Scottish author Claire Wilson has won the inaugural Penguin Michael Joseph Undiscovered Writers Prize for her debut novel, Five by Five. The prize, launched in 2022, aims to discover new writers from underrepresented backgrounds in publishing and focuses on a different genre each year, with the first year dedicated to crime fiction. Wilson, who works as an intelligence analyst in a Scottish prison, impressed the judges with her thriller which follows a protagonist on the trail of a corrupt prison officer who might be her lover. Wilson will receive a publishing contract with Penguin Michael Joseph, worth at least £10,000, and representation by the DHH Literary Agency. All shortlisted writers will also receive one-to-one editorial feedback and guidance from an editor or agent.
Noir at the Bar heads to Cleveland at the Music Box Supper Club on August 31 with drinks, dinner, and readings by crime fiction authors J.D. Belcher, Angela Crook, Miesha Wilson Headen, Dana McSwain, Susan Petrone, D.M. Pulley, Michael Ruhlman, Thrity Umrigar, and Abby L Vandiver. Following the readings, there will be a large book market so you can meet the authors, purchase their latest books, and get them signed.
In what is good news for the Irish Book Awards, An Post has extended its sponsorship for two more years. Now in its 18th year, the An Post Irish Book Awards celebrate and promote Irish writing to the widest range of readers possible, in various categories including the Irish Independent Crime Fiction Novel of the Year. A shortlist for the 2023 awards will be announced on October 19, with winners revealed on November 22 at The Convention Centre Dublin. The 2022 Crime Fiction Novel winner was Breaking Point by Edel Coffey.
Black Spring Press has announced the Black Spring Crime Series, which will be curated by Luca Veste (author of books including The Game and The Bone Keeper) and will comprise an initial run of 10 novels over the next 10 months. The first book in the series is A Crime in the Land of 7,000 Islands by serving FBI agent Zephaniah Sole, published in June, and the second will be The Scotsman by Rob McClure, out in September. Three more as-yet-unannounced books will be published by the end of 2023. Veste said of the series, which has been endorsed by Lee Child, Mark Billingham, Ian Rankin, and Val McDermid: "This is an incredibly exciting time to be involved with an independent press such as Black Spring. The vision we have is to release excellent novels that cover the wide variety we see in crime fiction. From police procedurals, to thrillers, to historical crimes, it is a privilege to be bringing these novels to a wider audience."
Mystery Readers Journal editor, Janet Rudolph, reported that due to an overwhelming number of articles, author essays, and reviews for the Animals in Mysteries theme, they are dividing the material into two issues (Volume 39: 3 & 4), the first of which will be out in October. This means that anyone who didn't send an article initially still has time to contribute to the second issue by sending in a submission by October 15. Mystery Fanfare has more information.
Harlem World profiled Rudolph John Chauncey Fisher (1897–1934), a physician and radiologist. But he also had a successful writing career, penning journal articles, short stories, and The Conjure Man Dies, dating from 1932, the first novel with a black detective as well as the first detective novel with only black characters (although Pauline Hopkins and John E. Bruce had serialized novels in journals prior).
From the truth is stranger than fiction department, a bizarre case in Australia has enthralled people all across the globe—involving mushroom poisoning, a series of deaths, a tearful interview and now reports of a past mystery illness.
This week's crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "The Crowbar" by Tom Barlow.
In the Q&A roundup, Lisa Haselton chatted with author Charlene Bell Dietz about her new historical mystery, The Flapper, the Impostor, and the Stalker; Writers Who Kill's E. B. Davis interviewed Barbara Ross about Hidden Beneath, the eleventh book in the Maine Clambake mystery series; and the Irish Times interviewed Andrea Carter about her legal background, writing advice, and why the Inishowen peninsula is so special.
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