Ned Kelly Award and crime writers

Next month, the winners of the Ned Kelly Awards, Australia’s oldest and most prestigious crime writing awards, will be announced. Congratulations to Senior Crown Prosecutor for NSW Mark Tedeschi AM QC, who has been shortlisted in the True Crime category for his latest book ‘Murder at Myall Creek’, investigating the brutal massacre of 28 Indigenous men, women and children in 1838 and the ground-breaking trial that followed. We’re looking forward to hearing Mark, in conversation with John Vallance, bring prosecutor John Hubert Plunkett to life and examine how the trial he conducted came to be one of the most significant in the nation’s history.

We’re also proud to be hosting two criminally good fiction writers who were submitted for the Ned Kelly Award this year and will be in conversation at our Talking Crime event. Melina Marchetta, much-loved author of young adult fiction, including the cult classic ‘Looking for Alibrandi’, is new to crime, with her debut ‘Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil’ a complex, witty and thoroughly gripping read. She’ll be in conversation with seasoned crime writer B. Michael Radburn (aka Baz Radburn), author of ‘The Crossing’ (to be made into a film directed by James Khehtie with Baz writing the screenplay) , ‘Blackwater Moon’ and, most recently, ‘The Falls’ – a chilling tale of killing grounds uncovered in Tasmania’s haunting wilderness. What drove both these writers to crime?

Discover more about this addictive genre and the writers who take it on, when Melina meets Baz, with Nigel Bartlett, to talk crime.