Author behind Gun Alley murder pardon
Research by author Kevin Morgan and used for his book Gun Alley: Murder, Lies and Failure of Justice (S&S) has led to the pardoning of a man who was wrongly convicted for murder and hung in 1922. Colin Ross, who was hung for the murder of 12-year-old Alma Tirtschke, was convicted after the jury was told that hair found in Ross' home was that of the victim. After tracing the hair to an archive, author and researcher Morgan pushed for the hair to be examined using modern technology, which found that the hairs did not come from Tirtschke's scalp. Ross was posthumously pardoned yesterday.

Pen ‘3 Writers Project' authors announced
Sydney PEN has announced that Christopher Kremmer, Melissa Lucashenko and Anna Funder will be the next three writers commissioned for The 3 Writers Project, which last year featured Alexis Wright, Gideon Haigh and Christos Tsiolkas. Each author will write 10,000 words on ‘three big issues facing contemporary Australia'--Kremmer on ‘greed', Lucashenko on ‘survival' and Funder on ‘courage'. The writers will also each deliver a public lecture and discuss their essay in Sydney and Canberra and the three works will be published as a collection by Allen & Unwin next year.

Writers, publisher express concern over Henson controversy
MUP CEO Louise Adler and authors Peter Goldsworthy and J M Coetzee are among several 'prominent figures' who have writen an open letter to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and NSW Premier Morris Iemma, asking them to 'rethink their comments' about the work of Bill Henson, which was last week removed by police from a Sydney gallery. The letter also calls on Minister for the Arts Peter Garrett to stand up against 'a trend of encroaching censorship,' according to today's Age.

This article from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker