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McDermid and Horowitz join Noirwich Crime Fest's 'killer' line-up
Val McDermid, Anthony Horowitz and Martina Cole have been confirmed on the killer line-up for the fourth Noirwich Crime Writing Festival.
Other crime writers turning out for the event include authors Mark Billingham, Stuart McBride, and Swedish author, literary critic and academic Arne Dahl. He will be giving a special guest lecture at UEA, sponsored by The Times/ Sunday Times Crime Club, to explore how crime fiction can make sense of today’s turbulent geopolitical times.
The festival, which takes place 14th - 17th September 2017, claims to be the fastest growing crime festival in the UK and is the result of a partnership between Writers’ Centre Norwich and the University of East Anglia (UEA). It is also part of a city-wide celebration of events and fringe activities in the UK’s first UNESCO City of Literature.
Writer workshops will be held at UEA with Mel McGrath, Laura Wilson and Stav Sherez. And visitors to UEA events will receive access to an exhibition of original manuscript material from "key" crime writers, curated by the British Archive for Contemporary Writing.
Putting the "noir" in Noirwich, there will be two focus panels on "Dark Shores" and "Grime Noir" to explore the darker side of crime. The festival will also collaborate with Killer Women, a collective of women crime writers in London, for a panel focussing on female characters and writers of crime fiction. Other panels will explore new and international crime writing.
Christopher Brookmyre, who last month scooped the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award for his novel Black Widow (Little, Brown), will team up with Billingham to offer "light-hearted insight into the writer life" for "Stand Up at the Bar", during which the festival warns attendees to expect "swearing, angry reader letters, nightmarish personal appearances and backstage shenanigans".
The festival will put on a musical interpretation of Derek Raymond’s novel, I Was Dora Suarez, from Terry Edwards and Cathi Unsworth as well and a special screening of gothic crime drama "Real Gods Require Blood", which film was chosen as Critics Choice at the Cannes Film Festival.
Drawing on its setting as a site of significant cultural heritage, between panels visitors are encouraged to follow the city’s crime and punishment walking tour, stay at Agatha Christie’s favourite hotel, browse one of Margaret Attwood’s favourite bookshops, The Book Hive, join the Noirwich pub quiz or take a trip to the dungeons at the medieval Norwich castle.
