It is a truth universally known by introverts that an introvert in the midst of a four-day conference must be in want of an isolation booth. I mean, I was. At a certain point, I reach maximum introvert stimulation levels and my brain stops using words correctly. Or giving them to my mouth in the right order. It’s embarrassing, but it’s standard operating procedure, so I’m used to it – and I know I’m not alone.
So late Saturday afternoon, I found an outlet beneath a table on a quieter floor in the conference area of the hotel, and attempted to summarize all the things I heard and learned this year. This is a non chronological list because my brain has given up on rational order of anything.
The Wednesday night Literacy Signing was terrific, with just enough people to make the room seem full but not so many that I couldn’t get anywhere. There were mother and daughter groups, and so many women of different cultures going from author to author – it was pretty great.
The swag was pretty awesome this year. I think authors are being a lot more creative and strategic with the promotional items they invest in – which is very cool. Courtney Milan’s cell phone battery chargers were my favorites:
Courtney Milan phone charging swag! What goodies have you found so far at #RWA15? pic.twitter.com/8R9orZImV6
— Sarah Wendell (@SmartBitches) July 24, 2015
And then there’s the publisher creativity, like Avon’s team giving out coloring books of some of their covers. HOW COOL IS THIS?
Has anyone else started on their @avonbooks coloring book? #RWA15 pic.twitter.com/e4jdkudgBR — Sarah Wendell (@SmartBitches) July 24, 2015
Plus, Avon sponsored the WiFi (which, seriously, I’m not sure if there’s a better way to ensure my undying, neverending, everlasting gratitude). When you signed on, there was an opportunity to download a free ebook. Neat!
I went to several sessions this year, which is kind of odd for me. I’m not really into sessions about craft, for example, but this year, there were several panels about writing and marketing diverse romances, of which I attended two. The first was titled “Diversity in Romance: Why it Matters” and featured Sugar Jamison, Corrina Lawson, Alisha Rai, Farrah Rochon, and Rebekah Weatherspoon. This panel focused on the issues faced by writers of color writing characters of color, and the not-as-many issues faced by white authors of characters of color.
Rebekah Weatherspoon said, in a much-tweeted moment, “I don’t write in the genre ‘black lady.’ I write contemporary new adult.”
Seeing a discussion that’s occurred repeatedly online addressed on a panel in a standing-room-only session led to a lot of topics being touched upon, and a lot of questions from writers in the audience. They tackled the idea of publishing lines based on character (or author) skin color, and the different ways in which characters can reflect the variety of human experiences in terms of race, culture, history, appearance, physical ability, and sexuality.
Another session I attended, “Multicultural Romance: When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong, and How to Make it Right,” featured Alyssa Cole, Lena Hart, K. M. Jackson, and Falguni Kothari speaking about stereotypes and overused plots that are based on outdated or exhausted concepts. It featured (PDF link ahoy!) the world’s greatest handout, a six-page color magazine featuring tips and resources for writing diverse characters, sources for stock photos, common misconceptions, and ridiculous plot devices (my favorite: “Our complexions are different; let’s discuss this while we’re boning”).
At a session about writing multiculturally and they have created a magazine of greatness! #RWA15 pic.twitter.com/NRq6zQ6euk
— Sarah Wendell (@SmartBitches) July 23, 2015
I *think* there may be a digital copy available after RWA, and if there is, I will link to it. I haven’t laughed so hard at a handout in a long, long time.
By far the most powerful and important session I attended is also one that wasn’t recorded, and for which the panelists asked that there not be live coverage. Courtney Milan, Zoe Archer, Carly Phillips, Lorelie Brown and Alyssa Day led a panel discussion titled “Writing through Depression: A Candid Chat.” From the description:
A panel of successful authors talk candidly about their experiences with depression. Topics will include analyzing depression and the creative mind, finding your way to words on the page (or knowing when to stop pushing yourself), admitting that you have a problem (sometimes the hardest step of all), and discovering ways to find help, survive, and even thrive.
Like many of the panels I attended, the room was over-full, but even with 100+ people in the room, because of the topic, and the honestly with which the speakers addressed depression and anxiety, the room was a very intimate and safe space, something I haven’t seen happen easily, especially at a conference.
Each person’s experience with depression was different, but I was in awe of their bravery and honesty in addressing a topic that is so difficult to talk about in a professional and personal capacity. I’m very familiar with the ways in which romance writers and publishing professionals support one another, but this was an entirely different and equally vital way that the community can care for one another. I’m so thankful that this panel was part of the schedule.
I was part of a panel on Saturday with some really, really smart people: “The Experts Share: The Hottest New Trends in Romance Publishing” with PJ Ausdenmore, Nancy Berland, John Charles, Bette-Lee Fox, Joyce Lamb, Kim Miller, and Kristin Ramsdell. The room was completely full – which is so cool, so thank you – and we answered questions about trends and what we’ll see more of in the future. A few highlights:
John Charles noted that he thinks historicals will continue to expand in time through the Edwardian era and into WWII, and pointed to shows like Downton Abbey and other PBS dramas as reasons for the influence.
