Discover author Dinuka McKenzie, who deftly departs from traditional detective tropes
Image Caption: Dinuka McKenze | Photo credit: Emma Stergio
Join prize-winning Australian crime fiction novelist Dinuka McKenzie at Castle Hill Library as she talks abouts crime writing with author Chris Hammer, along with a discussion about their books and more. Dinuka is the author of the thrilling Detective Kate Miles crime fiction series.
Ahead of the show, we asked Dinuka a few questions about her writing process, the burgeoning bush noir subgenre, and parenthood both in fiction and real life.
See the interview below:
You have said before that writing helped you during a period when you felt overwhelmed with new parenthood. How does the process of writing help you reconnect with yourself? Is writing something you have always done, or did it come to you later in your life?
While writing was a large part of my professional life as an environmental planner, I fell into creative writing much later in life when I became a parent and found myself craving something entirely for myself, beyond my roles as a mother, partner, or employee. In creative writing, I found a way to escape from and process the world around me through fiction. It's no accident that the character that turned up on the page, Detective Kate Miles, is a mother navigating the competing demands of her career and family, thereby processing the experiences I was going through at the time. At the same time, the character is a police officer, as far away from my everyday life as I could imagine, and therefore, a welcome escape into a fictional world.
What does a typical day of writing look like for you?
I am very fortunate that I have been able to move into writing full-time. I write while the kids are at school unless I am on deadline, in which case it's whenever and wherever I can spare the time, evenings, weekends, and around event commitments. On a good day, I'll usually get 3-4 solid hours of writing down after school drop-off before I have to turn my attention to other tasks, including writer admin around upcoming events, workshops or publicity activities and the inevitable household chores.
Before becoming an author, you worked in the environmental sector. How do you incorporate your passion for the environment in your novels?
As a writer, I think it is inevitable that the issues you're interested in leach into your fiction in some way, big or small. Though my books don't expressly deal with environmental themes, threads around landscape, the natural world and anxieties around climate change do appear in my fiction because these issues are on my mind. In the same way, other contemporary concerns that I care about and spend time thinking about (e.g. gendered violence, what we owe to community versus ourselves, policing culture, the impact of technology on our lives, etc) have made their way into my fiction and are explored in my novels The Torrent, Taken and Tipping Point.
Whilst outback/ bush noir is a burgeoning subgenre, there is nothing new about setting crime fiction in the bush (e.g. stories of bushrangers, escaped convicts, crimes during the gold rush). What is unique and new about your writing that sets it apart from the long and well-established genre of Australian crime fiction?
Australian crime fiction and rural noir are having a moment. The international success of authors including Jane Harper, Chris Hammer, Benjamin Stevenson, and Hayley Scrivenor demonstrate that crime audiences are genuinely interested in stories set in Australia. Streaming services have done their part in opening up an Australia beyond the outback to international audiences, allowing writers the flexibility of locating their stories in all parts of the country, from the coastal fringe to the tropical north and everywhere in between.
My Detective Kate Miles series, set in the northern rivers region of New South Wales, is a case in point. The series takes on the familiar police procedural and rural noir genre from the unique perspective of a female detective navigating work and motherhood in a landscape outside of the usual outback scenario. The setting of my novels is in the sub-tropical north, which is characterised by lush greenery, rolling hills, national parks, rural-agricultural land use, tourism, and regional towns within an hour of the coast. It's a setting that's probably more familiar to most Australians living in towns and cities along the coastal hinterland than the outback. For overseas readers, it provides a different glimpse of Australian life and its diversity of landscapes.
We often see crime fiction follow the male detective who is single, childless, or in a broken relationship. What inspired you to centre your story on Kate Miles and showcase her nuance and depth as a mother, wife, and detective?
When I first started working on a manuscript, which many years later would become The Torrent, the first in my Detective Kate Miles series, I was looking after two little people and juggling a career and parenthood. I wanted to see that experience reflected in my lead character. I wondered, what that juggle would look like for a female police officer, who had to deal with some of the most vulnerable and marginalised people in society, and then come home to Lego and playdough.
I was interested in going beyond the single male detective trope, in which kids and families very rarely rated an appearance. In the Kate Miles series, all parts of her life – work and parenthood – and the daily challenges of each, are front and centre. Kate is unapologetically committed to her career, a hard-won professional achievement that she has no intention of losing with the arrival of parenthood, just as the vast majority of men in an equivalent position would not be expected to. Likewise, she is not a female siren or super cop. Rather she is an everyday woman, instantly recognisable and relatable. In writing Kate, I wanted to reflect the version of women I see everywhere around me: professionally competent, juggling multiple commitments, and doing their best across multiple roles. Mother, partner, daughter, employee, colleague, sister, friend.
You have said that you make an active effort to read books from First Nations writers as you are interested in learning about Australia from an Indigenous perspective. How do you navigate incorporating First Nations voices into your writing and in doing so, give a voice to those who have been silenced and misrepresented throughout history.
I made an active decision to read more work from First Nations authors because a few years ago, I realised that there was a gap in my bookshelves on that score. I think, as readers, it is important to interrogate our own reading habits from time to time to see the gaps in the authors and voices dominating our shelves and work on broadening our literary horizons and views of the world.
To date my own writing has focused on taking on the crime genre from the perspective of a woman of South Asian heritage based on my own Sri Lankan background, and from the viewpoint of a mother navigating her family and career in a male-dominated profession. For readers interested in crime books written from an Indigenous perspective, which interrogate justice, prevailing policy, and the ongoing legacy of colonisation on First Nations communities, I would recommend seeking out crime titles such as:
- Madukka: The River Serpent by Burruberongal writer of the Darug Nation, Julie Janson,
- Better the Blood and its follow-up Return to Blood by Māori author Michael Bennett (Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāti Whakaue), and
- Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden of the Sicangu Lakota Nation.
In terms of navigating writing in this space, the Australian Society of Authors provides guidance for writers seeking to engage with First Nations culture in their work including links to industry resources such as: More than Words: Writing, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture and Copyright in Australia (Terri Janke and Company, 2021) and The Protocols for using First Nations Cultural and Intellectual Property in the Arts (Australia Council for the Arts, 2019). These resources detail what writers need to think about when considering indigenous cultural and intellectual property, depicting First Nations issues and characters respectfully, and best practice protocols for consultation and consent.
To read Dinuka's bestsellers, visit one of The Hills Shire libraries or browse the library catalogue at www.thehills.nsw.gov.au/library
Tickets are $10 per person.
To book your place, visit: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/chris-hammer-in-conversation-with-dinuka-mckenzie-tickets-964707795987?aff=oddtdtcreator
When: September 30 July 6:30pm to 7:30pm
Where: Castle Hill Library, 14 Pennant St, Castle Hill
