Silver is longlisted for the Australian Book Industry Awards for 2020 for general fiction! It goes to show how popular Australian crime fiction is right now – and how many good crime writers we have – seven out of the eight are crime books. I’ve read seven of the eight and they’re all good. I was lucky enough to make the shortlist last year with Scrublands, but I’m not too… Read More »Silver makes ABIA longlist
Some excellent news from the United States: Scrublands has been shortlisted for a prestigious Barry Award for the Best First Mystery/Crime novel. The winner will be announced in October at the Bourchercon World Mystery Convention to be held in Sacramento. Huge thanks to US publisher Atria for giving Scrublands such great support.
January has been a big month. Silver is in bookstores in the UK, thanks to the wonderful team at Wildfire, who have produced a most beautiful hardback. Silver is already winning some great reviews in the UK and in Ireland, with The Sunday Times naming it their crime book of the month for January. I’m indebted to the Times crime reviewer Joan Smith, herself an accomplished crime novelist, for choosing… Read More »Silver published in UK
It was such a small thing to do – donate some signed first editions and a couple of coloured maps as part of the #AuthorsForFiereys auction on twitter. But it felt good to be making even a small contribution to a much wider effort. I particularly like the maps – professionally coloured by artist Alex Potocnik – large scale copies of the maps in Scrublands and Silver. Some other authors… Read More »Helping the Fire Fighters
So proud that Silver, published just two months ago, is already in the running for a major award -it’s been longlisted for an Indie, for best fiction.. These are the annual prizes awarded by Australia’s wonderful independent bookstores, grouped together as Leading Edge. Not sure of Silver will make the shortlist, given the quality of the books here, but so good to be listed alongside them. One observation – in… Read More »Indie longlist for Silver
Bloody hell – I won a Dagger! A lightning trip to London to attend the UK Crime Writers’ Association’s annual awards and Scrublands won the best debut novel of the year – The John Creasey New Blood Dagger. It’s one of the most prestigious international crime fiction awards and I’m elated. I’m told I might even be the first Australian to win it since its inception in 1973 – although… Read More »Is this a dagger….?
I’m travelling to all states publicising Silver during October and November, with additional dates in February and March. Full details here.
About 150 friends, family and readers celebrated the launch of Silver at the National Library in Canberra on Monday September 30th. Tony Wright did the honours, delivering a heartfelt speech wishing the book well, while publisher Jane Palfreyman was her ever-generous self. A wonderful night – such a joy to bring a new book into the world!
This was some sort of experience. Kununurra is about as far from Canberra as you can get while still being on the Australian continent, and the festival was about as far from a big-city festival as you might imagine. For a start, Kununurra, population 5,300, sits right at the top of Western Australia, not far from the NT border. It doesn’t even have a bookstore, so all the books for… Read More »Kimberley Writers Festival
I spent the weekend just past in Mudgee, appearing at the annual Mudgee Readers’ Festival. Nothing like a literary festival held in a wine-growing area: they always seem to work. (Can’t imagine why.) I was fortunate to have Scrublands chosen for Mudgee Library’s ‘One Book, One Community’ initiative. Kind of like a big book club. I was interviewed by local Michael Bourke. He’s quite a character: sometimes I felt as… Read More »Mudgee, Canberra, Katoomba