Meeting up at Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF)

I couldn't really say that I have much problem in coming up with a topic to blog about but I couldn't resist pointing you to this site, called Blaugh.

I had originally hoped to get to MWF for most of last week, but eventually only made it on Friday night. I got to the Ned Kelly Awards just in time to see the first announced.

• Best Non-Fiction
  RED CENTRE, DEAD HEART, Evan McHugh
• Best First Fiction
  THE LOW ROAD, Chris Womersley
• Best Fiction
  SHATTER, Michael Robotham
• Marele Day was given a lifetime award in recognition of her role in creating the Ned Kelly awards.

I ran a poll on this blog some weeks back to see if we could pick the Ned Kelly winners.
So which ones did we pick? Well, we didn't do very well as it happens, except for Michael Robotham with SHATTER which I always believed deserved to win.

On Saturday morning I went to a session called "Genre Jumper- Kate Atkinson" and am now reading her latest WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS?
She also signed a copy of the book for me.

On Saturday a bunch of us from oz_mystery_readers and members of 4MA in Australia went out to lunch. 15 of us altogether and it was great to catch up. Last year at MWF about 10 of us caught up for dinner, so this is now well on the way to becoming an annual occasion.

On Saturday evening I went to "It May not Leave a Scar" - Robert Drew, John Clanchy, and William McInnes. As a result today I've read John Clanchy's short story anthology VINCENZO'S GARDEN. Not crime fiction except for one lovely story called "Radinsky's Will" which would sit

comfortably in any crime fiction anthology. I'll post a review of VINCENZO'S GARDEN later this week.

On Sunday morning I went to a session called "Liars make the best writers" with Mark Billingham, Matt Condon, and Michael Robotham (replacing Delia Falconer).

This was a really wonderful session - these authors are all entertaining in their own way, and they really sparked off each other.

So here are the authors I caught up with to chat with:

Michael Robotham

Mark Billingham (the "odd" one out in this list, but he's a friend of Michael's)

Adrian Hyland

Phillipa (PD) Martin

Leigh Redhead

Katherine Howell

I didn't really need to acquire any more books but I came home with

WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS?, Kate Atkinson

VINCENZO'S GARDEN, John Clanchy

BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE MUSEUM, Kate Atkinson

THE FIRST FINGERPRINT, Xavier-Marie Bonnot

DEATH MESSAGE, Mark Billingham

A SHORT HISTORY OF TRACTORS IN UKRAINIAN, Marina Lewycka (not crime fiction at all, just a title I've seen interesting reviews of)

GHOST LINES, Nick Gadd

Catching up at MWF has become an annual event for some of us, but I do stand with some of my original criticisms of the programme on offer this year. As it was I eventually only came over for the second weekend, but even so I did only attend 3 events and only 2 of those were crime fiction.
My friends who came from Tasmania, Newcastle and Darwin for the week had nothing to attend at the beginning of the week, Monday to Wednesday, simply because there were no events on for the general public on those days.