Event date changed: 22nd April 2020 to 7th October 2020.
South East London Authors host a lively and informative 90-minute Q&A for anyone interested in crime fiction, whether you’re a reader, a student or a writer.
About this Event
Crime fiction outsells all other genres. Whether it’s domestic noir, psychological thrillers, historical crime or detective mysteries, novels that explore the dark side of human behaviour keep hitting the bestseller lists. Why are we so drawn to crime fiction? What are the key elements? Who are the most successful crime writers, and why do we love them so much? What are the secrets of plot and characterisation? Is it a genre that follows set rules, or a type of story-telling open to innovation and experiment?
Organised by South East London Authors (their third event at Bell House), this 90-minute Q&A session is for everyone interested in crime fiction, whether reader, student or writer. You might be looking for book recommendations (from classic whodunnits to new authors) or want insights into the writing process. You might be keen to discuss the best UK crime-writing festivals, from Theakston Old Peculiar to Bloody Scotland, or how and why crime novels translate so well into film and TV. Whatever your area of interest, come and raise your questions, and explore your ideas, with three working novelists who have all developed their own individual take on this top-selling genre.
Doors open at 7.15pm for a 7.30pm start.Tickets cost £10, or £5 for those 25 or under.
As with all Bell House events, bursary tickets are available. Please email [email protected] for more information.
The panel
Louise Candlish is the Sunday Times bestselling author of thirteen novels. Her thriller Our House won the 2019 British Book Awards Crime & Thriller of the Year and was shortlisted for several other awards. A number one bestseller in paperback, ebook and audiobook, it is in development for a major TV series by Death in Paradise producers Red Planet Pictures. Her latest novel is Those People, described by the Washington Post as 'terrifically suspenseful' and by the Guardian as 'guaranteed to have you vibrating with impotent fury'. Louise lives in Herne Hill with her family.
Marianne Kavanagh is the author of four novels. Her third, Should You Ask Me, is set in Dorset just before D-Day in 1944, and begins with the discovery of two long-buried skeletons. Emma Thompson describes it as ‘an unputdownable combination of thriller and psychological drama’. Her latest novel, Disturbance, is dark domestic noir about a woman driven to the edge by rejection and betrayal. It’s praised by Jenn Ashworth as ‘horrifyingly, hilariously believable – just the blackest of delights’. She lives in Dulwich.
Anna Mazzola is a writer of historical crime and Gothic fiction. Her debut novel, The Unseeing, which won an Edgar award, is based on the life of a real woman who was convicted of aiding a murder in Camberwell in 1837. Her second novel, The Story Keeper, follows a folklorist’s assistant as she searches out dark fairy tales and stolen girls on the Isle of Skye in 1857. The Sunday Mirror says it 'casts its own profound brand of dark magic.' Anna lives in Camberwell with her family. She is also a human rights and criminal justice solicitor.
The event is chaired by Emma Darwin, whose debut novel The Mathematics of Love was nominated for both Commonwealth Writers’ Best First Book, and RNA Novel of the Year. Her memoir, This is Not a Book About Charles Darwin, was published in February 2019. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from Goldsmiths and is also the author of Get Started in Writing Historical Fiction. She blogs at This Itch of Writing.