Events and Happenings

14th Scarlet Stiletto Awards

Karen — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:36:44 +1100

Start: 30/11/2007 - 5:30pm

End: 30/11/2007 - 10:00pm

Timezone:

The 14th Annual Scarlet Stiletto Awards are on the 30th November, 2007 at Leo's Spaghetti Bar, 55 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda at 8.00pm

Noni Hazlehurst presents the 14th Scarlet Stiletto Awards & talks to Sue Turnbull about her life in crime

Noni Hazlehurst is one of Australia’s most respected and loved actors. The winner of four AFI Awards and two Logies, Hazlehurst cut her teeth on some of Australia’s pioneering crime shows— Matlock Police , Homicide, Division 4, and Case for the Defence. Currently, she is starring as Bernice Waverley on Channel 7’s smash hit, City Homicide. She has also presented Play School and Better Homes and Gardens. In 1992, she was awarded an AM for her services to children and the performing arts.

This year, 163 short stories compete for the coveted Scarlet Stiletto trophy and $3100 in prize money. Prizes kindly donated by HarperCollins, Kill City, Readings Books & Music, Allen & Unwin, Chronicles Book Shop, Pulp Fiction Book Shop, Kerry Greenwood, Cate Kennedy, and Dorothy Porter Award. The awards are also supported by Spinifex Press.

You can join the Sisters in Crime for dinner before that at 6.30pm - ring Leo's on 9534 5026 and ask to be included in the booking.

$5 / $10 (non members) entry (dinner extra)

14th Sisters in Crime, Scarlett Stiletto Awards report

Karen — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:35:17 +1100

Cut and pasted from Crimespace with the kind permission of Rose Mercer who was lucky enough to attend on Friday night (thanks for letting me know Rose - I'm really pleased you had a good time and hopefully we'll meet up at the next SinC gathering!)

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Friday night was this year's SinC awards for short stories. Even more prizes were awarded this year, proving yet again what a great support this organisation is to writers. Here are the results:

KINDERGARTEN MURDER MYSTERY WINS SCARLET STILETTO AWARD

“Kill-dead-garten”, a story of murder and mayhem at a kindergarten, by brand-new Melbourne writer, Aoife Clifford, has won Sisters in Crime’s 14th Scarlet Stiletto Award. The national short story competition offers $3100 in prizes and attracted over a record 163 entries. Noni Hazlehurst, currently starring as Bernice Waverley on Channel 7’s smash hit, City Homicide, presented the awards tonight in St Kilda (30/11).

Clifford took out the HarperCollins first prize of $750 plus a trophy, a scarlet stiletto shoe with a steel stiletto heel plunging into a perspex mount. She is a lawyer by training, and has worked as a public servant and union official with the National Union of Workers. Entering a story in the Scarlet Stiletto Awards was Clifford’s New Year Resolution this year.

“I realised that I hadn’t done any writing (outside of the odd email) since I left work to start a family and was forgetting how to spell,” she said. “It’s one of the few New Year’s Resolutions I kept. I’m absolutely gobsmacked to win a national competition with my first ever story.”

Clifford enjoyed the process so much that she has now written and illustrated a picture book and is currently trying to convince publishers that she is the next Mem Fox.

A ten-year old school girl from Western Australia, Jane Blechynden (Mt Hawthorn), won the Allen & Unwin Young Writers’ Award ($250) for writers under 21. Her story, “The Key Suspect”, was about someone stealing Tim Tams from the school staffroom. Blechynden, who flew to Melbourne for the ceremony, won second prize in the West Australian newspaper Young Writers award in 2005, and first prize in 2006. The Scarlet Stiletto is her first national prize.

