Oxford: the capital of crime fiction.

The 28th St Hilda's College Crime Fiction Weekend will celebrate that fictional city of dreaming spires and nightmarish crimes. Ours is a weekend with a difference. Launched in 1994, it offers crime fiction fans from all over the world the unique experience of hearing their favourite authors exploring the genre, their own work, and the writers who inspired them.

Our 2021 Weekend: For a second year we are taking this celebration of crime entirely live and online. With a simple link you will be able to join us, live, from wherever you are.

Our theme: Oxford: the capital of crime fiction. Down these mean, cobbled streets have walked far more than just Morse. Join us on a journey through the Oxford of Charles I, Peter Wimsey, Endeavour, and even Shakespeare himself: a spired city of lofty ideals and grave motives, of High Tables and low intentions.

Our participants, subjects, and speakers:

Lucy Atkins Ghosts of Oxford: revisiting and reworking Oxford and its literary past in Magpie Lane
Jane Casey 'Let's have one other gaudy night': Lord Peter Wimsey's Oxford
Philip Gooden JC Masterman: King of the Double Cross
Mick Herron Larcenous letters: An A-Z of Oxford Crime
Cara Hunter In the shadow of Morse: writing new crime for the old city
Jean Harker Michael Innes, Oxford Insider
Carolyn Kirby Nightmared Spires: finding the Gothic in Oxford novels
Guillermo Martinez When crime fiction lives in crime fiction
Val McDermid Daft, Donnish, Delightful: the detective fiction of Edmund Crispin
Maria Rejt ReMorseful Oxford
Emma Smith Shakespearean sleuths: the Scholar as Detective/the Detective as Scholar
Veronica Stallwood It depends what you mean by “Oxford”

The weekend shall be chaired by Alison Joseph and Jake Kerridge, and Sarah Hilary.