Britain’s most northerly crime writing event took place for the third time in Lerwick this June. Organised by Shetland-based author Marsali Taylor and ‘Shetland’ author Ann Cleeves it ran under the auspices of Shetland Arts. Two dozen items over three days of programming is too much to cover, but here are some highlights.
The weekend was book-ended by relaxed and entertaining interviews with Lee Child and Ann Cleeves, both on top form talking about their writing journey. Professor Dame Lorna Dawson discussed soil science, and how its application in forensics is gaining acceptance.
For me, the best author panels are the ones which move swiftly away from ‘my new book’ and get stuck into discussing the topic on the progrmme. Marsali Taylor expertly kept her panellists on track in discussing Murder Most Complicated; Victoria Dowd talked on the clue-finding within Golden Age novels, Tom Mead brings in conjouring tricks, Lesley Kahn concentrates on the characters experiencing the crime whilst Tim Benjamin introduces Italian complexity into his stories.
We stayed abroad for ‘Policing the World’, moderated by Dr Jacky Collins, where authors discussed different approaches across the Globe. For Kate Ellis this was familiar England, but there were marked contrasts posed by the other panellists. A J Liddle sets his crimes in America’s Deep South, riddled with corruption and gun violence. Lee O’Hara on the other hand explained how rare gun crime was in Japan, and how the police there are viewed as friends by the (generally) law-abiding public.
A K Nairn used his background in Advertising to run a though-provoking seminar on ‘Developing a Killer Marketing Strategy’. Marketing is the subject that makes many fellow authors grit their teeth – we know it must be done but don’t relish the thought. I read his slim book Go Luck Yourself on the plane back (care with autocorrect when you search for it). One of Nairn’s key pieces of wisdom is that luck plays a big part in success, but we can tilt the odds in our favour and position ourselves to take best advantage of the breaks we get.
Crime writers are a sociable bunch, considering what we do for a living, so the bar was a lively place to be. I had chance to meet up with other panellists including Vaseem Khan, Louise Mangos and Ajay Chowdhuray. A full list of speakers and topics can be found on the Shetland Arts webpage.
Of course, Shetland itself was the star, and we took as many chances we could get to explore the island. It was near midsummer, not truly dark even by midnight, so it was tempting to keep the long days going. I’ll blog about the fantastic prehistoric archaeology another day, but puffins, seals, sea otters and dramatic scenery made this a break impossible to forget.
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