Kerry Greenwood

Kerry Isabelle Greenwood OAM (born 1954^[1]) is an Australian author and lawyer. She has written many plays and books, most notably a string of historical detective novels centred on the character of Phryne Fisher, which was adapted as the popular television series Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. She writes mysteries, science-fiction, historical fiction, children's stories, and plays. Greenwood earned the Australian women's crime fiction Davitt Award in 2002 for her young adult novel The Three-Pronged Dagger.

Kerry Greenwood OAM
Greenwood signing books at the launch of Forbidden Fruit
Born	Kerry Isabelle Greenwood 1954 (age 68–69) Footscray, Victoria, Australia
Occupation	Writer, locum solicitor
Language	English
Nationality	Australian
Education	BA, LL.B
Alma mater	University of Melbourne
Genre	Crime, historical, science-fiction
Notable works	Phryne Fisher series
Partner	David Greagg

Early life and education

Greenwood grew up in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray, where she still lives today. She attended Geelong Road State School (now Footscray Primary School), Maribyrnong College and the University of Melbourne, where she graduated with Bachelor of Arts (English) and Bachelor of Laws degrees in 1979. Whilst at university, Greenwood worked at a women's refuge.

Career

In 1982, Greenwood was admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria, and worked full-time as a criminal defence lawyer for Victoria Legal Aid until becoming a professional writer. Since that time, she has remained a locum duty solicitor for Legal Aid, practising in the Sunshine Magistrates' Court.^[2]

She began writing books at sixteen, but remained unpublished. In 1988 she entered one of her eight novels for the Vogel prize; although not successful, one of the judges offered her a contract for two detective novels.^[2]

In the 2020 Australia Day Honours Greenwood was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM).^[3]

Personal life

Greenwood lives with a "wizard",^[4][5][6] the mathematician and author David Greagg.^[7]

Books

Phryne Fisher historical mysteries

1. Cocaine Blues (1989) aka Death by Misadventure^[8]
2. Flying Too High (1990)
3. Murder on the Ballarat Train (1991)^[9]
4. Death at Victoria Dock (1992)^[10]
5. The Green Mill Murder (1993)
6. Blood and Circuses (1994)^[11]
7. Ruddy Gore (1995)^[12]
8. Urn Burial (1996)
9. Raisins and Almonds (1997)
10. Death Before Wicket (1999)
11. Away with the Fairies (2001)
12. Murder in Montparnasse (2002)
13. The Castlemaine Murders (2003)
14. Queen of the Flowers (2004)
15. Death by Water (2005)^[13]
16. Murder in the Dark (2006)
17. Murder on a Midsummer Night (2008)
18. Dead Man's Chest (2010)
19. Unnatural Habits (2012)
20. Murder and Mendelssohn (2013)^[14]
21. Death in Daylesford (2020)^[15]
22. Murder in Williamstown (2022)

• The Phryne Fisher Mysteries: Cocaine Blues / Flying Too High (omnibus) (2004)
• A Question of Death (short story collection) (2008)
• The Lady with the Gun Asks the Questions (short story collection) (2021)^[16]

Corinna Chapman mysteries

1. Earthly Delights (2004)
2. Heavenly Pleasures (2005)
3. Devil's Food (2006)
4. Trick or Treat (2007)
5. Forbidden Fruit (2009)
6. Cooking the Books (2011)
7. The Spotted Dog (2018)^[17]

Delphic Women

• Cassandra (1995)^[18]
• Electra (1996)
• Medea (1997)

Spinouts (with Michael Pryor and Catherine Randle)

• The Bold and The Brave (2000)

Stormbringer

The Broken Wheel, Whaleroad, Cave Rats and Feral are prequels to the Stormbringer trilogy. Characters in Stormbringer refer to events in those books, but are otherwise independent.

• The Rat and the Raven (2005)
• Lightning Nest (2006)
• Ravens Rising (2006)

Novels

• The Wandering Icon (1992)
• The Childstone Cycle (1994)^[19]
• Quest (1996)
• The Broken Wheel (1996)
• Whaleroad (1996)
• Cave Rats (1997)
• Feral (1998)
• Whaleroad, Cave Rats and Feral published in one volume in 2002
• Alien Invasions (2000) (with Shannah Jay and Lucy Sussex, edited by Paul Collins and Meredith Costain)
• A Different Sort of Real: The Diary of Charlotte McKenzie, Melbourne 1918-1919 (2001), also titled The Deadly Flu as printed in 2012, and Contagion: My Australian Story, Scholastic Australia, 2020.^[20]
• The Three-Pronged Dagger (2002)
• Danger Do Not Enter (2003)
• The Long Walk (2004)
• Journey to Eureka (2005)
• Out of the Black Land (2010)

Collections

• Recipes for Crime (1995) (with Jenny Pausacker)^[21]

Anthologies edited

• Bad to the Bones (2002)

Short fiction

"Jetsam" (1998) in Dreaming Down-Under (ed. Jack Dann, Janeen Webb)

Non-fiction

• On Murder: True Crime Writing in Australia (2000)
• On Murder 2: True Crime Writing in Australia (2002)
• Tamam Shud: The Somerton Man Mystery (2012)

TV and film

The Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries television series was filmed in and around Melbourne in 2011 and premiered on ABC1 on 24 February 2012. A second series was commissioned in August 2012 and filming began in February 2013 and aired starting 6 September 2013.^[22] A third series was commissioned in June 2014 and began airing on 8 May 2015.

A film that continues the story started in the television series was released in 2022: Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears.