Gothic romances, romantic suspense, and sports romances were mentioned as specific types of romance that will continue to thrive and grow – which was very happy-making news for several people in the audience who write suspense.
I mentioned that a trend is something that arrives and declines, and thus diversity is really not a “trend.” The genre needs to better reflect the women who read it, and that’s a natural and important change in the genre that will keep happening.
Readers will continue to be a large influence as we are better able to connect with one another and communicate what types of stories we like, what we want to read, and what we want to buy.
Trends will continue to cycle faster and faster, but that each is built of a familiar element. I’ve cited before Vivian Arend’s theory that rock stars are the new werewolves, and billionaires are the new vampires. Sports teams and especially hockey romances were mentioned as a popular type of contemporary, and there’s a good amount of similarity between sports teams and werewolf packs. New trends often contain reframed familiar elements, and that can make trying to predict the immediate future a little less scary.
Bette-Lee Fox, who writes for Library Journal, emphasized the importance of libraries as a resource for readers and and self-published and traditionally published authors, especially as libraries are trying to reach people digitally and build collections of local authors.
Audiobooks will continue to grow in popularity. Joyce mentioned that readers are more and more interested in the narrators as well as the books and authors, and that interviews with narrators have been very popular. (This made me happy, as I did a podcast interview with Renee Raudman in two separate episodes last year at RWA, and it was a LOT of fun.)
And, finally, in addition? National Hot Dog Day AND National Tequila Day overlapped with RWA this year, and I got to see the weinermobile up close. Achievement unlocked!
What are the odds that #NationalHotDogDay would overlap with #RWA15? pic.twitter.com/lEcMc3pgbj — Sarah Wendell (@SmartBitches) July 23, 2015
Were you at RWA this year? What was your favorite part? What sessions did you find most useful?
As things are looking now, I am going next year. I am already excited. As long as I don’t think of the travel time. (15-20 hours!)
Thanks for the recap Sarah. Can you believe I didn’t wake up to watch the live stream of the RITA Awards. I needed to get up at two am and I just slept on. I’m hoping we can watch it later. I’m so glad Carole Mortimer won the lifetime achievement award. I can’t wait to be able to attend the conference but until them I’ll haunt your site for talks about what happened.
I would’ve loved to hear the talk on depression.
The self doubt and ups and down is one of the most difficult things to cope with for a writer. But I do understand their need for privacy to talk freely. I hope they will continue to give the talk in future sessions and I might be able to attend.
So, what I’m hearing here is “werewolf hockey team” needs to be a thing…..
Christi Craig’s session, Polish Me Pretty, was a hoot. So informative in between all the laughs, but I’m sorry to have missed Courtney Milan’s panel. I think she’s a brilliant writer, and obviously a very courageous one. Kudos to everyone who shared their stories.
I wouldn’t mind more diversity in sports romances. Hockey probably isn’t as diverse as some of the other major sports, but why not a First Nations hero? Why aren’t there more basketball romances? And more baseball romances with Latin-American players? As a figure skating fan, I’m kind of hoping for a skating-hockey crossover romance, which worked in The Cutting Edge – and skating is totally an international sport, so many options there!
Werewolves would be optional.
@Jane Drew- see Shelly Laurenston to find the werewolf hockey team.
If you specifically want the story where the werewolf hero is a wealthy (maybe not quite billionaire) hockey team owner, hockey player, master chef, and part of a shifter enforcer organization, check out “Big Bad Beast”.
Shelly Laurenston is wonderfully and delightfully over the top. And pulls it off.
This was my first RWA and I spent an embarrassing amount of time wandering around with a deer-in-headlights look. Even when people couldn’t see my first time tag, they new. Perhaps my fear permeated the air. I went to several craft seminars. Sarah MacLean’s session on conflict was fantastic, and I enjoyed Kristan Higgans and Tracy Brogan’s humor seminar. The panel with Kathleen Brooks, Jennifer Probst, Melody Anne, and Ruth Cardello was very real and informative. I also though Mark Lefevbre from Kobo was fantastic and cannot speak highly enough of his presentation.
Maybe next time, I won’t be so timid. Oh, and I’m bringing an empty suitcase for books.
The highlights for me were the four diversity sessions on “multicultural” (as the industry not-always-correctly labels romances containing non-white characters) and LBGTQ romances. The takeaway, to echo Rebekah Wearherspoon, is that character and author identities are not genres. Also a highlight was catching up with old romance friends and meeting new ones!!
