S. D. Hinton didn’t know she was dyslexic until she was an adult. She went through school in an era where dyslexia was rarely recognised, and poorly understood, if it was. Sufferers were usually labelled as inattentive or not very bright. That constrictive label, reinforced from prep, became part of who she was. Find out how she put her disability to good use – and how it adds to her creativity.
Thanks to our friends at Allen & Unwin this month’s Crime Stack member book draw is huge. 35 books across 7 titles! And such ripper books too. If you want to be in the draw you need to be a member. Click on Read More to find out … more!
This month’s member draw is for the addictive new Caleb Zelig thriller from multi-award winning Sisters member Emma Viskic. A remote island. An isolated community. A killer picking the off one by one. And Caleb’s brother is in the firing line.
How to be in the draw? Be a member!
I really wanted to consider how much we can rely on other people, and how self-interest can be a corrupting influence. But there were other things I was wondering about as well and I think those wonderings worked their way into the mysteries in the plot. For instance, living as a colonising people, what should our relationship be to the land that we only claim to own because our ancestors stole it?
Stripped down to its most basic form, crime fiction is about concealing information from the reader, and then gradually revealing it. This is one of the reasons why the genre tends to favour telling its stories through a single point of view character, often the detective, in first person or close third person.
This four-part TV series – the first ever NITV-SBS Drama co-production – is a slow burn. This series does not shy away from the complexity of the issues in a remote community. The use and abuse of cultural knowledge is a central theme.
For the July Crime Stack, Journey Towards Publishing has kindly offered 20 copies of Shadow over Edmund Street, by Victorian Sisters in Crime member, Suzanne Frankham. This debut novel has just been shortlisted for ACWA’s 2022 Ned Kelly Awards.
Writing is a craft, and like any other craft, it needs to be learnt. You would never pick up a paint brush for the first time and expect to be the next Picasso, and yet for some reason, we feel a sense of failure when we first start writing and it doesn’t read like Hemmingway (or, rather, Harper, Moriarty or McTiernan).
I’m curious about what sort of funny business plays out in these closed-off estates. What seedy habits warrant such high security? Why are the buildings so disturbingly identical? My theory is that the pristine gardens and fancy names are smoke and mirrors for fat, messy secrets.
If your life is getting back to normal and you only have time for a short series, I recommend Holding. Based on a novel by Graham Norton, it’s intelligent, compassionate and funny – and a who’s who of writers and actors.