Murder, mystery, and memory

Friday 7 October 2022, 8pm. Rising Sun, 2 Raglan Street, South Melbourne.

Please book by 3pm Friday 7 October. Tickets not sold prior to the event will be available at the door for $22/$18/$15/$10. Dinner upstairs from 6.30-7.30pm. Please indicate on the booking form if you intend to have dinner. Men or ‘brothers-in-law’ welcome.

What happens when evidence points to you having committed murder, made someone disappear, committed some sort of crime, or been the victim of one – but you have no memory of it?

Authors Megan Goldin, Tania Chandler, and Nell Pierce explore these tricky issues – and much more – with award-winning short story writer, Ruth Wykes.

In Megan Goldin’s fourth psychological thriller, Stay Awake (Michael Joseph), a New York magazine writer wakes up in the back of a taxi with no idea where she is or how she got there. When she’s dropped off at the door of her brownstone, a stranger answers — a stranger who claims to live in her apartment. She reaches for her phone to call for help, only to discover it’s missing. In its place is a bloodstained knife. Her hands are covered in scribbled messages, like graffiti on her skin: Stay Awake. She soon finds herself on the run for a crime she doesn’t remember committing …

Megan was a correspondent in the Middle East and Asia before returning back to her hometown of Melbourne where she launched her writing career in 2017 with her debut novel The Girl in Kellers Way. Megan has since written other bestselling thrillers including The Escape Room and The Night Swim, a novel that was short-listed for ‘Book of the Year’ in the USA. Meanwhile, she has sold the film rights for her second book, The Escape Room, which is set almost entirely in a lift.

Tania Chandler’s third crime novel, All That I Remember About Dean Cola (Scribe Publications), delves deep into the precariousness of memory. Sidney is happily married to her firefighter husband and thinking about having a child, but her life has been marred by psychotic breakdowns. Haunted by memories of Dean Cola — the teenage crush who is an essential piece of the puzzle that is her past — she returns to the town where she grew up. Something unthinkable happened there, but is she strong enough to face it?

Tania is a Melbourne-based writer, writing teacher, and editor. Her books have been published in Australia and internationally, selected for reading programs, and shortlisted for awards, including Sisters in Crime’s Davitt awards. All three of her novels are based around the life experiences of strong female protagonists and the themes of memory, loss, and the road to personal redemption.

Nell Pierce’s debut novel, A Place Near Eden (Allen & Unwin), the winner of the 2022 Vogel Award, explores the concept of truth, the flaws in memory and family, and the Australian adoption and foster system, set against the backdrop of the rugged Australian coastline. This question troubles Matilda, as she looks back on her time with her foster brother, Sem. She becomes consumed by an obsession to know if she is responsible for Sem’s disappearance …

Nell Pierce holds a Master of Fine Art in Fiction from the New School in New York City and has worked as an Associate Literary Agent and as a Legal Associate at the Family Court of Australia. She currently lives in Melbourne with her partner and baby daughter.

Ruth Wykes is a true crime writer who lives and works on the Mornington Peninsula. She was the founder and editor of Women Out West, a lesbian magazine that was published in Perth for 10 years. In 2016 she won the coveted Scarlet Stiletto Award.

She is currently working on a crime novel that is set in rural Victoria. 

Sun Bookshop stall: members receive a 10% discount