Thank you for this wonderful wrap up. I am so sorry I missed attending this year with both the depression for writers and the diversity workshops. I wrote a multicultural trilogy for Harlequin Special Edition 2014-2015 featuring a biracial heroine in book one, a Japanese American in book two, and a Hispanic heroine in book three. I don’t think I made any great waves but I loved writing the series, and I sincerely tried not to be stereotypical in my portrayals. (In the past I was called out by a reader of Harlequin Medical Romance for making a gay character a stereotype, but I honestly didn’t see him that way – Dr. Tall, Dark and Handsome). I hope, with the new series that I may have reached a few new readers because of the multicultural trilogy. A Doctor for Keeps (7/14) Her Perfect Proposal (3/15) Falling for the Mom-to-Be (6/15).
I will say there was a lovely discussion at Goodreads about the biracial heroine as being realistic and believable, and that made my day for sure!
Thanks for the summary, Sarah. Sounds amazing. Wish I could have been there.
If romance novel trends run at all close to Australian TV trends, this is what we can expect next!
Sexy builder and renovation romances, with titles like:
In Love with the Plasterer
He Tiled My Heart
Christening the New Kitchen Counter (Marble with a Gloss Finish)
Cooking and chef romances, with titles like:
Steaming the Asparagus… and the Windows
Saffron, Sage and Seduction
Dinner in Bed with a Side of Hot’n’Spicy
I CAN’T WAIT.
@Katy: So what you’re saying is that I need to watch more Australian TV.
There were many seminars I would have liked to attended, including one of the Multicultural/Diversity ones, but they conflicted with others that were a requirement for me. Courtney Milan’s seminar on Metadata was my favorite. She’s a terrific speaker and was able to communicate a rather complicated subject in a way that I could comprehend. The sessions with Amazon, Barnes & Noble, KOBO, Create Space, and Audible were also very good and meeting those reps and having a chance to make a contact is much of the reason I attend conferences. I also appreciated the business type atmosphere of RWA.
I very much wanted to attend your panel on romance trends but I had an appointment that could not be changed. I was very glad to read here that John Charles believes historicals could be on the upswing. That’s great news! All the morning breakfast speakers, especially Barbara Freethy, were very good, too. Good conference for me with lots of take aways.
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Awesome bloggpost – thanx.
And it was SO nice to meet you and to listen to your workshop!
(Simona – the swedish romance writer)
@Amanda: That pretty much sums it up, yeah.
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@rose I hate to be that person, but I think the lack of diversity in hockey is precisely why it is so popular. Hockey much less popular in the U.S. than football, basketball, and baseball. What else explains the popularity?
I agree that so many storyline opportunities are being missed by making every single player white and American. You could do a great fish out of water tale with a European born player. Goalies are usually super weird, so that could be fun too. More and more black players are joining the NHL and I would love to read that book. I would also love to read about female hockey players at the Olympics. (Both black players and female players face a high degree of bullshit from the sports media/public, so it would have to be handled with sensitivity).
Then again, maybe I’m not the target audience for those books. I’m a huge hockey fan and I always find factual errors in hockey romances. And I’ve been a part of hockey fandom too long to gloss over some of the less savory aspects of professional sports. Every time I hear the term puck bunny, I want to throw my kindle across the room.
Sorry. I have a lot of feelings about this.
And I went and jumped all over your escape time. Blerg.
@Kiersten:
No, no – NOT a problem, ever! I like talking to you. I had no energy and probably looked dazed, but you didn’t intrude at all.
@Simona: skål!
My notes from the Trends workshop are one of my most precious takeaways from RWA2015. Thanks for your input Sarah—and for putting yourself out there afterward for handshakes, hugs, etc. Lot of us on both sides of the podium are introverts. Pushing past the boundaries makes me grateful for the invention of antiperspirants, but I keep doing it b/c the rewards can be so worth it.
@ohhellsyeah:
I actually was talking about this with Sarah the other night. I love sports romances; they’re my catnip. Hockey especially. However, I do disagree with your statement that hockey appeals BECAUSE of the lack of diversity. In terms of reading about it, I prefer my athlete heroes to be hockey or football players because of the game. It’s a very physical and aggressive sport, so tensions run high, there’s the threat of horrible injury, men hitting each other as signs of their physical prowess.
I love watching basketball. Love it. I went to about four Celtics games this past season, including a playoff game, after catching the bug. However, basketball romances aren’t very popular. And, as much as I enjoy watching the sport, I don’t know if I’d ever read one because it doesn’t appeal to my interests in why I love sports romances. While basketball does have some contact to it, the game often comes down to the last two minutes where the teams are purposefully fouling each other for free throws.
I’m not saying there isn’t a diversity problem in romance, because there is. I have yet to see a football romance with a non-white dude on the cover or as the hero, which really doesn’t line up with NFL player demographics. However, for me as a fan of both sports and romance, my appeal to these stories has nothing to do with the diversity makeup of the roster, but the attributes of the sports themselves.
