Balaklava Community Library’s popular panel featuring authors involved in the crime and romance genres returned on Wednesday evening, with its biggest audience yet enjoying a look at four prominent Australian writers, and a chat over books and bubbly afterwards.
The library has put on ‘Love, Crime and Wine’ which has invited authors to come and share insights into their careers and backgrounds, what went into their writing and how they came up with their characters and stories, and any interesting or funny stories along the way.
This year saw about 92 people attend the panel in the Balaklava High School Performing Arts Centre, which featured authors Alina Bellchambers, Fleur McDonald, JP Pomare and Michael Thompson.
Bellchambers published her first book ‘The Order of Masks’ and soon will release her follow-up ‘The Weight of Crowns’, which are fantasy novels featuring characters with morally grey backgrounds amongst seductive court intrigue, and powerful heroines.
Raised in Orroroo, McDonald is a bestselling rural crime author who has sold more than 950,000 books and building a loyal fanbase for her stories and characters, including Detective Dave Burrows.
Originally from New Zealand, Pomare is a bestselling author of seven novels, including ‘Seventeen Years Later’, his novel ‘In The Clearing’ has been adapted into the miniseries The Clearing for Disney+ and Hulu, while another novel ‘The Last Guests’ is being adapted into Watching You, which is under production for Stan Australia.
Finally, Thompson is a former journalist and media executive who has released two novels, ‘How to Be Remembered’ and ‘All the Perfect Days’, the latter of which was released this year.
Following the panel everyone gathered in the library for wine and nibbles, where people could buy the authors’ books and then have the opportunity have them signed.
Bellchambers said she loved being a part of the event, and meeting people from the Balaklava community.
“The community here is fantastic, it’s such a vibrant community of readers and I’ve been impressed with all the people who’d come up to me after, supporting ‘The Order of Masks’ and local authors,” she said.
Thompson also shared his enthusiasm for the community support shown at the event, and for his career.
“It’s such a fantastic crowd, an amazing event, it’s my first time in South Australia and this has been the most incredible introduction to this state,” he said.
“Quite a few people here read my first book and it’s nice to meet people who read it, said what they liked about it, and (also) speaking to people who are going to read my books because of this event.
“It’s rewarding as as authors to expose your work to expose your work to new readers.”
Teacher librarian Tanya Niblett once again led the panel, asking questions to the four visiting authors, and said it was another successful event which was well supported by the community.
“I love exposing people to books they wouldn’t normally read,” she said.
“It’s great to see how (the authors) feed off each other and it created a great atmosphere.”
Ms Niblett said people kept expecting the event to return, and there were plans for it to again take place next year, potentially around October.
