Tuesday
May062014

Fashion Detective - National Gallery of Victoria

The suitcase is out again as I pack for Melbourne.  I'm heading down for the opening of Fashion Detective an exhibition in which I was delighted to take part.  Fashion Detective, at the National Gallery of Victoria, examines the detective work required to establish the provenance of an item.  Curators use such scientific methods as x-ray imaging, carbon dating and chemical testing to determine things like age and composition.  In a twist, the Gallery also invited 4 crimewriters to come up with a fabricated history for an object using only their imaginations.  It was my previlege to be one of those writers.  My particular item was a sample of wallpaper, by William Morris, in arsenic green (very fashionable in the 1800s)! 

As part of the exhibition I'll be joining with my Sisters in Crime, Leigh Redhead and P.D. Martin to run a free workshop,  entitled "Using Material Evidence", at the NGV (on Sunday the 11th, between 2pm and 4pm) where we will help visitors produce their own short fictions based on items from the exhibition.  Now, I know Sunday is Mother's Day, but if your mother is the least bit "criminally inclined" this may be the perfect afternoon's entertainment. 

Tuesday
Apr082014

Picking up balls

This is dreadful!  I haven't updated since "Gentlemen Formerly Dressed" was released!  I'm afraid this site is one of the first balls to be dropped in the juggling act of my life! It has been a rather full few months... with Christmas, launches, author talks, the Batlow Show (not to be missed) and, of course, the writing of a new book.  I submitted the "A Murder Unmentioned" - the sixth Rowland Sinclair novel yesterday.  Today I had a haircut, got my flu shot, filled prescriptions and picked up a few more  balls that have been dropped over the last few months.  I've started playing with other novels (not Rowland Sinclairs) and am preparing a workshop for the Sydney Writers Festival next month.

   

 

  

Canberra Launch of Gentlemen Formerly Dressed at the superlative Electric Shadows Bookshop with my charming friend and fellow author, Dan O'Malley doing the honours.

 

 

 

A box of B-format of Paving the New Road arrived on my doorstep... as with all my b-formats the cover was based on an original drawing which now hands in my study.

 

 

 I found myself shortlisted for the the 2013 Scarlett Stiletto Awards, which my sister, Devini, and I attended in theme!

 

 

 I finally redecorated my son Atticus' room - my boy's a doctor....

 

 The Hero Trilogy Box Set hit the shelves in time for Christmas.

  My garden demanded attention... and by that I mean mowing and weeding!  

 

 

 

 

 

  We did Christmas!

 

 

 

Headed to Goulburn via Canberra to have my photo taken with an old friend, a giant sheep and to speak at the Goulburn Library.

 

 

 Scrambled to get a hydrangea and a painting ready for the Batlow Show... the Hydrangea won best bloom!

 

This is a somewhat scrappy account of what I've been up to for since Novemember.  The next months promise to be even more hectic....and I promise to try and keep all my balls, including this one, in the air.... or at stop to pick them up more regularly!

 

Monday
Oct282013

Crime Caper continues.....

 My debut on the local news....

Crime Caper continues

Sunday
Oct272013

Launched....

 On Friday the 25th of October, Gentlemen Formerly Dressed was formally launched at the Literary Institute of Batlow.  It would take a new novel to fully describe the warmth and colour and enthusiasm of a hometown launch, and so I have simply posted the photographs here instead.  From the cardboard chandelier, to the jazz-band silhouettes, the papier-mache stag made from extra pages of the A Few Right Thinking Men, fresh flowers from local gardens, cider made of local apples, not to mention a feast so extravagent that it would have impressed Rowland Sinclair himself, there was not a detail overlooked.  Thank you all for a spectacular and elegant good-luck party for Gentlemen Formerly Dressed.  Go well little book, and make friends. 

   

 

  

  

Thursday
Aug082013

Gentlemen Formerly Dressed

 

Just to let you know.... Gentlemen Formerly Dressed is Coming!