BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival

State Library of NSW
1-5 November 2023 and live streamed nationally 

 BAD Sydney celebrates Australian crime writing with a program of author panels, entertaining social events, writing workshops, guided walks and the opportunity to pitch to a publisher.

Barbie spoke to BAD Sydney’s Catherine de Peloux Menage

With a slew of true and fiction crime authors new and established, the festival offers a rich program for readers of all types of crime.

Program highlights

  • A Literary Death Match with Tim Ayliffe, Candice Fox, Rob McDonald and Anne Buist.
  • Four well known writers, Chris Hammer, Julie Janson, Ashley Kalagian Blunt and Michael Mohammed Ahmad give us their take on the festival theme: A place for every crime story and a crime story for every place
  • Michael Burge and his panel explore genre bending crime fiction and Matthew Spencer interviews Gary Jubelin as he comes face to face with fictional cops – do they measure up? Ron Isherwood and John Killick introduce us to Pentridge, Australia’s most infamous jail.
  • You can book into a walking tour of Surry Hills or Hyde Park with crime tour specialist Elliot Lindsay and Amanda Hampson
  • The First Nations program includes Larissa Behrendt, Julie Janson, Aunty Barbara Nicholson and Nardi Simpson and Toy Birch launches his latest book.
  • There are four writing workshops on offer: Building your book with Candice Fox, Casting your characters with RWR McDonald, Researching your book with Rachel Franks, Duncan McNab and John M Green, and Empowered self-publishing with Michael Burge.
  • The announcement of the prestigious Danger Prize for 2023 will be made on Friday 3rd November with awards for both a crime fiction and crime non-fiction title featuring Australia as a setting for stories about crime and justice. For the first time a People’s Choice Prize will also be awarded.

View the full program at www.badsydney.com.

The following BAD Sydney writers have been interviewed by Living Arts Canberra, some on multiple occasions:

Amanda Hampson, Andy Muir, Ben Hobson, Chris Hammer, Dinuka McKenzie, Hayley Scrivenor, Jess Kitching, Lucy Campbell, Matthew Spencer, Michael Burge, Nikki Mottram, RWR McDonald and Suzanne Leal.