REVIEW

Scarlet Stiletto: Short Stories 2013

Reviewed By
Karen Chisholm

Being a bit of a fan of short story collections, I've was really pleased that we* have published some of the Scarlet Stiletto winning stories from the past. In this collection, SCARLET STILETTO: SHORT STORIES 2013, the winners from the 20th Anniversary of the awards are released together.

The categories are pretty wide for these awards - The Scarlet Stiletto Award itself (and here we have the first, second and third prize winners), The Best New Talent Award, Great Film Idea, Best Investigative, Cross Genre, Funniest, Young Writers', Malice Domestic and The Body in the Library (Winner and Runner up). Each of these short stories is written by a female author.

Anybody following these awards over the past 20 years will notice some "names" that have gone onto publishing success, which goes to show the quality of the storytelling. There's also a lot of authors who have been entering good quality fiction for many years, winning, or receiving honourable mentions, and it's fabulous that via these ebooks readers have a chance to get familiar with their work.

Obviously, because this is a collection of award winners, every reader is going to be double guessing the judges. I must admit out of all the entries, my favourites were the third place entry in the Scarlet Stiletto - "A Lovely Face" by Kylie Fox and "The Case of the Missing Husband" by Aoife Clifford. Liked the twists, liked the lessons learned in both of them.

The best thing about these sorts of collections is that there will be entries that everybody can claim as their favourite. The work the Sisters in Crime Australia do in encouraging female writers is really very exciting.

*  Disclaimer - one of my hats is that of Clan Destine Press Minion.

BOOK DETAILS
BOOK INFORMATION
ISBN
978-0-9923296-0-0
Year of Publication
BLURB

In 1994 Sisters in Crime Australia realised that one of the best ways to uncover, encourage and foster a new generation of women crime writers was to host a writing competition.

The Scarlet Stiletto Awards for women's crime and mystery writing was born.

Little did we - the Convenors of Sisters in Crime, aka the Stiletto judges - know what we were in for or just how successful the competition's primary mission would be.

Two decades - and more than 2,538 entries later - the competition is still going strong and, yes, we can claim full responsibility for kick-starting several writing careers and steering more than a few women towards a life in crime.

First Prize in the Scarlet Stiletto Awards (apart from the money which every writer needs a lot more of) is a fabulous mounted trophy made from a real scarlet stiletto shoe with a steel stiletto-blade type heel.

As well as the First, Second and Third overall-prizes, the Scarlet Stilettos also feature a host of category prizes: Malice Domestic, Best Investigative, Cross Genre, The Body in the Library, Best New Talent, Great Film Idea, Funniest Crime, and a Youth Award. All the category prizes carry a cash prize sponsored by other Australian writers, publishers and bookshops.

Review Scarlet Stiletto: Short Stories 2013
Karen Chisholm
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Blog CR - Scarlet Stiletto: short stories 2013
Karen Chisholm
Monday, December 2, 2013

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