2004 1st prize winner, Liz Filleul, won Kill City 2nd prize ($400) for her story “The Write Place” about a scam involving a short story competition. Filleul also won a special commendation for “Go Get ‘em Sloothgirl” written in LOLCAT, a form of internet slang. English-born Filleul lives in Melbourne’s Dandenong Ranges (Vic). Last month Bettany Press in the UK published her book, To All Appearance, Dead, a mystery about school girl fiction collectors inspired by her winning 2004 story. She is currently working on the Australia-based sequel, Blood for Breakfast, as well as a series of contemporary school stories, the first of which will be published in the UK next northern summer.

Linda Tubnor (Maribyrnong, Vic), a former teacher now working in the stormwater area, won Readings Books & Music 3rd prize ($250) for “Fence Hanger” which is loosely based on the experiences, knowledge and frustrations of wildlife rescuers. Linda's young creative writing efforts include a poem about a frog in a pond at age three and a prize in a poetry competition at age 14.

The Kerry Greenwood Malice Domestic Award ($500) went to Ballarat (Vic) writer Karen Allingham for her story “Breath of Life”, the story of a woman who discovers she is the victim of the ultimate deceit and betrayal by those she loves and trusts most. A mother of four, Allingham finds that writing crime is a therapeutic outlet for her own dark imagination. In more recent times her stories have been published in anthologies and online. In 2002 she won the Queen of Crime Special Section, a Partner in Crime (NSW) award, and in 2003 was shortlisted for the Scarlet Stiletto. She dabbles in other types of fiction, but finds that crime writing still keeps her from checking under the bed.

Brisbane (Bardon, Qld) author, Elli Housden took out Chronicles Bookshop Police Procedural Award ($200) for her story “Seventh Heaven”. A regular book reviewer for The Courier Mail, she has also written text books for secondary students, most often about writing skills. While crime writing is her central focus, she also dabbles in poetry.

Melbourne author (Sunbury, Vic) Wendy Laing won the Pulp Fiction Bookshop Award ($150 gift voucher) for the funniest story, “Risque Retirement” set in a retirement village. Laing, a self-confessed "Jill-of-all-Trades", has been a teacher, curriculum consultant, travel consultant, international airline employee and a professional dog trainer! Her books – two children books, two poetry books, and four mystery /paranormal mixed genre books – are published in e-book, audio and digital POD paperback formats. She was unable to attend the ceremony because today she moved into a retirement village.

Melbourne true crime author (East Brighton, Vic), Vikki Petraitis, won the inaugural Cate Kennedy Best New Talent Award ($350) for “Side Window” where murder comes to Kath of Fountaingate. Petraitis has been writing true crime since the early 1990s and her best-selling book The Frankston Murders about serial killer, Paul Denyer, was published in 1995. Petraitis’s last book was the very successful Forensics, which examines Australian cases where forensics played a part in their solution. Her latest book, Crime Scene Investigations, is due out in January 2008. A number of Vikki’s stories have been adapted for television and she has appeared on episodes of Sensing Murder hosted by Rebecca Gibney. She is also contributes stories to the Australian Police Journal.

“Xenos”, a story about animal-human hybrids by Evelyn Tsitas (Canterbury, Vic) was awarded the Dorothy Porter Award for Innovation ($250) (formerly a verse award). Tsitas is completing her Master of Arts in Creative Writing at RMIT University and the story she co-wrote with Caroline van de Pol was highly commended at last year’s awards. A former senior journalist at the Herald Sun, Tsitas has been a regular guest commentator on 774 ABC Melbourne's Drive show. Her children's operas Software and Bookworm, for which she wrote the libretti, have been performed by Opera Australia and the Victoria State Opera in schools throughout Victoria, ACT and NSW, as well as New Zealand and the United Kingdom as part of the school's program. Her play, Springs Eternal, was produced by the Melbourne Writers Theatre and performed at the Carlton Courthouse.

