 When Peter Corris passed away in August this year, we were heartbroken here at SMSA. Not only was Peter Australia’s acknowledged ‘Godfather of Crime’ and a favourite of our Mystery & Crime fans, he had been a member of the SMSA for many years before his eyesight and illness prohibited him. Peter had an extensive writing career over 40 years, but was best known for his Cliff Hardy series that, at 52 books, was the longest Australian publishing series of its kind. His last novel, published in 2017, was also a Cliff Hardy novel, Win, Lose or Draw. Peter also wrote collaborative biographies with Philip Nitschke, Fred Hollows, John Sinclair and Ray Barrett and an autobiography. Peter was awarded the Ned Kelly Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1999.
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 Philip Kerr wrote both fiction and non-fiction, but is best known for his Bernie Gunther series of historical thrillers set in German and elsewhere during the 1930s, the Second World War, and the Cold War. Born in Edinburgh in 1956, Kerr also authored childrens’ books, in the Children of the Lamp series, under the name P B Kerr. In 2009, Kerr’s If the Dead Rise Not won the world’s most lucrative crime fiction award, the RBA Prize for Crime Writing, as well as Ellis Peters Historic Crime Award.
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 Peter Mayle was noted for his 1989 best seller, A Year in Provence, was named Best Travel Book of the Year by the British Book Awards. He was awarded and Author of the Year in 1992. Mayle wrote several other books on Provence, and several novels including the Caper series, the last of which The Diamond Caper was published in 2015.
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 A celebrated and prolific author, Le Guin was best known for her Earthsea series, the third novel of which, The Farthest Shore, won her the National Book Award in children’s literature. Le Guin was also highly regarded for the extensive Hainish Cycle consisting of loosely connected science fiction novels and stories incuding the ground-breaking novels The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) and The Dispossessed (1974) which won both the Hugo and the Nebula prizes. Le Guin received many honours during her career including the World Fantasy award for lifetime achievement and the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and was made a “grand master” of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. In 2016, The New York Times described her as “America’s greatest living science fiction writer” and she joined the short list of authors to be published in their lifetimes by the Library of America.
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 In his obiturary in May 2018, the New York Times called Roth “a pre-eminent figure in 20th-century literature”.. Best known for Portnoy’s Complaint (1969), American Pastoral (1997) and The Human Stain (2000), Roth’s prolific fiction was often set in his birthplace Newark, New Jersey and revolves around semi-autobiographical themes. Roth’s first book Goodbye Columbus won the National Book award in 1960. Roth was awarded a number of top honors during his career: two National Book Awards, two National Book Critics Circle awards, three PEN/Faulkner Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Man Booker International Prize.
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 An high-school teacher and journalist before turning to writing fiction full time,Shreve was the author of 18 novels. She is best known for the international bestsellers The Pilot’s Wife, The Weight of the Water and Stars are Fire. She became hugely popular after Oprah Winfrey featured The Pilot’s Wife for Oprah’s Book Club.
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 Peter Temple was the first Australian writer to win the Gold Dagger from the UK’s Crime Writers’ Association for The Broken Shore in 2007. He was also the first crime writer to win the Miles Franklin Award with Truth in 2010. Temple also won five Ned Kelly awards, the first of which he won in 1997 for his first book in the Jack Irish series, Bad Debts.
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 Known for her sweeping, dramatic style, the best-selling British author published her first book, Old Sins, in 1989 and produced 17 novels and two short story collections. Vincenzi’s best known novels include A Question of Trust, A Perfect Heritage and The Decision.
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SMSA (Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts)