Awards and Snow

Another mad month... I seem to spend my life hurtling these days.  The second half of the year is always particularly busy for me.  I usually have a book coming out and the months before are filled with all those precedent things like copy edits and cover finalisation.  

It's also award season.  Now, awards are a funny thing... a book honoured with an award is still the same collection of words and ideas that it was before the award was made.  You haven't actually achieved anything more than when you first wrote the novel... and yet there is something undeniably heartening about having your work recognised. 

I know myself that I often feel like a pretender in the writing community... like I accidentally walked into a gathering of the extraordinarily talented and erudite without the requisite security pass.  And so being included on a shortlist is for me a kind of relief... it says, they know I'm here and they want me to stay (or they're not goign to kick me out, at least).  It's silly, I know.

Anyway, the last couple of weeks have found A Murder Unmentioned on two shortlists.  The first to be announced, was the Davitt Award in which it was shortlisted for Best Adult Novel by a woman.  The award is presented annually by the Sisters in Crime Australia.  I'm joined on that shortlist by two of my very talented writing friends, Honey Brown and Malla Nunn.

A Murder Unmentioned was also shortlisted for a Ned Kelly Award in the Best Book category. It's the first time any of my books have been recognised by the Neddies, and Malla Nunn joins me on that shortlist too.

It's very cool.  And particularly lovely to know that despite being the sixth book of the series, the Rowland Sinclair Mysteries is not losing momentum.  Let the tail wag!

My other brilliant news is that I've been offered (and have accepted) the Eminent Writer in Residence Fellowship at the Museum of Australian Democracy.  For those of you who don't know, the Museum of Australian Democracy is at Old Parliament House in Canberra. Six years ago (in September in fact) when Pantera first offered me a publishing contract, they proposed driving to Batlow to meet me and sign the necessary documents. Afraid it would mean I'd have to clean the house, I suggested we gather in Canberra instead. I chose Old Parliament House as the venue because the building seemed to embody a lot of the themes about which I wanted to write... I thought it would be somehow symbolic to meet my publishers for the first time and sign a contract there (Yes I know...debut authors are ridiculously romantic about such things!) So now, I'm returning to research and begin writing what will be my thirteenth novel. There's a rather wonderful circularity about it, and despite having become a hardened veteran, I can't step into Old Parliament House without recalling the excitement and happiness of that time. I am very grateful for the selection panel's broad interpretation of the word "eminent" and to the ACT Writers' Centre and the Museum of Australian Democracy for this opportunity.  I am also in awe of the generosity of my husband, Michael, who is once again picking up the slack as I wander off to write. 

National Bookshop Day was spent in Jindabyne with Snowprint Bookshop who invited not only me but Michael and the boys for a wonderful booksy weekend in the mountains which included a specially created Rowland Sinclair themed game of Murder!

  

We returned home to more snow!  It's been a gloriously cold winter.

And of course, Give the Devil His Due was copy-edited and the cover finalised... ta da!

What happened to 2014?

It is with some sense of bewilderment that I note the date in the bottom right hand corner of my computer. I must confess that 2014 sped by so fast that I had barely come to realise it was no longer 2013!  The final months of the year in particular left me spinning.

A Murder Unmentioned was released on 1 November.  Michael (my husband) and I were in Sydney.  He was recovering from a cornea transplant and I was leading him about.  I did manage to lead him to dinner with the divinely talented but wonderfully human Malla Nunn and P.M. Newton.  We ate cornbread and okra in this literally brilliant company... see what I did there?... ;) 

I made it back home in time to drive up to Thredbo for the Snowy Readers and Writers' Festival which I have been a part of since its inaugral event.  My boys came with me.   One of the best things about this crazy profession of mine is that Edmund and Atticus have the opportunity to meet some extraordinary people.  Poets like Omar Musa and Victoria McGrath, writers like Anna George, Karen Viggers, Biff Ward, David Leser, Chris Uhlmann and Steve Lewis.  I think (hope) it compensates for all the time their own mother is distracted by imaginary people.

I returned to the peaks again at the end of that month for the official launch of A Murder Unmentioned at a magnificent event at Crackenback Lake Resort hosted by the Snowprint Bookshop.  Despite having nine books to my name, I am at a loss to describe how special that night was.  The band was brilliant, the singers superb, the venue perfect, the company delightful and to top the night off with superlatives, the drama students of Snow Mountains Grammar School performed a chapter from A Murder Unmentioned so well that I swear they had been inside my head!  It was an evening so extraordinary that I wish I could bottle it somehow to share with the world, because something that wonderful shouldn't belong to just me.  But of course I haven't quite worked out how to contain the essence of a experience so photos will have to suffice!