Special commendations also went to:

Mary Shuttleworth (Port Melbourne, Victoria) for “The Price” (Youth category)
Linda Westrupp (Oakdale, NSW) for “Saturday Night at Opus Club”
Jo McGahey (Belrose, NSW) for “A Private Family”
Brook McReynolds (Mackay, Qld) for “Murder Most Fine”
Natasha Molt (Kambah, ACT) for “The Spinster Killer”
Catherine Moffatt ( , NSW) for “The Dark Drive”
Lois Murphy (Brighton, Victoria) for “Proof”
Inga Simpson (Landers Shoot, Qld) for “Ferny Ridge Road”
Danielle Whish-Wilson (Adelaide, SA) for “Would You Hide It From Me”

Sisters in Crime spokesperson, Phyllis King, said this year there were several protaganists speaking from beyond the grave and quite a few female serial killers.

“We are unsure about what is happening in those retirement villages but seniors featured prominently in all sorts of criminal activity. Most perturbing, however, was the lack of sisterly affection – sisters did all sorts of things to each other, to their partners and to family members,” she said.

“Last year, Sisters in Crime was unable to award a prize for the funniest story. However, this year we had some great laughs and it was a lovely, hilarious, challenge to find the funniest.”

Ms King urged future entrants to remember that not all bad people have curly red hair.
Scarlet Stiletto – The First Cut (Mira), an anthology of prize-winning stories from the previous 13 years of the competition, was launched in August by Sigrid Thornton. The 374 page large-format paperback includes 26 stories by Tara Moss, Cate Kennedy, Kerry Munnery, Josephine Pennicott, Julie Waight, Jacqui Horwood, Louise Connor, Margaret Pollock, Dianne Gray, Christina Lee, Liz Cameron, Roxxy Bent, Sarah Evans, Inga Simpson, Ann Penhallurick, Liz Filleul, Margaret Bevege, Phyl O’Regan, Bronwyn Blake, Ronda Bird, Janis Spehr and Siobhan Mullany.

The 15th Scarlet Stiletto Awards close on August 31, 2008. The entry fee is $10. Entry forms will be available next year by writing to Sisters in Crime, GPO Box 5319, Melbourne 3001 or on its website: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~sincoz/

Print quality photos can be emailed on request.
Further info: Contact Phyllis King on 0409 885 587

2008 Ned Kelly Award Nomination Deadline

sunniefromoz — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:15:03 +1100

Start: 31/03/2008 - 12:12am

End: 31/03/2008 - 8:12pm

Timezone:

The Deadline for 2008 nominations for the Ned Kelly Awards : 31 March, 2008

http://www.nedkellyawards.com/nomination.html

2008 Ned Kelly Shortlist

Karen — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 09:36:04 +1000

There's a rumour going around (and I haven't been able to confirm this list via the Ned Kelly's own website, but the short list may have arrived!) ** means I've read it!

Best First Fiction:
Golden Serpent, Mark Abernethy **
A Fraction Of The Whole, Steve Toltz
The Low Road, Chris Womersley **

Best Fiction:
Sucked In, Shane Maloney **
Amongst The Dead, Robert Gott **
El Dorado, Dorothy Porter **
Shatter, Michael Robotham **

Best Non-Fiction:
Underbelly The Gangland War, John Silvester and Andrew Rule **
Killing Jodie, Janet Fife-Yeomans
Red Centre, Dark Heart, Evan McHugh

If this is the list there are a few interesting things on here - firstly no Peter's!

Secondly it's a bit disappointing there are so few women, and I am sad to see some of the newer authors on the best fiction nominees that were dropped.

It's beyond pleasing that El Dorado made the short list - it's an absolute stonkingly good book.

The exciting thing is there there are really only 3 books I haven't personally read yet!

2008 Perth Writer's Festival

voyagersaus — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 15:34:06 +1100

Start: 23/02/2008 - 1:32am

End: 25/02/2008 - 1:32am

Timezone:

Perth Writer's Festival
as part of the Perth International Arts Festival 2008

Held on the grounds of the beautiful University of W.A., three days of events, most free, brought out into the sunshine Perth's closet hacks who were all rather glad to meet up with some of their own kind. The hordes were there to soak up the literary atmosphere (and to support their writer mates) and even, somewhere, there were the fans. Everyone I met was either in the trade or aspiring to be, but it couldn't have all been starving writers that were filling up the queues at the Dymocks tent.

