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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Joanne Drayton: Award-winning biographer with a criminal bent

New Zealand-born Melbourne based author and reviewer, Lucy Sussex, turns her gaze back across the ditch to Joanne Drayton who is presenting Sisters in Crime’s 19th Davitt Awards on Saturday 31 August in Melbourne. (Click here to book.)  New Zealand writer Joanne Drayton is primarily a biographer, her interests ranging from art to true crime, …

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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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The joys of writing a courtesan sleuth: Q&A with M.J. Tjia

Brisbane author M.J. Tjia talks to Sisters in Crime’s Vice-President, Robyn Walton, about her books She Be Damned (Pantera, 2017) and A Necessary Murder (Pantera, 2018) Hello, M.J. Sisters in Crime Australia got to know you in 2017 when you won the History and Mystery category in our annual short story competition, the Scarlet Stiletto Awards. …

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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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