On Saturday, October 15th, I attended a workshop put on by my local RWA chapter. We had two presenters: Megan Long, an associate editor at Harlequin, and Adam Dreece, a local author and public speaker.

Here I am with some of my writer friends, Shaa Dickson, Win Day and Janice Harvie.

For more pictures of the workshop, go here.

In the morning, Megan gave her talk on “How to be a Hybrid Super Author”. Hybrid means you publish both independently and with a traditional publisher. She followed that presentation with “Love in the Mix: Genre Blending in Romance”. Megan took pitches in the afternoon.

For once, I did not pitch. I’m too busy with my indie publishing right now, but I’m thinking, maybe down the road, I’ll send something to Megan. I would love to publish with Harlequin for two reasons: I know they have fantastic editors, and I would love to attend the Harlequin Party at Nationals!

For now, I’m taking care of the final details for my next book—The Thurston Heirloom—which will be released on Thursday, November 24th.

For the afternoon session, Adam Dreece presented his popular workshop, “The Author’s Final Frontier” and he talked to us about brand, social media and everything you need to know about having a successful book signing.

I haven’t had a book signing. Not yet, anyway. Maybe I will host one, once I get my first six books published.

The workshop was held at CARWA’s usual meeting spot, the Highland Park Community Centre. It’s a large, bright room. There’s a  kitchen and the parking is free. It’s also easy to find and easily accessed off the main roads. The event was catered by An Affair to Remember with a selection of sandwiches, and we also had fruit and veggies.   

In an effort to reduce, reuse, recycle, we asked everyone to LUG A MUG.

And they did. Here are some of the mugs that showed up at the event.

Thank you to all the mugs that attended!