The Romance Writers of Australia has announced the winners of their 2009 contests and awards. A big CONGRATULATIONS to the finalists and winners!

R*BY awards

The Romantic Book of the Year Award—more commonly known as the R*BY or Ruby Award—is awarded to the best romance book published the previous year by an Australian or New Zealand romance author, as voted on by Australian readers. More details on the RWA website.

Short Sweet — Marion Lennox (His Island Bride)
Short Sexy — Trish Morey (The Italian Boss’s Mistress of Revenge)
Long Romance — Anne Gracie (The Stolen Princess)
Romantic Elements — Suzanne Perazzini (Beneath The Surface) (more)

The Romance Writers of Australia is holding its 2009 National Conference in Brisbane.

We’re not writers, but we’re sticky beaks, so we’re following the live tweets to keep up to date on the goings on (no incriminating photos, yet).

If you have a Twitter account, the hashtag is #RWAus09, and you might also want to follow @RWAus. You can catch up on Day 1 tweets here.

You can find additional official coverage on the RWA blog, including award winners as they’re confirmed. If you know of any bloggers or tweeters covering the conference, please let us know so we can link to them.

This is an archive of the Twitter stream for Day 2. You can also view the tweets on ScribbleLive. (more)

Congratulations to everyone who won an award at the Romance Writers of America (RWA) national conference last weekend.

Rosemary’s Romance Books in Brisbane was awarded the Steffie Walker Bookseller of the Year Award. According to the RWA website, this award is given to a bookseller “who provides outstanding service to romance readers and demonstrates notable support of romance authors and the romance genre.” Awesome win.

The other Aussie winner is Stephanie Laurens for Best Novella.

RWA sponsors the the RITA^®, arguably the genre’s most prestigious award. Here’s a list of the winners:

A Mother’s Wish by Karen Templeton (Best Contemporary Series Romance) — Excerpt
Danger Signals by Kathleen Creighton (Best Contemporary Series Romance: Suspense/Adventure) — Excerpt
Hell Week by Rosemary Clement Moore (Best Young Adult Romance) — Excerpt (more)

Romance Book of the Year finalists

The Romance Writers of Australia has announced the finalists for this year’s R*BY Awards:

Short Sweet
Claire Baxter — The Single Dad’s Patchwork Family
Melissa James — A Mother in a Million
Marion Lennox — His Island Bride
Fiona McArthur — The Midwife’s Baby

(more)

applause-2 by Multiple fragments of tissue (via Flickr)

Congratulations to RITA and Golden Hearts finalists!

The 2009 finalists for the RITA and Golden Heart awards have been announced by the Romance Writers of America. A number of Aussie authors made the list, including:

Vanessa Barneveld for the Golden Heart for Young Adult Romance (Call Me Crazy)
Lilian Darcy for Contemporary Series Romance (The Children’s Doctor and the Single Mum)
Barbara Hannay for Contemporary Series Romance (Adopted: Outback Baby)
Stephanie Laurens for Historical Romance (Where the Heart Leads), Regency Historical Romance (The Edge of Desire), and Romance Novella (The Fall of Rogue Gerard in It Happened One Night)
Nalini Singh (because NZ is close enough!) for Paranormal Romance (Mine to Possess)
Christine Wells for Regency Romance Historical (The Dangerous Duke — which I’ll be reviewing soon!) (more)

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Are zombies the new vampires?

If you’re over vampires and werepeople and, yes, even angels, the new trend in paranormal romances may well be … zombies! A book titled Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (US | UK) is due for release on April 1. The tag line is: The Classic Regency Romance – Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! You can read an interview with co-author Seth Grahame-Smith here (the other author being, of course, Jane Austen). Says Grahame-Smith:

when you take a look at the original book, it’s almost as if, subconsciously, Jane Austen is laying out the perfect groundwork for an ultraviolent bone-crushing zombie massacre to take place.

…there’s this zombie onslaught that’s been going on for years and Elizabeth Bennett has spent her whole life training to become a highly efficient killer of the undead, as has Darcy. It’s more about a love story between two headstrong independent zombie slayers. (more)

Lost in Austen (DVD)

Pride and Prejudice time travel shenanigans

Tomorrow night, ABC1 will screen the first part of Lost in Austen, a British mini-series in which a 21st-century reader swaps places with Elizabeth Bennet and finds herself inadvertently changing Jane Austen’s story. It sounds fabulously fun, and the SMH provides some background to the series. Lost in Austen has become one of Britain’s best selling DVDs, with talks of a film adaptation. Click here to watch a preview of the show.

Ebooks in Australia

Thinking of buying an ebook? David Frith at Doubleclick has a good round-up of ebook options for Australians. The BeBook seems to be the cheapest option, although Frith seems to have missed the products sold by DA Direct (which, according to a reader at ARRC, will be selling more ebook readers through their Melbourne store). (more)

This is a round-up of ARRC09 and is not in chronological order. If you want to read more anecdotes, check out the liveblog. Click here for a list of ARRC09 posts and liveblogs .

Gala dinner

I wasn’t sure what to expect at the gala dinner, but there had been some discussion in the ARRC Lounge as to what people were wearing. Opting for a little black dress, I arrived just as the entrees were being taken away. Oh, well. I didn’t have much time to nibble, anyway, because as soon as I sat down I was immersed in book conversations left, right and centre.

I was seated with Vassiliki, my librarian and my fellow blogger Marg from Reading Adventures. Also at our table were authors Jess Dee and Lexxie Couper, two readers from Sydney, one from Malaysia, and another lady who was too far away for me to have a proper conversation with. Obviously, we mostly talked about books. I was seated next to an erotic romance reader, so I asked her for recs. I think she said Anya Bast, and possibly a few others that I can now no longer remember. (more)