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 fiction entirely 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

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

Our puzzler and prize: What Crime Fiction celebration would be complete without Andrew Taylor? This year he returns to us with a new puzzler, The Case Of The Cambridge Corpse: a chillingly implausible whodunit set on the banks of the Isis. Blackwell's Bookshop will present an award to the winning armchair detective from their Rare Books Collection.

Our accessibility: One ticket buys our attendees (from across the globe) access to all of the live sessions, and to all the recordings which will made immediately available and remain accessible for a month. In this way you can be flexible with what you view and when. Further details and simple joining instructions will be sent out to all attendees a couple of days prior to the big event. The sessions will all be streamed via YouTube so be sure to log in in order to join in the Live Chat feature.

Our extras: Blackwell's will be providing us with an online bookshop featuring deals and discounts on titles from our all of our speakers and their subjects. Virtual Goodie Bag: our friends at Isis Audiobooks are gifting all of our attendees an exclusive anthology. Download The Oxford Chapter and walk the same streets as Mick Herron’s Zoe Boehm, or delve into college rivalries with a classic from St Hilda's own Mavis Doriel Hay (English, 1913).

Our bookings: We feel very strongly that authors should be remunerated for their work so our speakers will receive the usual, though very modest, fee. Furthermore, when you book a ticket £5 will automatically go to the College’s P.D. James Fund and be directed towards student and library support, vital in these difficult times. The deadline for refund requests is 5pm on Monday 9 August.

Our accommodation: We have exclusive accommodation packages for those of you who wish to stay in St Hilda's for the full Crime Fiction Weekend experience - including dinner with a special guest... Read more and book your room here. This is only for those who have booked their ticket for the Crime Fiction Weekend, and rooms are limited so don't delay!

Please contact the Development Office with any queries and keep bang up to date @hildascrime.