Carmel Shute
Joan Sauers drew on her experience as a screenwiter for her debut crime novel, Echo Lake. She initially imagined the characters, setting and story in visuals, and while she was writing she looked around what might be on screen in her mind’s eye and described what she saw. She was also aware of rhythm and pace.
Nilima Rao’s debut novel, a historical crime fiction novel titled A Disappearance in Fiji is set in Fiji in 1914, which is a fairly unusual time and place to set a novel. She is often asked – why Fiji, why 1914? The setting is of particular significance to her family. In researching and writing this novel she learned of the sacrifices made by her great-grandparents, that led to the privileged life that she now enjoys
Another reason to celebrate. As part of the Scarlet Stiletto Awards launch on Friday 2 June at the Melbourne Athenaeum Library, Susanna Lobez, actor-turned-barrister-turned-broadcaster-turned-true-crime-author, will also introduce a podcast of the winning stories, Scarlet Stiletto Bites: Scintillating stories by Australian women.
Pregnant cops – and cops with very young babies – don’t feature a lot (in fact hardly ever) in crime fiction. NSW award-winning author, Dinuka McKenzie, has been redressing the balance with her two novels, The Torrent, and Taken.
For the May Crime Stack, Pantera Press has kindly offered 20 copies of After the Smoke Clears by Brisbane-based Kylie Kaden, the best-selling author of One of Us and The Day the Lies Began. A family. A small town. A lifetime of secrets. Would you tell your partner the worst thing you’ve ever done? To be in the running you need to be a member of Sisters in Crime. Why not join now?
Being a child Holocaust survivor from Poland where 63 of her relatives were murdered, Diane Armstrong is fascinated by the behaviour of ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances where their courage and resilience are tested to the limit. War brings out the worst but also the best in human nature. What qualities ensure that some people survive?
What’s the difference between a mystery book and a crime book? Is it that, unlike crime novels, mystery novels concern themselves less with a struggle between good and evil and more with the question of who committed a particular crime? Do crime writers often reveal their villain early in the story while mystery writers devote most of their real estate to cracking unsolved cases?
April’s guest is Vikki Petraitis, true crime queen turned international podcast sensation and award-winning crime fiction author. Vikki has a long association with crime, starting with The Phillip Island Murder in 1994. Since then, she has written another 17 true crime books, but last year, she crossed a genre line with her PhD novel, The Unbelieved, which won the inaugural Allen & Unwin Crime Fiction Award and was published in August to much acclaim.
Regional NSW author, Sarah Barrie, spoke to Maggie Baron for the April Author Spotlight, about what motivated her to write about child abuse and how she copes mentally and emotionally with such confronting material. The idea for Lexi came about while she was struggling with an admission from a very close friend of mine that she had been abused as a child.
Taking on the crime genre is intimidating. Not only do you get tangled in details, but how do you lay out the clues, red herrings and plot twists to make a satisfying story? I started plotting a whodunnit but lost interest halfway through. I’m not a plotter by nature. I decided to approach this the way I tackle any manuscript – by letting the tale unfold one page at a time.