Regency Fiction Writers
2025 Virtual Conference
Publishing Regency Historical Fiction in the Modern World
August 21 – 23, 2025
Our three-day conference will be held live via Zoom, showcasing fabulous speakers, informative workshops, networking opportunities, our annual Silent Auction and Soirée, and much more!
Registration Opens Soon!
Please check back later, as more information will be included below as it comes available.
Keynote Speaker
This year, we are proud to announce acclaimed author Andrea Penrose as our keynote speaker.
Andrea Penrose is the USA Today bestselling author of Regency-era historical fiction, including the acclaimed Wrexford & Sloane mystery series, as well as Regency romances written under the nom de plumes Andrea Pickens and Cara Elliott. She began her writing career at age five, creating a number of Westerns lavishly illustrated with crayon drawings of horses and cowboys. However, her focus moved across the Pond after she fell in love with Regency England as a teenager on reading Pride And Prejudice. (Clearly she has a thing for Men in Boots!)
A graduate of Yale University, Andrea has been a history geek since grade school and loves nothing more than diving down research rabbits holes. When she’s not hunched over her keyboard or taking her daily plotting walks along the tidal marshes of Long Island Sound, she can be found exploring the offbeat nooks and crannies of London, along with the esoteric museums, used bookshops, Oxbridge libraries and hidden corners of England in search of arcane historical details to weave into her stories. Learn more about Andrea, her books and her research at www.andreapenrose.com
Beverly Jenkins is the recipient of the 2017 Romance Writers of America® Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as the 2016 Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for historical romance. She has been nominated for the NAACP Image Award in Literature and was featured both in the documentary “Love Between the Covers” and on CBS Sunday Morning. Since the publication of Night Song in 1994, she’s been leading the charge for inclusive romance, and has been a constant darling of reviewers, fans, and her peers alike, garnering accolades for her work from the likes of The Wall Street Journal, People Magazine, Salon, Shondaland, The New York Times, and NPR. She was also named 2018 Author of the Year by the Michigan Library Association. She has 60 works in print. This is her 30th year as a published author.
Schedule
Conference Chair Cecilia Rene and her committee of volunteers are working hard to create a conference to remember. The Board of Directors and the Conference Committee are delighted to offer a wide variety of workshops and presenters and hope the attendees enjoy this year’s virtual event.
If you have any questions, please contact Cecilia Rene or Ilene Withers.
Subject to Change
Thursday, August 21, 2025
ALL TIMES ARE DISPLAYED IN YOUR LOCAL TIMEZONE
3:45 pm – 4:15 pm
Conference Zoom Opens
The Conference Zoom waiting room opens at 3:45 pm.
Attendees will be let into the main “room” beginning at 4:00 pm.
Cameras and microphones will be turned off at 4:15 pm sharp.
4:15 pm – 4:30 pm
Welcome: RFW President Ilene Withers
Housekeeping Announcements – Conference Chair
4:30 pm – 5:30 pm
Panel: Traditional and Indie Publishing
Moderator: Cathy Maxwell
Panelists: Pam Jaffee, Deb Marlowe & Mary Jo Putney
Join us for a lively discussion on how the only constant in publishing is “change.” Learn how established authors adjust to meet market shifts and what advice a savvy insider has to offer.
5:30 pm – 5:45 pm
Break
5:45 pm – 6:45 pm
Workshop: Regency Scandals
Presenter: Clive Rose
6:45 pm – 7:00 pm
Break
7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Meet & Greet w/ breakout rooms
Friday, August 22, 2025
ALL TIMES ARE DISPLAYED IN YOUR LOCAL TIMEZONE
10:30 am – 11:00 am
Conference Zoom Opens
The Conference Zoom waiting room opens at 10:30 am.
Attendees will be let into the main “room” beginning at 10:45 am.
Cameras and microphones will be turned off at 11:00 am sharp.
11:00 am – 11:15 am
Welcome to Day 2 – President Ilene Withers
Announcements – Conference Chair
11:15 am – 12:15 pm
Workshop: Corn Laws
Presenter: Katherine Grant
Economic policies impact every person, today and especially in the Regency. In this presentation, author Katherine Grant will give a primer on the Corn Laws, a post-war policy that impacted the price of bread from 1815 through the 1840s. You’ll learn what the law was, why it was passed, and how characters from all walks of life reacted to it.
