Close-knit communities are hotbeds for (fictional) crimes!

Friday 27 September was a public holiday for the ALF Grand Final in Victoria but discriminating women (and men) found themselves at South Melbourne’s Rising Sun Hotel listening to Kylie Kaden, Petronella McGovern and Felicity McLean talk to Karina Kilmore-Barrymore about how home and family can be a cauldron for crime, bringing with it abductions, …

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Sisters in Crime’s Davitt Awards triumph women crime writers

Perth-based author Dervla McTiernan won the best adult novel award for her debut Irish police procedural, The Rúin (HarperCollins Publishers Australia) at Sisters in Crime’s 19th Davitt Awards for best crime books by Australian women on Saturday night (31 August). McTiernan is one of the many Australian women’s crime writers enjoying massive popularity and attracting …

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History Repeats: 2019 Historical Novel Society Australasia Conference

A major event celebrating writers and readers of historical fiction will be take place on 25-27 October 2019 at the historic Parramatta campus of Western Sydney University . The weekend of interviews, panels, discussions and historical weapons re-enactments will be a celebration of all forms of the genre. Historical crime writers, Janet Lee, Catherine Jinks, …

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Women crime writers clean up at the Ned Kelly awards

Breaking news from Jason Steger,  The Age Literary editor, re the Ned Kelly Awards presented by the Australian Crime Writers Association on Friday 6 September. Women writers have made a killing at the Ned Kelly crime-writing awards, taking out all three prizes for the first time. The Neds were presented on Friday as part of BAD: Sydney …

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The Extraordinary in the Ordinary: Kylie Kaden

While I’ve been a little unfaithful (more than once), it’s fair to say that I’m in a committed relationship with crime. Crime novels, that is. The signs that I’d be a crime buff were there since adolescence. When my friends were off reading Babysitters’ Club, I preferred the company of Dr Kay Scarpetta. What’s not …

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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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