Just a little over a week to go before the Sisters-in-Crime convention, SheKilda, will be held in Melbourne. For readers interested in the crime genre and the romantic suspense sub-genre, it will be a must-attend event. Top Aussie crime writers will be sharing their knowledge and baring their souls (well, their writing souls). Aspiring writers will have the opportunity to come along and ask their favourite authors those questions they’d never otherwise have a chance to ask. Readers will get to see their favourite authors in the flesh and have books signed.
As a Queenslander I was writing winter woollies on my packing list, but was pleasantly surprised to see Melbourne temperatures in temperatures in the high twenties (C). Just as I was thinking of revising the list, the city lived up to its reputation of having four seasons in one day and the mercury plummeted. It’s a good thing Rob and I are driving down – I’ll need all the back seat to stack the many changes of clothing I’m sure to need.
On Monday a journalist from our local newspaper, the NewsMail, phoned and said she wanted to interview me about the publication of Fatal Flaw and send out a photographer. I looked around the house – saw the stuff that’s been piling up in the past few weeks as the Chaos Fairy swatted me a few good ones with her wacky wand and kept me from concentrating on housework (all right, I’ll be honest, I try to avoid housework but I don’t like it to get too feral) and knew I was in for a quick clean-up. I looked in the mirror and knew that was a good place to start, especially as my hair looked like I should mop the floor with it. Deciding it needed a colour to give it a lift, I quickly dragged out the plastic gloves and set to work. During the colour-setting time I made like the mad woman in the Ajax tv ad and did a surface clearance. Just as I was about to dive into the shower to rinse off the colour the phone rang. I looked at the number. It was my publisher. I couldn’t not answer it. Ten minutes later I half stripped, stuck my head in the shower and was towelling dry when the photographer arrived. Luckily for me it was Max Fleet, a great guy with a lot of patience. I didn’t have time to throw on any spak filler, but he managed to play with the light so I didn’t crack his lens. The result can be seen here.