Blog | Alison Morton Author

RNA Conference - Part Deux

Due to total camera fail, I didn’t have many photos to show you when I wrote my first post. Hurrah for friends! Liz Harris (The Road Back) has emailed some over.

Freda Lightfoot, Denise Barnes and me

Me with Liesel Schwarz. Two alternate history writers having alternated their books…

Liz Harris, Janet Gover, Rhoda Baxter, Maggi Fox and me, skulking in the shade

Being grilled by Jane Wenham Janes

Relaxing in the bar area in between talks

Cheers! With Chris Stovell, Saturday evening pre-dinner drinks

Traditionally, ancient Rome was founded in 753 BC. It grew into one of the largest empires in the ancient world with roughly 20% of the world’s population and an area of 6.5 million square kilometres at its height.

Plagued by internal instability and attacked by various migrating peoples, the western part of the empire broke up in the 5th century, giving way to the pre-mediaeval “Dark Ages” of Europe. The last western emperor Romulus Augustulus abdicated in AD 476.

Using basic maths, the western Roman state existed for 1229 years; although development has moved at rocket speed in recent years, a simple comparison would be from AD 680 to AD 1909 – what a lot of history that covers!

So over more than a millennium, what does “Roman” mean?

Do we mean Romulus, founder and first king of Rome 753-717 BC?
From an altar found at Ostia Antica – The discovery of Romulus and Remus

Or these pottery heads dating from the 6th century BC tribal societies found on the Capitoline Hill in Rome?

Perhaps Cornelia Africana, the daughter of Scipio Africanus, mother of the political reforming brothers, the Gracchi. She died at age 90 in 100 BC, and was remembered by the Romans as an exemplar of virtue. (Painting by Angelica Kaufmann)

Or this from the Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus, known as the “Census frieze”, circa 122 BC?

Maybe Augustus, the first Roman emperor
63 BC – AD 14

Or his influential and clever wife, Livia

Or perhaps Constantine the Great
AD 272 – 337, the first emperor to convert to Christianity?

And there’s Stilichio, the half Vandal general who was magister utriusque militiae (commander-in-chief) of West Roman forces AD 395–408.

Perhaps Galla Placidia (AD 392 – 450), daughter of the Roman Emperor Theodosius I, Regent for Emperor Valentinian III from 423 until his majority in 437, and a major force in Roman politics for most of her life. She was consort to Ataulf, King of the Goths from 414 until his death in 415, and Empress consort to Constantius III from 417 until his death in 422.

And near the end, Emperor Majorian AD 457-461 who was one of the last emperors to make a concerted effort to restore the Western Roman Empire. Possessing little more than Italy, Dalmatia, and some territory in northern Gaul, Majorian campaigned rigorously for three years against the Empire’s enemies.

What does the word “Roman” conjure up for you?

Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers, INCEPTIO, and PERFIDITAS. Third in series, SUCCESSIO, is now out.

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INCEPTIO shortlisted for book award!

INCEPTIO has been shortlisted for the International Rubery Book Award. There, I’ve managed to type that correctly with trembly fingers. It’s so exciting!

Here’s an extract from their site about the award:
“The Rubery Book Award is the longest established book award based in the UK for independent and self published books. The key to our success is having a keen eye for quality from distinguished and reputable judges.”

Back to the tenterhooks waiting for the winner announcement…

STOP PRESS: The winners have been announced today (27 July 3013) – congratulations to them! Although INCEPTIO didn’t gain a prize place, the judges wrote a lovely review:

This science fiction thriller is set in an alternative world, where modern New York resembles our twenty-first century New York, but Europe has been redrawn. Roma Nova was set up sixteen centuries ago by Roman exiles and it operates under a matriarchal system.

Karen has her life interrupted by an unfortunate set of circumstances, and as a result, finds that life in America is not as free as she had originally believed. She is forced to flee to Roma Nova, where her mother came from, and is pursued by a frightening government enforcer.

The nail-biting action is handled with expertise, never losing pace as Karen takes on rigorous training and becomes a force in her own right. It convincingly combines the atmosphere of ancient Rome with modern reality and technology and is a promising beginning for a series.

