The Crime Writers’ Association

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...


Countdown to the Daggers on 22 October

Free tickets are available from Thursday 15 Oct for the virtual awards ceremony of the 2020 Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Daggers, which honour the very best in crime writing. The oldest awards in the genre, the CWA Daggers have been synonymous ...


Bookseller of the Month: October 2022 – Richard Reynolds

As part of the new CWA Bookshops Champion initiative, we want to celebrate bookshops and booksellers, because we believe they don’t just sell our books – they bring our streets alive. This month there’s a special CWA Bookseller of the Month ...


April 2022: Torquay

April 2022: TorquayVenue: The Imperial Hotelby David Whittle I felt a sense of mildly suppressed excitement setting off for my first CWA Conference. It had been a long time coming, of course. I’d booked originally for 2020 and, like all of us, h...


New CWA Anthology Published 22 February

The Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) has released a new collection of crime stories written by its members. Music of the Night, edited by Martin Edwards, invited CWA authors to submit short stories on the theme of music. An array of award-winnin...


Dagger for Crime Fiction in Translation

Dagger for Crime Fiction in Translation Sponsored in honour of Dolores Jakubowski. This award is for crime novels (defined by the broadest definition to include thrillers, suspense novels and spy fiction) as long as the book was not originally wr...


Slaughter in Southwold

The Friends of Southwold Library present: Slaughter in Southwold, the Southwold Library Crime Writers Festival. Enjoy talks from authors including Reverend Richard Coles, Jane Casey, Nicci French, Elly Griffiths, Tom Hindle, Cara Miller,  Jacquelin...


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...


Crime Writers in Residence – at home with GJ Minett

Hi! My name is GJ Minett and my fourth novel, which will be published on July 9 by Bonnier Zaffre, is called The Syndicate. The CRA: Please tell us a little about yourself and the books you write. For several years I taught in an 11-18 comprehen...


It’s All In the Point of View by Jared Cade

If you ask most people what point of view is, they will probably answer along the lines: ‘It’s whether you write in the first person (I thought he looked ill) or third person (She thought he looked ill). It’s a little more complicated than that...


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