The Crime Writers’ Association

CWA Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition – Winner Announced

The Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) has announced the winner of its Margery Allingham Short Mystery Prize. Camilla Macpherson beat strong competition with her short story, ‘Heartbridge Homicides’. Camilla lives in The Hague in the Nether...


Join the CWA

Join the CWA Who can join? We offer full membership for those in the UK and overseas who have had published a full length work of crime fiction or non-fiction, and provisional membership for those who have a contract from a recognised publishing ho...


Notes on Word Count for CWA Writing Competitions

Different competitions have different rules – and different levels of rigour in the way they apply them. For the Debut Dagger we are super-strict. We ask for entries not to exceed 3,000 words (1,500 words for the synopsis) by even a word. The ti...


Crime at the Castle – 24th February 2018

A fabulous all-day event at Glamis Castle near Dundee, with a full programme of author speakers, writing sessions held over four time slots. You choose who you want to listen to and when. As the castle won’t yet have opened for the season, many of...


Twisted Dagger

Twisted Dagger The Twisted Dagger celebrates psychological thrillers, dark and twisty tales that often feature unreliable narrators, disturbed emotions, a healthy dose of moral ambiguity, and a sting in the tail. Books in this category include psych...


Crime Writers in Residence – at home with Helen Sedgwick

The CRA: Please tell us a little about yourself and the books you write. I am a research physicist turned author and I live in the Scottish highlands. I’ve recently moved to crime writing after publishing two novels that could be called literary ...


Michael Connelly to receive CWA Diamond Dagger 2018

The Crime Writers’ Association is delighted to announce that Michael Connelly is to receive the 2018 CWA Diamond Dagger, the highest honour in British crime writing. The Dagger award recognises authors whose crime writing careers have been marked b...


Bookshop of the Month – August 2022: Imagined Things Bookshop

Georgia Eckert from Imagined Things Bookshop in conversation with William Shaw. In 2018, Imagined Things Bookshop, in Harrogate, became known as the bookshop that was saved by a tweet.  On 25 June 2018, bookshop owner, Georgia Eckert, let the wor...


Crime Writers in Residence – at home with Jim Eldridge

The CRA: Please tell us a little about yourself and the books you write. I have been a writer for almost 50 years, the first 30 as a scriptwriter, then writing children's books, and - since 2016 - writing historical crime fiction for adults. My curr...


Crime Writers in Residence – at home with John Dean

The CRA: Please tell us a little about yourself and the books you write. A journalist by trade, I worked as a crime reporter on newspapers for part of my career, which gave me ample material for my crime novels. I ran my own business for 21 years, s...


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