12:15 pm – 12:30 pm
Break
12:30 pm – 1:30 pm
Workshop: The Pocket: A Hidden History Of Women’s Lives
Presenter: Ariane Fennetaux
1:30 pm – 1:45 pm
Break
1:45 pm – 2:45 pm
Panel: Historical vs. Romantasy
Moderator: Vanessa Riley
Panelists: Addy DuLac & Katie Dramis
Join Vanessa Riley for a discussion on Romantasy vs. Historical, as the panel discusses their similarities and their differences, and how historical writers can learn from Romantasy.
2:45 pm – 3:00 pm
Break
3:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Workshop: Jane Austen on Nature
Presenter: Mary Jane Curry
The goal of this workshop is for fiction writers to have the option of adding to their store of Regency vocabulary and writerly techniques and themes.
Wild nature and its literary expression, pastoral, are crucial to understanding Jane Austen’s characters, themes, and the structure of her Regency romances. The Regency was also encompassed by the Romantic era in poetry and literary theory. Romantics wrote about people who were stewards of nature, and those who violated it. Our moral as well as aesthetic responsibility for preserving nature was a theme of essays by moralists and political theorists, and of poetry, especially the poems of John Clare and William Wordsworth (“The world is too much with us, late and soon;/ Getting and spending, we lay waste our power./ Little we see in nature that is ours.”). Romantic pastoral poems celebrated ordinary people who loved nature and found in it comfort and freedom from oppression.
4:00 pm – 4:15 pm
Break
4:15 pm – 5:15 pm
Workshop: Money Matters for Authors
Presenter: Golden Angel
USA Today Bestselling author Golden Angel talks money for authors and goes over the three biggest mistakes (in her opinion) that authors who want to make money make with their money. A deep dive into mindset, ROI, investing into your publishing business, etc.
5:15 pm – 6:15 pm
RFW Annual General Meeting & Recognition Awards (Separate Zoom link)
** All Regency Fiction Writers members are encouraged to attend. Conference registration is not required.
6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Write & Drink
Return to the main conference Zoom link for a spirited writing session!
Saturday, August 23, 2025
ALL TIMES ARE DISPLAYED IN YOUR LOCAL TIMEZONE
10:15 am – 10:45 am
Conference Zoom Opens
The Conference Zoom waiting room opens at 10:15 am.
Attendees will be let into the main “room” beginning at 10:30 am.
Cameras and microphones will be turned off at 10:45 am sharp.
10:45 am – 11:00 am
Welcome to Day 3 and Announcements
11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Workshop: Black Soldiers in the British Military
Presenter: John D. Ellis
Whilst the service of Black and Asian soldiers in the West India Regiments and Indian Army is well known, less well known is that between 1715 and 1860 the Crown (or King’s) regiments of the British Army also employed Black men as enlisted military musicians. (The terms ‘Black’ or ‘of colour’ being used to describe men of either African or Asian origin). Whether serving as bandsmen on high profile ceremonial duties or as company/troop drummers and trumpeters, Black soldiers were an integral part of regimental display and communication (music being the means by which orders were communicated in battle). Over 450 individual soldiers have been identified, (plus in some cases partners, children and descendants), born in Africa (or the ‘Diaspora) and Asia, many of whom served during the Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815): From the Iberian Peninsula to the War of 1812 (including the burning of The Whitehouse); from the Battle of Waterloo and to the many ‘small wars’ of empire.
12:00 pm – 12:15 pm
Break
12:15:pm – 1:15 pm
Panel: Is Historical Romance Dead?
Moderator: Celeste Barclay
Panelists: Kathleen Grant, Golden Angel
Join Celeste Barclay, Kathryn Grant and Golden Angel for a in-depth discussion on Is Historical Romance Dead? In a time when Historical Romance seems to be fading out, is there still a platform for the genre we all know and love?
1:15 pm – 1:30 pm
Break
1:30 pm – 2:30 pm
Workshop: Know Your Goals for PR Success
Presenter: Terena Bell
When it comes to book publicity, outlets like “The Today Show” and NPR sound impressive, but going on the local news might be better for your book. That’s because the best PR comes from goals: Why do you want publicity? Is it about selling copies or being read? Or for self-published or small press authors, your goal might even be to attract an agent for the next title. Every author’s desired outcome is unique, so your approach to PR should be too. In this session, pinpoint your goals and learn easy steps to promote your writing accordingly.
