And of course there was the cocktail party...

Working backwards...
After a full day for published authors, and another full day workshop (this year conducted by Bob Mayer  on Warrior Writing), the conference properly kicked off with the Friday night cocktail party, hosted by the Harlequin Mills and Boon Sydney office.
For some years now, we've made this party a fancy dress do. Rather than  having everyone standing around  and feeling self conscious in little black dresses, fancy dress costumes magically break through the barriers and create laughter, fun and lots of chatter -- in other words, dressing up seems to be the perfect ice breaker.

This year the theme was the Roaring Twenties and was embraced with great enthusiasm. Here are Marion Lennox and Fiona MacArthur making wonderful flappers.

Ain't they sweet?
And here's the lovely English Mills and Boon editor, Lucy Gilmour, looking absolutely gorgeous in a genuine 20s dress that was her grandmother's.

The winning costume was this South Australian writer dressed as Charlie Chaplin. She was fabulous, keeping in character and only miming throughout the party. She's being held at gunpoint here by gangster, Jennifer Kloester, author of a new biography of Georgette Heyer to be published by Random House in October.

We also had Popeye and Olive Oil...

And the Sydney Harlequin team made very impressive flappers...

Anne Gracie looked wonderful, as always...

And Elliot enjoyed donning his New York scarf and playing the boss gangster with an eye on his molls... he even had a scar which worried quite a few people :)

And my favourite photo of the night is this shot I took of Robyn Aldridge, who has been coming to RWA conferences since the very first one 20 years ago -- and who has become our, self-appointed, official conference photographer. Here, she's on her knees, desperate to get exactly the right shot. I love it.

T'was a fabulous night and a great start to a memorable conference.