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Saturday, October 19, 2013

GENRECON AUSTRALIA




Yes, yes, I don’t blog very often. I’ve never seen the sense in telling the world what I’ve had for breakfast.

But now I have something to say!

Last weekend (October 11-13) I attended the GenreCon Australia conference at Brisbane. Yup. Beside the River Walk. Pretty. And cool, considering the temperatures were up around 30 Celsius and it’s only October. A really hot Spring this year. We genre writers and readers were a vocal bunch, representing predominantly the worlds of romance, SF and paranormal. Or maybe they were the noisier ones.

We heard about the power of genre fiction and also its history. Stemming from the days of Charles Dickens’ serialised novels, this popular as opposed to literary fiction is more than holding its own. It is constantly evolving and that’s the great thing about genre fiction. Rather than looking inward, it is looking outward.

And, and, and…genre fiction is at the forefront of e-publishing, they said. No kidding! Advice re contracts (common terms, reprint rights) and self-publication was dished out generously.

Some writers were given the chance to pitch to publishers’ representatives and agents such as Kate Cuthbert and Alex Adsett. Alex has to be the world’s most pragmatic agent. No high falutin’ rubbish there. She tells it like it is, with her main message being “It’s damned hard out there.”

Most useful to me was the research information from the outspoken suspense author, Dr. Kathryn Fox. Not being a native Australian, I often stress about whether my ideas of the hierarchy and tasks of the special squads of the Australian Federal Police are accurate or not, and Kathryn’s advice on where to look for this sort of information was gratefully received.

All-in-all a great conference and thank you to Queensland Writers (QWC) for their input.

9 comments:

  1. Sounds great. Can you share where to look for the police info - I would truly like to know this too.

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    1. Cassandra, she mentioned the Australian Police Journals so I scrabbled around and it seems most states have one at least, and there are others out there too.

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    2. Sounds like a great experience. I think we can all benefit from exposure to the experts, fans and fellow authors we encounter at conferences like this.

      Kathleen Rockwood

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  2. Great post Vonnie. I attended GenreCon last year, couldn't make it this year so good to hear how it went.

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  3. Glad you enjoyed your conference! We have similar meetings here in the US, and my favorite is the Writer's Police Academy. It's great fun to go on an actual building search and to speak with officers and fire fighters. Perhaps, Australia offers something similar?

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    1. Hi Ashantay. I've heard of individuals asking for ride-alongs, but so far haven't heard about equivalents of your WPAs. I read about them on crimescenewriters.group and go green with envyh.

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  4. Nice to read about your GenreCon in Australia. North of the equator we are concerned about accuracy in the same areas. There is so much to know! The internet has helped in many ways, but nothing beats a good conference. Thanks for sharing.

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  5. Lovely to hear about a conference devoted to popular fiction. Sounds great but Brisbane is just a teeny bit far from Western Australia. (envious sigh)

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