Karen's blog

Recently we had to move the Sisters in Crime website to a different virtual server (the site is actually sitting on a machine in Pennsylvania).  We have to do this on a irregular basis if, as happened the last time, our original server company shut down their facility.

In the process of moving we end up with the occasional hiccup.  In this case we have moved to a server with an IP address (identification number) that Yahoo, in their seemingly limitless stupidity, had blocked prior to our moving to this location.  They now appear to have no way of unblocking this address.  In fact they seem to be completely unwilling to even consider the possibility. 

As a result of this all email from our server is being blocked by Yahoo.

We have spent the last few weeks in one of the most mindless, frustrating and irritating discussions with the drones at Yahoo that we've ever had to deal with.  And over 30 or so years we've had quite a few of these moments.  Normally when we're having problems like this, we contact the organisation that is blocking our email, they tell us what the problem is, we resolve it, we're unblocked.

Not Yahoo.

They, in that mindless stupidity I've already mentioned, refuse to tell us what the problem is, refuse to acknowledge that we've asked them over and over again to tell us what we need to do to remove the block which has, after all, been in place since before we moved to this server.

Their response is to point us to a form page which tells us what "could" be the problem and what we "might" be able to do to resolve it.  All of which we have done. 

We have resolved any email issues with any other email providers that we've ever had this problem with - quickly, efficiently and without the need for us to spend hours arguing with idiots.  We are now guessing that we will be blocked as long as we attempt to send email to non-existent accounts.  As we can't send email to ANY Yahoo accounts we have no idea what yahoo.com or yahoo.com.au accounts on the Sisters in Crime list are valid and which are not.

We just simply cannot keep this argument going - we're not able to resolve this issue, Yahoo are impossible to deal with.

So alas, we've got no choice.  If you have a yahoo.com or yahoo.com.au email address you won't be receiving ebulletins from Sisters in Crime, nor will you be able to register an account on the site, once we open up the site to member activities (in the very near future).

Your alternatives are:

1.  Open a gmail account - Subscribe to the ebulletins using that (use the Newsletter option in the menu right at the top of the screen).

2.  Subscribe to the email updates via http://www.sistersincrime.org.au/content/updates-email (this will solve the problem of getting updates - it won't solve the problem of being able to participate on the site unfortunately).

By all means take up the argument with Yahoo yourselves if you feel the need to do so, but we're going to drop the arguing with Yahoo.  Life's too short.

We asked our co-convenors again this year to come up with their top 10 list of recommended books that you might like to dip into over the Christmas / New Year break (if you get such a thing!).  Here's what we came up with:

Vikki Petraitis suggested:

Death Mask - Kathryn Fox
Killing Hands - PD Martin
Violent Exposure - Katherine Howell
Fractured - Karin Slaughter
A Faint Cold Fear - Karin Slaughter
The Way the Crow Flies - Ann Marie McDonald
Vanish - Tess Gerritsen
The Silent Girl - Tess Gerritsen
Mala Nunn - Let the Dead Lie
Angela Savage - Behind the Night Bazaar

Carmel Shute suggested (in alphabetical order):

Honey Brown, The Red Queen
Shamini Flint, Inspector Singh Investigates: A Deadly Cambodian Crime Spree
Sulari Gentill, A Decline in Prophets
Tess Gerritsen, The Bone Garden
Kerry Greenwood, Cooking the Books
Margie Orford, Daddy's Girl
Sara Paretsky, Body Work
Vanda Symon, Bound
Kim Westwood, The Courier's New Bicycle
Laura Wilson, A Capital Crime

Amanda Wrangles supported:

Kim Westwood, The Courier's New Bicycle

Jacqui Horwood came up with:

Honey Brown - The Good Daughter
Leigh Redhead - Thrill City
PM Newton - The Old School
Sulari Gentil - A Few Right Thinking Men
Katherine Howell - Cold Justice
Angela Savage - The Half-Child
Randa Abdel Fattah - Noah's Law (YA)
Penny Matthews - A Girl Like Me (YA)
Denise Mina - The End of the Wasp Season

Kelly Marshall's list is:

Shamini Flint -  Inspector Singh Investigates: A Deadly Cambodian Crime Spree
Tess Gerritsen - The Surgeon
Sulari Gentill - A Few Right Thinking Men

