Scarlet Stiletto Bites

2011, the year Kim won the Scarlet Stiletto Judges’ Prize was the year her second novel, The Courier’s New Bicycle, was published. Being a creature of many colours, the novel was shortlisted for two crime fiction awards (Ned Kelly, Davitt) as well as making the Tiptree Honor Book list and winning two speculative fiction awards (Aurealis, Ditmar). Until that year, she really didn’t know if she could pull together a crime-themed short story or novel. The Stilettos gave her a shot in the arm, she says. she still has the commemorative bottle of wine, vintage 2010, called ‘The Killer’

Credits

Concept designer, co-producer, and narrator: Susanna Lobez

Co-producer: Carmel Shute

ProductionManager: Tim Coy

Graphic Designer: Caz Brown

Copyright Sisters in Crime Australia

Fiona Drury is a corporate writer and editor and an international exhibition agent for major museums. She is originally from the UK and has lived in Melbourne for over 34 years.

An avid reader and writer of crime fiction, Fiona is a long-time member of Sisters in Crime.

Credits

Concept designer, co-producer, and narrator: Susanna Lobez

Co-producer: Carmel Shute

ProductionManager: Tim Coy

Graphic Designer: Caz Brown

Copyright Sisters in Crime Australia

Cock-a-Hoop was inspired by a true story told to sarah Evans at a rural community event celebrating women where she was a speaker. At the time she was home schooling my children and attempting to live a sustainable lifestyle. Between teaching, growing and harvesting produce, she was also writing short stories for competitions and novels for publication. Winning the prize for the Scarlet Stiletto funniest crime story in 2011 was a welcome and much needed enthusiasm boost. She has since had many short stories and novels published both in Australia and overseas. Last year her crime series was optioned for TV. More info here:https://sarah-evans-author.com/

Credits

Concept designer, co-producer, and narrator: Susanna Lobez

Co-producer: Carmel Shute

ProductionManager: Tim Coy

Graphic Designer: Caz Brown

Copyright Sisters in Crime Australia

Author of Death in the Skies, 2020 winner of Scarlet Stiletto Award & Mystery with History Award..

Jessica has always been able to put a string of words together. Throughout school, she won quite a few small writing competitions and she always knew that regardless of what else she did, she wanted writing to be a part of her future in some way, shape or form.

She moved to the UK in search of adventure and travelled the world for several years before Covid clipped her wings. But being back in Australia gave Jessica the chance to have her first flying lesson, which led to “Death in the Skies”, the Scarlet Stiletto winning entry.

Had anybody told Jessica that she would write a crimes story, let alone win a crime-writing competition, she would have laughed in their faces. But being stuck at home in a world of lockdown will do strange things to a person. The Scarlet Stiletto win has given her the confidence to pursue a career in writing.

Since the win, she has expanded this short story into a full length novel and is in the final editing stages.

Credits

Concept designer, co-producer, and narrator: Susanna Lobez

Co-producer: Carmel Shute

ProductionManager: Tim Coy

Graphic Designer: Caz Brown

Copyright Sisters in Crime Australia

Liz Filleul won the Scarlet Stiletto Award in 2004 and in 2011 she came close to doing it again, with her story “Crime Traveller”, taking out both second prize and the Cross-Genre Award.

Liz hoped her Scarlet Stiletto success would be a springboard to a career as a novelist. And it did actually lead to having a detective novel, set in the world of vintage children’s fiction collectors,

published by a niche publisher in the UK.

For over a decade, Liz worked on various novels, periodically taking time out to write short stories. She continued her success in the Scarlet Stiletto Awards, as runner up in 2007 and 2016, ad well as 2011, and the Mystery with History Prize in 2016. Eventually, it dawned on her that maybe her forte was writing short crime stories, Liz put one of her YA novels on submission and decided to focus on short stories for a while.

It was the best writing decision she has ever made! In the past few years , she has had 40 short stories and three serials published in UK magazine, The People’s Friend, and she has also been published in the USA magazine Woman’s World. One of her crime stories in that American magazine, “Dead Men Tell No Tales”, set in 1830’s Van Diemen’s Land and featuring a convict constable, was a finalist ion the 2023 Derringer Awards, run by the Short Mystery Fiction Society in the USA

Credits

Concept designer, co-producer, and narrator: Susanna Lobez

Co-producer: Carmel Shute

ProductionManager: Tim Coy

Graphic Designer: Caz Brown

Copyright Sisters in Crime Australia

Romany won the Scarlet Stiletto Award for short crime fiction and also the Art and Crime Category for 2023.

