🎙️ Live from the Sunshine Coast Fiction Festival: A Conversation with Candice Fox

In this special episode, Sarah Williams sits down with bestselling crime author Candice Fox for a lively, laugh-filled, and deeply insightful conversation recorded live at the Sunshine Coast Fiction Festival.

Candice opens up about her writing process, her partnership with James Patterson, and what it really takes to build a successful career in crime fiction.

🔍 In this episode, you’ll hear:

• How Candice landed her co-writing gig with James Patterson

• The unexpected realities of working with a global publishing icon

• Why research can sometimes lead to the weirdest places

• Her thoughts on impostor syndrome, confidence, and creative risk

• Hilarious behind-the-scenes moments from her crime-writing career

Whether you’re a fiction writer, a fan of Candice’s work, or just love a great story—you’ll find so much to enjoy and learn from in this chat.

Thank you everyone. Candice, hello, welcome to the Sunshine Coast.

Hi, thanks for having me. Best entry music ever. I don't get entry music a lot, but that was just perfect. I think I'm going to insist on it from now on.

Alright, so why did you decide to write crime of all genres? What drew you to crime? You know, I was pretty serious about writing...

You as a teenager, you know, if you ask my mother, she'll say I was flouncing around the house at 12 years old saying I just can't work like this. I need my own laptop. I was writing and submitting novels as an 18 year old. My first few novels were all vampires and werewolves though, which is a very difficult genre to get into.

And I was taking classes and people were hammering me with this write what you know type of thing. And I really didn't know the settings for these novels. was thinking I got to set it in New York, I got to set it in Paris because that's where these mysterious things happen. But there was a lot of crime in my life growing up. My mother had four kids and then she adopted two and then she fostered 155 kids as I was growing up.

And so every single one of those kids came with their own crime story. And she's not a very subtle woman, so she was telling us all these crime stories. You know, she was saying, this kid's parents have been arrested for armed robbery. Let's go and let's do a drive-by and have a look at the bank they tried to rob. my dad was also a prison officer for 30 years in Sydney prison, so he was coming home with all of his work stories.

Because the house is just infested with kids. They're not keeping their conversations very subtle. They're just sitting there talking. So I remember as a kid being able to squeeze in between dad's leather recliner and where mum used to sit on the end of the couch and I'd hear his work stories about who'd killed who in the prison or this new celebrity inmate who was coming in and all this. So I had all of those crime stories.

And I can remember being a teenager and my mother loading us all into the... We didn't have a family car, obviously. We had up to 12 kids at a time. So we had a minibus and she's loading us all into the minibus and we'd drive down to visit her friends and then on the way back she'd stop by the Belangolo and, you know, driving into the Belangolo forest at...

at night in the middle of the night and she's saying, and now this is where the backpackers would have started to get really nervous. And she'd drive us in there and she'd, I think I can, I just need to stop the van and turn all the lights off. I just need to check something and try to scare the crap out of us all. She's someone who's fascinated by crime in a voyeuristic manner. And so, I just absorbed that and I put it into my writing.

And from novel five onwards, I thought I would try crime. And it was novel five that got through. Yeah. So it sounds like a pretty traumatizing childhood, really. I've had a lot of therapy. I started ringing the kids' helpline at 12 years old to talk through what, you know, like to process what I was going through in that household. And I've consistently had therapy, you know, since I was 12. And...

It's funny because every now and then I've moved, I've moved a lot in my life and I've had to get a new therapist and they spend that whole first one or two sessions going, what? And then what happened, what and why? And I've actually made spreadsheets and been like, okay, so they're divorced, this is their kid, she's in jail, this and that, you know, and for a new therapist.

What?

