About Joanne Hichens

Joanne Hichens lives in Muizenberg, on the Cape South Peninsula, with her husband and three children.

She holds degrees in art and psychology and has worked as an artist, lecturer and group facilitator at a psychiatric clinic before completing a Master’s degree in creative writing at the University of Cape Town.

Joanne co-authored a crime-thriller Out to Score, then wrote Stained as part of the Ransom Publishing Cutting Edge series which was published in the UK and has been sold to a French market.

She edited the first South African collection of crime-thriller fiction Bad Company, and edited The Bed Book of Short Stories for Modjaji Books. She’s written a number of short stories and articles, publised in ‘O’ Magazine, Real Simple, Itch and various anthologies, and writes opinion pieces for newspapers, including the Cape Times.

Her novel Divine Justice was published by Mercury, an imprint of Burnet Media, in October 2011. Her most recent novel is Sweet Medicine.

“Crime-thrillers bring the cruel and the tragic to our attention, and underscore the absurd and fragile nature of life. I’m of the opinion that crime-thriller writing can be as open-ended as real-life is. Sometimes there are loose ends, a messiness exists which can be shown through the writing. I prefer writing the bad guys, which comes easier to me if they’re verging on the psychopathic, or are at least rather over the top. I’ve always had a penchant for bizarre characters.

“Not only do I love the wicked entertainment, but crime-thrillers bring the cruel and tragic to our attention, and underscore the absurd and fragile nature of life.”