By day Romany helps organisations share their true stories; by night she writes no-quite-so-true stories which have been published in places like The Canberra Times and the Newcastle Short Story Awards. She is also a winner of Furious Fiction.

She lives on the land of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people.

Credits

Concept designer, co-producer, and narrator: Susanna Lobez

Co-producer: Carmel Shute

Announcer: Leigh Redhead

ProductionManager: Tim Coy

Graphic Designer: Caz Brown

Copyright Sisters in Crime Australia

Roxxy Bent is a founder of Vitalstatisix Theatre Company. She wrote award winning plays for Vitals and other companies; several of which have been published in anthologies. She has also written for the screen.

She has worked as an actor and writer on multiple community projects.

Winning two Scarlet Stilettos, for best short crime fiction in 2002 and 2006, inspired Roxxy to complete a Masters in Creative Writing. She has continued with the long-form, earning her a Varuna Scholarship and a Text Publishing Fellowship for her novel, The Pear Tree.

Credits

Concept designer, co-producer, and narrator: Susanna Lobez

Co-producer: Carmel Shute

Announcer: Leigh Redhead

ProductionManager: Tim Coy

Graphic Designer: Caz Brown

Copyright Sisters in Crime Australia

We all feel cynical sometimes, don't we? Today on Scarlet's Stiletto Bites, we meet a super cynic. She's seen everything, but her cynicism leads her to discover seriously sinister crimes. Louisa by Christina Lee, the Scarlett's Stiletto winner in 1996.

Christina Lee won the Scarlet Stiletto twice, much to her surprise, in 1992 and 1994, with an Honourable Mention or Third Place or something in between. Under the Sisters in Crime policy, she was not able to enter the competition after that, and was invited to be a judge. Christina has been on the judging panel every year since then, a wonderful experience, she says. She now coordinates the final judging session.Christina has been writing a long time. Decades ago, she co-authored two crime novels, set in a Melbourne tertiary institution (Unable by Reason of Death, 1989; Not In Single Spies, 1992; Penguin Australia). Both sold and reviewed well. The first was an ABC book reading (1990) and optioned for screen. After that, an all-encompassing thirty-year academic career seriously got in the way of writing for about thirty years, but Christina is an Emeritus Professor now and is back, looking for a publisher for her new crime novel.

Credits

Concept designer, co-producer, and narrator: Susanna Lobez

Co-producer: Carmel Shute

Announcer: Leigh Redhead

ProductionManager: Tim Coy

Graphic Designer: Caz Brown

Copyright Sisters in Crime Australia

Back in 2009, when Amanda won the Scarlet Stiletto with her story, “Persia Bloom”, the ex-hairdresser was busy being mum to three young boys and helping to care for her terminally ill father. Winning the award on her first attempt gave Amanda the courage to continue writing, going on to be short-listed in the Stilettos a further three times, participate on the judging panel for two years and co-write a novel with Kylie Fox – another Scarlet Stiletto frequent flyer – which was published by Clan Destine Press in 2010, along with a number of other short stories in various anthologies over the years. She also wrote for online magazines, worked as a book reviewer and participated in Sisters in Crime 20th anniversary convention SheKilda, as both a panellist and conducting a workshop on 'How to win the Scarlet Stiletto'.

These days, Amanda works full-time in a primary school, encouraging creative young minds and taking on artwork commissions, while also studying to become a counsellor. However, her hairdressing alter-ego, Persia Bloom, is still knocking around, nagging for her chance to be a fully-fledged novel sometime soon.

Credits

Concept designer, co-producer and narrator: Susanna Lobez

Co-producer: Carmel Shute

Announcer: Leigh Redhead

Production Manager: Tim Coy

Graphic Designer: Caz Brown

Music: sampled and inspired by Prokofiev

Copyright Sisters in Crime Australia 2023

Janis Spehr lives in northern Victoria. She has published five story collections and a novel with Ginninderra Press. She is currently writing her second novel. THE BLUE DOOR. Her writing journey has taken her away from crime fiction, but she retains fond memories of the Scarlet Stiletto. She won the first prize two years on the trot, in 1999 and 2000.

Credits

Concept designer, co-producer, and narrator: Susanna Lobez

Co-producer: Carmel Shute

Announcer: Leigh Redhead

ProductionManager: Tim Coy

Graphic Designer: Caz Brown

Copyright Sisters in Crime Australia