YOUR VOTE—Click the link below and visit the website by 5:00pm on Monday 14 August 2023 to nominate your absolute favourite book by a Queensland author from the list of eight finalists.
I CAST MY VOTE—The books are all outstanding but as the old saying goes ‘You have many choices but only one decision’. You, as a reader, probably have a firm favourite. If not, you can buy their books at SLQ The Library Shop or borrow them from your favourite BCC library in various formats.
THE AUTHOR—The author who receives the most votes will be awarded $10,000 thanks to The Courier-Mail.
THE WINNER—The winner will be revealed at the Queensland Literary Awards ceremony on Wednesday 6 September 2023. Free register here to watch the live stream 7:00pm.
UPDATES—To stay up to date, follow the Queensland Literary Awards on Twitter and Facebook.
Voting is open to everyone, no matter where you live in Australia but Strictly one vote per person
The Courier-Mail People’s Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award celebrates outstanding works by Australian writers, illustrators and creators. The author who receives the most votes from the public will be awarded $10,000 thanks to The Courier-Mail. Find more to read at State Library of Queensland. Visit the official bookseller of the Queensland Literary Awards 2023, and follow them on Facebook and on Twitter@qldlitawards.
WHO WILL WIN?—Pick your favourite book from the list and see what happens. When the winner is announced I will post the result. Meanwhile the literary world is enriched eight ways no matter what transpires.
You write a note, you play a note, you spend a fifty dollar note, you note the car registration, you notice a lot of things when you take note of them, like a friend’s new dress, your mate’s new haircut or that yapping dog nextdoor. Politicians and criminals are notorious and actors want to be noteworthy. People say “I will make a note of that” and in the 21st century this means on paper, in a diary or various devices with a keyboard, keypad, screen or verbally to an electronic entity.
The word Note has a lot of explanations, e.g. to observe, to bear in mind, a brief record of points or ideas, to write down as a memory aid or prompt and underscore a special event. I guess the word note has been abbreviated from notation or possibly elaborated since note originally comes from Latin nota, meaning to mark, sign, remark.
Many years ago I had an overseas penpal but don’t recall our youthful correspondence. I still handwrite to a friend living interstate. I remember passing secret notes in the classroom at a time when penmanship was a prize-winning skill. Believe it or not there are four primary methods of note-taking: lists, outlines, concept maps, and the Cornell method. No mention of a paper plane… Students can define which methods support their learning style and the academic teaching style, e.g. apply strategies to make note-taking more effective.
I learned Pitman Shorthand and loved ‘taking a letter’ and note-taking in special spiral-bound notebooks. Dictaphones came along and notes were transcribed. Generally by then notes were written on lined foolscap notepads (A4 size)—then of course clunky word processors and chunky computers took hold of the world. At home I write freehand/longhand notes in any old exercise book or on any old blank sheet of paper. Small ordinary scraps are great for quick notations and casual doodling. Write shopping lists on the back of shopping dockets (also envelopes if you still get real mail) and you can scrawl as fast and messy as you like. As with many things, paper does not respond well to water and needs to be kept high and dry. The same goes for an electronic device.
Ideas come from notes. The trouble with my taking of notes is the volume. I have succinct reminders scribbled on scrap paper on my desk, post-its on the fridge, book review drafts, diary appointments, reams of lecture notes in cardboard boxes, and manilla folders bulging with writing course work. My family and I specifically choose yearly wall calendars with big blank squares for our daily notations. Who needs an email prompt when it’s right there on the wall in nice neat numbered squares with the bonus of a lovely new image each month.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ I hear you say, ‘I can get that all in one place on my electronic device.’ But I say ‘That doesn’t have the same charming tactile feel as my pen to paper and the symbolic drawing of a love heart or wonky birthday cake.’ GBW.
Long live paper! Sorry trees, you are the only downfall. I guess with sustainable forestry and me always recycling, you come back in other forms. Let’s face it, I am a product of the 20th century. I have neat paper piles everywhere around me as I type this: books, bills, bunch-of-dates, receipts, invoices, diary, newspaper and a magazine. What’s not to love? Paperwork is a quiet companion. It does not talk back or get in your face with crude advertisements, and never continually updates its own pages. Best of all, a pen and ream of paper (500 sheets) does not need electricity, the internet or expensive repairs.
