Quote Originally Posted by Ruby
When they post writer's submission guidelines, perhaps you could please let us know in this thread.
Kensington's website doesn't offer much help to writers. The guidelines aren't listed, but perhaps if one were to call the editorial office or mail an SASE with a request for guidelines, Kensington would provide them.

Quote Originally Posted by Ruby
If you want to talk/write about the conference, the name, whether or not you think conferences like that are worth an author's time, please do.
The conference I went to was rather small and geared primarily towards women's fiction writers, so there was heavy emphasis on chick lit, lady lit, romance, romantic suspense and romantica. African-American, Latina, young adult and erotica were also touched upon. It was sponsored by the Romance Writers of America who do a phenomenal job educating their members (close to 10,000 of them) on the entire publishing process, from writing to submissions to contracts and so on.

As the name suggests, the RWA is extremely romance-focused, but as more and more sub-genres in women's fiction have evolved, the organization has also evolved to accomodate their members. The RWA is broken down into various chapters across the country that periodically have small conferences, but they have a ginormous national meeting every July that is well-attended by women's fiction editors and agents. I'm not sure what the policy is about non-members attending and how much it costs, but the conference lasts four days and has probably at least a hundred various workshops led by editors, agents and published authors on topics such as how to query properly, to editors pet peeves, to how to heighten tension and build character conflicts, with sessions on contracts and copyright law, and doing research and so on. Editors and agents are also available for appointments in which unpublished writers can pitch their stories to them.

I highly, highly recommend the conference for romance writers, but think it is also valuable for writers in other areas of women's fiction. The workshops are very educational and the conference (like many other conferences) provides a rare opportunity to meet face-to-face with editors and agents, especially when many publishers won't normally consider unagented projects.