Last Friday night, the Bendigo Writers Festival started with a flurry of events and the next morning, I set off on the V/Line train, waving goodbye to Melbourne’s tall towers and crowded streets for the torn-cotton clouds and mid-city fountains of Bendigo. My Kangaroo Flat-residing friend of some twenty-seven years – we’d met in our first year of primary school, bonding over being the two shortest kids in the class – met me at the station with a giant warm hug and a bagful of groceries for lunch. Afterwards, she took me into town to scope out the festival: the gorgeous Capital Theatre, the friendly volunteers, and a sneaky coffee in a warm cafe tucked right under the theatre’s wing with tiny little nooks to cradle your warm drink in.

I was there for the announcement of the 2014 Ned Kelly Awards shortlist which are put on by the Australian Crime Writers Association (you don’t have to be a writer to join!). As the Association’s secretary, I helped the category judges get through the (fairly enviable) task of reading large piles of books and the (fairly unenviable) task of making a shortlist from said strong selection. After months of work, it all came together as a free event in The Hub. Michael Robotham introduced the shortlist which was MC'ed by Andrew Nette, and accompanied by a sturdy bar tab, plates of snacks, celebrated authors, bloggers, and – of course – voracious and enthusiastic readers. And so, onto the shortlists themselves…

Fiction:

• Bitter Wash Road by Garry Disher (Text)
• Fatal Impact by Kathryn Fox (Macmillan)
• In the Morning I’ll be Gone by Adrian McKinty (Serpent’s Tail)
• Beams Falling by P.M. Newton (Viking)
• One Boy Missing by Stephen Orr (Text)
• The Dying Beach by Angela Savage (Text)

First Fiction:

• Dead Cat Bounce by Peter Cotton (Scribe)
• Hades by Candice Fox (Bantam)
• Blood Witness by Alex Hammond (Michael Joseph)
• Every Breath by Ellie Marney (A&U)

True crime

• Disgraced by Paul Dale (Five Mile Press)
• Forever Nine by John Kidman & Denise Hofman (Westbooks)
• JFK: The Smoking Gun by Colin McLaren (Hachette)
• Outlaw Bikers in Australia by Duncan McNab (Macmillan)
• Murder in Mississippi by John Safran (Hamish Hamilton)
• No Mercy by Eleanor Learmonth & Jenny Tabakoff (Text)

Sandra Harvey short story award (unpublished):

• ‘Housewarming’ by Louise Bassett
• ‘Splinter’ by Emma Viskic
• ‘The Scars of Noir’ by Darcy-Lee Tindale
• ‘Voices of Soi 22’ by Roger Vickery
• ‘Web Design’ by Emma Viskic.

Our warmest congratulations on behalf of Readings to all the authors nominated – and to the Bendigo Writers Festival for a truly great experience. Stay tuned for the announcement of the winners at the Brisbane Writers Festival on Saturday 6 September – or start the spring season by going up to see it yourself!