Let me be the first to welcome you to the Down Under Divas hangout. And before you ask, yes the banner is a pic of all the lovely Divas. *grin* No, really, it is. *wink* So let me introduce myself and my fellow Divas. We’re a group of Aussie erotic romance authors who decided we have way too much fun hanging out together to not do it every day. In no particular order we are, Lexxie Couper, Jess Dee, Sami Lee and Rhian Cahill. You can find a list of our books on the books page and between us you’re bound to find something to suit your reading tastes.

Last weekend saw the four Divas all in the one place at the one time. (something that is very rare) The Romance Writers of Australia held their annual conference in Coogee, Sydney and we all descended on Jess’s house where we took over much to the shock of her three men. We talked none stop and only managed to be late to conference events a couple of times. *grin* It was great having this “live” meeting. We’re always online chatting and dissecting someone’s latest wip but getting to do that in person is so rare and so thrilling. Friday saw Lexxie and myself pulling apart her current wip and Sunday it was Jess’s turn. Both “chats” led to light-bulb moments for Lexxie and Jess and there’s nothing better than one of those when a story is giving you a hard time. But the chat with Jess was a little more “live” than we ever anticipated it would be.

Picture us all sitting around in comfy chairs, a small table between us and wait-staff ready to deliver any beverage of choice. The sun was streaming in through the floor to ceiling windows and the waves rolling in on the sandy beach across the road proved a gorgeous view. Perfect local for a chat with our writing buddies. Jess was concerned about a particular section of her plot and asked what our thoughts were. As you can imagine we were more than forthcoming. *grin* The discussion was heated (in more ways than one) and each of us brought forward our own points that slowly unraveled the plot so that Jess felt it was necessary to rewrite and scrap some of it. Her hands were shaking but just behind that horrible fear was the notion of renewed hope that all was not lost. (And it wasn’t, that story is now sitting on her editors desk ahead of time.) In our excitement we failed to notice anything around us. The sunshine faded away, the surf went unnoticed and the brief eye-contact with a fellow writer who sat at a table near us didn’t slow the words or curb the explicitness of our conversation.

You see, going “live” and brainstorming is one of the most exhilarating experiences this author has ever had. But it wasn’t until we got up to head to our next conference event that we realized just how “live” we’d gone. Sitting behind us was a gentleman (and I say that because not once did he feel it necessary to interrupt us) who had witnessed the whole show! Red faced and sputtering words of apology we all darted off hoping never to set eyes on him again. lol  I can only imagine (and hope) he was the hubby of a romance writer because that would at least mean he had some idea of what was going on. Although I guess listening to a group of women talking about two guys having sex with one woman would be better than hearing them discussing a serial killer. *grin*

Rhian