By Trish Bowman
Capricorn Coast Writers Festival ‘Stories by the sea’ are thrilled to announce award winning writer Michael Robothom as a special guest for the festival which runs 2-4 June in Yeppoon.
Capricorn Coast Writers Festival Director Nene Davies said scoring international best-selling Aussie superstar crime author Michael Robotham for the festival was such a coup.
“How great that all his local fans and lovers of crime fiction will get a chance to meet and listen to him talk and how inspirational for local emerging and established crime authors to have someone of Michael’s calibre right here in Yeppoon,” Nene said.
Michael Robotham was a former feature writer and investigative reporter working in Britain, Australia and America, and with clinical and forensic psychologists as they helped police investigate complex, psychologically driven crimes.
His debut thriller, The Suspect, introduced clinical psychologist Joe O’Loughlin and sold more than a million copies around the world.
Michael will be joining the Capricorn Coast Writers Festival team, hosting his own ‘Meet the Author’ session, a member of our A Perfect Harmony panel and esteemed guest at the Saturday evening event: An Evening with Michael Robotham and Chris Hammer.
Two times Gold Dagger winning and twice Edgar short-listed author Michael Robotham was born in Australia in November 1960 and grew up in small country towns that had more dogs than people and more flies than dogs.
He escaped in 1979 and became a cadet journalist on an afternoon newspaper in Sydney.
For the next fourteen years he wrote for newspapers and magazines in Australia, Britain and America.
As a senior feature writer for the UK’s Mail on Sunday he was among the first people to view the letters and diaries of Czar Nicholas II and his wife Empress Alexandra, unearthed in the Moscow State Archives in 1991.
He also gained access to Stalin’s Hitler files, which had been missing for nearly fifty years until a cleaner stumbled upon a cardboard box that had been misplaced and misfiled.
In 1993 he quit journalism to become a ghost writer, collaborating with politicians, pop stars, psychologists, adventurers and showbusiness personalities to write their autobiographies. Twelve of these non-fiction titles were bestsellers with combined sales of more than two million copies.
His partially completed first novel, a psychological thriller called The Suspect, caused a bidding war at the London Book Fair in 2002.
Soon afterwards it was chosen by the world’s largest consortium of book clubs as only the fifth International Book of the Month, making it the top recommendation to 28 million book club members in fifteen countries.
Michael’s novels have since been translated into 25 languages and have won or been shortlisted for numerous awards including:
Festival Program Manager Amy Andrews, said she cannot wait to be part of the Saturday evening event where Michael will be sharing tales with us from his writing life including a research trip to the Ozarks in the US.
“What an entertaining evening it promises to be,” she said.
Early bird tickets are still available until 14 May.
The festival will bring together an exciting mix of authors, editors, publishers, and industry professionals, from all over Australia and within Livingstone Shire, to share their vast wealth of knowledge and passion.
The festival will have something for both readers and writers, young and not so young so don’t miss this chance to mix and mingle and workshop with famous authors and industry professionals. Check the website for the full program.
Dates: 2-4 June.
Location: Central Yeppoon.
For more information visit the website, www.capricorncoastwritersfestival.com