Painting the town red: Celebrating 31 years of mystery, murder, and malice with Sisters in Crime’s Scarlet Stiletto Awards

Crime writers and fans gathered at South Melbourne’s Rising Sun Hotel on Saturday night (23 November) to paint the town red as they celebrated the 31st anniversary of Sisters in Crime’s Scarlet Stiletto Awards for best short stories. Scarlet was the prescribed dress code and, while the authors and their pals might be dedicated to …

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Murder Monday: Hayley Scrivenor

Multi-award-winning Sydney author, Hayley Scrivenor, spoke to Sisters in Crime’s Jacq Ellem For the November Murder Monday. Hayley’s debut, Dirt Town, was a number-one bestseller in Australia and won several awards, including the UK Crime Writers’ Association New Blood Dagger Award, the ABIA for General Fiction Book of the Year, a Lambda Literary Award and Sisters in Crime’s Davitt Award for best debut book in 2023. Her latest novel is Girl Falling.

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When things go wrong

New Zealander Charity Norman, author of Home Truths (Allen & Unwin, 2024) spoke to Sisters in Crime’s Robyn Walton about her latest novel, Home Truths. She chose to set it in North Yorkshire because she knows and loves it – and in the years 2019-2020 because the Covid pandemic triggered a perfect storm of isolation, anxiety and the explosion of online disinformation.

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Pip Drysdale, The Close-Up

Love the twisty, turny plots of Pip Drysdale? Twenty copies of her latest The Close-Up are up for grabs in the November Crime Stack draw for members only. The Close-Up is an electrifying, dark and (of course) twisty thriller that follows a young novelist, once full of promise but now failing to live up to it, who becomes embroiled in the life of a hot movie star… and his stalker.

The Crime Stack is a benefit for Sisters in Crime members. Every month there are 20 books to win in a random draw of members.

Join now and be in the running for a complimentary paperback copy of The Close-Up

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2024 AGM: Carmel Shute stands down as Secretary

Carmel Shute, who helped co-found Sisters in Crime Australia in 1991, stood down as Secretary at the 2024 Annual General Meeting on Friday 25 October, following its TV Noir event at South Melbourne’s Rising Sun Hotel. She is being replaced by former President, Moraig Kisler, who is fresh from a year’s break. Carmel will continue to work on programming. A committee of eight was elected unopposed.

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Murder Monday: Natalie Conyer

Award-winning Sydney author, Natalie Conyer, is the subject of this Murder Monday. As ever, interviewed by Jacq Ellem.

Veteran cop Schalk Lourens is back in Shadow City. Now suspended and thinking of emigrating to Australia, whilst visiting his daughter in Sydney Lourens is swept up into a minefield of deceit and manipulation by an enemy more powerful and depraved than is imaginable. She talks about how she writes.

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Why I turned to crime: Christine Gregory

Christine Gregory became attracted to New-Age ideas in her late teens. This largely involved visits to Bryon Bay to stay at the Arts Factory, late nights of drinking, and a full-throttle immersion into the alternative music scene of the noughties. Twenty-five years later, in an evening writing class the tutor asked students to create a scene incorporating all the five senses. She put pen to paper and like magic, the words flowed.

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Author Spotlight: Writing a bold, wild woman

For the October Author Spotlight, New Zealand author Barbara Sumner spoke to Georgina Baron-Ross, about her debut novel, The Gallows Bird (Pantera Press). This novel whisks readers away to 19th-century London. Meet ‘Birdie,’ a young woman of lowly station with grand ambitions. Despite her humble beginnings, Birdie believes she is destined for finer things, driven by the legacy of her aristocratic mother. But then she becomes a convict bound for Botany Bay.

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Patricia Wolf, Opal  

For the October Crime Stack, Echo Publishing has kindly offered 20 copies of Opal, the thrilling third installment in the bestselling DS Lucas Walker series by Patricia Wolf, the Berlin-based author who hails from Mt Isa. A small mining community. A murderer at large. And a flood that has trapped them all . . . …

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