Become a Partner in Crime for the 19th Davitt Awards

Sisters in Crime Australia is appealing to members and supporters to donate towards its 19th Davitt Awards for best crime books by Australian women.  (Click here to donate,) This year, a record 127 crime books are in contention for the awards, due to be presented at a gala dinner on Saturday 31 August, 6.30 for …

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“I Like My Subjects Dead”: Joanne Drayton

The biographer and the detective are not as far apart as you might imagine. This analogy has been made before, and there are much less generous ones. Famously, commentator, Janet Malcolm, likened the biographer to an ‘eavesdropper’, a ‘voyeur’, a ‘snoop’. Some times what I do feels uneasily close to these transgressive manifestations. Not literally, …

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The power of the podcast – Rachael Brown

Rachael Brown was one of the crime writers who spoke at Hitlist on 3 July, the Wheeler Centre event about the current state of crime writing. Serial Davitt winner Emma Viskic compered the session which also included fellow Sister in Crime, Sulari Gentill, plus, Laura Elizabeth Woollett, Garry Disher, and Mark Brandi. I want to …

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Headshot Sulari Gentill

Hit list: Sulari Gentill on optimism

Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre presented a brilliant session on the current state of crime writing on 3 July. As the official notice said: “It’s no mystery that Australian crime writers are on some kind of a rampage – some kind of a spree– filling bookshops, racing up bestseller lists and taking over big and small screens …

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The virtues of “bum glue”: Carmel Reilly

I’m a children’s educational writer by trade, but recently I’ve just released a crime-ish adult book, Life Before. People ask me how the two types of writing mesh together? Has being an educational writer been a help or a hindrance to writing for adults? My answer to that is that my background is probably more …

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Felonious communities and fractured families

The murderous intertwining of love, family secrets and the broader society informs the latest novels by Jennifer Lane, Jennifer Spence and Joanna Baker. The authors confessed all under the humorous but incisive interrogation of fellow author Vikki Petraitis in Melbourne on April 12. Under Vikki’s probing, they explained what inspired them to write their novels …

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