2:30 pm – 2:45 pm
Break
2:45 pm –3:45 pm
Workshop: The Life of a Naval Wife
Presenter: Elizabeth Paquette
Much has been written and many movies made exposing the difficulties naval men endured at sea. But what of the wives and families they left behind during their long voyages? We’ll look at their financial and emotional stresses at home as well as how these women coped.
The victories of the War of Spanish Succession and the Napoleonic Wars were typically credited to men. We will look at the contributions women made staying ashore and the wives who went to sea with their husbands.
3:45 pm – 4:00 pm
Break
4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Workshop: From Macaroni Man to Regency Fop – The Rise and Fall of a Fashion Figure
Presenter: Peter McNeil
Macaroni men were the swaggering big-haired, sharply dressed show-offs of the last thirty years of the 18th century. But they’re not the same as a dandy. It’s a word rarely encountered today, although it’s in the back of your consciousness within the famous rhyme ‘Yankee Doodle came to town’. But why macaroni? Macaroni men were cosmopolitan in outlook and had often been on the Grand Tour. What did a macaroni resemble? Who where they and what did they wear? Hear about Charles James Fox, famed politician; Richard Cosway, miniature-portrait painter to the Prince Regent; ‘Soubise’, a freed slave; Rev. William Dodd, court preacher and ‘white collar’ criminal. And the botanist-explorer Sir Joseph Banks, who was satirised as a macaroni, his career suffering as a result. This social tumult was amplified by the British satirical print industry, the perfect lens through which to capture macaroni men and their manners. How did the macaroni rise and fall, and how was he remembered in the Regency and beyond?
5:00 pm – 5:15 pm
Break
5:15 pm – 5:40 pm
Keynote Address: Andrea Penrose
5:45 pm – 8:00 pm
Break– Conference Zoom will be closed during this time.
8:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Soireé, Silent Auction, & Breakout Rooms
** Not Recorded **
With presenter permission, our sessions will be recorded for registrants’ use. Any sessions not recorded will be marked as such in advance so attendees may plan to attend in person.
Conference Fees
* If you ever registered for an Academe Class, Monthly Tea, previous conference or Annual RFW Membership (or The Beau Monde), please LOGIN before attempting to register for the conference. Questions? See the FAQ.
RFW Members
Early-Bird Registration
until 11:59 pm, July 31st, 2025
$99 USD
Full Registration
from 12:00 am, August 1st, 2025
until 11:59 pm August 15th, 2025
$119 USD
Non RFW-Members
Early-Bird Registration
until 11:59 pm, July 31st, 2025
$199 USD
Full Registration
from 12:00 am, August 1st, 2025
until 11:59 pm August 15th, 2025
$219 USD
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for Only $75/year.
Unlock exclusive discounts and benefits while saving big on our annual conference. Join now to access the members-only price of $99 USD instead of $199 USD for non-members.
ALL TIMES ARE DISPLAYED IN YOUR LOCAL TIMEZONE.
Cancellation Policy: There will be no refunds due to availability of recorded sessions for at least 90 days after.
Silent Auction
Bidding on our donated items is open until August 23, 2025 at 10:00 PM EDT. You must be registered to bid. It’s free! If bidding, remember our generous donors pay for shipping, so you don’t have to.
Among our most popular items are Regency research books. In addition to research books, generous donors have provided unique gifts ranging from Regency fashion prints, Jane Austen items, to English china, to British edible delicacies. We try to keep the items British-centric or compatible with the writing of Regency-set fiction.
Indie publishing services like formatting, cover design, editing, or promotion are also highly desired. Also very popular are beta reads from our members as well as critiques from multi-published, award-winning authors.
We ask that our generous donors also agree to absorb the cost of shipping the items to U.S. winning bidders. The organization reimburses international postage.
All proceeds come back to Regency Fiction Writers in the form of Scholarships and toward making our conference affordable for all!
A Feather to Fly With —
The Emily Hendrickson Scholarship Fund
Any RFW member in good standing who has financial need and qualify can apply to have their conference fees paid through the generous contributions and fundraising efforts of the A Feather to Fly With—The Emily Hendrickson Scholarship Fund BEFORE registering, as if approved you will receive a special registration link to use instead of reimbursement.
Review the application criteria, rules, and deadlines for submission before applying. Visit the Scholarship Fund page for more information and the application.
If anyone has a question about the scholarship process, please contact RFW’s Membership Director and Coordinator for A Feather to Fly With Scholarship Fund.