Kim Ulrick of Tuross Head. Photos: Supplied.
Award-winning writer and Tuross Head resident Kim Ulrick will launch her second novel in Canberra and Moruya in April.
Bad People will be published on 30 March. It is the sequel to the page-turner Bad Country that was published in July 2024.
Who would have thought that growing up on farms and a career in communications in the public service would be fodder for two thrillers?
Ms Ulrick’s short story The Self-Saucing Cookbook was published on The Little Old Lady US comedic website last year. It is about a group of older women who after their CWA-type meetings talk about saucy novels they have read and rate them. It is based on some characters she has met since moving to the Far South Coast in 2023.
Another story Shame The Stars won the Banjo Paterson Short Story Prize in 2024. It is based on her grandparents and their enduring romance.
Ms Ulrick grew up on farms. Her early childhood was on a dairy farm in Camden, southwestern Sydney, and another farm in Bargo, a bit further south.
She committed her first story to paper when she was nine. After studying journalism, she landed a role as a junior writer and researcher at the Canberra Press Gallery. Next was a 30-year career in the public service working in communications and policy.
“I loved it because I was exposed to lots of issues in different spaces,” Ms Ulrick said.
That included working in education and with law enforcement agencies. She was involved in a diverse range of awareness-raising programs from drought to the threat of organised crime and wrote policy to improve the quality of teaching in Australia.
Young Kim Ulrick with her sister and father on the dairy farm in Camden.
After holidaying in Tuross Head, she and her husband bought a holiday home there in 2007 with the intention of moving there permanently.
During COVID Ms Ulrick stopped working full-time and turned her attention to the story she had been carrying in her head for years.
Bad Country is her interpretation of psychogeography and is based on her growing up surrounded by the bush.
“There were times I was walking through the bush, and it got very quiet and the hairs on the back of my neck would stand up,” she said. “It was like the land was trying to tell me things.”
In the past bushrangers had based themselves in the area. It was also frequented by the backpacker murderer Ivan Milat and Andrew Garforth who kidnapped and murdered a nine-year-old girl.
“By that point I was in my late teenage years and wondering why all those things happened in the same space.”
Bad Country introduces the character of teenager Laura Murray. She has the gift of second sight that can help her to solve a string of disappearances and deaths.
Kim Ulrick is presented with the Banjo Paterson Short Story Prize by Orange Deputy Mayor Gerald Power, joined by MC Sean Brady on stage.
Bad People picks up five years later when the character is working as a police dog handler. She is brought into a task force investigating missing women. They discover there is a traitor in their midst who could put not just their investigation at risk, but also their lives.
“The first book was about the connection between people and place,” Ms Ulrick said. “This one explores whether some people are born inherently bad. It is good versus evil, and lifts the veil on the lengths organised crime will go to for power and money.”
Now Ms Ulrick is working on turning her short story Shame The Stars into a novel. It will be something of a homage to her family and the interesting life they had from the 1930s onwards.
Next, she and her husband are hoping to do the big lap of Australia with a caravan. “I expect this will provide some fresh inspiration, great settings, new ideas and iconic characters.”
Bad People will be launched in Canberra at The Book Cow, 47 Jardine Street in Kingston at 6 pm on 22 April. The South Coast launch will be held at Moruya Library in Vulcan Street at 5:15 pm on 30 April. Visit her website for information and tickets for the book launches, and more on Ms Ulrick’s writing.
