The next ROSA get-together

The next ROSA get-together is on the evening of Thursday 23rd June in Parkhurst, Johannesburg.
If you'd like to come join us for food, wine, and lots of chat about books, please email me on romy@romancewriters.co.za for further information.

Two new writing contests

First up is the Kensington Brava contest. This year they're looking for novellas with all the heat and passion of their romances. The top eight contestants get mentored through the final rounds, so well worth entering even if you don't win! You can find out more here: Writing With The Stars. The deadline is mid August.

Mslexia managazine, aimed at women writers, is running a contest for full length novels. Entrants must be previously unpublished in full length fiction an should have a complete manuscript. Please note that there is an entry fee of £25. More information is available here: Mslexia The deadline is end of September.

International 'Life Writing' Competition

THE SOCIETY OF WOMEN WRITERS & JOURNALISTS

is delighted to announce its 

INTERNATIONAL ONLINE ‘LIFE WRITING’ COMPETITION

With prizes totalling £9,000 

Sponsored by The Morris Duo Foundation for SELVA (Standard English, Literacy and Visual Aesthetics) 

Judges: Sophie King and Katie Fforde 

Word Count - 3000 words maximum

Closing Date: 30.09.2011 

Entry by email only via our Submissions page 

‘Life Writing’ is a fluid term used to describe the recording of experiences and memories, whether one’s own or another’s. It covers biography, memoir, diaries, letters and personal essays etc., and, more recently, digital forms such as blogs and email. It can also be linked with genealogical study - when recording your own life, it is common to become curious about the lives of others, and if they have not recorded their own life, to start doing it for them.

You can find out more here: http://www.swwj.co.uk/home.htm

Introducing ... April Vine

I’m South African by nature, born and bred, and I’m an incurable writer. I wish I could remember the definitive moment when I realized I wanted to be a writer. My mum’s always been an avid reader – amassing hundreds of Barbara Cartland historical novels. My late dad, an obsessive book buyer, whether it was a thesaurus, an Enid Blyton adventure or a Reader’s Digest book about birds. Books were part of the furniture at our house.

I loved the escapism they offered and began to write stories about my friends at school. I’d give them exotic names and adventures in faraway places. They’d wait quite eagerly for my little homemade, stapled renditions of books. When I reached high school, I changed genres and switched to romance : ) If one of my friends had a crush on a guy, rest assured I was going to write a full account of their romance with a guaranteed happy ending. I was extremely popular. I made all my friends romantic dreams come through on paper! :)

About some fifteen years ago, I queried M&B, had a full requested but was rejected - albeit with great personal feedback, too much plot for one. I then took time out to have babies and even though I wrote consistently, none of my books ventured outside my computer. I picked up the submission process again in 2007 and submitted a book to The Wild Rose Press. Just my luck the book landed in the wrong editor’s inbox, the erotic romance editor to be clear, but she liked my voice enough to want to work with me and recommended I read a few erotic romances to get a feel of what she was looking for.

Up to that point, I must admit I didn’t even know erotic romance existed. I fell off my chair reading my first one and blushed a hundred shades of red. But my husband, my rock, advised I try it before I knock it. And well, I became hooked on the freedom to explore the more physical attributes of mankind. Subsequently I managed to publish three short erotic romance stories and am working on a few more for submission.

For me the hardest part about writing, anything for that matter, is writing! It’s the strangest notion in the universe. There’s nothing in the world I want to do, or can do, yet every day I talk myself out of actually doing it. It boils down to a very bizarre battle between my butt and the chair. True too is the more you write the less arduous that battle becomes. So my advice to anyone with a passion to write, and advice I try to follow myself, is just write it, even in its most base form, a dirty draft. All you need is something tangible to work with, and from there anything, anything is possible.

“I never met a writer who wanted to be anything else.” — Natalie Goldberg

Happy writing!

You can find April's novels at The Wild Rose Press. She also has a website at www.aprilvine.co.za.

