Entries for the Davitts Women’s Crime Book Awards now open

Sisters in Crime Australia’s 18th Davitt Awards for the best crime and mystery books by Australian women are now open. Publishers have until Friday 20 April to enter. For the first time, self-published books are eligible to enter. Six Davitt Awards will be presented at a gala dinner in Melbourne, probably in late August or …

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New venue: Open invitation to the launch of Once a Copper by Vikki Petraitis

His car was firebombed by corrupt cops, and contracts taken out by notorious hitmen, but no one was off-limits to Brian ‘Skull’ Murphy’s fearless fight against crime. Best-selling true crime writer, Vikki Petraitis, brings Brian’s story to national attention. Petraitis explores the many facets of The Skull’s story. Starting on the mean streets of South Melbourne, …

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Dervla McTiernan, Sisters in Crime and the new golden age of crime writing

Sisters in Crime gets big coverage in Fairfax Media today (12 February). It’s all thanks to a full-page article by Linda Morris about Dervla McTiernan whose debut novel, The Ruin, is out in April. Dervla credits being shortlisted in the 2015 Scarlet Stiletto Awards with giving her enough confidence to go through five drafts of …

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Sydney writer Rowena Harding-Smith takes out Sisters in Crime’s 24th Scarlet Stiletto Short Story Award

Sydney writer Rowena Harding-Smith (Annandale, NSW) took out the 24th Scarlet Stiletto Short Story Award presented on Saturday night (18 November) at Melbourne’s Swinburne University of Technology by actor Sigrid Thornton (below). A hundred crime fans braved the tempest to attend the ceremony. Harding-Smith was awarded The Bonnier Publishing First Prize ($1500) for “Locked In, …

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Past Imperfect: Delving into the swirl of history, murder and intrigue

Three debut authors – Dervla McTiernan, Sarah Schmidt and Katherine Kovacic – in conversation with Robyn Walton will discuss how their novels shine a light on unsolved crimes, both real and imagined. Dervla McTiernan’s novel, The Rúin (HarperCollins Australia), is set in Ireland. Detective Cormac Reilly is assigned to re-investigate a seemingly accidental overdose that happened twenty …

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Method Writing with Anne Buist

Anne Buist is the author of the series featuring forensic psychiatrist, Natalie King. Here she ponders the oft-given advice, about writing what you know We all know actors do it—research who they are to play by living their lives, wearing their clothes, walking in their shoes. They lose or gain vast amounts of weight (Adrien Brody for …

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Body in the Library winning Scarlet Stiletto Stories

For the past six years, the Body in the Library Award offered by the Melbourne Athenaeum Library has been one of the most popular categories in Sisters in Crime’s annual Scarlet Stiletto short story competition. The winner takes home $1000 in prize money with $500 going to the runner-up. This partnership has seen the number …

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