Category Archives: Ned Kelly Awards

Dishing up Pulp Curry in a new way: why I am starting a Substack newsletter

Posted on October 26, 2023 by Andrew Nette| 2 Comments

After much thought I have decided that to experiment with moving the focus of my blogging from this site to a new Pulp Curry Substack newsletter.

Why am I doing this?

The first post on this website appeared on July 2010 (about the incredibly underrated 1979 Australian heist film, Money Movers – you can read the post here). I’ve been writing on the site with varying frequency ever since (579 posts in all), and for the most part have enjoyed it immensely.

But for the last 12 or so months I just haven’t been feeling it – or getting the hits to make it seem worthwhile – and have started to wonder whether it’s worth continuing with the effort. Posting on a website has been starting to feel like the equivalent of trying to read a broadsheet newspaper in a crowded tram carriage, unwieldy and inconvenient.

And, thinking about it, I suspect the blog format is starting to get a bit stale for me and is actually now a brake on my posting more regularly.

I know that I’m no Robinson Crusoe in this regard. The majority of the blogs I used to follow have gradually fallen by the wayside, as people have moved on, grown weary of the effort, found other interests, adopted other means to get their message out, or, in some cases (gulp), died.… Read more

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Spaces available in my online clinic for emerging crime writers

Posted on July 17, 2022 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

There are a few places remaining in the Writers Victoria online clinic that I am running for emerging crime writers in the second half of 2022, which starts next week.

If you’re keen to start a writing crime novel or short stories but you are unsure where to start, or if you are part-way through a manuscript and need help to finish or polish it, this online clinic will provide deadlines and support as you do so, pushing through blockages and problem passages. Participants will receive individualized feedback, including on structure, setting, pace, character and dialogue. This online course actively encourages sharing of your work with your cohort as well as with the tutor.

This is a completely safe space for you to submit drafts and have commented on by me, and/or to ask those burning questions you may have that you have never been able to get answered.

There is discount for members of Writers Victoria and other state writers organisations in Australia, but because the course is online you do not have to be in Melbourne – indeed, you don’t even have to be in Australia – to take part.

You can find all the information you need by going to this link at the Writers Victoria site here.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Australian crime film, Australian noir, Book Reviews, Crime fiction, Interviews, Ned Kelly Awards, Noir fiction, Pulp fiction, True crime

Blackwattle Creek – a rereading of the Ned Kelly award winner 2013

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Andrew Nette| 1 Comment

BlackwattleBuried beneath the hysteria of last Saturday’s federal election was another vote, the 2013 Ned Kelly awards for Australian crime writing. It was a night of firsts: the first year e-books were eligible, the first time the Neddies have taken place in Brisbane, and the first under the umbrella of the recently formed Australian Crime Writers Association.

But for Geoffrey McGeachin, the recipient of the top award, Best Fiction, it was very much a matter of second time around. His winning book Blackwattle Creek focuses on Detective Sergeant Charlie Berlin, a policeman in fifties Melbourne. The first in the Berlin series, The Diggers Rest Hotel, took home the Neddie for best first crime fiction in 2011.

Read the rest of this piece here at the Guardian Australia’s Oz Culture Blog.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Book Reviews, Ned Kelly Awards

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Ghost Money makes long list for Ned Kelly crime writing awards

Posted on July 10, 2013 by Andrew Nette| 4 Comments

Ghost MoneyThe long lists for the 2013 Ned Kelly awards for Australian crime writing have been released.

My novel, Ghost Money, has made the long list for best First Fiction, along with a number of other excellent books.

Ghost Money continues to get excellent reviews. So, if you haven’t bought a copy, why not do so.

For those who don’t know the plot, here’s the pitch:

Cambodia, 1996, the long-running Khmer Rouge insurgency is fragmenting, competing factions of the coalition government scrambling to gain the upper hand. Missing in the chaos is businessman Charles Avery. Hired to find him is Vietnamese Australian ex-cop Max Quinlan.

But Avery has made dangerous enemies and Quinlan is not the only one looking. Teaming up with Heng Sarin, a local journalist, Quinlan’s search takes him from the freewheeling capital Phnom Penh to the battle scarred western borderlands. As the political temperature soars, he is slowly drawn into a mystery that plunges him into the heart of Cambodia’s bloody past.

Ghost Money is a crime nove about Cambodia in the mid-nineties, a broken country, what happens to those trapped between two periods of history, the choices they make, what they do to survive.

It’s available here in digital format for $4.99 and hard copy for $10 plus postage.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Crime fiction and film from Cambodia, Ned Kelly Awards, Noir fiction

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Ned Kelly Awards for Australian crime writing: the shortlist is out

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

The shortlist for Australia’s annual crime writing gongs, The Ned Kelly Awards, was released this week.

While the big publishers usually dominate the Neddies, although this year it’s a clean sweep. Allen and Unwin, Pan Macmillan, Harper Collins and Random House share the prizes. Make of that what you will in terms of the state of local crime writing.

The Neddies have three categories: Best First Fiction, Best Fiction and True Crime.Reflecting a wider trend in publishing, this year’s shortlist for best first crime novel has a distinct dystopian/fantasy feel to it. When We Have Wings by Claire Corbett is a PI story set in a world where people have the ability to fly and genetic engineering is rampant. Kim Westward’s The Courier’s New Bicycle is the story of a bike courier who transports contraband through the alleyways of a Melbourne set in the future. Word is it’s good and at the risk of being proven wrong I suspect it may be the one to watch.

The exception is The Cartographer by Peter Twohig, set in Melbourne in 1951 and dealing with a young boy who flees into the city’s sewers after witnessing a violent crime.

Best fiction is a three-way contest between Malcolm Knox’s The Life, J.C Burke’s Pig Boy and Barry Maitland’s Chelsea Mansions.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Ned Kelly Awards

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