Tess Gerritsen to headline NZ writers' festival

Tess Gerritsen, a physician who gave up medicine for crime writing and is now one of the world?s bestselling thriller authors, will teach a workshop on thrillers, and give a talk on how to build emotion into one?s writing at the Romance Writers of New Zealand (RWNZ) Annual Conference, Love & Other Crimes.

Bob Mayer, an ex special forces agent (Green Beret A-team commander) and now a bestselling suspense author and digital publishing expert, will present a one-day novel writing seminar, designed to take a writer from first page to last. Over the course of the weekend he will also present workshops on special operations and on digital publishing. Meteorologist Maria V. Snyder, a New York Times best-selling author of fantasy and paranormal fiction for adults and teens, will teach workshops on writing fantasy and paranormal fiction, and will give a talk on dystopian fiction, arguably the hottest genre of the moment.

Aspiring authors will have the chance to pitch their novels to Sue Grimshaw, editor-at-large for New York Publisher Ballantine Bantam Dell, a division of Random House and also to USA literary agent Jessica Faust of Bookends Literary Agency, along with New York editor Angela James of Carina Press and Lucy Gilmour of romance giant Harlequin Mills and Boon. There will also be opportunity to pitch to editors from Penguin and Random House, New Zealand. Jenny Hellen from Random House will also be taking young adult fiction pitches.

The RWNZ Conference runs August 19-21 at Crowne Plaza Hotel in Auckland. Earlybird Registration closes July the 11th. The conference will also offer talks and workshops applicable to mystery and young adult writers, plus a discussion and demonstration of carriage driving. For a full programme and registration information please visit http://www.romancewriters.co.nz/.