General Interest

• Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, Harrogate
• Takes place in Harrogate, Yorkshire every July. I’ve been to several and went there in 2010 for free, having won the Festival’s competition in 2009.
• CrimeFest
• Bristol's the location for this crimewriting event, in 2011 it's happening 19-11 May. I'm attending this year for the first time.
• Edinburgh International Book Festival
  • One of many cultural events taking place in Edinburgh every August. Crime writing is always well represented, and there are usually workshops for aspiring writers too. Book early to avoid disappointment.
• The Borders Book Festival
  • The Borders Book Festival takes place in June, and although it’s been going for a few years, I only attended for the first time in 2009. I thoroughly enjoyed the two author sessions I attended (Tom Holland and Christopher Brookmyre).
• Plain English Campaign
  • Plain English Campaign – does what it says on the tin.
• The Arvon Foundation
  • The Arvon Foundation runs residential creative writing courses. I attended one back in 2002 and was tutored by Val McDermid and Frederic Lindsay.
• The Crime Writers' Association
  • Organisers of the Debut Dagger Competition and several other crimewriting awards.
• Berwick Book Group
  • I’m a member of this reading group, and usually the dissenting voice, finding merit in books the others don’t much like, or else complaining at the lack of plot in some more ‘literary’ novels. But I love being taken out of my reading comfort zone.
• The Guardian - 1000 books everyone must read - Crime
  • Even if you’re like me and have masses of books waiting to be read, you’ll always be on the look-out for suggestions for yet more. The Guardian’s crime section of its ‘1000 books everyone must read’ covers the whole genre.
• The Urban Dictionary
  • The Urban Dictionary has lots of words and expressions that, frankly, I can’t ever imagine using (see ‘weiner cousin’ and ‘Febreze shower’) but also many I may try to.
• Save the Words!
  • Love words? You’ll love the Save the Words site.
• The Scottish Book Trust
  • The Scottish Book Trust promotes literacy, reading and writing in Scotland. Its website has lots of useful information, including details of the New Writer Awards.
• Hearing Dogs for Deaf People
  • I first read about the Hearing Dogs for Deaf People charity when I decided to make one of my novel’s main characters deaf. It gets a lot less publicity than Guide Dogs for the Blind, and is equally worthy of support.

Some writers’ websites:

• Mark Billingham
  • Mark Billingham is a stand-up comedian turned crime writer. The premise of his book Sleepy Head was so good the makers of CSI: New York stole it! Always an affable presence at Harrogate, and does a great double act with Christopher Brookmyre.
• Aline Templeton
  • Aline Templeton writes the Marjory Fleming series set in Dumfries and Galloway, a region of Scotland which often gets lumped together with the Scottish Borders as ‘southern Scotland’.
• Sylvian Hamilton
  • I was privileged to know Sylvian Hamilton in the last few years of her life. She only published three books, the first when she was over sixty, but she inspired me to keep on writing. The first sentence of her novel The Bone Pedlar is surely one of the best openings of all time: ‘In the crypt of the Abbey Church at Hallowdene the monks were boiling their Bishop.’
• Val McDermid
  • I was lucky enough to be tutored by Val McDermid on an Arvon course in 2002. Great books, great lady. She's recently been awarded the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for her services to crime fiction.
• Robert Wilson
  • Robert Wilson is author of ten books, my favourites being The Company of Strangers and A Small Death in Lisbon. His website has some interesting pages devoted to why he became a writer and how he goes about writing.
• Inspector Banks
  • Peter Robinson, author of the Inspector Banks books, is one of many crime writers to reveal his love of music in his books. He even provides play lists on his website.
• Stuart MacBride
  • Stuart MacBride’s books are set in Aberdeen. I’d agree with the quotation from Mark Billingham on the front of Broken Skin that they’re ‘Fierce, unflinching … crime fiction of the highest order’. DI Steel, ‘A five-foot-nine, wrinkly, middle-aged disaster area, smelling of stale cigarette smoke and Chanel Number Five’ is a memorable creation.
• John Harvey
  • John Harvey has had more than a staggering one hundred books published. In the 1970s and 80s he wrote westerns, but is best known for his Nottingham-based novels featuring Charlie Resnick, the cat- and jazz-loving detective. Visit his website for a wide-ranging blog and to benefit Medecin Sans Frontiers, the independent humanitarian medical aid agency, by buying his books direct. Having met him at Harrogate I can’t believe he’s as old as he claims.
• Jeffery Deaver
  • Jeffery Deaver is one of the most memorable speakers I've seen appear at Harrogate. His credo when writing is ‘No one puts down a book and says “what a great middle”. It’s the ending that matters’.
• Martin Edwards
• If you're interested in crime writing in its widest sense, Martin's blog is worth visiting regularly. He writes about books, events, movies, even TV adaptations.