger Marg, you can find her at Reading Adventures and Historical Tapestry, was nice enough to agree to share with us her adventure at the Australian Romance Readers Convention this past weekend.

If we get lucky we can talk her into sharing some more photos and stories.

Ever since I have been blogging, each year when everyone started talking about going to either RWA or other major romance conferences, I have sat here in my chair in suburban Melbourne, Australia turning various shades of green. Whether people were posting about meeting their favourite authors, or the goodies rooms, or the signings, I read all the posts thinking about how it was all kinds of awesome that they were getting to do such fun things. The thing was, no matter how envious I became, the simple fact was that at this point in my life there is no way that I would be able to go to the US to attend such an event.

So when I just happened to read something about an Australian Romance Readers Convention back in December 2007, I was over the moon! And then when it was announced that it was in Melbourne, I was again really excited. And then, in what seems like no time at all, the inaugural ARRC is over, all the delegates have gone home and I am sure that the organising committee members are all collapsed in a heap in exhaustion.

It is difficult to give just the highlights so that this guest post isn’t as long as the weekend itself, so instead I will try to just give a taste of the flavour of the weekend. The most obvious place to start is with the keynote speakers – those who were invited to travel half way around the world to come to visit their Aussie fans, and I can tell you those fans were very appreciative! Mary Janice Davidson, Susan Grant, Liz Maverick, Sherrilyn Kenyon (with special guest Dianna Love), and not forgetting Stephanie Laurens (who didn’t come half way around the world, but we still appreciate her nonetheless). We laughed until we cried, we were inspired, we were challenged and above all we were entertained!

One of the things that I often say on my own blog is that I don’t read enough Aussie authors, and I have to say that I learnt something that kind of surprised me this weekend! There are a LOT of Aussie authors out there. They write in various different subgenres, from Mills and Boon (Harlequin), to the big NY publishing houses, to e-books and other publishers like Samhain. I have come home determined that I am definitely going to read more Aussies – Keri Arthur, Denise Rossetti and others, I am talking about your books! An Aussie author that I already read is Anna Campbell and it was great to see her latest book, Tempt the Devil, officially launched in Australia by Stephanie Laurens on Saturday afternoon.

At Saturday night’s dinner, I was lucky enough to be sitting with the gorgeous Kat O from Book Thingo, plus her librarian (yes, librarian and borrower attended together – how great is that!) with some other girls, including two Samhain authors and we had an absolutely fantastic time, so much so that I forgot to take pictures of some of the award winners and of the people sitting at the table. Kat, Vassiliki, Jess Dee and Lexxie Couper, thanks ladies. And don’t worry, what happened at dinner and what we talked about at dinner, stays at dinner. Have to say though – those mini cakes were to die for!

One of the things that the conference coincided with was the National Day of Mourning on Sunday for the bushfire victims from the terrible fires that started in early February with such devastating loss of life and property. As I write this on Monday night, we have been reminded that the fire crisis is not over with existing firest still burning and new fires starting on the outskirt of Melbourne this afternoon with more loss of homes. My point in mentioning this is that one of the initiatives of the organisers was a silent auction with the proceeds being donated to the Red Cross Australian Bushfires Appeal. There were many, many generous authors and organisations that donated great items, and there was over $7000 raised through the auction, plus an impeccably observed minute of silence on Sunday morning at 11am.

There’s so much more that I could mention, but I have to save something for my own blog (*grin*), but I haven’t mentioned the panelists, the books, the signings. So much to talk about!

In closing I want to say to the organizers of ARRC – thank you, thank you, thank you.

You did an amazing job. I don’t think that I can pay any higher compliment to you than to say my friends and I started to make plans on Saturday night to attend the next ARRC – whenever it is and wherever it is held – with at least two more of our friends. I know that I overheard other delegates making their own plans too!

Marg