WRITERS ABROAD MAGAZINE: THE THIRD SPACE
To Conference or not to Conference?
By Nicola Cleasby (Nina Croft)
This morning, my other half handed me a spreadsheet. He told me it was a comprehensive
list of everything I’d spent on my recent trip to Las Vegas (apparently the only thing missing
is a replacement laptop lead for the one I abandoned in my hotel room) to attend the
Romantic Times Convention.
I thought what happened in Vegas was
supposed to stay in Vegas—clearly that
doesn’t apply to credit card bills. I think there
was a whole separate column for
margaritas.
I don’t know for sure, because I didn’t look at
the spreadsheet; in fact my eyes remained
clamped firmly closed until he took it away. I
really didn’t want to know how much I’d
spent—what’s done is done—though I
suspect it was enough to keep us in the
poverty we’ve become accustomed to, here
in Spain, for a considerable time.
For a long time now, I’ve wanted to attend a
writing conference, and I’ve looked on
jealously while my on-line writing friends
flitted about to various events. I’ve been
writing for about ten years, published for five, and in that time I’ve met so many people online; publishers, editors, some fantastic authors. It really was time to meet a few of them in
person. Plus, two years ago, I had a health scare when I was diagnosed with breast cancer.
I’ve come through it fine, but that sort of thing does have the effect of making you think that
putting anything you really want to do off, is not a good idea.
So it was just a matter of where and when and which conference.
The RT convention is a sort of hybrid, as it caters to both readers and writers and I thought
it would be a great place to dip my toe in, see what it was all about. Plus, it was in Vegas, a
city I’ve always wanted to visit. And when my publishers, Entangled Publishing, announced
they were going to do a two day mini-conference taking place directly before RT, and in the
same hotel, it seemed like fate.
So I registered. And I booked flights. And I organized hotels and a friend to come with me
for the week before the conference to do all the touristy stuff. And I was ready to go.
And it was totally crazy; literally thousands of people, writers, readers, publishers, agents
and a few pretty impressive male cover models thrown into the mix. There were workshops
and games and panels and parties...
So was it worth it? Yeah. I might never go again but it was fun and an amazing experience.
8 | May 2016