Carmel Shute
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.
Sisters in Crime Australia is again proud to join forces with the Sir Zelman Cowen Centre, Victoria University, to present its 17th Law Week event.
An expert panel, Elena Campbell, Ahona Guha, and Sherele Moody, chaired by Bronwyn Naylor will debate how to combat toxic masculinity and the violence perpetrated against women.
For the latest Murder Monday, Jacq Ellem spoke to author Tansy Rayner Roberts who crimes crime under her pen name Livia Day – they’re cozy, witty, and wickedly funny, Tasmanian murder mysteries. Her five crime novels include A Trifle Dead, Drowned Vanilla, Keep Calm and Kill the Chef, Dyed & Buried, and her most recent title, Drop Dead in Red which features scones, murder, and baby goats.
For the April Crime Stack, UQP has kindly offered 20 copies of Crows Nest, the debut novel of Toowoomba-based author, Nikki Mottram. The sleuth is a social worker working in child protection. To be in the running you need to be a member of Sisters in Crime. Why not join now?
The competition is open to books by all women, whether cisgender, transgender or intersex, who are citizens/residents of Australia. Self-published books are eligible. Please note that books co-written or co-edited with men or including chapters by men are not eligible.
Publishers have until Friday 7 April to enter. This year, for the first time in 23 years, the Davitts will cost publishers $25 a title to enter.
When people ask me now about process, I say find one that works for you: for me, it includes walking, considering and feeling out landscape, writing and discarding, putting one paragraph down after another, and seeing if it works, if it flows. Once I realised that, writing became a joy again. I found out who the killer in Stone Town was, at 68,000 words. I really hope it’s less than that for the book I’m working on now.
Eleven-year-old Stefanie Hinrichs came to Australia looking for paradise –and found herself trapped in the marriage from hell. In The Messiah’s Bride (Viking/Penguin, 2023), investigative journalist Megan Norris unravels the story of Stefanie’s lost childhood, her courageous escape with the messiah’s child, and how she eventually brought the cult down. Megan outlined what happened to Robyn Walton for Sisters in Crime Australia.
Sisters in Crime is thrilled to announce the resumption of Murder Mondays after a five-month break. Our new presenter is Jacq Ellem, bibliophile, copywriter, occasional broadcaster, award-winning podcaster, and a member of the new Tasmanian chapter. This time round, our guest author is Nicki Greenberg who won Sisters in Crime’s 22nd Davitt Award for Best Children’s Novel for The Detective’s Guide to Ocean Travel (Affirm Press).
Popular French police procedural. Captain Julia Scola (played by Claire Keim) is a proud police officer, like her father. She’s experienced and efficient and, at home, supported by her partner Daniel. At work, she’s in the bad books with some colleagues for reporting corruption and she has a new boss, Novak Lisica. He was a defence lawyer, is now a fast-tracked senior police officer, and he was her childhood friend and teenage boyfriend. She cannot work with him.