Introducing ... Louise Rose-Innes

Louise Rose-Innes was born in Cape Town, in the Western Cape and spent her school years running wild amongst the subtropical environs of the beautiful east coast of South Africa. After completing her Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental and Geographical Science, as well as a Post Graduate in Marketing Management at the University of Cape Town, she moved to London where she currently lives.

When she’s not writing modern romance, Louise works as a web copywriter and internet marketer. She’s just launched an e-book formatting service for authors, who want to self-publish their work on the web. Check out her website at www.yournovelonline.net.

Louise has been formulating romantic stories in her head as far back as she can remember, and finally put pen to paper in 1996 after completing a romance writing course through Barnes and Nobel. She did a diploma in Features Writing at the London School of Journalism in 2001, and studied Online Copywriting with American Writers and Artists Inc. (AWAI) in 2009. Louise has published several fiction and non-fiction e-books, the latest titled 50 Development Activities for Kids, which can be purchased from www.yourchildsdevelopment.com.

She’s also written a comprehensive visitors guide to Cape Town, called Cape Town Magic, which can be downloaded off www.westerncapetravel.co.za.

Louise is a regular blogger on online marketing for authors, at Savvy Authors, a website for writers, by writers. Louise’s latest romance novel, Antarctic Affair, can be downloaded off her website www.louiserose-innes.com or found on Amazon Kindle. If you have any questions for Louise, you can email her at louise@louiserose-innes.com.

Postcards from Cape Town writing retreat

Australian travel writer and photographer Kim Wildman will be hosting a writers' retreat in Cape Town in September.

Held from 5-9 September at beautiful Dunkley House guesthouse in the city's old quarter, this five day retreat will take participants on a travel writing journey through the sights, sounds and scents of Cape Town.

Facilitator: Australian-born Kim Wildman has spent the better part of the last ten years criss-crossing the African continent as a travel writer, guidebook author and wannabe National Geographic wildlife  photographer. She has authored and updated more than 15 guidebooks including Lonely Planet's South Africa, Lesotho & Swaziland and West Africa, Bradt Travel Guide’s Tanzania and Ghana, and Random House Struik’s Offbeat South Africa. Kim has a Masters Degree in African Studies attained from the University of Cape Town. Recently voted one of Tripbase’s 100 Favourite Travel Writers in the world, her feature articles have appeared in Travel Africa, abouTime, Planet Africa, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and Voyageur magazine. Visit her website at: www.wildwriting.com.au

You can find out more about this retreat here: http://www.wildwriting.com.au/retreats/cape-town or feel free to contact Kim on kim@wildwriting.com.au

The Next Big Author

From Louise Rose-Innes, who will be profiled here on the blog next week:

The Next Big Author – Closing Date May 31st 2011. Supported by Bloomsbury, Random House, Orion, Little Brown and Hodder and Stoughton.

There is still time to enter for feedback from the publishers of authors such as JK Rowling, Dan Brown and Terry Pratchett for the best opening chapters written in May. Please visit www.thenextbigauthor.com for details of how to enter via the competition rules on the left hand side of the site’s homepage.

If the time left seems short, below are a few examples of famous authors who penned completed books in short periods.

Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange: “The book I am best known for, or only known for, is a novel I am prepared to repudiate: written a quarter of a century ago, a jeu d’esprit knocked off for money in three weeks, it became known as the raw material for a film which seemed to glorify sex and violence.”

Mickey Spillane: His most famous Mike Hammer Novel, I, the Jury, was written in nine days. It sold 7 million copies in three years

From The Guardian: “Alexander Dumas had a 100-louis bet (a decent sum in 1845) that he could write the first volume of Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge in just three days. Powered by a steady supply of coffee (his manuscripts are splattered with it), he pulled it off within six hours to spare with scarcely a crossing out.
In 1941, Jack Kerousac dashed off 200 short stories in eight weeks, thanks to a regime of benzedrene pellets. Stephen King took just three nights to finish The Running Man while hooked up to a Budweiser drip.”

Not that we at SA Romance recommend drugs and alcohol as the solution for writing quickly!