So yes, but it makes for a great career in crime writing, you know. does, oh my gosh. So what comes first, is it plot or characters? Oh, for me, it's either or. You know, I'm working on my 22nd novel at the moment, and that's really a, it's really a question that I'm asking of a particular character. So the one I'm working on right now,

That's not gonna be out until 2027, because I'm a little bit ahead. And I wanna ask this question. You're supposed to be ride or die for your child, right? It doesn't matter what they've done or what, you know. And I have a six year old and I say to Violet all the time, there's nothing you could ever do that would make me not love you. And there's no problem that you could ever have. They wouldn't be right here to solve with you. But this mother in this book,

her daughter has murdered someone. So I'm like, does that rule apply? Like, whose loyalty are you supposed to be with when you find out your own kid is a killer? So for me, that's a character study that I'm doing. But things like my latest novel, the latest novel that's come out, Highwires, I've got it for sale there. That was a concept. That was a plot problem. I had this idea about this.

outback track that makes a beeline across Australia and really only bad people know about it. So drug dealers and serial killers and you know drug smugglers and and and that kind of thing. There's this secret track and I was thinking what if you were the cop who was in charge of that slab of empty outback that has this really dangerous road running through it.

and what kind of things might happen on that road, who would be travelling on that road and why? And that's a novel that came out of plot and I added the characters to it. I added a character in there, her name is Edna, she's an outback cop and she came straight out of my life because I do animal rescue. I'm a prolific animal rescuer because I love the adrenaline, I love grabbing wild animals. I know it's weird but it's addictive.

And I have this bird coordinator. And she manages all the birds that I rescue for wires in my area. And she's this tiny little lady. And she's 75 years old. And she'd be 45 kilos, dripping wet. And she springs out of the back of this van that's full of these dangerous birds. And she's like, Candice, what have you got for me? You know? And I'm like, here, I've got this owl. You know? And she's just insatiable.

She's there in the middle of the night releasing these birds. I have seen her, I went to a job with her and there was a tiny peach-faced parrot in a chimney. We didn't know what bird it was in the chimney, but she's stuffing her hand up there trying to grab this bird and this bird came out and it flew and these birds, I don't know if you're familiar with peach-faced parrots, but if anything is gonna bite you.

You know, just for no reason. Really hard. It's them. They are bitey and they are fast as grease lightning. And it came out of the chimney and she snatched it out of the air like Harry Potter with the golden snitch. And I point to her with violet all the time and I say, isn't, her name's June, I say, isn't June an amazing woman? What an amazing woman. This is what you can be like when you're 75. You know, this is what you're capable of is being like.

What a hero as a role model. And so I wrote Highwire and I wrote the character of Edna based on June. Yeah, and then I gave her the book. I let her read it without telling her. And then she came and she goes, I loved you. I loved your latest one. I love that, Edna. You know, she's a woman after my own heart. And I said, you know what? Funny story.

That's actually you, yeah. Do you write about people you know fairly often? No, I don't. Like, I don't do it a lot. And I don't do it in a very obvious way when I do do it. It's gotten me into almost trouble territory before. I had this crew of builders at my house and they were building a deck in my backyard. And these four guys, they just oozed with criminality. They were very...

dodgy sounding, dodgy looking, dodgy acting. And I didn't know them, I just picked them off the internet and they're building a deck. And I just was fascinated by them. And my husband Tim said to me, every time I turn around you're out there talking to those builders, you are costing us money. And I said.

These guys are gonna make me money. Just let me, it's research. I don't know how, but I'm gonna use them somehow in a novel. And so I wrote these four guys. Originally I pitched it to my agent and I said, I wanna write this book about these builders. But Gabby is a very posh agent from Bronte in Sydney. And she said, I hate to break it to you, Candice. She talks like this.

But people don't find builders terribly intriguing. Frankly, these men sound awful. I don't know why you didn't use my builder, Pierre. And I was like, okay. What if it wasn't builders? What if it was something, you know, I said, what about firemen? And she goes, firemen, that's far more appealing. I know a fireman actually, you know, and all this.

So I took the four guys from my backyard and I used them as the characters and then I went, I ended up setting the book in New York. So I went to New York and I met a bunch of firefighters. So in a sense, character wise, I used this, I modeled it off these four guys, but I used the skills and knowledge that I knew from the other guys in New York and I fitted them in. And it was funny because,

I was talking to a friend of mine and she said, this is gonna be a really weird question if you didn't do this, but your latest novel, did you put anyone you know in there? And I said, maybe, why? And she said, well I know this woman and her husband is a builder. And she was reading this book going, I swear to God, Matt, that's you. It's a fireman from New York, but I swear to God, it's you. And I was like, no.

Does he happen to be from this building company? And she was like, yes. And I was like, no.

Anyway.

