The South Coast Writers Festival is coming to Wollongong Town Hall this weekend. Featuring an incredible line-up of acclaimed authors discussing the writing process, this year's festival has something for everyone.

We are super excited about the session Crime Worlds, where Thirroul’s Sue Turnbull will speak about crime fiction alongside Sydney journalist and author Tim Ayliffe.

Sue, 72, is a Senior Professor of Communication and Media at the University of Wollongong. Her academic publications include Media Audiences (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) and The TV Crime Drama (Edinburgh University Press, 2014). Her most recent book, Transnational TV Crime: From the Nordic to the Outback, will be published by Edinburgh University Press. Sue reviews crime fiction for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, is an Ambassador for Sisters in Crime Australia and Chair of the BAD Sydney Crime Festival.

We asked Sue about her current projects and what she is looking forward to at this weekend's festival.

What is your latest project?

I’m just finishing a book with my colleague Marion McCutcheon about how the Australian television crime drama as a genre has responded to the streaming era. It will begin with Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, which first showed on the ABC and has been remade in China as Miss S for Netflix Asia – and will end with Deadloch, the Nordic noir spoof set in Tasmania, which was made for Amazon Prime.

Why this work?

I’m a student of media and communications with a particular interest in the history of television as well as audience research. That is, I am primarily interested in the role of the media in people’s lives, from everyday banking to whether or not they will go and see Barbie in a cinema and, most importantly, what they will make of it.

What do you love about it?

I started out reading English at university because I loved books, but it was there that I discovered Anglo-Saxon archaeology, which got me interested in how we use the signs and artefacts of a culture to try and understand people’s lives.  Put those two together, and somehow you get to my interest in the media.

What challenges have you run into?

My major problem has always been having enough time to pursue all my interests. I love crime fiction, and review for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, I am Chair of BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival and am also on the board of Screen Illawarra, which has a mission to make the Illawarra a new and vital hub for screen production.

What are you most excited about for your event at the South Coast Writers Festival?

I’m very excited to be talking to Tim Ayliffe, who has just written his fourth spy thriller, Killer Traitor Spy. Tim is managing editor of TV News for the ABC and his stories are informed by deep knowledge about what is really going on behind the political scenes in Australia. I want to know what Tim thinks makes a good spy thriller.

If you’re an aspiring writer or a lover of books, pack your reading glasses, get your notebooks out and buy your festival tickets. The literary event of the year is on from 18-20 August. Tickets available at https://southcoastwriters.org/festival2023