Authors 2018

You can still check out the authors from this year even though the event is over. Just click on their picture for more information.

Stuart MacBride

Stuart MacBride is the No.1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the Logan McRae and Ash Henderson novels. He’s also published standalones, novellas and short stories as well as a children’s picture book. Stuart lives in the northeast of Scotland with his wife Fiona, cats Grendel, Gherkin, Onion, and Beetroot, some hens, horses, and a vast collection of assorted weeds.

Lilja Sigurðardóttir

Lilja Sigurðardóttir is a highly-successful Icelandic crime-writer and award winning playwright. She is the author of five crime novels, detective novels Steps 2009 and Forgiveness 2010 and the Reykjavík Noir Trilogy of which the first book, Snare, was out in English published by Orenda books last year. Netið (English title coming in 2018) for which she was shortlisted for Iceland’s 2017 crimefiction awards and Búrið (English title coming in 2019).

The Reykjavík Noir Trilogy has been sold to many countries and the film rights to the story have been sold to 66 Degrees North/Palomar Pictures. Lilja lives in Reykjavík with her partner and dog.

LJ Ross

Louise Ross is the international bestselling author of the DCI Ryan series of mystery thrillers, all based in the North-East. Of the seven books she has published, three have topped the Amazon UK and Australian Kindle charts including her debut, Holy Island, amassing over two million loyal readers. Louise was born and bred in Northumberland but worked as a regulatory barrister in London before deciding to pursue her dream to write. She recently moved home to Northumberland where she lives with her husband and young son and is enjoying introducing him to the beauty of its countryside, castles and coastline.

Ian Skewis

Ian Skewis was born in Scotland in 1970. He wrote articles for a local paper and had his first poems published at the age of 19. He trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and became an actor, appearing on film and television, and providing his voice for radio. He performed in numerous stage plays that toured internationally, including Like Thunder, which received a Fringe First Award in 2001. He is the author of several short stories, including Inkling, which was published in an anthology, The Speculative Book, in 2016. His debut novel, a psychological thriller entitled A Murder Of Crows, was published by Unbound in 2017. It went on to become a No.1 Best Seller on Amazon and was long listed for the Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize. He is currently working on his second novel, as well as numerous other projects. He lives and works in Glasgow.

Luca Veste

Luca Veste is a writer of Italian and Liverpudlian heritage. He is the author of the bestselling Murphy and Rossi series and the new standalone novel The Bone Keeper. He studied psychology and criminology at the University of Liverpool, is a husband, and a father to two girls. He lives in a house. Not a very big house and not in the country. Of his latest work The Bone Keeper, Val McDermid says it ‘will corrupt your days and shatter your nights’

Antti Tuomainen

Antti Tuomainen is one of Finland’s most acclaimed and award-winning crime fiction writers. To date, Tuomainen’s works have been translated into more than 25 languages. In The Man Who Died, Tuomainen’s most recent novel, he displays a new side of his authorship and unveils his multifaceted ability in full. The novel, which combines Tuomainen’s trademark suspense with a darkly tinged humor, has won the hearts of readers and critics alike.

Leigh Russell

Leigh Russell’s Geraldine Steel series has sold over a million copies and is translated throughout Europe, and China. Shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger Award, longlisted for the CWA Dagger in the Library, she has twice been Finalist for the People’s Book Prize.

Lee Child calls her “unmissable” and she has been described in the national press as “a rare talent”. Leigh chairs the CWA Debut Dagger Judges, and is a Royal Literary Fellow.

Malcom J Malone

Michael J Malone has published eight novels and one non-fiction book. His latest novel, House of Spineswas published by Orenda Books in September 2017. Marcel Berlins of The Times said of the book that it was “a dark joy”. He has also published over 200 poems in literary magazines throughout the UK.

Vicky Newham

Vicky Newham grew up near Chichester, West Sussex. She moved to London to go to university, and taught Psychology there for many years before moving to Whitstable, Kent, where she now lives. Vicky gained an MA Creative Writing from Kingston University in 2014.

Turn a blind eyeis her debut novel, and will be published on April 5th 2018 by HQ/HarperCollins. The novel, which draws on Vicky’s Psychology background & her experience of living and working in East London, is the first in a new series featuring Bangladeshi-born DI Maya Rahman. It has been optioned for TV by Playground Entertainment.

You can find Vicky on Twitter as @VickyNewham and her website is: http://vickynewham.com

Mari Hannah

Scriptwriter and Northumberland based award-winning author Mari Hannah is published by Orion. Her awards include the Polari First Book Prize for her debut, The Murder Wall; a Northern Writers’ Award and the CWA Dagger in the Library 2017.

Her acclaimed Kate Daniels crime series is in development with Stephen Fry’s production company, Sprout Pictures. Mari is reader-in-residence for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, the biggest of its type in the world.

Abir Mukherjee

Abir Mukherjee grew up in the West of Scotland. He’s been a fan of crime fiction ever since he was 15. The child of immigrants from India, A Rising Man, his debut novel, was inspired by a desire to learn more about this crucial period in Anglo-Indian history. It won the Harvill Secker/Daily Telegraph crime writing competition, the Endeavour Dagger 2017 & is currently nominated for a Barry and an Edgar award in the USA.