Matt still had my number and I'd ignored it for ages but then I get this text from Matt going, my wife's really enjoying your new book. And I was like yeah so it almost got me in trouble. Luckily he was one of the, I mean none of them are good people but he was one of the better bad people. you

How do you actually separate your fictional world from reality? You said you were using these people as inspiration. Are you just constantly going, you could be a murderer, you could be a criminal? Are you looking for clues everywhere? Yeah, it's not so much clues. really love, for example, I love the way that people talk. And I love dialogue. And people have said, I love your dialogue because it sounds so real.

And I love little idiosyncrasies that people have. For example, I have another animal rescue friend and she's a possum expert. So I've had to call her a bunch of times for advice to say, possum is doing this, what does that mean? And so I've done over 600 animal rescues for wires and I've done almost all of them with my daughter Violet in tow. And she's like, we've been rescuing together since she was two.

Well, she's now six. So in four years, we've done 600 rescues together. Violet, whenever I'm calling for advice, I'm calling Cathy for advice about a possum. Violet's like, put it on speaker, put it on speaker. And I say to Violet, I'll put it on speaker, but you've got to let me talk to Cathy. And she goes, is it the Cathy that talks a lot? And I go, yes, it's that one. She goes, why? Because I need to ask her this question. So you just shush.

Violet's back there in her safety seat. And I'm talking to Cathy, and she, one of her verbal tics, which I love, she repeats herself a lot, but she always says, as I said, and she says, as I said, really quickly, like it all slurs together. So she'll go, you know, because possums, ring-tailed possums, they try to live up high. As I said,

They really, and as I said, and it's a little thing, and whenever there's an L-Y word, she breaks it into parts. So she'll say, as I said, technically, you're not supposed to do this, and actually, you know, and I just love those two verbal ticks from her are just so, they make her sound really flustered, really.

fuddy-duddy really and she is like it says everything that you need to know about her character is that she goes round and round and she's kind of bumbly and she's adorable she's an adorable person and and and a lot of writing is show don't tell so rather than if I'm writing an adorable character who's a bit flustered and a bit fuddy-duddy I'm not gonna say to you as the reader

She's a bit flustered and fuddy-duddy. I'm gonna have her talk in this really annoying way where she links all the words together and breaks them up. Violet can't stand her. She goes, the Cathy that talks a lot. know, yeah. that's gorgeous. How do you research your novels? I have done all sorts of crazy stuff for research and to be honest, it...

It's things that I would have done anyway, just because I'm weird. But people say, you know, oh, she's a crime writer. And they go, oh, that's why she met a serial killer. Or that's why, you know. So, whenever I'm talking to cops, I see cops around. I used to work in a tattoo shop before I... Well, I was writing, but I wasn't making enough money to live on it. And then I was in this tattoo shop in the King's Cross and...

The tattoo industry is very transient. get different tattoo artists coming and going all the time and someone would inevitably hit the panic button under the desk accidentally and so the Darlinghurst Cop shop is just there and they'd come running across the street and we'd go, sorry, sorry, we hit the button and I'd always go, but tell me, what's going on? What's the latest thing? And they would tell me these stories.

And in 2019 I was living in LA and I watched a documentary on a serial killer named Laurence Bittica and it was one of the worst things I've, like I engage in a lot of true crime and it was one of the worst crimes that I've ever heard of in my entire life. It was awful. He was convicted with a, he and a friend were a killing partnership. He was convicted as a murders of five young ladies, young girls.

in LA in the late 70s and I believe it was a lot more than five. And so I went down this rabbit hole of researching Lawrence and I said to my husband, I'm thinking, you know, Lawrence is on death row in San Quentin, that's only an hour and a half from here. I'm thinking about writing to him and saying, you know, can I come visit you on death row? Because I have some questions, you know, about you being a serial killer and all.

And if he says, yes, I want to go visit. And Tim was like, you're going to love that. Have fun. He was like, that's super on brand. But I did that. I did that not without a novel, a specific novel in mind. I just had, at that time, I had written 12 full novels without ever having met a killer before. And I wanted to get into the mind, try to get into the mind.

of a killer. And so I did that. And so I wrote to Lawrence, I wrote a very straightforward letter because I thought this guy's just going to try and manipulate me. He'll be the Hannibal Lecter type who's full of like mind games. My counteracting of that is I'm going to be as straight down the line as possible. And in that first letter, essentially, I said, I am coming. And I'd like to speak to you. I'd like to ask you some questions, but please understand.

