Weekly Geeks: 2009-18, Home Town tour

This week's Weekly Geek Challenge is to take a home town literary tour.

Paradise is a suburb of Adelaide, the home of , so let me begin there.
AWW happens every second year, and the next one is in 2010, 28 Feb - 5 March. Most of the sessions in Writers' Week, which is held outside in 2 large marquees, are free.
AWW usually caters very well for crime fiction readers too.

Last year I attended sessions by the following writers: and Peter Corris.

I've blogged before about what a good place Adelaide is to live, home of the Adelaide Festival of Arts, Adelaide Fringe Festival, and even the Tour Down Under.

Adelaide has had a crop of crime writers too, some well known, others not.
Adelaide's Wakefield Press has printed a series called Wakefield Crime Classics which reprinted the work of authors such Patricia Carlon (The Whispering Wall), A.E. Martin, and Charlotte Jay.

Other writers to look for

• Garry Disher was South Australian born and bred although he is now a Victorian (sadly). South Australia gets an occasional reference in the Challis and Destry books. There's a good list of his books and a bit of biography here. Recently Lesa Holstene recommended his most recent Hal Challis book BLOOD MOON.
• Kirsty Brooks is a successful young writer. Her website is a bit out of date. Her first book was published in 1995. She has a blog but not much reference to her books there. Aust Crime Fiction lists 4 books in the Cassidy Blair series. They are just a bit too chick-lit for me.
• Nobel prize winner John Coetzee now lives in Adelaide.
• Nicholas Jose, author of ORIGINAL FACE, is a lecturer at Adelaide University. That seems to be his one journey into crime fiction, although he has written 7 books and been listed for a number of awards.
• most recently Fiona McIntosh, known internationally for her fantasy novels, ventured into crime fiction with BYE BYE BABY (written under the pseudonym of Lauren Crow) and now I believe a new crime fiction title will be published later this year.
• and of course Adelaide has had it's fair share of true crime with the unsolved case of the Beaumont Children, and the "bodies in the barrels" case just to name a couple. In recent years we have become a bit notorious too with child abduction cases, serial murders, including recently the "body in the barrels" case. I reviewed Debbie Marshall's book KILLING FOR PLEASURE.
  In KILLING FOR PLEASURE Australian journalist Debi Marshall tells the stories behind the grisly Snowtown "bodies-in-the barrels" serial killings, carried out over seven years in South Australia by three killers and their accomplices. KILLING FOR PLEASURE took Marshall five years to write, synthesising thousands of hours of interviews with the families of the victims, with neighbours, and with close members of the families of the murderers. What she describes pushes the boundaries of credibility, both in relation to the nature of the murders, and in the slowness of the South Australian police system to begin investigations.
  
  Alan J Whiticker wrote in IN SEARCH OF THE BEAUMONT CHILDREN, about our most notorious child abduction/disappearance case, one which successful Australian author Kathryn Fox says has a big impact on her upbringing.
  

Need some more reasons to visit Adelaide?
Well, there's the Christmas Pageant, various Christmas lights, the Schutzenfest, The Barossa Band Festival, the Old Gum Tree, and the O'Bahn, just to name a few attractions.
And of course you could meet me or Bernadette!