This month, on 10th June, Oxted Library is excited to be hosting An Evening with William Shaw, one of the UK’s best contemporary crime writers. William will be interviewed by our very own Oxted crime novelist, Ruth D’Alessandro.
William is the author of the acclaimed DS Alexandra Cupidi series of books, set in Dungeness – the latest of which is The Trawlerman. You may also know him as G. W. Shaw, his latest book, The Conspirators, is due to be published in July.
William was born in Newton Abbot, Devon, grew up in Nigeria and lived for sixteen years in Hackney.
A successful writer, he has been long-listed three times for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year and shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger, the Barry Award, The CWA Golden Dagger and the Golden Bullet.
A regular at festivals, William organises panel talks and CWA events across the country. He is the author of the Breen & Tozer crime series set in sixties London, which include: A Song from Dead Lips, A House of Knives and A Book of Scars. He also wrote the popular standalone crime thriller, The Birdwatcher, spin-offs to which are Salt Lane and Deadland.
The Sun calls him ‘a modern crime master’. Peter May has praised him as ‘a superb storyteller’, and Peter James has hailed him as ‘one of the great rising talents of UK crime fiction.’
The Times critic Marcel Berlins said: ‘William Shaw is a superb, flowing writer, both of police procedure and personal relations, and perhaps England’s most adept at using dialogue to propel his always intelligent stories.’
Before becoming a crime writer, William Shaw was an award-winning music journalist and the author of several non-fiction books including Westsiders: Stories of the Boys in the Hood, about a year spent with the young men of South Central Los Angeles, Spying In Guru Land, about time spent investigating religious cults, and A Superhero For Hire, a compilation of columns written for the Observer Magazine.
Starting out as assistant editor of the post-punk magazine ZigZag, he has been a journalist for The Observer, The New York Times, Wired, Arena and The Face and was Amazon UK Music Journalist of the Year in 2003.
William now lives in Brighton with his family.
For all crime novel enthusiasts and those of you simply interested in journalism and writing in general, this will most certainly be a very interesting evening not to be missed.
Find out more about William on his website, http://williamshaw.com/
And on instagram @william1shaw.