What a great read! This story has heart and soul and Louisa Bennet’s characters took me by surprise with a dark mystery, light humour, good friendships, anthropomorphic animals and a touch of romance. Monty the Golden Retriever is one of the main protagonists. I love the way the animals are really the heroes, working hard to assist their hooman, Rose Sidebottom, who was formerly a police officer. With her young assistant Ollie Fernsby, Rose has just opened her newly painted private detective agency in an office shed behind the local vet surgery.
The four-legged team consists of three dogs Monty, Summer, Panda, and Betty the rat who is my favourite. There is support from stalwart vet Malcolm Kerr (good with animals but tongue-tied around Rose) and other fascinating personalities in and around the village of Nether Wallop. Flies in the ointment are unhelpful police and people with vague memories.
The plot revolves around young Finn Toyne suspected of arson on his birthday which destroyed his family home. He lost his parents and the ability to speak after the blaze. Finn’s mind is in turmoil. Of course, unscrupulous land developers loom on the horizon, and legal wills and inheritance are brought into the equation. Can his grandmother Phyllis O’Neal be ruled out even though she has hired Rose to investigate this cold case?
Rose gives Monty one of her loving smiles. “If anyone can persuade Finn to talk, it’s you.” Monty thinks “If a dog could blush, I would. I wag my tail across the floor.” A nice touch is the shadow silhouettes of Rose and Monty at the beginning of each chapter. They act as flick-pics moving across the pages of the book.
In the beginning, Monty and furry friends go on a separate undercover rescue mission. A thrilling ride and very tense moments follow at the Peasemarsh dog pound which brought a lump of emotion to my throat. Further on, Rose offers assistance when a friend’s caravan is wrecked by vandals. Leaving the scene she felt like the canine version of the Pied Piper of Hamelin as she walked across Winterfold Heath followed by four dogs. Strained encounters come in various forms; DCI Leach, Tiffany a perverse cat, and vicar Reggie Mabey who maybe a killer? Rose conducts several interviews including one with a handsome fireman. You can feel vet Malcolm’s disappointment.
Gradually investigator Rose becomes more confident in her skills and she has a tingle-sense which alerts her to people telling lies. It is hard to describe how well this mix works. Monty uses his superior canine sniffer to interpret smells and, of course, there are doggy ways to send messages too. The intertextuality with the animal dialogue is well done and I guarantee after reading you will look more closely at your family pet.
The ending is explosive yet this is the kind of book which can be read by a wide age range. The closest way I can describe it is like your favourite story which left a warm, lasting impression in your memory.
The poem by Paul Thomas Galbally ‘A Café on My Street’ struck a cord with me as I sat in my local café towards closing time while the chairs and tables were being wiped, floors swept, stock covered and perishables put in the refrigerator. The barista and wait staff moved slowly with end-of-the-day tiredness.
My experience is not as poignant as Galbally’s but I can well imagine that my local café owner will not want to stay for years in the one spot. He’s too young to have the desire to grow old and create a poetic backstory like this for people in the suburbs. Read on…
This is my street An old street, In an old Irish town The people come And then they go In the soft rain Of a short Irish summer
When the mood is on me I let my feet walk And they always Seem to bring me here The café at the end of the street And sure, Where else would they go?
Many is a time I had a hearty steak sandwich Or fishcakes with potatoes Or just a coffee and scuffin To beat the cold outside And it’s many the friend I found in there Aye, and lovers too.
