Pauline gives us the lowdown on a very special Story Cafe….
To tie in with Donna-Lisa Healy’s fantastic Telling It Like It Is: Women Crime Writers Photographic Exhibition, we were delighted to welcome Dr Jacky Collins (aka Dr Noir) to Story Cafe. Jacky is the Director of the Newcastle International Noir Festival, Lecturer in Spanish and Latin American Studies at Stirling University, and a regular interviewer of internationally acclaimed and emerging crime fiction authors at national and international events.
This was a great session! Dr Noir is an engaging, enthusiastic speaker, passionate about crime fiction which she feels has become an integral part of our culture, and is so good at involving her audience and encouraging responses from everyone. We agreed that we preferred our detectives to be flawed characters and that it was important that order be restored and justice served by the end of the story although in real life we know this isn’t always the case..
We then divided into 6 groups and after reading the chapter of our allocated novel, we discussed the main character – was it an attractive character, did we want to find out more, find out what made them tick, their back story? After the break each group reported back on their conclusions which led to a more general discussion of character and themes in crime fiction.
The session finished with Christie J Newport reading from her debut novel, Ravens Mark. Finally Dr Noir thanked us for sharing our thoughts and ideas, and encouraged us to “enjoy our crime fiction reading”. We all thanked her with very warm applause for such a thought provoking, interactive and stimulating Story Cafe.
The books discussed in our groups, kindly donated by Jacky, are available for loan from GWL
Toxic by Jackie McLean
Raven Black by Ann Cleeves
The Bleeding by Johana Gustawsson
Cold as Hell by Lilja Sigurdardottir
The Binding Room by Nadine Matheson
Deadly Deceit by Mari Hannah
Ravens Mark by Christie J Newport
If this has piqued your interest, why not check out Dr Noir’s ‘author consultations’, “The Doctor will see you now” on Newcastle Noir…
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