Just a quick post to report in from Brisbane. The IASPR conference is going brilliantly – and it’s wonderful to be spending time with people and discussing the genre and books in general. There’s been some great papers, including two very different critiques of the Twilight books, which have generated much discussion and thought. I love the conference banner, but I can’t find an image of it to share – it’s got the famous sculpture (The Thinker? The Philospher? Not sure of its name) with the slogan: Romance – Think About It.
There was a brief and positive segment on the conference on the ABC news last night – you can view it here.
The day before the conference, IASPR president Sarah Frantz and I took a day trip to Lamington National Park and then to Currumbin Sanctuary. It was a great day out, followed by dinner with Sarah, Eric Selinger and his lovely family (visiting from Chicago for the conference), and Sarah Allwood from Canberra. Then there was also dinner out last night with some of the conference delegates – so it’s been a full-on, but inspiring time, with much lively discussion and debate. There’s another full day today, then this evening the RWAustralia conference starts with the opening cocktail party.
Here’s Sarah, at Currumbin sanctuary, feeding the rainbow lorikeets:
Wow 2 conferences in a week. Are you exhausted???? I am from Claytons. It was loads of fun. We actually had our own version of ‘the thinker’ statue. (Check it out on the Claytons Book Cover contest pages of RWA blog – and no it wasn’t my entry – I was #5)
Anyway, hope you post about RWA soon. Sorry to have missed your presentation in Brissy. Am sure it was great.
I was about to say Sarah takes a beautiful photo. But that would be incorrect; Sarah makes a beautiful subject in front of Bronwyn’s camera. That’s correct.
Hope the Brisbane foray was fruitful and mind topping. Hi to the hounds. —- Eric