It’s face is green and black Milanese style So the owners tell me With a striped green and white awning And simple tables and chairs And all the love in the world
Music has been had there And poetry, and just craic Long Scrabble Saturdays Taken very seriously We even bought the dictionary To stop the heated Word exchanges
So I know most of the people There is always a smile Headed in my direction When I am blue It brings me to life Somewhat And needless to say The food is always good
It is funny, how Friends and family Merge sometimes As happens In the Café at the end of the street Where friends are family And family are friends
They told me They are closing in September A loss like a family bereavement I can only hope that I find another place to go Or maybe a new street to live on Where I can Walk out my door, and feel Home
“Think of them as a cross between scones and muffins or as I like to call them scuffins. These Irish muffins can be enjoyed in many ways. Straight out of the oven for a warm breakfast treat, as a quick snack with butter, or part of your bread basket at mealtime”
THIS is a sneak peek! Monty the dog-tective is a food-obsessed, naughty, and totally loveable Golden Retriever who will do anything for his owner, former Detective Constable Rose Sidebottom.
THE AUTHOR—Louisa Larkin has written two previous Monty stories (as Louisa Bennet) and in August 2023 her new dog-tective mystery The Nosy Detectives will be released.
Monty Dog Detective series:
1. Monty and Me (2015)
2. The Bone Ranger (2021)
3. The Nosy Detectives (2023)
THE STORY—Two nosy detectives Rose and Monty set up their own private detective agency and tackle their first case, a fire at a farmhouse which killed two people. The only witnesses are a teenager who hasn’t spoken since the fire and a dog called Panda. Lots of clues to ‘sniff out’. Can they find where the ‘bones are buried’?
MORE INFO—If you think that’s a little bit cosy crime, author Louisa Bennet also writes gritty thrillers as L. A. Larkin: The Safe Place, Widow’s Island, Prey, Thirst, Devour, The Genesis Flaw and more.
In August 2023 detectives Rose and Monty will hit the shelves, keep your eyes peeled and ‘nose to the ground’ for their newest crime-busting mystery. My book review coming soon!
A SWEET SAD NOTE—“This third book in the series is my most mysterious and, I hope, the funniest. It also means a lot to me personally because The Nosy Detectives is dedicated to my golden retriever, Pickles, the book’s inspiration, who died last year. My publisher commissioned Laura Gaitán, a fabulous artist, to hand sketch the cover and to liken the picture of the dog to Pickles. It gives me such joy to see him on the book jacket.” Louisa Bennet 2023
I had not been through the older Brisbane CBD-adjacent suburb of West End for a long time. My first connection goes back to the 1970-80s when many factories ran along the riverfront, parklands were unsafe and you had to bring your own lunch because there were no fast food chains nearby.
The atmosphere was quietly contained. Small businesses and brick and weatherboard homes sat side-by-side with old corrugated iron roofed cottages on stumps turned into lodging houses for tired hippies, a primary school without many pupils and a lowkey ethnic population. Various businesses like print shop, milk bar, newsagent, café, post office, pub and Chinese takeaway, ran along main Boundary Street and iconic Avid Reader Bookstore had not yet opened. You could get on-street parking and your car was baking hot when you returned. But the streets were free of traffic congestion.
Forget most of the nostalgia above.
The suburb of West End, in the curve of the Brisbane River, has grown and changed phenomenally since then. Admittedly I was there on a weekend and the Davies Park Markets (now West End Markets) located among the ancient fig trees on the corner of Jane Street and Montague Road were in full swing and the traffic was bumper to bumper. I wondered if the ghosts of Kurilpa Peninsula, the Turrbal and Yuggera tribes who originally inhabited the area would have approved.
Bit of intel.
I had a college friend whose father worked at the glass factory on Montague Road alongside the river. He said it was hot work and he drank a lot of water. Fast forward and this West End plot of land is expected to be transformed into an extension of South Bank Parklands after the 2032 Olympic Games. According to ABCTV the Visy Glass property in West End was marked in official Olympics pitch documents as the planned location of a 57,000-square-metre international broadcast centre for the world’s media during the Games. More pressure on the local infrastructure.
Meanwhile, West End residents may not be aware that Kurilpa Peninsula is in danger of highrise, and Brisbane is in danger of zoning changes up to 90-storey towers. To quote Greens MP for Ryan, Elizabeth Watson-Brown, “My Greens colleagues across Brisbane and I are calling on the State Government to reject the Brisbane City Council’s proposal to undemocratically override the neighbourhood plan on the Kurilpa Peninsula (West End) to allow 90-storey towers instead of the current zonings for only 8, 16 or 30-storeys.”
