RNA Conference – Report from the Editors!

by Mills and Boon editors Kimberley Young and Joanne Carr

Kimberley Young and Joanne Carr were the two editors who attended this year’s RNA conference.

You have already heard from Mary an overview of the RNA conference in Chichester, but we thought we’d pop by to let you know how the conference went for us!

When we arrived on Friday our first thought was just how lovely Chichester was! It is such a pretty market town with lots of shops and atmosphere, but our steely determination and professionalism meant we resisted the urge for an impromptu shopping trip and we made our way to the University campus for the Editor/Author sessions. We settled in for two hours of speaking with aspiring authors, listening to their story ideas and questions and offering advice and feedback. Each author had a designated ten minute slot, but somehow as the afternoon went on, we managed to run over time. Maybe it is because we just love to chat! So apologies if we kept you waiting! We finished half an hour late, slightly exhausted but pleased with how the session went. It is always great to meet aspiring authors face-to-face and our aim is to be as honest and helpful as possible – after all, ten minutes is a short time! Those with upcoming editor/author appointments, remember that the ten minutes is yours. If you find asking questions rather than explaining your story more useful, than that’s fine – it’s your time!

After a quick restorative drink with Medical Romance author Roger Sanderson (who, may we add, was a complete gentleman and looked after us all weekend!) we went to track down our published authors and found them in the bar. There, we spent time catching up with as many of our authors as possible, before heading off to have a quiet dinner so we could do prepare for the next day.

Our workshop on Saturday morning was titled: ‘Don’t Let the Plot Get in the Way of the Story’. When we first considered our workshop topic earlier this year, we had something slightly different in mind, but the Editorial team as a whole had recently assessed and replied to just over 300 submissions in a short space of time, and we found that similar problems were coming up time and time again: clichéd plots. So we decided we wanted to address this problem head on. We discussed characters, clichés and cliffhangers and we were thrilled by our audience’s response.

Afterwards, many authors approached us to say how useful they found the workshop and that they now felt they had to re-work their submissions before sending it in to us for assessment. This may sound like a small thing, but for us editors, that means we have done our job and done it well!

After lunch and a final catch up with M&B authors, it was with slightly weary legs that we returned back to the centre of Chichester where we allowed ourselves a well-deserved browse around the shops before we headed back to London.

It was a wonderful conference and just lovely to meet with so many authors, published and unpublished who were as passionate about romance as we are. All we can do now is hope that we see some wonderful submissions as a result!

Joanne Carr will be back soon to introduce herself more fully and share some exciting news with you all about Modern Heat!