Johana Gustawsson

Born in 1978 in Marseille and with a degree in Political science, Johana Gustawsson has worked as a journalist for the French press and television. She married a Swede and now lives in London with their three sons. She was the co-author of a bestseller, On se retrouvera, whose television adaptation drew over seven million viewers in June 2015.

Block 46, her first thriller, has now been sold to fourteen countries and is published in the UK by Orenda Books. Keeper, the second book in the Roy & Castells series, will be out in the UK in April.

Alex Caan

Alex Caan was born in Manchester, has spent over a decade working in information security for several government organisations. A lifetime passion for writing was sparked by the encouraging words of an English teacher in school, and eventually led to Alex successfully completing an MA in Creative Writing.

His debut novel published by Bonnier Zaffre is titled Cut to the Bonecame out in 2016 & the sequel, First to Die is out in June 2018.

Rachel Abbott

Rachel Abbott, born and raised in Manchester, founded her own interactive media company in the 1980s, before selling it and retiring in 2005. She then moved to Italy where she worked on the renovation of a 15th century Italian monastery, and it was here that, one day, she found herself snowed in and decided to begin writing for pleasure. This became her debut novel Only The Innocent, which she went on to publish via Kindle Direct Publishing, topping their chart for 4 weeks.

A true self-publishing pioneer, Come a Little Closeris Abbott’s seventh novel. All of her previous thrillers have hit no.1 in the Kindle charts. She splits her time between Alderney in the Channel Islands and Italy.

Charles Harris

Charles Harris is a martial arts black belt, a best-selling author, international award-winning writer-director, a highly respected script consultant and co-founder of the first screenwriters’ workshop in the world. His debut social-noir novel, The Breaking of Liam Glass, was published on June 29th by Marble City and immediately hit #1 on Amazon’s Hot New Releases for Satire.

His film work includes the rite-of-passage movie Paradise Grove, which won Best New Director in Palm Springs and the BBC2 satirical documentary Sex, Drugs and Dinner, with Alexei Sayle, winning Best Network Programme in the UK. He co-founded the first screenwriters’ workshop in the world, London Screenwriters’ Workshop, now Euroscript. As a non-fiction author, his book Teach Yourself: Complete Screenwriting Courseis an Amazon best-seller and along with Jaws in Space: Powerful Pitching for Film and TV is recommended reading on MA courses.

Roxanne Bouchard

Roxanne Bouchard hails from Quebec, where her writing has garnered an array of awards. Weaving poetry and geography together to delve into her characters’ worlds, she crafts a haunting sense of place. Her fourth book, We Were the Salt of the Sea— as much a tragic love story and an ode to the sea as it is a crime novel — is her first to be published in English.

David Warriner

David Warriner translates from French and nurtures a passion for crime fiction. After growing up in deepest Yorkshire and graduating from Oxford he hopped on a plane to Canada and sold his soul to the world of corporate translation. He’s now clawing it back one book at a time through the delicate art of literary translation. David has lived in France and Quebec and now calls beautiful British Columbia home.

Kjell Ola Dahl

Kjell Ola Dahl, born 1958, published his first novel in 1993. Lethal investmentswas also the first book in the Oslo Detective Series. Dahl is married and has three grown up children. Dahl is living on his farm by the lake Mjosa in Norway, working as a full time writer. The Ice Swimmer is this year’s release in the Oslo Detective Series in the UK.

Frances Brody

Frances Brody is the author of nine popular mystery novels set in 1920s Yorkshire, featuring Kate Shackleton, First World War widow turned detective.

Frances started her writing life with stories and plays for radio and scripts for theatre and television. Jehad, first produced by Manchester Library Theatre, was nominated for a Time Out award. Her first novel, one of three sagas, won the won the HarperCollins Elizabeth Elgin Award. A woman unknown was shortlisted for a Mary Higgins Clark Award. Suspense Magazine (USA) chose A death in the Dales as their “Best of 2017” in the Cosy category. www.francesbrody.com

Doug Johnstone

Doug Johnstone has had nine novels published, most recently Fault Lines. He’s taught creative writing and been writer in residence at various institutions, and he’s also an arts journalist and Royal Literary Fund Consultant Fellow. Doug is a musician with seven albums released in various bands, and he currently plays drums for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers. He’s also player-manager for the Scotland Writers Football Club and has a PhD in nuclear physics.

Eva Dolan

Eva Dolan was shortlisted for the CWA Dagger for unpublished authors when only a teenager. The four novels in her Zigic and Ferreira series have been published to widespread critical acclaim: Tell No Tales and After You Diewere shortlisted for the Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year Award and After You Diewas also longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger. She lives in Cambridge.

Louise Voss

Over her eighteen-year writing career, Louise Voss has had eleven novels published – five solo and six co-written with Mark Edwards, a combination of psychological thrillers, police procedurals and contemporary fiction. Her twelfth, The Old You, will be published in May 2018 by Orenda Books and is described as ‘nail-bitingly modern domestic noir’.

