A Romantic Rendezvous (Locked Down)

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Elizabeth: Tea Time

The Australian Romance Readers Association‘s Romantic Rendezvous (Locked Down) event that occurred earlier this month continues to be the gift that keeps on giving.

I still haven’t had a the chance to listen to all of the sessions, but one that I was able to listen to this week was the Alyssa Montgomery house party,

“Alyssa J Montgomery is joined by three overseas romance authors, Meg Tilly, Dani Collins and Sabrina Jeffries, to discuss their writing spaces and their upcoming releases. At this writers house party, after the tour some of their Australian fans ask the four authors a variety of questions on their books and their writing.”

Not only did I enjoy the session, but it was kind of fun to see someone that I remembered from years past a a popular young actress (Meg Tilly) who is now a popular grown-up novelist.    A quick perusal of my TBR pile shows that one of Meg Tilly’s books is patiently waiting it’s turn to make it to the top (which it now has), so obviously I knew she was a novelist, but I’d never seen an interview with her before.

Coincidentally, just after I saw the ARRA video, I saw this post by author Jayne Ann Krentz:

Author pal Meg Tilly has fired up a fun YouTube channel. Join Meg for her weekly Tea Time events. Here’s a link that will take you to her channel.

Naturally I had to check it out.

The episodes are short and fun. Meg is generally in her pajamas (or writing clothes) and just has a cup of tea and chats.  The videos started about a month ago and there are 16 of them so far, covering a variety of topics.  It’s always fun to catch a little behind-the-scenes glance into a writer’s life, and these videos are no exception.

Looking for a little distraction?

Grab a cup of tea and check out an episode or two.

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Elizabeth: Start Now

As I mentioned a a short while back, this past weekend was the Australian Romance Readers Association‘s Romantic Rendezvous (Locked Down) event. 

In a time when in-person conferences are not an option, many organizations have been coming up with creative virtual events to fill the gap.  This event by the ARRA included 50 YouTube video sessions of author chats, readings, panels, and feature interviews.

While the event had a live feel to it, with the video sessions posted according to the daily schedule, it had actually all been recorded earlier.  As a plus, that meant that there was plenty of time to address any technical difficulties that cropped up during the initial recording, so the posted sessions were basically trouble-free (well, except for the closed-captioning, but they may not have had control over that).

Anyway, as you can imagine, 50 sessions is a lot of watching/listening to fit into a single weekend.  I gave it the old college try, but I still have a few sessions left in my queue.

As I listened to each session, I tried to pull out some piece of information that resonated (and, in all honesty, seemed like it might make a blog topic).  In some cases I came up empty-handed, which is not too surprising since the event was aimed at readers rather than writers, but I did come up with a few. Continue reading →

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Michaeline: Virtual Fun, Australian RRA style!

 

RKO radio pictures logo with a radio antennae on top of the globe

Calling out, around the world! Romance readers, here’s a special bulletin for you! (Image via Wikimedia Commons)

Just a quick update on Elizabeth’s post on July 22, 2020. The Australian Romance Readers Association’s virtual weekend has begun! Their A Romantic Rendezvous: Locked Down began releasing interviews on YouTube this morning, and by the time people in Europe and North America wake up, there should be almost a day’s worth of fun stuff up!

I spent a half hour watching the Jennifer Crusie interview; it was my first time to see her in live action! She’s just as I imagined she would be: articulate and full of good humor.

I’m tempted to spoil it and tell you what was in the interview! She talks about using collage to create characters, and why she doesn’t like to base a character on a real person. She tells us what books she’d recommend to someone new to her catalog. She adds her theory of humor. She tells us her best reader feedback, and then the conversation winds up with book talk, of authors living and dead that she likes.

I’m making the comments a spoiler zone; if you haven’t seen the interview, you might want to bookmark this to read the comments later. Please feel free to discuss and fan-squee! I’ll be checking back through the weekend (Saturday, Sunday and Monday for me).

There are a few other ARRLD events that I’ve got marked on my calendar for this weekend, but the wonderful thing is that it’s all on YouTube, so you can enjoy them any time, on your own schedule. (I’m just lucky that Australia is only one hour different for me – LOL, first time I’ve ever been first on a video.)


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Elizabeth: Virtual Distraction

I don’t know how things are where you are, but here we are still working remotely, staying close to home, and trying to help flatten the pandemic curve.  For me, that means I’ve been staring at the same walls for quite some time now.

I’m definitely ready for a fun distraction.

Fortunately, I found just the thing in my news feed the other day, thanks to a post by Julia Quinn.  I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the Australian Romance Readers Association (I wasn’t), but if you’re not, now may be a good time to remedy that.

On the weekend of August 1-2, they’ll be running a Romantic Rendezvous (Locked Down) event on their YouTube channel.  Here’s the blurb: Continue reading →