@ohhellsyeah, I’ve wondered if that’s part of the reason myself. I can read hockey romances because I know very little about the sport and don’t notice errors (unlike baseball, where I can always spot mistakes). But in terms of diversity, it’s not the obvious sport to focus on, is it?
@Amanda, I totally get why those sports would appeal for the reasons you mentioned, but like you I can’t help but notice that Romance NFL is much whiter than the real NFL.
@Amanda & ohhellsyeah:
I kinda think you’re both right. The path of most travel and least resistance in romance marketing and sales defaults to a white/hetero/Christian/etc protagonist pair – which is in and of itself not ok. With sports romances, I think the type of sport also influences how easily it’s sold & marketed, too. Football (US/NFL) and hockey (and boxing and mixed martial arts) have a lot of corollaries to established and very familiar tropes: packs of alpha males, preternatural or almost superhuman strength and abilities, barely leashed anger and aggression, code of ethics and conduct within the group, boundaries for when and where aggressive behavior is acceptable, and so on. That could be weres, or hockey or football players. It’s familiar and easily described with shorthand terminology for hook/marketing/sales purposes.
I would totally love a WNBA romance, for example. I’m wondering if there will be crossfit or weight lifting romances at some point, too, though that’s a more individual style sport. I do love baseball romances, too, though I like baseball a lot, and I will readily admit that if you like hockey or football, baseball can seem hella boring (unless you’re watching a Central American, South American, or Caribbean team play in which case they, and the spectators, are having the best time). But I recognize that any of these would be a harder sell for the persons explaining it, and the more simple (and often more racist/ablist/etc) default is still in place.
And then there’s self publishing and I grow more thankful for it every day.
@Heather:
You’re very welcome! I love meeting the people I chat with online all the time – it’s really fun. And as a fellow introvert, I empathize, and am thankful that the romance community is so welcoming and friendly.
I attended the “Writing Through Depression” workshop – it was mostly about identifying the various ways in which people experience depression and touched on coping strategies (breaking down large projects into bite-sized tasks; forgiving yourself if you don’t accomplish a particular thing when you planned to; accepting that there’ll be moments, even days, when you just won’t have it in you to get out of your PJs and that that’s ok; trying different types of therapy–talk, meds–to see which, if any, work for you; and I think being connected to folks who seek your good and support you). I felt honored to be in a room that featured such candid discussion of the presenters’ personal experiences, honored and grateful. There’s so much information out in the world about mental illness, and attitudes are changing, but even so, sometimes you feel like you need validation–this workshop certainly provided it, for me. My only criticism is that each seat should’ve been set up with a box of tissues, as the tears, they were a-flowin’! 🙂
I was Sarah MacLean’s
bitchvolunteer assistant for the literacy signing on the 22nd–she was SO generous with her time for her fans, it was really quite touching. And I went to her workshop on Mastering Conflict which she fabulously nicknamed “Or, stuff happens when two idiots fall in love.” Copious notes were scribbled!Jude Deveraux’s workshop on organizing your research and scenes was super helpful for me and enjoyed some great off-topic moments: when Jude was asked about current trends in romance, she expressed annoyance with how PC romance writers have to be in their contemporary romances (the hero can’t TELL the heroine to do a thing, he has to STRONGLY SUGGEST it) and complained about the loss of spontaneity in sex scenes because writers have to address the use of prophylactics (picture the diminutive author exclaiming in her soft southern twang, “No more sex up against the wall!”). L-O-freaking-L.
Robin D. Owens’ workshop on techniques for dealing with overwhelming stress and blocks was chock-full of really excellent tips and advice. (One that really resonated with me was: if you have a “day job” to use different themes on your home computer from what’s on your job’s computer–make a visual difference in the work environments so that when you get home to do your heart’s work, your heart recognizes a haven and communicates the requisite info to your brain so you can slide into your writing easier.)
Sarah, I’m really ticked with myself for missing your workshop (I was
hung-overexhausted, so thanks for giving us the highlights here.^ Well, that’s embarrassing. Sorry about the badly done strike-through. I was trying to be funny and made a mess. (Story of my life). Don’t know how to delete and re-post or I definitely would. 🙁
@Mina Lobo: Fixed it for you! When closing the tag, use strike instead of s!
^A-ha! Thanks so much, and sorry to be a bother! 🙂
The workshop about the editing process and how to hire an editor by Angela James was the most useful workshop I attended. I also liked the workshops on humor and dialogue with Kristan Higgins and the slow writers workshop with Julie James, Lauren Willig, Meredith Duran and Sherry Thomas. This was my second RWA and I didn’t go to nearly as many workshops and signings as I did the first time and I was a lot more picky about which books I took. I did, however, have kickass shoes.
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