A LIFE IN CRIME
CARMEL SHUTE
20 MARCH 2021
It’s criminal what a girl has done . . .
A Life of Crime was U3APP’s second Seminar-Webinar for 2021. Carmel Shute, Sisters in Crime co-founder along with fellow convener, Tara Mitchell, engaged in a lively conversation about the origins of Sisters in Crime and the current appetite for Australian writers of crime novels and scripts. The wave of new feminist crime writers in America, especially Sara Paretsky inspired Carmel and friends to launch Sisters in Crime in 1991. Women were no longer just characterised as femme fatales, but now as agents with purpose, sometimes murderous.
There has been an exponential growth in women crime writers and readers. Sisters in Crime has nurtured writers, created awards for them (eg Daggers and Scarlet Stilettos) and celebrated their success. At least thirty of their winners have gone on to be published. It is in part a local success story. Many of the Sisters in Crime events have been held in Port Phillip. While not all will achieve the international success of Jane Harper (The Dry) or Lyn Moriarty (Big Little Lies) or Kerry Greenwood (Phryne Fisher series), the number of women writers of crime has greatly increased as has their reader base, and Sisters in Crime are having fun. Rigatoni or rigour mortis anyone?
To watch the recording of the seminar, click HERE.
by Pam Caven