We’ve commissioned a crime and it’s up to you to solve it!

Northumbria University and New Writing North are following the success of the 2012 Newcastle Writers’ Conference with Crime Story, a crime fiction festival aimed at aspiring and established writers and crime readers.

The weekend-long festival will include discussions, workshops and panels all themed around a fictional crime. From initial investigation to final sentencing, participants will be able to directly access expertise from Northumbria academics representing law, criminology, health and forensics. Invited guest speakers and best-selling crime authors will also be on hand to guide delegates through the writing process.

In a scenario written by Ann Cleeves, prize-winning author of the Vera Stanhope series (now a major ITV series starring Brenda Blethyn) and the Shetland Island Quartet, a young man is found dead in a locked room. He leaves behind a grieving foster mother, a landlord who keeps to himself, and a picture of an called Design for Industry], furniture design, fashion, graphic design and animation. The department is well equipped with lots of tools and technology. ‘The designers are able to use a range of materials – wood, paper, plastic, metal, leather, kevlar, cotton, you name it,’ said Professor Paul Rodgers, who lectures on design at Northumbria, though he didn’t teach Jony. ‘They have access to all these machines – drilling, sawing, fastening, stitching, etching, burning, you name it. And they receive really good training in those workshops, backed by a technical staff.’ The ID department at Newcastle, founded in 1953, gained recognition in the 1960s, in part because of its close ties to British industry.

According to another alumnus, Craig Mounsey, who completed the course a year before Jony, ‘Newcastle had the reputation for being the best… They won everything. All of the design teachers at school would parade the work from Newcastle as being the standard.

* Northumbria’s design department is now housed in the award-winning City Campus East design building, with space in Squires.

Jony Ive, The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products is published by Penguin and is priced at £14.99.Copies are available on campus

Bookstore, or can be purchased online