Self-publishing times are a-changing

Maybe my RNA colleagues were being polite at the annual conference this last weekend, but I didn’t get one remotely pointed remark about my self-published debut novel, INCEPTIO. That sounds defensive, I know, but what a change from even 12 months, let alone 24 months ago.

Are we all now ‘published’ rather than self/independent/mainstream/traditional? Have we reached that Nirvana? Probably not, but we’ve travelled a lot further along the path in the last six months than in the whole five years before.

Freda Lightfoot pounced on me at the conference to contribute to her talk on independent/self publishing and asked me to give the audience my experience of assisted publishing in both print and ebook. I spoke a few words about how I wanted to have a shiny physical book to show and sell to people as well as have the ebook available online to the world. I wanted mine to be the best of novels.

It’s been extremely successful – the glorious purple and gold eagle design for INCEPTIO has been much admired by readers, fellow writers, bestselling writers, agents and media folk. And there’s nothing like the pleasure of putting an attractive, well-produced book into a reader’s hands.

Freda’s session was very well attended, so much so that the plenary room was used. But so many people approached me for information afterwards or took me aside for a few minutes in one of the coffee or meal breaks that I lost count. Oh, and I signed a lot of books that Blackwells kindly sold for me!

I saw for myself the self-publishing buzz at the London Book Fair in April where Amazon were showcasing only their self-publishing arms – KDP and CreatSpace. They would, of course, but you could almost touch the excitement flowing round that section of the fair.

When I returned home after the Sheffield conference and caught up on the message and email mountain, I saw that the Romance Writers of America were opening therir famous RITA awards to self-published work “ensuring the RITA contest remains viable in light of industry evolution“. The guidelines will be strict and no cheap or sloppy work will stand a chance in this fiercely competitive contest. But the playing field is levelling out…

Updated 2023 – Ten years later: Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. Audiobooks are available for four of the series.Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, a new Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, is now out.

Find out more about Roma Nova, its origins, stories and heroines and taste world the latest contemporary thriller Double Identity… Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. You’ll also be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.

Romantic Novelists' Association Conference 2013

The Edge accommodation

Fun, friendship and some serious talk – these were the keys of this year’s conference at the University of Sheffield’s The Edge campus. We’ll take it as read that the evenings were convivial, that was much exclaiming of “How lovely to see/meet you in the flesh!” and comparisons with previous conferences.

Two hundred women and men met to learn about and discuss structure, agents, time-keeping, motivation, media handling, independent publishing, research and much more.

One of my favourites was Melanie Hilton‘s (Louise Allen) beautifully illustrated talk on Jane Austen’s London – a universe away from the alternate world of Roma Nova. Apart from the breadth of her own knowledge, What Melanie demonstrated was the depth of research needed to bring authenticity to any novel.

The goody bags

Nina Harrington‘s accomplished talk on procrastination and motivation was skillful and very relevant for me as I’ve been suffering from the time push-pull of promoting one book while writing another.

Along with Talli Roland, the well-known chicklit writer, I was pounced on to contribute to Freda Lightfoot‘s very well attended talk on independent/self publishing. This is such a wide subject area that you need a whole conference to explore even the basics. Freda asked me to tell the audience my experience of assisted publishing in both print and ebook. The key messages of the session were that publishing choices continued to grow, that rights retention and control were the author’s closest assets and that an outstanding cover and professional edit were crucial.

Agent Carole Blake and media tutor Janet Gover keeping cool

Media was a key theme for me and I loved Maggi Fox‘s talk on getting your message across, i.e. writing materials and getting the media to use them. Janet Gover‘s session on radio and television gave us ten top tips for appearing on each medium. I volunteered to be a victim guinea pig. Never at ease being filmed, and squirming at a large version of myself projected onto the classroom wall, I was extremely pleased to have had the experience of answering questions put by a professional journalist.

And I was in the spotlight again when Jane Wenham Jones interviewed a random number of people in a lively and quick-fire session on her “sofa”.

INCEPTIO on the Blackwells booktable

Blackwells University branch ran the conference bookshop on Friday and Saturday and members could sell their own books on Sunday. I have to say I was pleased with INCEPTIO’s good performance on both days!

But the best part of the conference is networking with other writers, sharing experiences, swapping tips, arranging further meetings and events.

Roll on RNAConf14!

More photos here