Ryan e-newsletter 18 July 2023
On a lighter note, on Mollison Street, not too far from South Bank parklands and Victoria Bridge, there were hundreds of people milling through the shopping precincts; West Village and the streets around were buzzing with eateries, the vibe was Saturday relaxed. Everyone seemed to have a purpose, many had a happy child or happy dog pleased to be outside in the fresh air. Recycled bags full of organic groceries were fashion accessories.
But, dear reader, this is where the stylus scrapes across the vinyl record. Ouch!
Brisbane has the tag “Liveable City” but I was stunned by the amount of glass and concrete reaching into the sky. Highrise dwellings like modern pigeon lofts soared up along Riverside Drive, Mollison Street, Montague Road and beyond. Okay, everyone needs somewhere safe to live, people want first class homes, people love beautiful views, people want all modern amenities and be within close proximity to their workplace and, after hours, all the good things in life.
So I ask the universe in general.
Do they have to be crammed into concrete columns with tinted windows in small two-bedroom apartments, side-by-side with other buildings crowding the landscape, dehumanising our city, obstructing views of sunrise and casting long afternoon shadows? Housing is at a premium but dark lifts and rabbit warren corridors painted grey on each floor level are second only to a feeling of isolation.
Money always talks the loudest.
Just because units are sold off the plan doesn’t mean the resident will be happy. A bit of exterior stylised shaping of an apartment building makes it appear to be different, yet these buildings are carbon copies of possibly thousands around the world. Where is the uniqueness, the special style of our city? Brisbane and its residents deserve lower-level homes, open, light, airy, which reflect our lifestyle, not rooms 90-storeys above where real connections, real life are but a distant image on the ground. Coupled with West End’s existing car and transport congestion and the threat of further flooding, to me The Plan screams future tenements, a dystopian nightmare of wall-to-wall buildings all staring at each other blocking the sun and any hope for a cleaner greener future.
I have added my voice to No To Hyperdensity. What next?
Maybe in the future we will have to travel to the Moon to find liveable affordable housing. If in doubt, read “Sea of Tranquility” by Emily St. John Mandel.
Sisters in Crime’s Scarlet Stiletto Awards 2023 for best short crime and mystery stories turn 30 this year and the first prize winner takes home $2,000 donated by Swinburne University of Technology, plus the coveted trophy, a scarlet stiletto shoe with a steel stiletto heel plunging into a mount. The shortlist will be announced in October, with the awards being presented at a gala ceremony in Melbourne in late November.
In the lead-up to the ceremony, all of the winning stories over the past 30 years are being narrated by Susanna Lobez for Sisters in Crime’s very first podcast – Scarlet Stiletto Bites: Scintillating Stories by Australian women. The podcast is free and a new episode is available weekly on Fridays on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Google, and other services.
Christina Lee, judges’ coordinator and winner of two trophies, said that the Scarlet Stiletto Awards were remarkable in their ability to uncover outstanding criminal talent.
“Winning a Scarlet Stiletto Award has often launched literary careers. To date, 4,332 stories have been entered with 33 (soon to be 34) Scarlet Stiletto Award winners–including category winners – going on to have novels published,” she said.
“Well-known authors who got their start with the Scarlet Stiletto Awards include Cate Kennedy, Tara Moss, Aoife Clifford, Ellie Marney, Angela Savage, and Anna Snoekstra. For Dervla McTiernan, just being shortlisted in 2015 gave her the impetus to finish five drafts of her first novel, The Ruin, and put her on the road to becoming a global publishing sensation.”
Former police officer, TJ Hamilton, says that winning the shoe in 2015 was “a huge turning point” in her career. In the eight years since, she has worked in various script departments across a wide variety of Australian dramas and is now in LA working on two crime shows.
Like many of Sisters in Crime’s best ideas, Scarlet Stiletto Awards sprang from a well-lubricated meeting in St Kilda in 1994, when the convenors debated how they could unearth the female criminal talent they were convinced was out there.
