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Killers & Thrillers – Join the QLD sleuths from Sisters in Crime

November 30, 2022 @ 6:30 pm 8:00 pm

Killers & Thrillers - Join the QLD sleuths from Australia's Sisters in CrimeBroadbeach Library invites you to a Sisters in Crime panel of authors who will reveal what it takes to keep you on the edge of your seat!

Five criminally good writers are dying to share the thrills and spills behind the gripping world of writing killer reads – some creative, murder mysteries, others which shed disturbing new light on some of Australia’s most notorious true crimes. The killer panel includes:

Award-winning investigative journalist and author, Megan Norris, whose stories on some of Australia’s most infamous crimes have graced the front covers of countless Australian magazines and featured on TV and radio. Her first book, Perfect Victim (Penguin Books) about the murder of Melbourne teenager, Rachel Barber (co-authored with the girl’s mother, Elizabeth Southall), is now a movie starring Sam Neill, Guy Pearce, and Miranda Otto.

Her seventh true crime book, Out of the Ashes (Big Sky Publishing) chronicles the astonishing survival story of Bali Bomb survivor Therese Fox and was released in October to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Bali bombings. Therese’s extraordinary battle to reclaim her life after sustaining third-degree burns to 85% of her body has been described by former Australian Prime Minister John Howard as inspirational and humbling. Megan has an eighth book due for release early next year with Penguin Random House on another major Australian crime.

Debut Gold Coast author, Lily Arthur, whose book Dirty Laundry recounts her own harrowing experience of being unlawfully incarcerated by the State of Queensland just a few days shy of her seventeenth birthday, for supposedly falling into moral danger by becoming pregnant before marriage. Lily’s book follows her quest for justice as she battled for decades to find the baby boy that was stolen from her on the ‘heartbreak ward’ of a major Brisbane Hospital under the Commonwealth Government’s forced adoption practices of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. This astonishing story of injustice is now giving a voice to more than 150,000 other Australian unmarried mothers whose babies were unlawfully taken from them and who are now seeking redress. Lily is the Director of Origins – the organisation that supports people separated by adoption – and is a vocal human rights campaigner.

Gold Coast magician’s assistant turned award-winning author, Loraine Peck. Her debut novel – The Second Son, won last year’s prestigious Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction and was also shortlisted in Sisters in Crime’s Davitt Awards in two different categories – Best Crime Fiction and Best Crime Fiction Debut. She was also shortlisted for a Danger Award in the 2021 BAD Sydney Crime Writer’s Festival. Loraine shares her time between Sydney and the Gold Coast and has just completed her sequel to the Second Son.

Zimbabwean-born Tina Marie Clark is a versatile award-winning author of several children’s and adults books who recently made her foray into the dark side by winning the 2022 Killer Nashville Claymore Award for Best Action Adventure in the unpublished manuscript category with her literary offering Song of the Starlings. Tina has been nominated for a Queensland Literary Award and is a Children’s Book Council Notable. She coordinates the CYA Conference and provides professional development for new and established writers and illustrators. She loves to mentor emerging writers and is currently collecting books for libraries in Papua New Guinea.

Local author, Kate Kelson, discovered her love of storytelling at an early age and by 21 had published her debut novel, The Wilted Rose, inspired by the true story of a Brisbane family’s experience with mental illness during the 1960s. Kate has since gone on to publish three more books and multiple short stories across various genres including Bedouin Boy and Grave Bargains. Kate has been shortlisted in the 2022 SD Harvey Short Crime Story Award, and was the winner of this year’s Genre Con Short Story competition with her book, Ten of Swords. She and fellow Sisters in Crime Writer, Christine Betts, co-authored Undetected which has been included in the Rainforest Writers’ Retreat Anthology 2021. Kate’s past recognitions include the Reader’s Digest 100 Word Short Story Competition, Grieve Writing Competition, and Hunter Writers’ Centre Award. 

Free Please book.

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