I don't want to try to be convinced that you didn't do this and that you didn't mean to do it and you know any of that stuff I'm coming without any sympathy for you at all I'm coming to understand the why you know because to me on the face of it it looks like you are a monster and I want to know if you are and if you are how did you get that way and he was like sure come along you know

else am I doing, you know? And yeah, and so I went. And I didn't realise that, and there was no forewarning, that when you go to Death Row, San Quentin, you get the visitor's handbook. And it's not a book, okay? It's an A4 sheet of paper divided into three columns. And the first column says, this is where you need to go and this is where you park.

And the second one says, this is what you can bring in and this is what you can wear. You know, don't wear an underwire bra, you know, because you'll be x-rayed and don't, you can only bring in notes, can't bring in coins and blah, blah. They slipped a little line in there in the second column which said, if you are taken hostage by an inmate, we will not negotiate with you. So no funny business, you know, linking up with your inmate to say, let's get you out. None of that. And then there was this like,

You know, I'll, um, if you need to make an appointment, blah, blah, blah, all this. And so I was like, oh, well, I'll get there and it'll be, this guy's a violent serial killer. So it'll be like the glass with the phone. I got there, I went through all the levels of security. I was barked out by several guards and x-rayed and all that kind of thing. I go in and it says, death row. And they, they roll this thing out and I go in, they roll it shut behind me. And then nobody tells you what to do.

So I went up to this guard and I said, oh hi, he's standing there picking his nails, he's not really looking at anything. And I said, hi, my name's Candice, I have an eight o'clock appointment to visit an inmate. I don't know which window is mine with the phones. And he said, oh who's the inmate? And I said, Biddicott, the serial killer. And he said, oh yeah, Lawrence is gonna be in that cage there. And he pointed to this.

floor to ceiling steel cage with, it's like a shark cage, two metres by two metres, bulletproof glass around all around the inside. And I said, yeah, he's gonna be in there. Where am I gonna be? And the guard said, in there. And I said, at the same time? And he said, yes, at the same time. Did you not read the visitor's handbook? And I said, it's not a book.

It's an A4 sheet of paper and it said nothing about this and I was about to say I really don't know if I'm comfortable with this blah blah blah but they're bringing him out and I didn't want to be rude so they brought Lawrence out and he was cuffed and then they opened the cage and they chucked him in there's two plastic chairs in there and a table and they said alright in you get and so I got in and they shut

the cage door and I'm sitting there on a plastic chair and I'm watching them. They thread a padlock through the cage door and snap it shut and then Lawrence put his wrists through a slot at his side and they uncuffed him and then the guard walks away around a corner and I was like this is how I die. Yeah I didn't know that it would come to this but strangely fitting

this is gonna be great for promo. And then, you know, so I was nervous, obviously I'm spitting out all this stuff, I was like, well, thank you so much for seeing me and I like what you've done with the place, it's very industrial chic and it's a nice day outside and all this. And you know, I said, I'm a little bit surprised that this is happening and he said, what, this?

And I said, yes, with the, I thought there was gonna be, you know, and he goes, no, it's a full contact visit. You can, we can touch each other if you want. And I was like, and he put his hand out to shake my hand and I was like, thank God you specified what kind of touching you meant.

And I said, you know, I just, can't get my head around it. Full contact visit. And he said, yeah, you know, I said, what, I don't want to give you any ideas, but what would happen technically if you like lunged across the cage at me? And he goes, well, you know, see the row of cages, they've all got like a triangle cut out of the ceiling in every single cage. Yeah, so there's a rifle man up there. And if I do anything.

you know, he'll just shoot me. And I said, well I have a few problems with that because the bulletproof glass and the ricochet and like how is he going to make sure he gets you and not me and then and all this kind of stuff and Lawrence was like, Candice, I didn't design the system here. And I was like, oh, well fair enough, you're right, fair enough. I'm going on and on. He said, you don't need to worry. The only reason that I get full contact visits at all is because I've never heard anyone yet. I was like...