The TV series was redone by HBO Asia in 2020 as Miss S, set in Shanghai in the 1930's instead of Melbourne in the 1920's.^[23] The show was filmed in Mandarin, Miss Phryne Fisher was renamed as Su Wenli, Inspector Robinson was renamed as Luo Qiuheng, and Dorothy 'Dot' Williams was renamed as Xiao Tao Zi.^[24]

Awards and nominations

• Aurealis Award for Excellence in Australian Speculative Fiction, Young Adult Division, Best Novel, 1996: joint winner for The Broken Wheel
• Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award, Book of the Year: Younger Readers, 2002: honour book for A Different Sort of Real : The Diary of Charlotte McKenzie, Melbourne 1918–1919
• Davitt Award, Best Young Fiction Book, 2002: winner for The Three-Pronged Dagger
• Davitt Award, Best Young Fiction Book, 2003: nominated for The Wandering Icon
• Davitt Award, Best Adult Novel, 2003: nominated for Murder in Montparnasse : A Phryne Fisher Mystery
• Ned Kelly Award for Crime Writing, Lifetime Contribution, 2003
• Ned Kelly Award for Crime Writing, Best Novel, 2005: shortlisted for Heavenly Pleasures : A Corinna Chapman Novel
• Ned Kelly Award for Crime Writing, Best Novel, 2005: shortlisted for Queen of the Flowers : A Phryne Fisher Mystery
• New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Books, 2006: shortlisted for Journey to Eureka
• Davitt Award, Readers' Choice Award, 2006: joint winner for Heavenly Pleasures : A Corinna Chapman Novel
• Davitt Award, Readers' Choice Award, 2007: joint winner for Devil's Food
• Ned Kelly Award for Crime Writing, Best Novel, 2008: nominated for Trick or Treat
• Awarded Sisters in Crime Lifetime Achievement Award 2013 AU^[25]

References

1. "Kerry Greenwood". Austlit. Retrieved 15 June 2008.
2. Schmidt, Lucinda (25 June 2008). "Profile: Kerry Greenwood". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
3. "Kerry Isabelle Greenwood". honours.pmc.gov.au. Retrieved 25 January 2020.
4. "Kerry Greenwood". Phryne Fisher. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
5. Money, Lawrence (1 April 2012). "Fearless Phryne takes on the small screen". The Age. Retrieved 22 February 2020.
6. Gatt, Charlene (13 October 2009). "Off to see the wizard". Star Community. Retrieved 22 February 2020.
7. Money, Lawrence (1 April 2012). "Fearless Phryne takes on the small screen". The Age. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
8. Kerry Greenwood at Fantastic Fiction
9. Popple, Jeff (19 January 1992). "Unabated flood of serial killers". The Canberra Times. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
10. Barney, Stan (24 May 1992). "Compulsive reading in an outback adventure". The Canberra Times. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
11. Popple, Jeff (14 January 1995). "A mixed bag of crime an espionage thrillers". The Canberra Times. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
12. Price, Jenna (10 December 1995). "The Body in the Stocking". The Canberra Times. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
13. "Death by Water". The Age. 26 June 2005. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
14. Turnbull, Sue (9 November 2013). "Literary Miss Fisher always gets her man". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
15. "Death in Daylesford - Kerry Greenwood". Allen & Unwin. Retrieved 29 August 2020.
16. "The Lady with the Gun Asks the Questions - Kerry Greenwood". Allen & Unwin. Retrieved 12 December 2020.
17. Goldsworthy, Kerryn (15 November 2018). "The Spotted Dog review: Kerry Greenwood bakes a serving of criminal delights". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
18. Matthews, Stephen (23 July 1995). "Browsing a Book fair". The Canberra Times. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
19. "Prose does no Justice to subjects sensuality". The Canberra Times. 14 January 1995. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
20. https://www.worldcat.org/search?qt=worldcat_org_bks&q=Greenwood%2C+Kerry+Contagion&fq=dt%3Abks^{[bare URL]}
21. Salins, Christine (6 September 1995). "Provence from Melbourne's French Kitchen". Canberra Times. p. 30. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
22. Every Cloud website 15 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine
23. Catalano, Madeline (15 August 2022). "Miss S: How the HBO Max Show Puts a Chinese Spin on Murder Mysteries". MovieWeb. Retrieved 14 March 2023.
24. "Miss S (TV Series 2000– )". IMDb. Retrieved 14 March 2023.
25. Phryne Fisher website and publisher Allen and Unwin website https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/fiction/crime-mystery/Cocaine-Blues-Kerry-Greenwood-9781741145663

External links

• Phryne Fisher's website
• Corinna Chapman's website
• Sue Ryan-Fazilleau, "Kerry Greenwood's 'Rewriting' of Agatha Christie", JASAL 7 (2007)
• "On the couch with Kerry Greenwood". The Age. 14 August 2003. Retrieved 15 June 2008.
• "Getting Feral With Kerry". Diverse Universe. September 2003. Retrieved 30 November 2009.
• "George Negus Tonight with Kerry Greenwood". ABC. 23 February 2004. Retrieved 30 November 2009.
• "Crime According to Kerry Greenwood". Kathleen Fisher's Tiny Purple Fish blog. September 2007. Retrieved 30 November 2009.
• "Author Interview: Kerry Greenwood". Sydney Writers' Centre blog. 19 October 2007. Retrieved 30 November 2009.
• "Author Interview: Kerry Greenwood". Festival Online Magazine'. December 2013. Retrieved 21 May 2014.