Learned Crime with Dervla McTiernan

The Melbourne Athenaeum Library and Sisters in Crime Australia take pleasure in presenting Dervla McTiernan in conversation with Robyn Walton re Dervla’s latest book, The Scholar (out February). After several hotly contested publishing auctions, Dervla McTiernan’s debut novel, The Rúin (Harper Collins, 2018), became an instant bestseller which soared up the Australian charts and became …

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Philomena Horsley takes out the 25th Scarlet Stiletto Award

Philomena Horsley (Northcote, Vic), a medical anthropologist who specialises in autopsies, took out the 25th Scarlet Stiletto Short Story Award presented on Saturday night (24 November). Actor Kate Atkinson and author Cate Kennedy presented the awards before a hundred crime fans at a gala ceremony at Melbourne’s Thornbury Theatre. “It was a night of magic and …

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BOOKED OUT – A Black Saturday Crime

Sisters in Crime Australia and the Port Phillip Library  Service present… 6 for 6.30pm, Thursday 14 February: A Black Saturday Crime Award-winning author Chloe Hooper talks to Robin Bowles about her latest book, The Arsonist: A Mind on Fire ( (Hamish Hamilton). What kind of person would deliberately set a firestorm? Hooper asks. What kind of …

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A mug’s game? Janice Simpson on the profession of writing

A Body of Work, my second crime novel, is a police procedural with social twists, although there is scant in-depth detail about police methods. Rather, the novel focuses on the interactions of the people in the investigating team. Social themes explored include secret adoption as a way of dealing with an unwanted pregnancy; the personal …

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Headshot Anna Snoekstra

Revenge is a dish best served cold:Q&A with Anna Snoekstra

Melbourne crime writer, Anna Snoekstra, spoke to Sisters in Crime’s Vice-President, Robyn Walton, about her latest thriller, The Spite Game (HQ Fiction, 2018). Hi, Anna. You sold the film rights to your first novel, Only Daughter. How’s that all going? Great! I’ve just gotten back from LA, where I was catching up with everything that …

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Vale Judith Rodriquez (1936-2018)

Sisters in Crime mourns the death of  poet  and member, Judith Rodriguez, on 22 November at the age of 82. Judith was a fixture at Melbourne events over the past few years and was usually accompanied by her daughters Bec and Sibila, and, if she was down from Sydney, Zoë. Her warmth, wit and perspicacity attracted …

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Killing it – Australia’s deadliest female writers

The Sunday Age and Sydney Morning Herald published a feature  by Thuy On on Sisters in Crime, Australian women’s crime writing and the Scarlet Stiletto Awards in M Magazine (18 November). Pictured is Sally Browne and scarlet stilettos in 2009. The body of evidence is mounting and the verdict is conclusive: Australian women writers are deadly. For …

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