CWA Diamond Dagger Winner 2015
The Crime Writer’s Association is delighted to announce that the recipient of this year’s prestigious Diamond Dagger is Catherine Aird. Following in the footsteps of luminaries such as Simon Brett, P.D James, Lee Child and Frederick Forsyth, Cath...
Whitelaw wins fiction award at Lakeland
Congratulations to CWA member Jonathan Whitelaw who picked up the fiction prize for his 2022 novel The Bingo Hall Detectives at the 39th annual Lakeland Book of the Year Awards. The Lakeland Book of the Year celebrates top-quality writing inspired...
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...
CWA Announce Longlists for Prestigious Crime Writing Daggers
The Crime Writers’ Association announced the much anticipated longlists for the annual CWA Dagger awards for the best of the year’s crime writing at a reception during international convention CrimeFest in Bristol on the evening of Friday 10 May....
The Victorian Fear of Poison Murder
In the nineteenth century the prospect of being poisoned was a very real fear, and the poisoner has frequently been denounced as the worst kind of criminal. Poison is secret and treacherous, administered by someone close to the victim, hidden in food...
Debut Dagger Tips: Greg Keen
Words of advice from award-winning authors… His day job involves training and coaching businesses to deliver barnstorming presentations and wow their clients, so it’s no wonder that Greg Keen was a natural storyteller. In 2015, he w...
Debut Dagger Success Story by Fiona McPhillips
I had never written a novel before I entered the 2021 Debut Dagger. I was halfway through an MA in Creative Writing and too focused on the rhythm of my prose, the structure and shape of my short stories. A novel felt like a marathon when I’d only e...
Victorian Mysteries: Murder, Marvels and Morality
The CWA presents "Victorian Mysteries: Murder, Marvels, and Morality", a talk by Linda Stratmann, Anna Mazzola and Kate Griffin! Linda Stratmann has a virtually life-long interest in true crime, and a large collection of books on the subject. She ha...
Glenis Wilson – Dead Heat (A Harry Radcliffe Mystery)
Join Glenis from 12th July through to 19th July at North Shore Hotel to discuss his latest Horse Racing Mystery in the Harry Radcliffe Series: No.4, entitled - 'DEAD HEAT' published by Severn House Publishers. North Shore Hotel is a very special pl...
Bloody Scotland
Ten years on from the first Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival the run has extended to four days, the number of events has doubled and the authors are more diverse than ever. This year sees the return of several Bloody Scotland f...
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