I'm sorry, yet? You know, but anyway, so we were in there for five and a half hours and I got to ask a serial killer everything that I ever wanted to ask him. And it really turned my mind around about serial killers because, and I've met a few since and they're all the same, and they're not the Hannibal Lecter type who owns their crimes, you know, this genius, almost supernatural levels of...

Evil genius. They're just loathsome horrible slimy men who have no regard for their victims. They have no it's just all me me me a poor old me. I'm in a cage 23 hours a day. I'm depressed Would you like to be my girlfriend? You know, you want to be girlfriend number five? I've already got you know, he was doing his hair

You can see his reflection in the bulletproof glass behind me. He's doing his hair. I'm like, Laurence, you're a 77-year-old serial killer. I don't know who you're warming yourself up for here, but it's not, you know, I'm married and I told you in the initial letter that this is not romantic and... Yeah. So now I write more about people, normal people who kill and not so much the psychopaths. Yeah. Have you ever witnessed... an execution? No. What a random question. I was just thinking you might have followed it up and then been there. You I have looked into it actually. So you can go and volunteer to be a witness for an execution because executions in the US need a certain amount of attendees but you have to be a US citizen in order or a family member.

or law enforcement or whatever to witness one. So that was a really random question, but of course I've looked into it. Like you were like, of course she's looked into it. I would be very interested in that. I'm up for anything really. And it's because you get things when you research that you couldn't possibly make up. For the firefighter novel, Devil's Kitchen, I went to New York.

and I tracked down some firefighters. Initially I had to go from firehouse to firehouse to firehouse, walking around the streets of New York, bursting in and saying, you know, I'm a novelist, will anyone speak to me? And the answer was no, no, no, no, constantly. Finally I found a crew of guys who would speak to me. One guy said, I'll get you in with my firehouse crew. And I said, what can I do to win them over? He said, they might.

you know, they might be a bit edgy. I said, what can I do? He said, bring them cake. So I went to the best, the best bakery I could find in New York and I got all the cake and I rocked up with two handfuls of boxes of cake. I was like, guys, talk to me. And so I had these 10 firefighters at this table at this firehouse and I said to them,

you know, tell me the most disgusting story you've ever heard. You know, tell me the wildest fire, the stupidest fire you've ever had. And they're just reeling out this amazing stuff and trying to one up each other. But the best thing they said, I said, tell me the worst firefighter you've ever worked with. And they all looked at each other and it was unanimous. They said, it's gotta be Nick the Dick, right? And they all went, yeah, Nick the Dick. I said, Nick the Dick? That is...

that is great nicknaming that you have there, very inventive. Is he well endowed or is he just a dickhead? And they all went, that was kind of a bit of both actually. And I said, why is he such a dick? They said, on day one of joining the firehouse, this guy walks in and he goes straight through the engine bays, through the sleeping area, into the kitchen area at the back of the firehouse.

He hasn't spoken to anyone, this is day one. He opens a cupboard, he pulls down a mug. He doesn't check whose mug it is or anything like that. He just smashes the handle off on the counter. And then he gets another mug and he smashes the handle off. And the guys come up to him and they go, buddy, what the hell are you doing? And he said, I just joined here today, this morning. And so...

I'm making sure that I'm working with the right people, you know, because if your coffee mug is too hot for you to hold without a little handle on the side, then I don't want to go into a burning building with you. And I was like, my God, what a dick. That's amazing. I can see Nick the Dick at this point in my mind. He's like a Joe Pesci style character.

He's short and aggressive and he's got douchey hair and he just, he's one of those guys that, know, Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, they said he brings a gun to a knife fight, you know, and I couldn't have made that up. I couldn't have made that up. I had to go there to New York, meet these guys, get that story and put it in the novel.

That's incredible. James Patterson, give us all the goss. How did that all start, the co-writing, what's he like? Well, he's great. We've written nine novels together, so I wouldn't do anything with someone nine times if I didn't enjoy it. We met for the first time at a cocktail party in Australia. He was out here promoting a novel.

And I didn't know that he was in the market for a new collaborator. But I had put my cheeky feelers out to my agent, my publisher, and I said, you know, what does a person have to do? I was young and hungry. I was three books in and trying to make a name for myself, elbowing my way into the genre. And she said, you know, there'll be a few people ahead of you to be put up for something like that. And I was like, well, you know.

