THE FIRST EDITION OF
CURRUMBIN CRIME WRITERS FESTIVAL
15-16th August 2025
Where Crime Meets The Coast
Two days of thrills and chills on the coast
We invite you to this 2-day festival on the beautiful Gold Coast. Join us, 10 authors and publishing industry specialists as we celebrate the best of Australian crime & mystery fiction in all its dark, gritty and gripping forms.
Currumbin Crime Writers Festival is a brand new literary festival designed to give writers and readers a place to connect, learn, and be inspired. Come along to our packed schedule of creative workshops, entertaining panel discussions, and book signings.
EARLY BIRD TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY!
GUEST OF HONOUR
We are thrilled to welcome Fiona McIntosh to the inaugural Currumbin Crime Writers Festival as our Guest of Honour!
Fiona is an internationally and million-copy bestselling author of novels for adults and children across several genres.
Celebrating 25 years as an author and 45 published books, her crime novels featuring Detective Jack Hawksworth have been a huge hit with Australian crime readers.
PLUS OUR GUEST AUTHORS…
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DINUKA MCKENZIE
Dinuka McKenzie is the author of three books, THE TORRENT, TAKEN and TIPPING POINT. Her Detective Kate Miles crime series is published in Australia and the UK. She is the winner of the 2020 HarperCollins Australia Banjo Prize. Her writing has been shortlisted for the Sisters in Crime Davitt Awards, the Bad Sydney Crime Danger Awards, longlisted for the Richell Prize, and highly commended in the Australian Crime Writers' Association Louie Award. Her short fiction has appeared in the 2022 Dark Deeds Down Under crime and thriller anthology. Dinuka lives in Southern Sydney on Dharawal country.
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Hayley Scrivenor
Hayley Scrivenor is the author of Girl Falling and Dirt Town. Girl Falling was described as “a remarkable exercise in complex storytelling written in Scrivenor’s idiosyncratic, metaphorically vivid prose” and a “worthy follow-up to the best-selling Dirt Town.” Dirt Town was published internationally in 2022 (as Dirt Creek in the U.S., where it was a USA TODAY bestseller) and quickly became a #1 Australian bestseller. Dirt Town won the ILP John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger, the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ Mystery and the ABIA for General Fiction Book of the Year. Hayley has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Wollongong and lives on Dharawal country.
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Ali Lowe
Ali Lowe is the author of four bestselling novels: The Trivia Night, The Running Club, The School Run, and The Private Island. Both The Trivia Night and The School Run have been optioned for TV. Ali is a journalist by profession: she was Features Editor at OK! magazine in London and has written for bridal magazines, parenting titles, websites and newspapers over a 20 year-career. She has dual Australian and British citizenship and lives on Sydney’s northern beaches with her husband and three children.
…AND industry professionals
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Alex Adsett
Alex Adsett is a seasoned literary agent and publishing consultant with nearly 30 years in the industry. She represents a diverse range of authors and is renowned for her expertise in publishing contracts and rights negotiations. She is proud to represent an outstanding stable of authors and illustrators, including Melissa Lucashenko, Isobelle Carmody, Dinuka McKenzie, Jasmin McGaughey and Hannah Sommerville. As a consultant, Alex provides commercial and strategic advice to authors and independent publishers, particularly regarding publishing contracts. She has worked with many independent publishers and thousands of authors including Mirandi Riwoe, Sarah Malik, Graeme Simsion, Barry Humphries, and Melissa Greenwood. She regularly delivers seminars on copyright and publishing contracts around Australia, and has served on various NFP literary boards including Small Press Network and Queensland Writers Centre.
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Dr Caroline Graham
Dr Caroline Graham is an award-winning writer and investigative reporter, who teaches journalism and creative writing at Bond University. Together with Kylie Stevenson, she has spent five years investigating the disappearance of Paddy Moriarty and his kelpie from the tiny outback Northern Town of Larrimah. Together they wrote the Walkley Award-winning investigative true crime podcast Lost in Larrimah, and the Australian bestseller Larrimah, which have both been optioned by NBC Universal for potential development into a scripted TV series. Caroline has a PhD in creative writing (fiction) and has worked on a wide range of projects, including co-writing the ABC documentary Outback Musical, co-writing the Walkley Award-winning investigative series NT Schools in Crisis and co-writing Writing Feature Stories: How to research and write articles – from listicles to longform. She also researches true crime reporting and ethics.
