{"id":115,"date":"2013-11-06T09:32:12","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T00:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=115"},"modified":"2014-02-19T13:22:54","modified_gmt":"2014-02-19T02:52:54","slug":"author-profiles-derek-pedley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2013\/11\/author-profiles-derek-pedley\/","title":{"rendered":"Author Profiles – Derek Pedley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Derek Pedley is a journalist with more than 25 years\u2019 experience at\u00a0Australian newspapers. He is now engaged in the dark art of daily\u00a0news production at the Advertiser<\/em> and adelaidenow.com.au. His\u00a0work has been shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award for Best True Crime twice, with\u00a0Australian Outlaw \u2013 The True Story of Postcard Bandit\u00a0Brenden Abbott<\/em>\u00a0shortlisted in 2007, and Dead by Friday<\/em> shortlisted in 2013.\u00a0Pedley lives in Adelaide\u2019s far northern suburbs,\u00a0on the wrong side of the Mullet-Proof Fence.<\/p>\n

We asked Derek a few questions about his career as a crime writer, and the fascinating story behind his latest book, Dead by Friday<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"DerekWhat was it that drew you to write about this particular crime?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Michelle Burgess and her thoroughly deranged behaviour and personality. She is a remorseless sexual predator and I wanted to find out what made her tick. There was also the fact that the hitman ate one of the murder contracts in a sandwich. For me, that really summed up the bizarre nature of this case.<\/p>\n

As a journalist with more than 25 years of experience, can you tell us what the most interesting story you\u2019ve worked on is?<\/strong>
\nThe exploits of bank robber and fugitive Brenden Abbott were sufficiently fascinating – and elusive – to keep me occupied for ten years and two books.<\/p>\n

What will you be looking at in your next book?<\/strong>
\nI have an idea for another book involving unsolved major crimes. But I\u2019m taking an extended break because since 1998, I\u2019ve been constantly planning, researching or writing a book. It\u2019s time to recharge the batteries and I\u2019m enjoying spending a lot more time with my family.<\/p>\n

Which living person do you most admire?<\/strong>
\nThat\u2019s a dead heat between American writer David Simon and singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen<\/p>\n

What are your favourite Wakefield Press titles, aside from your own, and why?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s hard to narrow it down. What I like most about the Wakefield catalogue is the amazing breadth of Australian stories, whether it’s landscapes, histories, people, or infrastructure. It is absolutely essential that readers support a publisher like Wakefield, because no one else in SA \u2013 and perhaps even Australia \u2013 gives a voice to Australian stories the way Wakefield does. Their motto is \u201cWe<\/i> love good stories and publish beautiful books\u201d<\/i> and I think that\u2019s exactly what readers want.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Derek Pedley is a journalist with more than 25 years\u2019 experience at\u00a0Australian newspapers. He is now engaged in the dark art of daily\u00a0news production at the Advertiser and adelaidenow.com.au. His\u00a0work has been shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award for Best … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[44,54,53,56,57,55],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-profile-2","tag-author-profile","tag-dead-by-friday","tag-derek-pedley","tag-ned-kelly-awards","tag-the-boss","tag-true-crime"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4v1Of-1R","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":43,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":685,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions\/685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}