Day Two was the one I slotted in for, and the day was spent taking in four talks.

THE SERIOUS BUSINESS OF BEING FUNNY

Australian crime fiction writer Shane Maloney headlined the first (paid) event at the Octagon Theatre, alongside two of the boys from the ABC's Chaser War on Everything, Julian Morrow and Dominic Knight. Though it was early and the event poorly attended (guess Perthites don't like dragging themselves down to river so early on the weekend) all three blokes were in fine form and were introduced and gently prodded along as required by presenter Verity James.

Yes, the motorcade stunt was meant to be more than what it came to be when the Chaser crew were hanging around the ABC carpark one day and decided to go for a little jaunt to the APEC summit. We all know the story, but it originally may have been a motorcade of cardboard box cars (think PLAY SCHOOL style) or it could have been a marine approach into the Naval Exclusion Zone on pool ponies and sea bikes. Yes, the Canadian flags on hire cars did the trick. Follow-up was tricky as 11 of the Chaser crew were detained by security personnel. However, we were told it was all "alarmingly simple".

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/09/06/1188783415730.html?page=fullpage

Jules Morrow explained that they felt they were in with a chance, and were shocked at how close to the line they were. In fact, "the line was somewhere behind them". The police were specifically told not to stop motorcades (this was stated in court) so the Chaser crew felt that they were "in with a chance". The security briefing put out that morning of the stunt detailing possible actions by the Chaser network was apparently written by the same people who were waving the cars on.

The discussion came to political satire. The Chaser boys are famous for it, and author Shane Maloney places it neatly ten years behind present action in his Murray Whelan novels. As Maloney put it, it "gives time for reader's memories to have faded - just a little". The panel discussed that in Australia satire is not subversive and dangerous and that the political culture encourages it. (Prime Minister Rudd, a Labor party man, was however disappointingly no longer speaking to the Chaser crew since his big promotion.)

Maloney said of his Murray Whelan character that he is not intended to be a figure of satire, and that Murray is the same as all of us. An "unexceptional voice with a clever turn of phrase". who spends a lot of time going "WTF?" at all that happens with the Australian Labor party. As Maloney puts it, the "moral ambivalence" of the political scene was always a suitable locus for the character.

Reading a passage from one of his novels, Maloney chose to read a romantic encounter Murray has with a journalist in the Meditation room of Federal Parliament (and yes, apparently there is one). The romance is snuffed out rather speedily when the couple realize a couple of WA Greens are also in the room, soaking up the peace. The author went on to have his audience in fits with his descriptions of the the WA Greens and of the State, sobering us up rather quickly though with a short blast on former Premier Brian Burke and his effective killing of Native title claims while in the Premier's chair.

Murray Whelan, as his creator put it, is "a troubleshooter, falling up a greasy pole" as he starts off being a political minder in the first novel of the series, STIFF. Why the Labor Party? With the ALP, Maloney tells us is "tragic comedy" where the Liberals are "pure horror". Also, apparently he had an idea about writing novels where a young boy goes to wizard school but realized at the time that it was "a shit idea" and it would "never fly".

A.T.

8th Davitt Awards Nominations

Karen — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:22:30 +1000

Forty-one crime books by Australian women are competing for Sisters in Crime's 8th Davitt Awards for the best crime novels and true crime books by Australian women published in book form in 2007.

Four Davitts will be presented this year - adult, young adult, true crime and readers' choice, as voted by Sisters in Crime's 500 members nationally. The awards are sponsored by the Victorian Police Museum.

