I’ve been a writer since before I could string together sentences. I’d heard good things about Romancing The Craft, so when I found out a day long workshop was happening near me, I hopped on it. An amazing caliber of authors filled the various panels of the day and it seemed like a great opportunity to connect with fellow writers.

What is Romancing The Craft?

Romancing the Craft is a one-day conference aimed toward marginalized unpublished and published romance authors which offers them programing to develop their craft, to learn from masters of the genre, and advance their careers through valuable networking opportunities with peers and other industry professionals.

On May 3, I drove to the Rutgers Academic Building in New Jersey. The event started with an opening keynote between Mia Sosa and Sarah Younger. They told the story of how they came to the industry and how they became an author/agent duo. From there, Adriana Herrera and Sarah MacLean gave a masterclass about writing a romance novel. I love hearing authors speak about the way they approach stories. After that, there was a panel that spoke about the future of romance.

I can’t say enough good things about this day-long workshop. When signing up, attendees had a two sections of workshops that had two choices. I went to the Writing A Character They’ll Root For with Alisha Rai and Refreshing the Classics: Romantic Retellings with Nikki Payne. People have been retelling stories for hundreds if not thousands of years, so hearing how Niki Payne broke down her method helped me brainstorm future stories on my very long roster of things I’d like to write.

Romancing the Craft was a fantastic way to hear about craft and connect with authors and writers. If you are a marginalized writer and are about to attend a workshop I highly recommend it.