 

  

But that's not all!  I also managed to squeeze in a trip to Melbourne for the Crime and Justice Festival hosted by Reader's Feast Bookstore.  This is a truly unique event which discusses not only crime in literature but also addresses questions of social justice and reform.  I appeared on two panels... the first with my dear friends and admired colleagues, Angela Savage and Robert Gott, and later with my Pantera stablemates Melanie Casey and Josh Donellan.  We discussed all manner of things, shared experiences, ideas and  laughter with wonderful audiences of readers. 

And then there was Christmas... which I spent away from home this year with my Dad and sister.  Dad had surgery just before Christmas and Devini and I headed up to Brisbane to keep an eye on him and do what we could.  In the flurry I neglected to update this site and wish you all the very best of the Season and a happy and healthy New Year, but the wish is now given and no less sincere for being so late!

 

On launching....

Next week, or thereabouts my latest book will officially hit shelves.  A Murder Unmentioned is the sixth book in the Rowland Sinclair Mysteries, my ninth published novel and the tenth book I’ve written. So, how does one launch such a book into the world?

Later in November, on the 29^th to be precise, the wonderful Snowprint Bookshop will help me celebrate the sixth Rowly with A Night Worth Mentioning under the stars at the spectacular Lake Crackenback Resort.  There will be canapés and champagne on the peaks, under a glorious night sky.  There will be conversations about Rowly, the 1930s and books as well music and I’m told dramatic performances of scenes from the novel.  I am looking forward to it beyond measure!

The 1^st of November will, however, slip by quietly in terms of literary galas.  The date of the release of my book happens to coincide with the date that my husband Michael will undergo surgery for a cornea transplant, so I will be hanging out in Sydney keeping him company.  While I wish Michael didn’t have to undergo the surgery at all, I can’t help thinking that spending the time focussed (no pun intended) on him is somehow appropriate.

I’ve never made any secret about Michael’s involvement in my books – particularly the Rowland Sinclair Mysteries.    He is my first editor, my historical advisor and the inspiration for Wilfred Sinclair.  But it’s more than that.  Writing is for most writers a tough profession to make work in the real world.    If you don’t have a day job, it generally means sacrificing notions of income for at least a time, perhaps forever. If you do have a day job, it generally means working a night shift in addition to whatever it is you do in the day, in order to “get those books writ”!  When you have a family, both are hard roads.  For me, it’s only possible because Michael has compensated.

Society has always held those who support artistic endeavour in the highest esteem… galleries, philanthropic organisations, state institutions.  They are all necessary and rightly valued.  Sometimes overlooked however, are the partners of artists who in many cases, willingly or otherwise, find themselves patrons of the arts - unofficial sponsors of the artists with whom they have become entangled.  This is so with us.  Into every one of my novels have gone the characters and stories in my head, Pantera Press’s investment in my work, and Michael’s donation to the cause.

And so I will celebrate the release of A Murder Unmentioned by raising a quiet glass with my husband to what we have created together… some fairly disasterous meals, a high-maintenance garden, our extraordinary sons, and Rowland Sinclair.

Final Catch Up Post - Snowy Readers and Writers' Festival

This Easter weekend I had the honour of being a guest at the inaugral Snowy Readers' and Writers' Festival.  We set out on Good Friday, for the trek over the hill to Jindabyne.  Along the way we stopped at the old Kiandra cemetery, to wander among the old graves and so the boys could tangle a line in the little creek at its foot. 

I first spoke in Jindabyne  in 2010, three days before the official release of my debut noel (A Few Right Thinking Men), at an event to celebrate the birthday of the Snowprint Bookshop, and so there was a certain homecoming to presenting my 5th published novel at the Festival.

It was delightful to catch up with some of the wonderful people who first supported the book of a then totally unknown writer, slightly panicked writer.  

Also on board for the festival was my dear friend Karen Viggers (The Lightkeeper's Wife), who I met at a bus stop in Byron Bay,  Jane Carroll (author of many books included El Toro and Crikey), the illustrious Marion Lanigan (Shooting the Fox) and the highly amusing debut sensation, Daniel Omalley.  I added my two cents worth to a wonderful session of women writers chaired by  the very charming Deb Stevens.  I also presented later by myself, on books and writing and anything else that came to mind.  I finished that session rather memorably by recklessly allowing my six-year-old to ask a question.  He'd had his hand up for at least 10 minutes. 

Me: "Yes, Atticus - what would you like to know?"

Atticus:  (sighing and slumping his shoulders wearily)  "When are you going to stop writing?"

As they say - never work with children or animals.

Edmund participated in a workshop presented by none other than John Marsden, and George Negus, Peter Rees, Sandy Mackinnon and plethora of other writers, readers artists were wandering about the place.

The weather could not have been more perfect, nor the conversation more inspiring. And the company... well it was something to write home about!