Clan Destine Press Blog — Diversity

"The last time I looked over 90% of book club members were women," said Carmel Shute in a talk last December. Shute, co-convenor of Sisters in Crime, went on share a few other stats: "Women comprise around two-thirds of published authors and buy around three-quarters of the books sold."In preparing this talk, I naturally consulted the [Sisters in Crime] and had a big response. Sulari Gentill, the author of 10 Roland Sinclair historical mysteries amongst other things, was born in Sri Lanka, learned to speak English in Zambia, grew up in Brisbane and now lives in the foothills of the...

By Narrelle M Harris It’s always fabulous to have new zombie fiction set in Australia, and it’s ten times as grand when the zombie fiction in question has as much personality, drama and heart as Alison Evans’ new YA book, Highway Bodies. The story is divided into three-chapter sections: the first from the point of view of a teen near the epicentre of the zombie outbreak; the second from a group of young musicians taking a week away in the country to work on songs; the third a pair of non-identical twins whose mother is a nurse at a hospital...

Just watched the NASA Live: SpaceX In-Flight Abort Test, which is like so many things involving space, made me again feel like the kid who read all those sci-fi novels, who loved the Martian stories of Ray Bradbury, the moon stories of Robert Heinlein, the robot and tech tales of Tanith Lee. Two other things struck me about watching today’s successful tests of the "Crew Dragon spacecraft’s ability to safely escape the Falcon 9 rocket in the event of an emergency during launch.” (Yes, quoting directly from NASA.) The first was that of the two main voices heard during the...