WRITE ON: Writers' Showcase ft. Peter Doyle & Fiona Kelly McGregor

Butchers Brew Bar is delighted to present the latest in a series of events showcasing our favourite writers, featuring readings, discussion, author insights & Q&A.

Tonight's 'True Crime' flavoured event features acclaimed authors Fiona Kelly McGregor & Peter Doyle discussing their latest works 'Iris' & 'Suburban Noir'.  Our MC for the evening is author, musician & cartoonist MJ Cornwall.  The night will also feature a reading of Doyle's works from special guest, renowned singer for 50 Million Beers as well as an authority on lurk merchants of Sydney’s past & old school, Bondi boy, Charlie Maclean.

PETER DOYLE: Small time heists. Failed robberies. Runs of bad luck. Payback. Love gone wrong. Drink, drugs &  late-night assignations. Cops doing their job well. And badly. Plausible lies, unlikely truths. Murder & misadventure.  In 'Suburban Noir ', Peter Doyle – author of 'City of Shadows' & 'Crooks Like Us' – explores the everyday crime & catastrophe that went on in the fibro & brick veneers, the backyards, bedrooms, vacant lots & pokie palaces of 1950s & 1960s suburbia. 

Extensive research into forensic archives, public records & the private papers of the late Brian Doyle (1960s detective, later assistant commissioner of police, & Peter Doyle’s uncle) also reveals important new information about two of the most infamous crimes in Australian history – the Kingsgrove Slasher case & the Graeme Thorne kidnap murder.

Peter Doyle is a novelist & non-fiction writer. He has curated major exhibitions on pulp publishing & forensic material cultures. His books include 'City of Shadows' & 'Crooks Like Us' & the novel 'The Big Whatever'. He is the recipient of two Ned Kelly Awards for his fiction, as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award. He is an Honorary Associate Professor of Media at Macquarie University, Sydney.

FIONA KELLY MCGREGOR is a cross-disciplinary author, artist & critic who writes novels, essays, articles & reviews.

In September 2022, Picador published Iris, the first in a duet of novels based on the life of Iris Webber, petty criminal active in Sydney’s sly-grog underworld from the 1930s-1950s.  Set between 1932-37, Iris is an epic & picaresque ride through inner-city slums; a doomed love story peopled with scammers, gangsters & thieves. It’s an interrogation of how society criminalises its most marginalised people.

McGregor has published eight books, most recently the photoessay A Novel Idea, & essay collection Buried Not Dead, which was shortlisted for the Victorian Premiers Literary Awards. Other books include short story collection Suck My Toes/ Dirt which won the Steele Rudd Award, & the underground classic chemical palace. Her novel Indelible Ink won Age Book of the Year & was published in French translation by Actes-Sud. 

She is also known for a substantial repertoire of performance art, which has been seen internationally, & has held residencies at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, Carriageworks, Sydney, & the BR Whiting Studio, Rome. 

* Selected works by the authors will be on sale at the venue on the night *

From 7pm MON MARCH 13   DOORS FROM 5pm

🎫 LIMITED TICKETS $7 - Strictly 18+ Only 🍻🥂🍷🥃🍸🍹🍾

**We are a COVID-safe venue. Entry is subject to prevailing health orders**