28 Feature

WIN

a Private Cocktail Class for you and your friends with D-Still Drinkware.

D-Still Drinkware is an Australian-based company with a vision to create unforgettable experiences through their premium drinkware range.

Renowned as a leader in the hospitality industry, D-Still Drinkware provides you with quality products, all at affordable prices and a customer satisfaction guarantee.

PRIZE INCLUDES:

• 2-hour Private Cocktail Class for 10 people.

• Learn how to make and enjoy 5 delicious cocktails.

• Grazing platter to enjoy throughout the class.

• 3-piece cocktail kit with Shaker, Jigger and Strainer to take home. Valued at $2,700

Enter online now. Simply visit ... covemagazine.com.au/competitions

Terms & Conditions: Prize includes a 2-hour Private Cocktail Class for 10 people at D-Still Drinkware with grazing platter and 3-piece cocktail kit to take home. Bookings essential. Blackout dates may apply. One entry per person. Cannot be exchanged or redeemed for cash. Closing date for entries is 31 August 2022. Winner will be drawn 14 September 2022 and notified by phone and email. Winner’s name will be published in the following Cove magazine. By entering the competition you agree to receive information from Sanctuary Cove Publishing and D-Still Drinkware.

AUDIENCE

WITH ANAUTHOR

Bestselling author John Grisham discusses the real-life moment that inspired A Time to Kill, why innocent people are still being locked up, and what aspiring thriller writers need to get right in chapter one.

WORDS KEVIN E G PERRY / THE INDEPENDENT / THE INTERVIEW PEOPLE

IN 1984, 29-YEAR-OLD JOHN GRISHAM was a small-town lawyer working at the DeSoto County courthouse in Hernando, Mississippi when he witnessed a trial that changed his life.

Two young sisters had been attacked and raped in a remote farmhouse just miles from his law office, and as he listened to the 12-year-old give her harrowing testimony, Grisham began to wonder what would happen if the girls’ father decided to take justice, or vengeance, into his own hands.

In that moment, the seed of Grisham’s debut thriller A Time to Kill was planted.

“I saw the spark because I happened to be in the right place at the right time,” says Grisham, now 67.

“Most lawyers are good storytellers because they tend to embellish and they see a lot of crazy behaviour.

“I had never written before, never thought about it. But I recognised a great story.”

Eventually published in 1988, A Time to Kill marked the start of a literary career that has seen Grisham grow into one of the world’s bestselling authors.

“Most lawyers are good storytellers because they tend to embellish and they see a lot of crazy behaviour.”

– John Grisham

His books have sold 300 million copies worldwide, including no less than 28 consecutive number one fiction bestsellers over the past three decades.

His first big hit came in 1991 with his second novel, The Firm, a rollercoaster legal thriller about an ambitious young attorney who finds himself in the grasp of organised crime.

It spent 47 weeks on the bestseller lists on its way to being crowned the year’s highest-selling novel and was adapted into an acclaimed film starring Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman in 1993.

“The Firm set me free,” he recalls.

“It found a market real fast, became popular, then went nuts when the movie came out.

“Suddenly I was bored with the practice of law and realised I could make more money writing about it.”

John Grisham was born in February 1955, the second of five children, in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

He grew up on a cotton farm in Southaven, Mississippi, and his earliest memories are of helping his father pick cotton out in the fields at the age of five.

In his teens, he earned his first steady pay cheques watering rose bushes at a nursery for the princely sum of a dollar an hour.

He went on to work a string of manual labour jobs, including building fences, plumbing and laying highway asphalt beneath the blistering Mississippi sun. >>