Festival Panel Appearance: Lucy Sussex in conversation

Disappearances. Secrets. Escapes. Flights of fancy. Hidden histories and historical mysteries. 

Through fact and fiction, three authors bring us a spectacular cast of spirited women. In Miss Caroline Bingley, Private Detective, Kelly Gardiner (with co-author Sharmini Kumar) re-imagines Jane Austen’s heroine as a sharp-minded sleuth seeking out a missing maid. Lucy Sussex (with co-author Megan Brown) gives us the hitherto little-known story of Australia’s first female crime writer, Mary Fortune, and her career-criminal son in Outrageous Fortunes. Novelist Tara Calaby weaves a speculative romance amid the concealed cabinets and slippery sceances in 19th century Melbourne in The Spirit Circle.  With host, La Trobe University’s, Stephanie Downes.