The Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition

The Mystery remains box-shaped, at once a prison and a refuge. Its four walls are, roughly, a Crime, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an Element of Satisfaction in it. Margery Allingham

Every year since 2014, the CWA and the Margery Allingham Society have jointly held an international competition for a short story of up to 3,500 words.

Our mission is to find the best unpublished short mystery, and not only that, but one which fits into Golden Age crime writer Margery Allingham’s definition of what makes a great mystery story.

Entries are invited from all writers, published or unpublished, writing in English.

What You Need to Know

The 2025 Competition will open on 1 October 2024.

The International margery Allingham Short Mystery Prize is a joint initiative between the CWA and the Margery Allingham Society.

The competition is open to all – both published and unpublished authors from all over the world. The competition is for short stories of up to 3,500 words, written in English. All that we ask is that the story was originally written in English, has not been previously published anywhere, and has neither been shortlisted for this competition, nor won any other competition.

Entry costs £18, and the prize is £500 cash.

The competition opens on 1 October 2024 and closes at 6.00pm on 28 February 2025.

Please address any queries to the CWA secretary, secretary@thecwa.co.uk or the Competitions Coordinator, comps@thecwa.co.uk.

For the best chance of winning, please follow Margery’s definition of a mystery:

“The Mystery remains box-shaped, at once a prison and a refuge. Its four walls are, roughly, a Crime, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an Element of Satisfaction in it.”

Promote the Competition

Help us champion short stories and crime writers by spreading the word. We will soon have a 2025 A5 flyer available to download.

Announcements for the 2025 Competition

• Longlist: TBC
• Shortlist: TBC
• Winner: TBC

How to Write a Winning Story

We asked Martin Edwards, the inaugural winner of the CWA/Margery Allingham Short Story competition for 6 great tips and here they are:

• Read the great short stories (not just crime fiction) and ask yourself what makes them great
• Don’t kid yourself that writing a short story is much easier than writing a novel
• Think about the effect you want the story to have on the reader
• The opening needs to arrest attention
• The end must leave the reader with a sense of satisfaction
• In between the beginning and the end – don’t waste a word

Find out more about Martin here and about Crafting Crime, his online crime-writing course here.