“Once a competition was settled on, it didn’t take long to settle on a name – the scarlet stiletto, a feminist play on the traditions of the genre. The stiletto is both a weapon and a shoe worn by women. And of course, the colour scarlet has a special association for us as women. And they were right – talent is lurking everywhere, sometimes in the most unlikely places!” Lee said.
Allen & Unwin is now offering the Best Young Writer Award ($1000). It previously offered a youth award for over two decades. Every Cloud Productions has boosted its Best History with Mystery Award to $1000. Overall, 30th Scarlet Stiletto Awards are offering a record $12,720 in prizes.
Monash University, which previously offered the Emerging Writers’ Award, is now offering an award for Best Campus Crime Story ($600). The only proviso is that it has to be set on the campus of a university, TAFE College, or vocational institution. The award draws on a long history of crime stories set at universities, such as Amanda Cross’ novel, Death in a Tenured Position, and Unable by Reason of Death and Not in Single Spies, set at Redmond Barry College (a thinly disguised RMIT University) by Lee herself and Felicity Allen, under pseudonyms.
Images supplied Sisters In Crime Australia Scarlet Stiletto Awards 2023
List of Award Categories:
Swinburne University Award: 1st Prize: $2000
Simon & Schuster Award: 2nd Prize: $1000
Sun Bookshop & Fremantle Press Award: 3rd Prize: $750
Allen & Unwin Award for Best Young Writer (under 19): $1000
Melbourne Athenaeum Library ‘Body in the Library’ Award: $1250 ($750 runner-up)
Every Cloud Award for Best Mystery with History Story: $1000
HQ Fiction Award for Best Thriller: $1000
Clan Destine Press Award for Best Cross-genre Story: $750
Kerry Greenwood Award for Best Malice Domestic Story: $750
Viliama Grakalic Art and Crime Award: $750
Monash University Award for Best Campus Crime Story: $600
ScriptWorks Award for a Great Film Idea: $500
Liz Navratil Award for Best Story with a Disabled Protagonist Award: $400
Writers Victoria for the story with the Most Satisfying Retribution: Choice of online course, prize worth $250
CLOSING DATE for the Awards is Thursday 31 August 2023 ENTRY FEE is $25 or $20 for Sisters in Crime members. MAXIMUM LENGTH is 5,000 words. The competition is open to all women, whether cisgender, transgender or intersex, who are citizens/residents of Australia.
30th Scarlet Stiletto Awards 2023
To download INFORMATION and a list of FAQs, go here.
A hardcopy Scarlet Stiletto collection of the first-prize winning stories will be launched at the Award ceremony along with Scarlet Stiletto: The Fifteenth Cut, a collection of the 2023 winning stories. Also fourteen collections of winning stories are available: www.clandestinepress.net
The morning light struck her wounded heart but she raised her jagged limb and cried unheard “I shall be victorious! For I did nothing wrong, I was defenceless. If I could, I would speak loudly of the man in the dark night who, frustrated that I interrupted his view, tried to killed me with poison. My leaves fell, my smaller branches became brittle. The men in orange vests came with their chainsaws to finish me off. One muttered that I was unsafe, the other heard me sigh in sadness and stopped his brutal machine. They looked at me for awhile then trimmed me down. Orders were orders they said. No human has come back to mourn with me, the birds and insects dip their wings but do not stop. The geckos and ants will return when the poison washes away. I remain undefeated, I will grow again and keep my land green, the air cool, give rest to tired walkers, nesting for birds and adventure for the children who climbed my sturdy limbs. And the rain will nurture my young seedlings. See, they are struggling. It will take a long, long time to regrow, for that is how long it took me to grow. I am older than the man who almost killed me. Nature, my strength, says I can create sturdy limbs, green leaves and be a strong tree once again. I will try. I will outlive him. But today I am tired and my life-roots ache for clean water. I must rest before the first pale buds struggle to unfold.”
