Ashley Kalagian Blunt is the number one bestselling author of Dark Mode, which was released in multiple territories and languages and shortlisted for the 2024 Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Novel, the ABIA General Fiction Book of the Year and the Danger Award for Best Crime Debut. Her latest thrillers are Cold Truth, which was also shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Novel, and Like, Follow, Die. We asked Ashley about the importance of receiving writing feedback, the industry guests who will be joining her for Writing Crime Fiction, and how she balances accuracy with creativity in her own crime writing.
FWA: What first drew you to writing crime fiction, and how has your approach to writing the genre evolved over your career?
AKB: I was a teen in the heyday of legal thrillers, so of course I got addicted to John Grisham. I’ve been a devotee of the genre ever since, but didn’t initially start writing it. I didn’t think I knew enough about police investigations, legal procedure or forensics.
But as my writing skills developed and my hours invested in true crime podcasts racked up, I decided to simply try writing a crime novel as an experiment. If it didn’t work, I’d go back to nonfiction.
To my great joy I discovered that I loved it. Now I’m writing my fourth thriller. I aim to make each book more gripping and am working on packing in more twists. All of my thrillers draw on real-world issues, especially cybercrime, but my foremost goal is to make them hard for readers to put down – so more readers will pick them up.
FWA: Many writers have a great crime idea but struggle to turn it into a fully realised story. What are some of the tools or frameworks you will teach students to help them structure and strengthen their work to shape it into a compelling, page-turning narrative?
AKB: Before my first book came out in 2019, I spent nearly twenty years trying to learn to write – and I have four unpublished manuscripts to show for it. I learned everything I know the very hard way, and love to help writers understand the techniques and strategies that helped me become a number one bestseller, with international publication and books translated into multiple languages. A few of those strategies are around understanding the components of narrative drive, as well as the elements of scene structure. These are important for any narrative work, fiction or nonfiction, but they’re essential in crime writing. We’re going to delve deep into them across the eight weeks of the course.
FWA: You’ll be workshopping students’ scenes in class — what do you hope participants gain from that experience, and why is feedback important at this stage of their writing?
AKB: The thing about writing is that you as the writer invest a lot of time going from a blank page to your work in progress. With all that time and energy, you vividly see the scene in your mind and feel its emotional beats – even if those details aren’t all on the page yet. Receiving feedback is a great way to find out how your scene is landing with readers, what’s missing or unclear, and how you can strengthen it, so your readers can experience it as powerfully as you do.
Giving feedback might feel like time away from your writing, but I’d argue it’s one of the best investments in terms of learning to improve. (It’s no coincidence that my first published books were the first ones I workshopped after joining a writers’ group. I’m still in that group, eleven years later, giving and receiving monthly feedback.) This is because it’s far easier to see what’s working and not working in someone else’s draft writing. Taking time to analyse that and give objective, informed feedback will greatly help you sharpen your own writing.
FWA: The course includes sessions on researching realistic crime elements. How do you balance accuracy with creativity in your own work?
AKB: Every crime author needs to figure out their own approach to this. Real-world police work, for example, is increasingly bureaucratic. Portraying the actual reality of much of the work wouldn’t make for compelling fiction. At the same time, writing that feels believable to readers is more immersive. I balance this by researching specific details necessary to drive the story while never allowing myself to get bogged down in technicalities.
FWA: We’re excited to see the industry guests you’ve invited to join you for Writing Crime Fiction. Can you tell us about them?
AKB: First of all, we’ve got publisher Roberta Ivers from HarperCollins, who’s going to give us insights into the current crime market, the publishing process, and the best ways to catch a publisher’s eye with your crime manuscript.
Then we’ve got two sensational Australian crime authors who’ll be speaking to us about their process and answering all our questions. International superstar Sulari Gentill has been published in Australia, the UK and the US, and in translation in more than a dozen territories. She’s the author of the multi-award-winning Rowland Sinclair Mysteries. The first in this ten-book series was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the second won the Davitt Award. Her metafictional mystery After She Wrote Him won the Ned Kelly Award, The Woman in the Library was a USA Today Bestseller, and The Mystery Writer won the 2025 Mary Higgins Clark Award.
Our second author guest speaker is Sarah Bailey. Her internationally award-winning Gemma Woodstock series includes The Dark Lake, published in 2017 and winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction and the Davitt Award for Best Debut, followed by Into the Night, Where the Dead Go, and Body of Lies. Sarah has also published the bestselling The Housemate and Audible original Final Act. Her latest novel is Click.
FWA: For writers who are nervous about starting or finishing a crime project, what’s one piece of encouragement or practical advice you’d offer before they begin the course?
AKB: I treat every writing project as an experiment. This helps take the pressure off. I’m not worrying (as much) about trying to ‘get it right’, ‘get a publishing contract’, etc. Each manuscript is like my own little science experiment – what if I add a few more red herrings? How does that affect the pace? What if I throw in a dark web hitman for hire? What happens then? Writing is rewriting, creativity is iterative and unless you’re Lee Child, there’s no way to nail your story in the first draft. It can be frustrating, but also – when you figure out that big twist, when you craft the perfect scene – deeply rewarding.
Writing Crime Fiction
with Ashley Kalagian Blunt
ONLINE
12 May – 30 June 2026
Tuesday evenings, 6:30pm – 8:30pm (AEST)