Crime, History, Barbie and the Matildas
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On 31 August, Jane Caro will be joining us to talk writing, reading and The Watchful WifeTo be there, just click on the link to my Zoom conference room on Thursday 31 August at 8pm:
JOIN BOOK CLUB ON ZOOM Dear Friends
It was terrific to have Michael Burge as my guest on Thursday Book Club last week. Our conversation ranged from journalism to fiction writing to growing up gay in rural Australia. If you weren't able to join us, you can watch our interview here.
When I arrived in Canberra yesterday, the sight of new Parliament House was, as always, so arresting, especially at dusk. I'm in Canberra for a couple of days and tonight I'll be in conversation with Barbie Robinson at The Book Cow in Kingston. I'd love to see you there. The event is free and you can register for it here.
The shortlists for the Ned Kelly awards were announced last week, as were those for the NSW Premier's History Awards. To my delight, Running with Ivan has been included on the shortlist for the Young People's History Prize, together with The Goodbye Year by Emily Gale (Text Publishing) and The Wearing of the Green by Claire Saxby (Walker Books). You'll find a full list of the shortlisted titles below.
I've never really understood the appeal of watching sport on TV but the Matildas seem to have turned me around. What a team! And so, on Saturday evening, I'll be at the local park watching them on the big screen as they take on France - after I accompany sixteen girls to the Barbie movie for my twelve-year-old's birthday. And to my utter astonishment, I can't wait for the game or the pink dream house.
TOM LAKE
Ann Patchett
BUY FROM ABBEY'S BOOK SHOP
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- It's the summer of 2020, and Lara and her three adult daughters, who have returned home during the pandemic, are picking cherries on the family farm in Michigan. To pass the time, the girls beg Lara to tell a story they have always known - that when she was younger, she was an actress and for one season worked in a summer theatre with a man who went on to become a very famous actor. Each of the girls have a romantic and differing vision of this time, but as Lara retells the old story, she corrects their assumptions - but is she telling the whole story even now? This is a beautiful novel about love and family, of how children never see their parents as anything else but parents, and certainly not as people with complicated pasts and desires. It is warm and wise and wholly engrossing, and because it's Patchett, full of gorgeous imagery and quietly impressive turns of phrase and characters you believe in. Every new Patchett book that comes out, I think is better than the last, but this one - this is her best. Lindy
Enter the code THURSDAYBOOKCLUB at the checkout for a 15% discount on Abbey's new release recommendations. This code will also get you a 15% discount on the books by my guests on Thursday Book Club and my novels, The Teacher's Secret, The Deceptions, Running With Ivanand The Watchful Wife.
RETURN TO VALETTO
Dominic Smith
BUY FROM ABBEY'S BOOK SHOP
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK --- Hugh Fisher is a middle-aged historian, known for his book on vanishing Italian towns - a personal interest stemming from his complicated family history. His eccentric Italian aunts and nearly 100 year old grandmother live in a town on the crumbling edge of a cliff accessible only by an ancient bridge. Widowed four years previously, Hugh is still in deep mourning for his lost wife, and unable to fully finish his next work. When he returns to Valetto to take up his inheritance - a cottage behind the family villa - he is confronted by Elisa Tomassi, who claims it was left to her family by his long disappeared grandfather. As they unravel the convoluted strands of history that led them to Valetto, he diffidently steps into a new relationship with Elisa, and with his family. I found this was the perfect companion for a cold weekend, the evocation of Italian landscape and the melancholy of history were enticing and transporting! Lindy
RESCUE READS
Infidelity and Other Affairs
by
Kate Legge
How did this 2023 publication end up on the op-shop shelves so quickly? Was it read before being discarded? Were the wounds too fresh for a reader, newly spurned, to bear some meaning making? Was it given in contempt by a wronged spouse to their cheating partner? All I can know for sure is that it wasn’t passed on because it’s a bad book. It’s a brilliant book. Kate Legge writes interesting sentences full of arresting words. A most unique family history is exhibited in the first part of the book as Legge documents not only the infidelity of her husband, but also of his grandmother, his father, and his (and her) son. It is devastating and Legge’s hurt is clear, but while spite is present, it isn’t the central driver of the narrative. The latter parts of the book turn to other affairs as Legge examines her own family history for the forces that shaped her and grounds her current life with mediations on topics from her cat to climate change. NEWS
2023 National Biography Award
Congratulations to Ann-Marie Priest, winner of the 2023 National Biography Award for My Tongue Is My Own: A life of Gwen Harwood (La Trobe University Press)
The Michael Crouch Award for a Debut Work, worth $5000, had been awarded to Tom Patterson forMissing (A&U).
The winning authors will appear in conversation with last year’s winner for Leaping into Waterfalls: The Enigmatic Gillian Mears, Bernadette Brennan, and judge Rick Morton at the State Library of NSW on Saturday 19 August. You can book your free ticket here.
The 2023 NSW Premier’s History Awards shortlists have been announced:
Australian History Prize ($15,000)
General History Prize ($15,000)
Visions of Nature: How Landscape Photography Shaped Settler Colonialism by Jarrod Hore (University of California Press)
Under Empire: Muslim Lives and Loyalties Across the Indian Ocean World, 1775–1945 by Michael Laffan (Columbia University Press)
Singing the News of Death: Execution Ballads in Europe 1500–1900 by Una McIlvenna (Oxford University Press)
NSW Community & Regional History Prize ($15,000)
The Naturalist: The remarkable life of Allan Riverstone McCulloch by Brendan Atkins (NewSouth, in association with the Lord Howe Island Historical Society and Museum)
He Belonged to Wagga: The Great War, the AIF and returned soldiers in an Australian country town by Ian Hodges (Australian Scholarly Publishing)
Whitefella Way by Jon Rhodes (Self-published)
Young People’s History Prize ($15,000)
The Goodbye Year by Emily Gale (Text Publishing)
Running with Ivan by Suzanne Leal (HarperCollins Publishers)
The Wearing of the Green by Claire Saxby (Walker Books Australia)
Digital History Prize ($15,000)
Still We Rise by Anna Grieve and John Harvey (Tamarind Tree Pictures)
The Australian Wars, Episode 1 by Rachel Perkins, Darren Dale, Jacob Hickey and Don Watson (Blackfella Films)
Ayahs and Amahs: Transcolonial Journeys by Lauren Samuelsson (University of Newcastle, Australia)
The Anzac Memorial Trustees’ Military History Prize ($10,000)
The Scrap Iron Flotilla: Five Valiant Destroyers and the Australian War in the Mediterranean by Mike Carlton (William Heinemann, an imprint of Penguin Random House Australia)
Soldiers and Aliens: Men in the Australian Army’s Employment Companies during World War II by June Factor (Melbourne University Publishing)
He belonged to Wagga: The Great War, the AIF and returned soldiers in an Australian country town by Ian Hodges (Australian Scholarly Publishing)
Congratulations to those authors shortlisted for this year's Ned Kelly Awards:
Best true crime
Rattled (Ellis Gunn, A&U)
Betrayed (Sandi Logan, Hachette)
Out of the Ashes (Megan Norris, Big Sky Publishing)
Tiger! Tiger! Tiger! (Officer A, The End Publishing)
Death Row at Truro (Geoff Plunkett, Big Sky Publishing)
Best international crime fiction
Paper Cage (Tom Baragwanath, Text)
The Lemon Man (Keith Bruton, Cutting Edge)
The Favour (Nicci French, S&S)
The Hitchhiker (Gerwin van der Werf, Text)
Best debut crime fiction
Wake (Shelley Burr, Hachette)
The House of Now and Then (Jo Dixon, HarperCollins)
How to Kill a Client (Joanna Jenkins, A&U)
Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder (Kerryn Mayne, Bantam)
Denizen (James McKenzie Watson, Viking)
Dirt Town (Hayley Scrivenor, Macmillan)
Black River (Matthew Spencer, A&U)
No Country for Girls (Emma Styles, Sphere)
Best crime fiction
When We Fall (Aoife Clifford, Ultimo)
The Tilt (Chris Hammer, A&U)
Exiles (Jane Harper, Macmillan)
Soulmate (Sally Hepworth, Macmillan)
Seven Sisters (Katherine Kovacic, HarperCollins)
Lying Beside You (Michael Robotham, Hachette)
Those Who Perish (Emma Viskic, Echo)
The Carnival Is Over (Greg Woodland, Text).
Congratulations to Shankari Chandran, winner of the 2023 Miles Frankin Literary Award for her novel Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens.
Suzanne Leal in conversation with Barbie Robinson
Thursday, 10 August at 6pm The Book Cow Bookshop 47 Jardine St, Kingston ACT 
2023 South Coast Writers Festival
Wollongong Town Hall, Wollongong Library, Wollongong Art Gallery
18-20 August 2023
Secrets hiding in plain sightJoin Lucy Campbell (author of Lowbridge) & Rae Cairns (author of Dying to Know) in conversation
Better Dead than Read, 265 King St, Newtown
Saturday 19 August, 10 am – 11 am
.
Sydney Jewish Writers Festival 2023
23 - 27 August 2023
Bondi Pavilion
$15 - $40
Explore the Sydney Jewish Writers Festival program with three streams of exceptional writers, poets, musicians, playwrights, comedians, and thinkers. I'm delighted to be part of it.
