I’ve now lived more than half my life outside Australia, most of those years in New Zealand, but I still feel a very strong connection to my homeland – to the relentless heat, blinding sun, towering gum trees, deafening cicadas, and to my life there as a child in the 1980s. I was actually born and spent my childhood in the small village of Cambewarra in New South Wales.Īlthough my fictional town of Coongahoola is not based on Cambewarra, ‘The Believers’ that invade it are loosely based on a cult that arrived in my hometown under similar circumstances, when I was around Gracie’s age. Earlier this year, I was also accidentally invited to be one of three writers on the ‘new blood’ panel at Rotorua Noir, New Zealand’s first ever crime writing festival.Īs a result of this series of accidents, I’ve met many wonderful writers and readers and now feel like part of New Zealand’s thriving crime writing community.Īnd I’m not even a New Zealander! Another accident – I met my now-husband, a Wellingtonian, when I was travelling around the UK. So… it was by accident that All Our Secrets won the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel and, soon after, was accidentally published in Australia by Clan Destine Press (it was first published in New Zealand by Rosa Mira Books). But after I voiced my fear in the class, Denise assured me that lots of authors write crime novels by ‘accident’. When I took a crime fiction ‘masterclass’ with award-winning Scottish crime writer, Denise Mina, I was waiting to be exposed as an imposter. Yet still, even after being named a finalist in New Zealand’s Ngaio Marsh Awards (for crime writing novels) and long-listed for the Ned Kelly Awards last year, I felt like a fraud. Far from concluding that All Our Secrets didn’t quite cut it in the genre, Karen Chisholm declared it “an absolute gem”. In fact, the thought that All Our Secrets could be labelled ‘crime fiction’ didn’t cross my mind until it was reviewed on the AustCrimeFiction website. The real detective work is done by Gracie as she gradually pieces things together. He took too long to answer the questions and when he finally got around to saying anything, it was usually, ‘Ahm’. In All Our Secrets the police action is limited to what Gracie witnesses, which isn’t a hell of a lot: “ Hearing Constable Stewy didn’t make me feel much better. I always thought a crime novel needed to include a detective – or at least a pair of policemen or women – who’d eventually solve the crime. The story is about a community gripped by murder – essentially, a serial killer is at large – and I worked hard to build suspense and create a feeling of menace, but it never entered my head that I was creating ‘crime fiction’. The novel is narrated by 12-year-old Gracie, whose younger brother is one of the River Children whose lives are under threat. Not just any kids, though – all are River Children, a name given to the unusually high number of kids born approximately nine months after the town’s infamous ‘River Picnic’… Soon after, some of the local kids go missing, one after the other. After a supermarket checkout operator sees a vision of the Virgin Mary by the Bagooli River, a religious cult arrives and sets up camp. My one and only novel (so far) – All Our Secrets – is set in the fictional New South Wales town of Coongahoola. Eighteen months ago I’d never have believed I’d be travelling from New Zealand to Australia to take part in a Sisters in Crime event.įor starters, I’m not a crime writer.
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