If they all die and I'm the only one left over, know, who can say how that would happen? Anyway, I went to the party and he was leading. James Patterson is like the Brad Pitt of the authoring world. I've been on tour with him in the US and he comes down the aisle and he's high fiving people and this kind of thing. And he comes in and he's got an entourage and...

I know that at this party he's only going to be introduced to the important people. He's going to be introduced to that guy as the head of publishing, that guy's the head of marketing, that guy's this, that. He's not going to be led around to me, I'm to have to go over. And I said to the people I was standing with, I'm going to go over there. And they're saying, you can't just go over there. One does not go over to James Patterson. I was like, watch me. So I went over, I tapped him on the shoulder and I said, James,

My name's Candice, I'm a writer too. I love your work. I read Kiss the Girls when I was 12 years old and it absolutely changed, like blew my mind and blah blah blah, all this. And he said, wow, that's really inappropriate. What was your mother doing when you were reading Kiss the Girls at 12 years old, you know? And I was like, mate, we don't have time. so, just chatting, chatting, chatting. And I think that James...

I think that he fancies himself a bit of a scrapper. You know, he came from nothing. And I've got this terrible Bogan accent from growing up in Western Sydney. So I think that he kind of got the sense that I was a scrapper as well and someone who's young and hungry. And we just really liked each other at the party. But my publisher was watching. Probably because someone had said, what's Candice Fox doing over there talking to James Patterson? But she was watching and she was saying to herself, you know, they...

They get on and that's half the battle, isn't it? So she was going to give him a book pack to say these are our top line authors or whatever. And so she slipped my book into that pack just as an experiment. And then turns out he picked that one to read on the plane home to Florida. And then he said, and I said to him afterwards, said, did you remember me from the party? And he's like, of course I did.

But I think he probably didn't. I mean, he would have met 150 people that day, you know. But yeah, we just get on really well. And we write the novels together. You know, he's very over the top with the management. He's over my shoulder all the time. It's a bit of a stressful experience writing with him because it's so managed. And what we're writing is a very specific product.

It's a James Patterson novel that, you know, so you'll write a chapter and you'll say, chapter needs to be less than a thousand words, because no James Patterson chapters are more than a thousand words. So you're writing a very specific product and he'll sit there and you'll say, no tattoos, no piercings, no graphic sex, not too much humor, of this, none of that, none of that, because this is what James Patterson readers want. And in some ways it's very assuring.

because I have this very experienced guy over my shoulder saying, this is going to work, this isn't. And we do lots of outlines together. So when I'm writing my own stuff, I'm just freewheeling and I'm like, is this good? I don't know, what's happening? Yeah, but in other ways, it's just very stressful. When I called his house for the first time ever, they said, call him, he wants to bounce some ideas about the next novel with you.

And I said, they said, call him at 10 o'clock your time. So I'm there and I've got my finger, I've got the number dialed in and I'm going three, two, one, dial. And I dialed his house. And you know, I know that I'm calling his $34 million French chateau style mansion on the beach on what they call Billionaire's Row in Palm Beach in Florida. That's where I'm calling from my house in northwest Sydney, you know, with kids stuff everywhere and whatever. So I called and it rings and I'm like I'm beating with sweat. And someone goes, hello. And I said, this is Candice Fox. I'm calling. I'm actually trying to get in touch with James Patterson. I was told to call at 10 o'clock and this is the number. It's the right number. He goes, it's me. Answer my own phone. I've been answering my own phone for years. I said also have I actually.

so good to talk to you, you know. So yeah, he's fun. He's a fun guy. We haven't written in a couple of years because, essentially because I'm writing these, I'm at the level now where I'm writing my own novel and I'm selling that to Hollywood every time I write a novel. I'm selling the film rights to it. And as a single author, I get 100 % of those film rights. Whereas when I work with James, I'm getting proportions of everything.

but we still are friends, we still catch up if I go to the US or whatever. It's a great relationship. Do you have any movies coming out soon? Well I hope so. My latest one, Highwire, which is for sale, I sold that to Ridley Scott who did Gladiator and Alien and Blade Runner and a whole bunch of other stuff.

