Aussie Women at Center Stage

Sisters in Crime Australia has revealed its shortlist of nominees for the 2023 Davitt Awards. Those prizes, which are supposed to identify the best Aussie crime fiction written by women, for both adults and children, are named in honor of Ellen Davitt (1812-1879), Australia’s first crime novelist. And the nominees are …

Adult Novels:
• Release, by Lucy Christopher (Text)
• When We Fall, by Aoife Clifford (Ultimo Press)
• Stone Town, by Margaret Hickey (Penguin Random House Australia)
• All That’s Left Unsaid, by Tracey Lien (HQ Fiction)
• The Torrent, by Dinuka McKenzie (HarperCollins Australia)
• The Unbelieved, by Vikki Petraitis (Allen & Unwin)
• Dirt Town, by Hayley Scrivenor (Pan Macmillan Australia)
• No Country for Girls, by Emma Styles (Sphere)

Young Adult Novels:
• The Hidden Girl, by Louise Bassett (Walker)
• Night Lights, by Sarah Epstein (Fourteen Press)
• Seven Days, by Fleur Ferris (Penguin Random House Australia)
• The Killing Code, by Ellie Marney (Allen & Unwin)

Children’s Novels:
• The Book of Wondrous Possibilities, by Deborah Abela (Puffin)
• The Sugarcane Kids and the Red-bottomed Boat, by Charlie
Archbold (Text)
• Rita’s Revenge, by Lian Tanner (Allen & Unwin)

Non-fiction Books:
• Don’t Make a Fuss: It’s Only the Claremont Serial Killer, by Wendy Davis (Fremantle Press)
• Legitimate Sexpectations: The Power of Sex-Ed, by Katrina
Marson (Scribe)
• Out of the Ashes, by Megan Norris (Big Sky)

Debut Books:
• The Cane, by Maryrose Cuskelly (Allen & Unwin)
• All That’s Left Unsaid, by Tracey Lien (HQ Fiction)
• The Torrent, by Dinuka McKenzie (HarperCollins Australia)
• The Unbelieved, by Vikki Petraitis (Allen & Unwin)
• Dirt Town, by Hayley Scrivenor (Pan Macmillan Australia)
• No Country for Girls, by Emma Styles (Sphere)

This year’s winners are to be announced on Saturday, September 2. September 2. Awards will be handed out by Debi Marshall, an investigative journalist and true-crime writer based in Tasmania.

(Hat tip to In Reference to Murder.)