Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot : Introduction

Back in April 2005 Ben Peek, on his weblog The Urban Sprawl Project, undertook to interview as many Australian speculative fiction writers as he could and to publish those interviews over the course of a week. Each interview was only short, some five questions in all, and was aimed primarily at getting a brief look at the author's latest work, what they were currently working on, and what they thought of the then current state of the speculative fiction field in Australia. He called it the "2005 Snapshot".

In August 2007, the ASif! (Australian SpecFic in focus) crew, along with a guest or two, decided to follow Peek's lead and came up with their own 2007 Snapshot. They finished up interviewing 83 authors, up from the 43 in Peek's original.

At the end of 2007, Karen Chisholm (of the Aust Crime Fiction weblog), Damien Gay (of Crime DownUnder) and Perry Middlemiss (of Matilda) decided a similar snapshot of Australian crime fiction was required.

Over the past couple of months these three have conducted a number of small, five-question interviews with a wide variety of Australian crime fiction writers and will begin publishing them across the three weblogs, starting Monday March 3, 2008.

If you are at all interested in the current state of Australian crime fiction, you'll find this series very entertaining and, hopefully, illuminating.

Ross Duncan Review and Interview

The folks over at The Compulsive Reader have been busy with a steady stream of reviews and interviews. One of their more recent subjects has been Ross Duncan, author of All Those Bright Crosses. The transcript of the interview conducted by Magdalena Ball can be read on The Compulsive Reader website or, alternatively, you can sit back and relax and listen to the audio version of the interview.

Accompanying the interview is a review of All Those Bright Crosses in which Magdalena effecitvely captures the unmistakable strengths of the book.

Inside the Mind of Shane Maloney

See what happens if you mooch around the internet long enough...you find yet another brilliantly entertaining interview with Shane Maloney. Well, that's what happened tonight anyway.

Lucinda Schmidt (The Sydney Morning Herald & The Age) has collared Maloney and wrung a first rate profile out of the creator of Murray Whelan that should inspire hope for budding authors everywhere who are trying to get published.

Shane explains how his first manuscript (Stiff) was saved from the Text Publishing slush pile by publisher Michael Heywood, single-handedly saving the publishing company from financial ruin.

The story works it's way through to a snappy question / answer section that defines Maloney's clever wit to a tee.

Tangled Web Interview with Peter Temple

Fans of Peter Temple's work should rush over to the Tangled Web website to catch Bob Cornwell's interview and comprehensive reflection on Peter Temple's catalogue. he takes us through his writing process, the evolution of The Broken Shore and his emergence from being a South African / Australian author to finally gain the worldwide acclaim (I think) he deserves.

There's lots I could focus on in this piece but I'll save it for your own enjoyment at Tangled Web. What I will report is the terrific news that the next Peter Temple book, titled Truth will be published next year...and that it's the second of a trilogy, following on from The Broken Shore but featuring Joe Cashin's superior, Inspector Villani.

Do I sense the impending birth of the 2008 Ned Kelly Award winner?

What I do know is that, even though I don't want to wish my life away, I'm going to be counting the days until it's publication.

Now, what are you still doing here? Go and read the Tangled Web interview.

The Age Gives Michael Robotham the Once Over

With his latest thriller, The Night Ferry, going gang-busters all over the globe what with nominations for a CWA Steel Dagger and a Ned Kelly Award, Michael Robotham once again has some explaining to do. Fortunately, Peter Wilmoth of The Age was on hand to apply the blowtorch or, at least, ask him some pertinent questions.

Robotham is always good for an amusing story or two about his journalistic / ghost-writer past and Wilmoth has little trouble drawing some of the better ones out of him.

Radio Interview with Peter Corris

With the release of the latest book by one of Australia's most prolific (and popular) authors The Book Show on ABC Radio National has snagged an interview with Peter Corris. Corris chats with Ramona Koval and reads a passage from Appeal Denied.

An interesting comment to come out of the interview is that Corris likes to follow the convention of Ross McDonald's when writing a crime novel that reads: "Disorder in the past surfaces in the present and sets the plot running." It's a convention that Corris believes just about all of his books suscribes to.

He explains that he finds it easy to slip into a new Cliff hardy novel, like slipping on an old coat. Let's hope he hasn't any plans to send the coat to the Salvos any time soon.

Radio Interview with Michael Robotham

The ABC's Richard Fidler has really been working overtime talking to Australia's crime novellists as part of his Conversation Hour program. This time he has caught up with Michael Robotham to discuss Robotham's early career as a journalist before moving into the sphere of ghostwriting 'autobiographies' for some of the biggest names in showbiz and how he moved on to write bestselling thrillers. He goes on to talk about his latest novel The Night Ferry.

The interview can be heard on the ABC Brisbane website.

Matthew Reilly Is Off to Hollywood

The Arts and Entertainment blog of the ABC – Articulate – has published a recent interview with Matthew Reilly where he talks candidly about a range of exciting projects coming up. Not the least of these is his relocation to Hollywood to work on the TV pilot of his creation, Literary Superstars. On top of that is the slowly developing film adaptation for Hover Car Racer.

For the readers out there he also talks about the forthcoming Jack West novel titled The Six Sacred Stones. As Reilly explains, Jack West is pure Indiana Jones territory which pretty aptly describes the first Jack West book Seven Ancient Wonders. Be warned, though, he also talks about trying to make a point of not giving the readers what they expect, already hinting that maybe there will be a momentous twist or two in the new book.


Check out the full interview.

Don’t forget Matthew will be appearing at the Sydney Writer’s Festival on the following dates:

Tuesday, May 29, 6.30pm: at Blacktown Library
Thursday, May 31, 3pm: , “Crossing Over Genres”.
Friday, June 1, 10.30am: ”Being a Professional Writer”.

Podcast Interview with Robert Gott

Jeez there's some great sites out there on the web if you look hard enough. I'm a bit slow on the uptake so I hadn't listened to a podcast before last night...

I recently stumbled across the Naked Novelist site, a site that presents podcasts of the "Published or Not" radio show that airs every Thusday at 11:30am (855 on the am band) on 3CR in Melbourne (and live over the net, too). An earlier interview on May 11 was with Robert Gott, author of the comic mystery series featuring William Power. He talks to host Brendan Gulliver about his latest novel Amongst the Dead.

This is a very entertaining interview as Gott dissects his protagonist Will Power who is described as a "dickhead hero" by Shane Maloney, a title that Gott readily agrees with. He talks about his experiences in the top end of Australia, the setting of Amongst the Dead as well as suggesting why such an annoying man as Will Power could also be so very endearing to readers.

One snippet that I found of immense interest was the fact that when Gott originally began the Will Power series he intended it to be 3 books long, but has now expanded his plans to make it 5, giving us another 2 books (at least) to look forward to.

The Robert Gott interview is titled Show #25 Turning history into cracking good crime fiction.

Enjoy.

A couple of ABC Radio Interviews

The Book Show on ABC Radio recently recorded an interview with Shane Maloney to talk about his new book, Sucked In, the 6th in the Murray Whelan series. Go here the hear Shane speak about Murray's progression throughout the series. The interview begins at around the 29:30 mark of the show and I can attest that it's a very entertaining interview.

A few days later ABC Radio's Richard Fidler interviewed Katherine Howell, author of Frantic. The interview was recorded back on the 15th. That interview can be heard here.