I'm excited to announce that my manuscript Reunited with the Millionaire is among the top three finalists in the Pages From The Heart contest in the Short Contemporary Novel category. This contest is run by From the Heart Romance Writers, a chapter of Romance Writers of America. Entries consisted of the first 6,000 words.

Congratulations to all the finalists!

My short story Loving Nalini is to be published in Hawkeye Books' new anthology Allsorts, a collection of jolly good tales that celebrates diversity in Australia. Allsorts features 43 short stories that were submitted to the inaugural Sydney Hammond Memorial Short Story Competition. The guidelines for this competition needed to fit the theme 'Together in Diversity' where the main character needed to cross paths with somebody who was different to them.

Loving Nalini is a romantic short story about Brad, a white Australian medical student who is struggling with his feelings for his Indian best friend Nalini, whose father expects her to return to India with her medical degree and enter an arranged marriage. Rachel is proud to be part of this socially important anthology along with many talented writers.

This October long weekend, I ventured from home in Townsville down to the tropical Whitsundays to conduct research for my current work-in-progress 'Reunited'. As well as enjoying some holiday time, I gathered information and sensory detail for this book, experienced scuba diving, and relished in the value of conducting research.

This weekend, I attended the Romance Writers of Australia conference where I participated in The Deep Dive manuscript workshop with author Rachel Bailey, learned how to construct lovable alpha heroes, and attended a workshop on crime writing to improve my romantic suspense skills. I pitched three manuscripts to publishers and built my skills in creating conflict and plot structure. I enjoyed socialising with her fellow writers, bought too many books, and left with the goal to focus on writing category romance.

I'm pleased to announce that I will be appearing at GenreCon 2019 in Brisbane as part of a panel 'Write to Win'. On this panel, I will join other winners and finalists of writing competitions to discuss the benefits of entering your work into competitions and what happens after you win.

This weekend, I attended four workshops with romantic thriller writer T.M. Clark. 'Layering Your Novel' reviewed enriching manuscripts with detail and emotion. At 'Life After the First Draft', T.M. took participants through stages of edits to help make a manuscript reach a publishable standard. Then on Sunday, 'Finding Your Voice' was covered followed by a very motivating session 'Finishing That Book!'

Thank you Townsville City Council and Festival of Stories for these workshops. You can read more about my experience here.

​This July, Townsville's Festival of Stories is back and better than ever, keeping me busy for four whole weeks. Today, I attended a workshop 'Hooking the Reader' with crime writer Mark Brandi and discussed first chapters, one of my passions. After all, there is nothing more important than that vital first chapter and page.

Today, I attended The Writer's Plan, a workshop hosted by Queensland Writer's Centre's CEO and romance writer Lori-Jay Ellis. At this workshop, Lori-Jay took us through principles of goal setting in order to effectively manage writing time and complete your novel. This professional development opportunity has helped me realign my goals in order to complete my next novel by the end of the year.

You can view my writing plan here.

This weekend, I attended the Rainforest Writing Retreat in the beautiful Gold Coast Hinterland at O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat. I had the opportunity to participate in workshops about writing blurbs, ghost stories, and a writing masterclass with Anna Campbell.

You can read about my experience at the Rainforest Writing Retreat here.