This was the first year that the Sisters in Crime’s Davitt Awards has been ‘embraced’ under the umbrella of the Melbourne Writers Festival. It was noted no one from the Festival had joined them, but of course they were required at their own party, back at Fed Square. The Sister’s are a group of women, who started SheKilda, and then the Davitt Awards ten years ago because they loved crime writing and wanted to support female crime writers in Australia.
They meet monthly, they have about 500 members and it would seem that a large proportion of them are university educated, feminist, professional women firmly in the baby boomer box. One hundred and forty of them mingled and laughed in the function room of the Celtic Club, swapped the salmon, chicken and tortellini, and bemoaned replacement of the sweet lemon tart with a berry cheesecake. There was a raffle, and a competition to be immortalised in the next book of the Davitt winner, your name put in a hat.
