news and events
New: upcoming events featuring the New Romantics and bumper crop of new books from the team!
Yes, the New Romantics are on tour. Well, sadly, we don't actually have a tour bus, or roadies, or fancy Mariah Carey style demands (though we're partial to a nice red in our dressing rooms), but we are doing lots of travelling this coming spring. Catch us here!
Wednesday 10 February at 7.30pm - Romance in the Library, MILLENNIUM LIBRARY NORWICHA talk with on romantic fiction with New Romantic authors VERONICA HENRY AND LUCY DIAMOND/SUE MONGREDIEN. Part of the Love to Read campaign, this event is being held at the Millennium Library, the Forum, the Norwich. Tickets for this event cost £2 and are available from the Millennium Library. To book a ticket, or for more information, contact Sarah on 01603 774707 or email sarah.salmon@norfolk.gov.uk
Monday 14 March - Thursday 18 March, 6-9pm each evening - Writing Commercial Women's Fiction - the Workshop, Kingston University, Surrey
KATE HARRISON is teaching an in-depth four-night workshop on women's fiction - and there's a £30 reduction on the cost if you book before Valentine's Day. W e'll cover generating original ideas, developing compelling characters, key elements of structure and story-telling; and, finally, approaching publishers and agents with your work. It builds on last year's successful course, Head over Heels course, with more time for feedback and workshopping. Find out more or book online here.
Sunday 11 April at 9.30am - UNIVERSITY OF YORK
'Keeping all your balls in the air' (oo-er) - a talk fron VERONICA on how to sustain a multi-protagonist plot. Part of the Festival of Writing at the University of York 9-11 April 2010.
http://www.festivalofwriting.com
Thursday 3 June at 7.30pm - CORSHAM LIBRARY
Meet New Romantics Lucy Diamond, Sarah Duncan and Veronica Henry
Part of Wiltshire Words Festival - more details to follow!
Thursday 10 June at 7.30pm - CHESTERFIELD LIBRARY
An evening with New Romantics Lucy Diamond, Sarah Duncan, Milly Johnson and Veronica Henry.
Part of the Derbyshire Literary Festival.
http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk
New Books
We're all slaving over our laptops to produce new novels!
Sarah's latest, A Single to Rome, came out in hardback in January, and will be in paperback from May - which is a busy month for the New Romantics, because Lucy's latest, Sweet Temptation, is also out then - for more information, take a look at Lucy's website. And Milly, too, has a brand new title out that month - it's called A Summer Fling - the story of 5 very different Yorkshire women who work together and find that age is no barrier to friendship and acceptance.
Four authors, sixty glasses of rose, and one black eye...
On April 30, 2009, we held our launch event in the riverside setting of Rich
mond-upon-Thames Old Town Hall. Reader Development Librarian Fiona Pearson and her team went to town decorating the room to reflect the theme of love, complete with rose wine and cranberry juice!Authors Lucy Diamond, Jojo Moyes, Veronica Henry and Kate Harrison read from their work (Lucy's brought the biggest laugh of the evening, with a rather saucy punchline) and answered questions about how they write and why they think writing about relationships is a very worthy calling... The host, Francis Bennett, was charm personified and did a terrific job - and with more than sixty people in the audience, the night was a really fitting way to launch the New Romantics!
See above for the girls in action - and to witness Kate's rather spectacular multi-coloured black eye (courtesy of a mugger in Vietnam)...as Jojo said, there was no need to go quite that far to fit in with the pink/red theme of the evening.
Head over Heels: Women's Fiction Writing Course, May 18-21
Kate has just finished teaching an intensive course on writing commercial fiction from May 18 to 21 at Kingston University. She was joined by fellow author Louise Voss and fifteen talented writers - covering everything from the importance of the right title, to the heroine's journey, and the latest trends in Women's Fiction.
It was brilliant fun, and Louise and Kate are already planning a follow-up course, so watch this space!