Romance Writing – Masterclass
When: 2 May 2026, 11AM-4:15PM
Where: The Wheeler Centre & streamed online
Tickets: Book here from $40
Learn what it takes to craft a good romance in 2026, and meet other emerging romance writers to share your journey with.
The Emerging Writers’ Festival and Romance Writers Australia are thrilled to team up for a day exploring the hottest genre with a legion of devoted readers. In this one-day masterclass on romance writing, hear from some of Australia’s standout romance writers who are making moves, busting tropes and keeping this diehard genre flirty and thriving. Connect with fellow fans and eminent authors, hone your manuscript and obtain contemporary insights into the craft of romance writing, and learn all about how you can break into its unparalleled position in the publishing industry.
Read on for the full day’s program, and book your tickets before they sell out.
11am – 12pm
Writing romance in the darkest timeline | Key note by Dr Jodi McAlister
Romance fiction has historically been derided an unserious, escapist, and even frivolous form of literature. However, the great promise of the romance novel, with its genre-mandated happy ending, is that everything will be all right in the end.
In this keynote address to open our Masterclass, Jodi McAlister will discuss writing and publishing romance in interesting times – when sometimes it feels nothing will be all right – and why the genre is more important now than ever.
12.15pm – 1.15pm
Larger than Low-Brow with: Joshua Hortinela, Leearna Shaw, Olivia Tolich
Romance books, and the authors who write them, are often looked down upon. They’re branded as low brow, basic, simple, formulaic and unsophisticated.
But we know better.
Now, more than ever, romance novels hold a mirror up to real life. It’s a broad and increasingly diverse genre, and authors move beyond the Happily Ever After to explore themes of friendship, family, the workplace, parenthood, politics, grief, trauma, illness and more. Readers are engaged, voracious and vocal, fostering a sense of community not enjoyed by every genre. Larger than Low-Brow brings together debut romance authors Leearna Shaw, Joshua Hortinela and Olivia Tolich, all of whom write in different sub-genres, to challenge common misconceptions, discuss their crafts and affirm romance’s ever-increasing relevance in Australia’s publishing landscape.
2.15 – 4.15pm
There’s only one… Book? – Workshop with Keshe Chow
In this exclusive workshop with Sunday Times bestselling author Keshe Chow, you’ll learn how to write an effective romantic arc, whether it’s in an actual romance book or as a subplot in an adjacent genre. We’ll cover common tropes, genre expectations, building intimacy between your characters, and how to write satisfying romantic scenes.
MASTERCLASS PRESENTERS
Dr Jodi McAlister
Dr Jodi McAlister is an author and scholar of romance fiction. In her writerly life, she’s the author of nine novels. Her most recent novel is An Academic Affair, and the follow-up A Study in Sparkling will be released in August. In her scholarly life, she is the author of five books on various aspects of love and romance in popular genre and culture, and is the President of the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance.
Leearna Shaw
Leearna Shaw is an award-winning rural romance author who writes about strong women fighting for their futures and falling in love along the way. Her heartfelt stories are inspired by life on her sometimes idyllic but mostly chaotic hobby farm north-east of Melbourne, where she can usually be found chasing runaway lambs or her wayward sons on their property.
Olivia Tolich
Olivia Tolich is an emerging author based in Melbourne (Naarm). She has made books her entire personality from a young age and has terrible eyesight to show for it. She works as an educational publisher and has a dog named Poppy who really hates that her human’s main interest involves sitting around staring at a computer. Side Character Energy is her first novel, released with Text Publishing in 2026.
Keshe Chow
Keshe Chow (she/her) is a Sunday Times bestselling author of fantasy, romance, and speculative fiction. Her debut novel won the 2022 Victorian Premier’s Literature Awards Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript and was shortlisted in the 2025 ABIA awards. She lives in Melbourne, Australia with her husband, two kids, one cat, and way too many house plants.
Josh Hortinela
Joshua Hortinela is a writer and bookseller who also works in social media marketing. A passionate reader, he has worked in the book industry for nearly ten years. He also works as a freelance writer, photographer and moderator for events. When he’s not adding a ridiculous number of books to his staff holds at work, he can be found reading romance novels, rewatching 13 Going On 30 for the millionth time, or drinking a cosmopolitan. He lives in Sydney and can tell you where to find the best coffee or cocktail in town.
TICKETING INFO
Tickets for Masterclass: Romance Writing, presented in partnership by the Emerging Writers’ Festival and Romance Writers Australia, are now available!
Full Passes are available for the full, in-person event including the Keynote, Panel and Workshop. Full Passes are strictly limited due to capacity limitations for the Workshop portion of the masterclass, get in quick!
Half Passes are available for those wish to attend in-person for the Keynote and Panel. Note, a Half Pass does not include the Workshop which is strictly limited to Full Passes.
Digital Passes are available for those who are unable to attend in-person and includes the Keynote and Panel, streamed digitally.
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