The winners each receive a handsome trophy to be presented on Friday October 10, 7pm, Celtic Club Restaurant, corner La Trobe and Queen Sts, Melbourne by Victorian Police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon. Ms Nixon will also talk about her life and times with Sisters in Crime national co-convenor, Dr Sue Turnbull.

Adult Novels

Gospel - Sydney Bauer (Pan MacMillan) **

The Fourteenth Day - Joyce Berendes (Zeus)

The Curse of the Golden Yo-Yo - Robin Bowles (The Five Mile Press) *

Redback - Lindy Cameron (Mira) *

Scarlet Stiletto - The First Cut - Lindy Cameron (editor) (Mira) *

Bye Bye Baby - Lauren Crow (Harper Collins) *

Skin & Bone - Kathryn Fox (Pan MacMillan) **

To All Appearances Dead - Liz Filleul (Bettany Books)

Vodka Doesn't Freeze - Leah Giarratano (Random House) *

The Calling - Jane Goodall (Hachette Livre) **

Killing the Rabbit - Alison Goodman (Random House / Bantam)

Trick or Treat - Kerry Greenwood (Allen & Unwin)

A Question of Death - Kerry Greenwood (Allen & Unwin)

The Secret of Lost Things - Sheridan Hay (Harper Collins / 4th Estate)

Frantic - Katherine Howell (Pan MacMillan) *

Orpheus Lost - Janette Turner Hospital (Harper Collins / 4th Estate) *

Eden - Dorothy Johnston (Wakefield Press) *

Cock of the Walk - Wendy Laing (Writers Exchange E-Publishing) **

Severance Package - Wendy Laing (Writers Exchange E-Publishing)

Shattered - Gabrielle Lord (Hachette Livre) **

Rockhound - Pat Noad (Zeus)

Blood of Dreams - Susan Parisi (Penguin / Viking) *

El Dorado - Dorothy Porter (Pan MacMillan / Picador) *

Cherry Pie - Leigh Redhead (Allen & Unwin) *

The Night Has A Thousand Eyes - Mandy Saye (Harper Collins)

An Easeful Death - Felicity Young (Fremantle Arts Centre Press) *

Young Adult Novels

What Willow Knew - June Colbert (Hachette Livre)

Crime Seen - Jenny Pausacker (Hachette Livre)

Willows for Weeping - Felicity Pulman (Random House)

The Maharajah's Ghost - Sophie Masson (Random House)

Love Notes - Margaret Clark (Random House)

True Crime

The End of Innocence: The Remarkable True Story of One Woman's Fight for Justice (Hardie Grant Books)

Rough Justice: Unanswered Questions from the Australian Courts - Robin Bowles (The Five Mile Press)

Meaner than Fiction - Lindy Cameron (The Five Mile Press)

Imprisoning Resistance: Life and Death in an Australian Supermax (Federation Press)

Judas Kisses: The Remarkable True Story of One Woman's Journey to Hell and Back - Donna Carson and Debbie Ritchie (Hardie Grant Books)

Done Like a Dinner - Jennifer Cooke and Sandra Harvey (Media 21 Publishing)

Killing Jodie: How Australia's most elusive Murderer was Brought to Justice - Janet Fife-Yeomans (Penguin Books)

The Child Who Never Was: Looking for Tegan Lane - Allison Langdon (Media 21 Publishing)

The Devil's Garden: The Claremont Serial Killings - Debi Marshall (Random House)

The Making of Me - Tegan Wagner (Pan MacMillan)

* Read and reviewed here

** Here but unread as yet

A night for new writers ...

Karen — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 20:21:59 +1100

Start: 19/03/2008 - 6:30pm

End: 19/03/2008 - 9:30pm

Timezone:

Presentation of the inaugural Overland magazine Judith Wright poetry prize for new and emerging poets, and launch of Overland 190 by Dorothy Porter

Sponsored by the Malcolm Robertson Foundation, the Overland magazine Judith Wright poetry prize offers a major prize of $2000 and two minor prizes of $250, awarded annually. To celebrate this special event, poet and novelist Dorothy Porter speaks about launching a career as a writer, and outgoing Overland poetry editor and competition judge John Leonard discusses what makes the winning poems so exceptional.