Louise has an MA(Dist) in Creative Writing and also works as a literary consultant and mentor for writers at www.thewritingcoach.co.uk. She lives in south-west London and is a proud member of two female crime-writing collectives, Killer Womenand The Slice Girls.

Claire MacLeary

Claire MacLeary worked as a training consultant and antiques dealer before setting up her own retail and property businesses. Since gaining a MLitt, her short stories have been published in magazines and anthologies. Her debut novel, Cross Purpose, was longlisted for the 2017 McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year.

Claire describes herself as ‘feisty, with a full life to draw on’. She divides her time between St Andrews and her native Glasgow.

Matt Wesolowski

Matt Wesolowski is from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in the UK. He is an English tutor for young people in care. Matt started his writing career in horror, and his short horror fiction has been published in numerous UK- and US-based anthologies. He was a winner of the Pitch Perfect competition at Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival in 2015. His debut thriller, Six Stories, was an Amazon bestseller in the USA, Canada, the UK and Australia, and a WHSmith Fresh Talent pick, and film rights were sold to a major Hollywood studio.

Fiona Veitch Smith

Fiona is the author of the Poppy Denby mystery series. The first book in the series, The Jazz Files, published by Lion Fiction, was shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger 2016. Book 2, The Kill Fee, was a finalist in the Foreword Indie Awards Best Mystery of the Year 2017.

Formerly a journalist, she worked on the crime and arts beats in Cape Town in the late 1990s and early Noughties, before returning to her native Northumberland in 2002. She continued working part-time as a journalist while studying for a MA in Creative Writing at Northumbria University, graduating in 2007.

She has also written for theatre and screen. In 2009 her black comedy murder mystery Pig Stewwon the People’s Play Award. Over the last ten years she has been a visiting lecturer in creative writing and scriptwriting at Northumbria University, and is currently a visiting lecturer in journalism at Newcastle University.

Her next Poppy Denby mystery is due out in October and she has started work on a new series – again set in the 20s (but all hush-hush for now).

She lives in Newcastle with her husband Rodney, 13-year-old daughter Megan, and dog Ricky. She enjoys practising Pilates, eating cheesecake and playing jazz clarinet – but generally not at the same time.

www.poppydenby.com

Richard Rippon

Richard Rippon has been writing since 2007, when his short story, “Full Tilt“, was long-listed for a Criminal Shorts award. In 2009, he won a New Writing North Award for his first novel, ‘The Kebab King‘. Since then he’s had a number of short stories published in newspapers, magazines and articles. In 2012, he was commissioned to write a short story (“The Other One“), which appears in the Platform anthology. ‘Lord Of The Dead‘ was published in November 2017 by Obliterati Press.

Richard is currently working on the sequel. He lives on the North East coast with his wife and two children. He works as a social media manager in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Sandra Ireland

Sandra Ireland’s debut novel Beneath the Skinwas shortlisted for a Saltire Society First Novel Award in 2017. Her new psychological thriller novel, Bone Deep (Polygon) is a modern Gothic tale of sibling rivalry, inspired by an old Scottish folktale.

She is secretary of Angus Writers’ Circle and one third of the Chasing Time Team, which runs writing retreats in a gloriously Gothic location.

https://sandrairelandauthor.com/

Carol Walker

Carol Walker was born and bred in Newcastle, where she went to college and trained as an Art Director, before moving to London, and later Edinburgh. She created advertising campaigns and designs for clients nationally. On returning to the North East she undertook various careers including Lecturing in Design, Internet Production and IT Management.

She has a long held interest in psychology and people watching; trying to an understanding what makes them tick. Her passion lies in psychological thrillers and crime fiction, which heavily influences her writing. Carol writes captivating and gripping stories and has a flare for scaring readers in a very plausible and imaginative way.

Jessica Fairfax

Jessica Fairfax has lived most of her life in the North East of England. She spent years working in the Public Sector within the Youth Justice System. As a Senior Manager she wrote and delivered courses for parents, carers and children. She has a Psychology Degree and was a Primary School Teacher.

Jessica writes under various pseudonyms and is a published poet. Her work appears in a number of anthologies including ‘Traveller’s Moon’ and ‘God Created Women’ by Aural Images both available on Amazon. Jessica is interested in the human psyche and parapsychology. She enjoys reading horror, paranormal and crime fiction. Jessica’s stories are cleverly constructed from a mixture of real life experiences and her vivid imagination. Her writing takes the reader on a journey to very dark places and makes the unimaginable believable.

Daniel James

Daniel James is an author and journalist from Newcastle upon Tyne. His debut novel, The Unauthorised Biography of Ezra Maas, will be published by Dead Ink Books in 2018.

As a journalist, Daniel worked on national and regional newspapers and magazines for more than 10 years. He was a finalist in the UK Young News Writer of the Year award and he has been nominated for two North East press awards. Daniel was also the founder and editor of independent arts magazine The Bleed, and he was a member of Live Theatre Writers Group.

He lives in Cullercoats, North Tyneside, and is currently working on his next novel.