And the novel that comes out in April, I sold that to a company called SK Global and they did Crazy Rich Asians and Hello High Water. I have other projects with Universal, MGM.

remember the others. Lionsgate, whatever. And if one of them goes off, it's gonna be great. But I sell the option and then I forget about it. Because Hollywood is full of that, we're gonna start filming in six months time and you go, wow, that's amazing. And then they go, we got held back by this or the funding or whatever. Or they say.

We're in talks with Ethan Hawke at the moment. Do you like Ethan Hawke? And I go, oh my God. And then I watch everything that Ethan Hawke's ever been in and they go, you know what? We got somebody better than him. We can't tell you who it is right now. And you go, it's just full of bullshit. really, and they know it too. They know that they're full of shit. So you're waiting till the red carpet moment. Yeah, I just, I never believe anything in Hollywood until the cameras are actually rolling.

That's when I believe it. When Thomas Jane was coming out to film Troppo, they had been telling me that they were going to make Crimson Lake into a TV show for eight years at this point. And every year when they re-optioned the novel, they were taking me to lunch and it started off as like, you know, down on the wharf, Sydney Harbour and this four, five hundred dollar lunch, you know, or I'm at LA and they take me to lunch.

and it's at Soho House and Jennifer Aniston is over there and this and it's members only at this place. After eight years, you know, the last lunch that they took me to before they made Troppo, it was at House of Pies in Anaheim. And I said to the producer, you know what, let me get this one. And so I never thought that it was gonna happen. And then they gave me... at Thomas Jane's number and because he was trying to promote, you know, and he was saying, we don't know how to say trapo, is it trapo? And I was like, no, it's tropo. And they're like, trapo. They're like, a tropical, trapo. You know, I'm on the phone to him. they, so they said, you know, he's flying out and we're gonna start filming on Monday. And I texted him and I said, are you?

really flying here? are you really gonna start texting on Monday? Like I'll start filming on Monday. Really though? And he was like, I'm at the airport. It's happening. And I was like, it's happening. You know? I didn't believe it. Even when it was happening, I didn't believe it. That's incredible. my gosh. I'm gonna throw it open to the audience. Questions? Questions.

Everybody, this is what happens whenever you throw to questions and I've been talking for a while there's this moment of people being stunned. Yeah, there we go, there we go. Go on Lauren.

So the question was what subject do you really want to write? You haven't approached it yet. You know, I write the books fast enough that I don't have to desire to get into a subject too long before I have the opportunity to do it. But the untouchable regions of writing for me are other genres because I don't really get time to do it.

and I don't, you know, I'm encouraged not to do it by my agent who's like, I wanna make money, please stay in crime. You know, and, but I would love to write a post-apocalyptic fiction because I think that they have the same sort of life or death, good or evil themes. We all like to think of ourselves as really good people and moral people and that kind of thing.

But when the zombies come through the door, you're like, you know, and someone trips like a vulnerable old lady trips in front of them. I'm like, do I save the old lady? You know, or do I shove a couple of other old ladies in front of them to slow them down? Like it's that question where you say, survival of the fittest, like, do I go back? Do I help? And I love that about.

post-apocalyptic fiction. If we all had to be survivors, if we weren't just living, we were surviving, how fast would those principles and morals that you have go completely out the window? And would you be good at it? Would you be good at surviving? I've been on Richard Fiedler a couple of times and he loves my animal rescue stories. And he said to me, if the apocalypse happens,

I want to be in your crew. Because you will at least be able to catch the animals and we can eat them. And I was like, you can be in my band anytime. You can keep me entertained with the stories and the facts and things. You you can be the intellectual of our little band of survivors if you want, Richard. Yeah. Any other questions?

I'd be a prey animal if I would fold on the first day. I think that you would survive. But my question is you've dealt with serial killers. Were they generally all men or have you ever dealt with females and what would be the difference between the two of them? You know, I have tried to speak to some high profile female serial killers.

The drive for the men is the attention, that sexual attention from a woman. And I find them very accessible. I was investigating, this is a whole other story that we don't have time for, but I got into a sort of a situation with a true crime and I was fiddling around with this cold case and I happened to have occasion to write to another serial killer and it was the same thing, it was like...