Lindy Cameron mentioned (and we forgive her a little bias....):

Scarlet Stiletto The Second Cut
Fatal Flaw by Sandy Curtis

And, despite what Carmel thinks about it not being 'crime',

Medea by Kerry Greenwood

Sandra Nicholson has this interesting list:

A Trick of the Light - Louise Penny
Seeking Whom He May Devour - Fred Vargas
Cambridge Blues - Alison Bruce
Have Mercy on Us All - Fred Vargas
Smokin' Seventeen - Janet Evanovich
The Old School - Pam Newton
The Brotherhood - Y.A. Erskine
Take Out - Felicity Young
The Hidden Child - Camilla Lackberg
Bury Your Dead - Louise Penny

And I dithered around as usual until I came up with this selection:

The End of Wasp Season, Denise Mina
Dark Water, Caro Ramsay
Containment, Vanda Symon
Watch Out For Me, Sylvia Johnson
The Brotherhood, Y.A. Erskine
The Siren's Sting, Miranda Darling
This Night's Foul Work, Fred Vargas
1222, Anne Holt
Violent Exposure, Katherine Howell
Love, Honour and O'Brien, Jennifer Rowe

Hopefully you'll find some suggestions / idea there.  And while we're at it, we hope all our members and supporters have a fantastic Christmas and New Year with all the books, fun and laughter you want!

Noticed on author Bronwyn Parry's website - Counting down to the Davitt Awards

Noticed on Readings website - the Davitt Nominees

Over on her blog, Helene Young has a chat to her Sister in Crime Lindy Cameron - True Crime - Stranger than Fiction

Australia's First Lady of Crime, Gabrielle Lord, has turned her hand to teenage fiction, with nail-biting results.

CRIME doesn't pay for most of us, but for author Gabrielle Lord it's big business.

Follow this link for the full Article

Gratifying to see the reach of the Scarlet Stiletto Awards - the latest noticed:

Arts Rush Magazine - Arts on the South Coast and beyond.... The Sisters in Crime Australian annual Scarlet Stiletto Women’s Crime and Mystery Short Story Competition is on again.... full article is here

Sisters in Crime member and author Tara Moss will join FOXTEL is now host of two new local productions on the crime and mystery genre channels, Crime & Investigation Network and 13th STREET Universal Channel.

From June, Moss has hosted an exclusive new series, TOUGH NUTS, for the Crime & Investigation Network: http://www.tvtonight.com.au/2010/06/tough-nuts.html

She has also joined 13TH STREET UNIVERSAL to host TARA MOSS IN CONVERSATION, an exclusive series of short interviews with well known authors from the crime fiction genre.

Tara attended the Sydney Writer’s Festival in May and interviewed renowned authors including Kathryn Fox, Michael Robotham, Neil Cross, Lenny Bartulin and Lee Tulloch. These fascinating one-on-one interviews of up to 15 minutes duration will be shown between programs on 13TH STREET UNIVERSAL, and also be available to watch anytime on the channel’s website: www.13thstreet.com.au

Tara also hosts a book club on the 13TH STREET website called TARA MOSS RECOMMENDS where a different book will be featured every month. It kicked off in June with Stieg Larsson’s “ The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. Visitors to the website will be encouraged to read the book of the month and then post their own comments and reviews.

http://www.13thstreet.com.au/book-club/book-of-the-month/

Questions for Sisters in Crime, member and author, Angela Savage, to ask Garry Disher at the Crime and Justice Festival.

Angela is interviewing Garry Disher on his life's work this year, and as part of that, she is running a competition on her blog for fans to nominate questions for Garry.

http://angelasavage.wordpress.com/2010/06/26/questions-for-garry-disher/

The Queensland Writers Centre / Hachette Australia Manuscript Development Program for Fiction and Non-Fiction Writers has places for up to ten burgeoning writers.  Selected writers will attend a five-day intensive manuscript development program with editors from Hachette Australia.  They will develop their high-quality manuscripts, which, if deemed to have publication potential will then be considered by Hachette Australia.

The dates for the Manuscript Development Program are Friday 19 – Thursday 24 November 2010 in the Queensland Writers Centre office, the State Library of Queensland building, Brisbane.

This is the 4th year for the program and, so far, two Hachette Australia authors have come from the QWC / Hachette Australia Manuscript Development Program.

Queensland Writers Centre