Tag: Sulari Gentill

Everything I know about writing I learned…

B_gold

It’s my fondest dream, that one day my ridiculously talented child will say that everything he knows about writing he learned from me.

Yes, it would be reflected glory, but you take what you can get, right?

I’m super proud that he has again been shortlisted in the Somerset Novella Writing Competition. He submitted a crime thriller, called Red Ridge, White Snow, and was one of four shortlisted entries from the ACT, NSW and Western Australia.

A crime thriller? Wasn’t his story last year an historical mystery with a fantasy twist? Well, yes, but he likes playing around with genre, and he took some advice on writing from a workshop with Sulari Gentill –  that it’s always good to start with a murder.

And, well, that means he definitely didn’t learn everything he knows from me….

Ssssssss-boom! Another dream crashes and burns.

But at least there’s fireworks from the impact.

And I am so very pleased for him.

Clever, charming, and thoroughly louche

rowland

Why, of course, it’s Mr Rowland Sinclair, and his disreputable companions.

And if you love damn fine storytelling – it’s an enthralling series of Australian historical crime – have I got a deal for you. Or, more accurately, the clever, charming, and thoroughly irrepressible, author – Sulari Gentill – has the fabulous deal, and I’m just bringing it to your attention.

The seventh Rowland Sinclair mystery, Give the Devil His Due, was published a year ago, and I’ve just recently binge-read the series (which involved re-reading some of the earlier books, and the first time reading the later). They’re so good. I love the flawed characters, and the relationships between Rowly and his friends, and especially between Rowly and his brother. I love the understated humour. I love the way the books look at the complex politics of the 1930s, with the realities of the Depression, the global rise of Fascism, and the fear of Communism – all seen through the filter of Rowly’s wish to just paint portraits.

Sulari is a fabulous writer, and a delightful person, and the gasps of horror she can elicit at writers’ festivals by confessing she writes, in her pyjamas, in front of the television, is hilarious. Pantera Press publishes her books in Australia, and Poisoned Pen Press is releasing her backlog of Rowly’s adventures in the USA, and even though it is written, readers will have to wait until next September for the release of the 8th novel.

To alleviate disappointment, and because she is magnificent, Sulari has written and released a free novella, The Prodigal Son.

You can download it here: http://www.rowlandsinclairnovella.com/

It’s a prequel to the series, so I’m going to go grab it right now, and settle in to enjoy a little more time in the company of Rowland Sinclair and his Bohemian friends. Why not do the same? And then, if you haven’t already, you can hunt down a copy of A Few Right Thinking Men and read the whole series.

I thoroughly recommend it.

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Murder, she wrote

I’ve been writing.
Nothing odd in that, but what I’ve been writing was different, for me at least.
Next Tuesday is the 125th anniversary of the birth of Agatha Christie, so we’re having fun with crime and mystery in the libraries – if you happen to be near Runaway Bay Branch Library at 10am on Tuesday come and talk Christie with me and have some birthday cake.
Last night, I ran a murder mystery event at Robina Branch Library for 50 people. It took me a good deal longer to write The Body in the Library than I had expected, and only two hours for us to play our parts. I had the very best assistance from Sulari Gentill, our special guest crime author and judge, and from the four librarians and four family and friends who were playing the eight suspects.
These suspects were all literary characters who had been shortlisted for an award and so they were based on popular mystery tropes: the elderly amateur sleuth and knitter Miss Syrup; the eccentric crime consultant and genius, Sheldon Harths; the hard-boiled P.I. Jo Hemlock; the ‘Tartan Noir’ Scottish forensics expert Tavish MacDuff; the aristocratic historical investigator Lady Lally Larkworthy; the precocious child detective Hardy de Nancy; the professional police officer D.C.I. Claude Code; and the paranormal psychic investigator Sanya Skorpio.
The suspects had information about their characters and what they knew or had seen. The participants received a short biography of the suspects and the basic facts of the crime – the murder of the third judge, antagonistic librarian Moira Konanowski – then they had to cross-examine the suspects and search the library for clues. People had a whole lot of fun and really got into it. We’d set a 1930s theme and the costuming was fantastic!
Writing the characters and creating alibis, making up clues and sub-plots to serve as red herrings, coming up with funny-because-they’re-cliche back stories and everything else that went with it gave me a whole new respect for crime writers. I had big spreadsheets of characters, clues, alibis, red herrings, suspicions and props. I kept feeling like my head was going to explode.
So, to all the writers of murder mysteries, I salute you! Just this little bit of a fun dabble in the genre has made me realise how cleverly constructed your novels are.