Overland 190 features Mark Davis untangling literature, markets and independent publishing, Emmy Hennings and Jenny Lee arguing the prospects for digital books, Tom Clark reading John Howard’s poetry, Clive Hamilton replying to his critics, Alastair Davidson on the problem of communist history plus fiction, poetry, reviews and more.

6.30 pm Wednesday 19 March 2008

Readings Carlton

309 Lygon St, Carlton

Adelaide Writers Festival - 2nd to 7th March

Karen — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:20:58 +1100

Adelaide Writers Week is coming and you can download the whole program from: http://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/

Just a few that catch the eye when browsing through the programme:

March 2nd - 2.00pm:

Sunday Crimes with Thomas Cook (US), Peter Corris (AUS) and Denise Mina

March 3rd - 10.00am

Meet the Author with Dorothy Porter

March 3rd - 5.45pm

Meet the Author with Peter Corris

March 4th - 1.15pm

Meet the Author with Denise Mina

March 5th - 10.00am

Meet the Author with Ian McEwan

March 7th - 1.15pm

Meet the Author with Marshall Browne

March 7th - 2.15pm

Meet the Author with Gabrielle Lord

March 7th - 2.15pm

Meet the Author with Garry Disher

March 7th - 4.00pm

Friday Crimes with Garry Disher, Gabrielle Lord and Marshall Browne

Oh - and Germaine Greer's in town as well, which could make for a very interesting time all round!

Auckland, New Zealand Writers Festival

Karen — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:34:38 +1100

Start: 15/05/2008 - 8:00am

End: 18/05/2008 - 10:59pm

Timezone:

This year's Auckland Festival has a great lineup planned

"Stepping onto the Auckland stage in May are: Man Booker Prize winners Anne Enright (The Gathering) and JM Coetzee (Diary of a Bad Year), Italian terrorism and economics expert Loretta Napoleoni (Terror Incorporated, Insurgent Iraq, Rogue Economics), food guru Michael Pollan (In Defence of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma), Dominican-American Junot Diaz (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao), hot-shot Lonely Planet scribe Thomas Kohnstamm (Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?), French writer Philippe Claudel (Grey Souls), from Australia Luke Davies (author of cult bestseller Candy), Gold Dagger winning crime fiction writer Peter Temple (The Broken Shore) and Derek Hansen (Remember Me), Canadians Ryan Knighton (Cockeyed) and Heather O’Neill (Lullabies for Little Criminals), Scottish poet and novelist John Burnside, British writers Sarah Hall (The Carhullan Army, Haweswater and Electric Michelangelo), ‘the most important living philosopher’ John Gray (Black Mass: Apocalyptic religion and the death of utopia and Straw Dogs), crime writer Mo Hayder (Ritual, Pig Island), eminent biographer Hermione Lee (Edith Wharton), historian and novelist Simon Montefiore (Sashenka, Young Stalin), and one of Granta’s ‘Best Young British Novelists’ Peter Ho Davies (The Welsh Girl)."

Wander over to: http://www.writersfestival.co.nz/

Bondi Writers Group - Guest Speaker: Geoff McGeachin

Karen — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:03:04 +1100

Start: 16/03/2008 - 2:00pm

End: 16/03/2008 - 4:00pm

Timezone:

The next meeting of the Bondi Writers’ Group will be on Sunday March 16, 2008 at the Waverley Library, 32-48 Denison Street, Bondi Junction. We meet upstairs in the Theory Room from 2 to 4pm.

Geoffrey McGeachin, whose novel FAT, FIFTY & F***ED! won the inaugural Australian Popular Fiction competition, will be our guest speaker this month.

For more - check out their website at: http://www.bondiwritersgroup.org.au/