London played host to the first crime writing festival organized by Killer Women, an all-female writing collective founded two years ago to help writers “combat the loneliness that comes from the isolation of fiction writing,” says Kate Lloyd. Today, the group represents something bigger and includes writers, such as Paula Hawkins, bestselling novelist of The Girl on the Train.
“Statistically, books by men are more likely to get reviewed,” says Lloyd, “but women dominate crime fiction.”
Women buy 4 out of 5 of the 21 billion crime books sold each year and outnumber both male readers and writers. More importantly, in a good deal of this fiction, women are typically the victims of violent crimes and have no voice.
The writers of Killer Women are looking for ways to combat the misogyny inherent in much of crime fiction and to redefine the genre.