Rose Scott Women Writers’ Festival
The Women's Club,179 Elizabeth St Sydney
15-17 September 2023
For its 10th anniversary, the Rose Scott Women Writers' Festival is seeking donations to cover appearance fees for guest artists. If you'd like to support the festival, you can make a tax-deductible donation here.
Writing Competitions
13 August 2023: 2023 Storyfest Storytelling Competition
This year's theme is INHALE!
Primary school students: 250 word limit
Secondary school students: 500 word limit
Open age: 1000 word limit.
20 August 2023: Mentoring Program for Emerging Writers from Diverse Backgrounds
Up to six emerging writers from Indigenous or culturally diverse backgrounds will be given the opportunity to work on a short piece of fiction or non-fiction (2,000-5,000 words) under the guidance of award-winning author Eugen Bacon and with support from Writing NSW.
25 August 2023: Maureen Freer Literary Competition 2023
Sponsored by the Fellowship of Australian Writers Queensland, this competition invites short story works up to 2,000 words on the topic 'A Line in the Sand'. First prize is $300, and a short list of 10 will be offered future publication in SCOPE.
31 August 2023: Woollahra Digital Literary Award
The award seeks original literary submissions that are digitally born - originating online or in electronic or multi media form.
31 August 2023: Marjorie Barnard Short Story Award 2023
Australian writers are invited to submit short stories to a maximum of 3000 words.
31 August 2023: 30th Scarlet Stiletto Awards
Sisters in Crime’s Scarlet Stiletto Awards for best short crime and mystery stories turn 30 this year and are offering a record $12,720 in prizes. The focus is on women's crime and mystery short stories, and the competition is open to all women, whether cisgender, transgender, or intersex, who are citizens/residents of Australia. More information on the competition in the link above.
4 September: Writing NSW Varuna Fellowship 2023
The Writing NSW Varuna Fellowship is awarded annually to a writer with a work of fiction, creative non-fiction, a play, or a suite of poems that is ready for the next stage of development. Applicants must be Writing NSW members and be willing to commit to developing their work.
22 September 2023: POEM FOREST Writing Prize
Created by Red Room Poetry, in partnership with Wollongong City Council, POEM FOREST invites students and teachers to use their words to make positive climate action. For every nature poem received a tree is planted to help heal habitats and create a POEM FOREST for future generations.
30 September 2023; Bridport Memoir Award
This is an international award for writers embarking upon a memoir. To enter, submit a 300 word overview in addition to a 5000 to 8000 excerpt.
What is Thursday Book Club?
Thursday Book Club is a relaxed, friendly book club connecting readers online. We meet on Zoom from 8 - 8.30pm. There are no scheduled books to read: we simply chat about books we like & books we’re reading. Once a month, I interview a guest writer.
On 31 August, Jane Caro will be joining us to talk writing, reading and The Watchful Wife
Zoom in as you can – it doesn’t matter if you’re late or have to leave early. Just join my Zoom conference room between 8pm and 8.30pm (between 10am and 10.30am if you're in central Europe) by clicking on this link: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/8521042343
If prompted, here are the details to manually enter:
Meeting ID:852 104 2343
Password 886 196
Thursday Book Club Recommendations
My Recommendation
Fanatic Heart by Tom Keneally
Maurice by E.M. Forster
Iris by Fiona Kelly McGregor
A Wife's Heart: The Untold Story of Bertha and Henry Lawson by Kerrie Davies
Take care,
Suzanne
PS. Would you like me to drop in to your book club?
If your book club has chosen to read The Watchful Wife, The Deceptions, The Teacher’s Secret or Running With Ivan, I’d be delighted to attend your meeting by Zoom (whether your group is meeting online or gathering together in person) to answer any of your questions. To schedule a date, please email me here.
JOIN BOOK CLUB ON ZOOM
My new novel, The Watchful Wife, is out now You can buy it from Allen & Unwin here or at your favourite bookshop. 
You can buy Running with Ivan here
You can buy The Deceptions and The Teacher’s Secret
directly from my publisher here:
Kindle version
Paperback
*****Enter the code THURSDAYBOOKCLUB at the checkout at Abbey's for a 15% discount on my novels, The Teacher's Secret, The Deceptions and Running With Ivan.
The Deceptions Paperback
Audible QUESTIONS? EMAIL ME You can buy
The Watchful Wife, The Deceptions,
The Teacher’s Secret
and
Running With Ivan
online and from your favourite bookshops, including https://www.abbeys.com.au/book/the-deceptions-suzanne-leal-9781760875275.do
https://www.gleebooks.com.au/product/deceptions-the/
https://www.gertrudeandalice.com.au/product/the-deceptions/
Booktopia
Suzanne Leal | suzanne@suzanneleal.com |
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