His message to me, in this one message that came back, he was hammering me hard to know two things. One, I found Jesus and I'm a totally new and wonderful and empathetic person. And two, you could be my number one girlfriend if you want, because that spot is always available. Because Lawrence had four girlfriends already and he was trying to recruit me as number five.

So I think that the female killers don't have that same drive to speak to a woman. I think I've gotten through the door with male serial killers a bunch of times because I'm a woman. I was writing for a little while because I aimed at, I aimed a letter at Betty Broderick. I don't know if anyone knows who Betty Broderick is.

But Betty Broderick, she was in a high profile marriage with this guy and she was incredibly jealous of his new relationship after the divorce and she was driven to rage and she burst into their room and shot her ex-husband and his new girlfriend in their bed. And I wanted to speak to her and understand what drove you to do that. Talk to me about that rage and that kind of stuff.

But she gave my letter to her cellmate, who was just an ordinary young woman. Her name was Anna and she was a serial DUI and she was driving seriously drunk with a friend of hers in the car and she rammed her car into the back of a UPS van and she killed her passenger and she's in prison for life. So I was writing to her for a while.

but she was just a normal person who'd made a terrible mistake and she was 25 years old and staring down the barrel of the rest of her life in prison and it made me so freaking sad. It was hard going and I just, I let that relationship slide. Yeah. That's pretty rough. Any other questions?

Yeah, hi. Hi. great listening to you. Thank you. In your opinion, how important is it for an author to have a literary agent? Oh, yes. In my opinion, how important is a literary agent? Incredibly important. If you want to be a traditionally published author, incredibly important. I have always been fascinated by the slush pile. What's in there? Who's reading it? That kind of thing.

And I was in my publishing house a couple of years ago and I said to my publisher, how many times in your career have you ever gotten a novel out of the slush pile? She said once. And I said, and that's in a 20, 25 year career. And she was sitting at a table with a whole bunch of other publishers and bigwigs, including her boss.

And she said, yeah, that's in 25 years. I pulled one book out of the slush pile and didn't do that well. I said, everyone else, how often? And they were saying, never, never, never. They've never gotten anything out of the slush pile. And that's because they don't have to. Because the agents will troll through that. In that 10 to 15,000 submissions per year that the big five get, and that's probably more now, that's the good, bad, and the ugly.

and they do not have the time and the resources to go through those 15,000. But the agents are doing it on purpose. They are trawling through trying to find their next golden goose. And the other thing that an agent will do for you that you won't be able to do on your own is any agent that's worth their salt will get you a deal here in Australia, but they'll also sell your translation rights. So my novels are...

are translated into like 20 different languages, which means there's 20 different countries that I get an advance for every time I sell a novel. So that for me in the early years was the difference between having a day job and trying to be an author and you know, because they're not huge amounts. I think for my, the first time I was ever translated into French, for example, it would have been, would have been for Crimson Lake, so that's my fourth novel. I think I got three grand. But not only did I get France, I got Italy, I got Germany, I got, you know, the Ukraine, I sold the Hebrew rights. And so all those small amounts become something that you can live on. And I would not have had any of those translation rights without an agent. Yeah. Yeah, incredible.

Thank you so much. One little thing though that I heard, it's your birthday next week. is. Happy birthday. are you going to be doing? Well, actually, so I turn 40 next week. It's the big four-o. Yeah. I'm very proud of what I've done for 40. I love my life. I have a beautiful child. I have a wonderful husband.

I spend every spare minute wrestling wild animals and doing weird stuff, you know, research. But my husband said to me, what do you want to do on your birthday? And I said, I want to have a big party. And he said, who do you want to invite? I said, I want to invite every crime writer in Australia. I want to invite all my friends. And those are my friend friends.

You know, they're all crime writers and I want to talk industry gossip all night long. Michael Robotham is one of the biggest gossip queens in the entire industry. So I was like, let's make sure that he can come because I want the gossip, the delicious gossip. And I think that's a testament to how much I love my job.

is that on my birthday, I don't wanna hang out with my family, I don't wanna hang out with my normal friends, I wanna hang out with my work friends, and I wanna talk about crime and murder and industry. And I think that's really cool, it makes me happy to think about that. I love that, you're definitely living the dream, doing what you wanna do. Thank you so much, Candice, let's give her a round of applause.