Susan Wyndham and Ed Wright put arguments for and against Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn (or maybe that should be "against and for" given the order of the authors). Personally, I was "for" it.
Justine Larbelestier gets cranky: "Ever since I [became] a YA writer I have been hearing certain people accusing me and my colleagues of writing books solely for the sake of being as dark/bleak/shocking/perverted/[insert your own personal bugbear in adjectival form here]. 'Why did you have to put x into your book?' is a question that almost all of us seem to hear at one time or another. "It drives me nuts."
ABC TV is picking up on the crime fiction buzz by producing a special book program titled Jennifer Byrne Presents Crime. Not many details as yet but the program will air on ABC 1 on Tuesday 11th March at 10:00pm, and be repeated on ABC 2 on Sunday 16th March at 7:00pm. ABC TV is pretty good at making videos of these programs available on the web for viewing after the event. I'll keep an eye out for it. [Thanks to the AustCrime weblog for the link.]