Tommy Llewellyn (a name he chose) is a young boy whose entire existence is wiped from the memory of everyone who knows him each year on his birthday, the fifth of January. Fortunately Tommy does not regress to babyhood each time but he grows up and has to start his life all over again to re-establish himself every single time.
A long waitlist for this book at my local library so I considered borrowing an audio book (narrated by Lewis Fitz-Gerald length 10 hours 16 minutes) but downloaded the e-book at the same time as a friend gave me the p-book, saying ‘excellent story’.
This time-slip novel starts off well with a smooth transition, easy to believe, somewhat elegiac, but plenty of compassion. One year old Tommy is sent to a former dairy converted to Milkwood House for lost, abandoned, nobody-wants-them children.
Tommy grows up and the world around him doesn’t know he already had an existence—many in fact. The scenes build, the young (soon to be forgotten) baby/child/teenager/adult matures and his life gradually unfolds amid some dramatic events. The fallout is that everyone around Tommy forgets all about him when his life resets like a bad reboot. Again and again and again. And it also resets the minds of close friends who knew Tommy—even lovely carer Miss Michelle—with no recollection of him nor the circumstances surrounding his ‘departure’.
Four things I must mention: First, I am not sure if this is YA or an adult book and Second, the swearing is a bit distracting and Third, initially Tommy doesn’t rail against his Reset circumstances, he doesn’t tell anyone or try to engineer change. Although he feels like an outcast, he becomes accepting of his strange situation, never tempted to reboot, until one fateful hot afternoon and Fourth, this story is like a modern fairy tale e.g. don’t analyse too hard!
GBW 2023
A bitter sweet experience occurs when Tommy turns fourteen. Something rather ordinary happened to him. Of course, given his unique circumstances, even the ordinary is going to be a problem. Tommy Llewellyn finds romance and falls in love with Carey Price, a girl older than him and he knows it won’t be smooth sailing. He already has a ‘history’ with Carey but she will never remember the true story. And Tommy is not about to tell her the upsetting details of her near death experience because she believes it was creepy Richie Sharpe who saved her life.
Disillusioned, Tommy sinks into the doldrums, a mass of rage and self-pity with a stolen bottle of Johnnie Walker Scotch Whisky chaser before winding up in a life and death situation. Will it be hospital, heaven, romance or a chance for Tommy to beat the odds and alter his unique rotating life sentence?
Further questions only answered by reading the book: Does the reader find out what’s going on? Is the ‘evil spell’ broken? Does Tommy take steps towards a normal life? Can Tommy create his own happy ending?
Sneak peek, fast forward and Tommy does get real world experience via ‘former friend’ Josh Saunders. That’s all I’m divulging. The second half of the book is quite moving and while there is romance it is sliced through with angst and violence, pulling out all the stops. You may or may not like the ending…
If we need one, I think the moral of author Thompson’s story is to do little things to be remembered. Good things, leave a legacy of kindness and hope and love. Everyone leaves a mark on this world. Even indirectly, fleetingly, you are remembered for something you have done during your lifetime.
♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward
Author Bio:Michael Thompson has been a successful journalist, producer and media executive for fifteen years. He now co-owns a podcast production company and is the co-host of one of the highest-ranked podcasts in Australia. ‘How to be Remembered’ is his first novel. Thompson lives in Sydney with his wife and two young children.
Similar shades of: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson The Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger The House on the Strand by Daphne Du Maurier The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold Labyrinth by Kate Mosse A Stitch in Time by Kelley Armstrong The Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton Midnight is a Lonely Place by Barbara Erskine Dandelion Time: Romance Through Time by Nel Ashley The Sleeping Angel by Margarita Morris The Sins of the Fathers by Andy Conway Lost In Time by A. G. Riddle At the Edge of the Solid World by Daniel Davis Wood Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel Mariana by Susanna Kearsley Time Out of Time (YA) by Alex Marchant The Timeslip Series (YA) by Belinda Murrell The Boy Who Stepped Through Time (YA) by Anna Ciddor Making It Home (YA) by Suzanne Roche Playing Beatie Bow (YA) by Ruth Park
Many more I have not yet read or perhaps forgotten…
Thoughts Become Words 